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Episode Three Hundred Nine: "Victim" 10 · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 309 of the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: My name is John Ziegler. I'm your host on this
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: week's show. The Jerry Sandusky saga is suddenly back in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the news in a big way. Of course, I'll tell
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: you truths you will not hear anywhere else. And they
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: are even more bizarre than you were expecting. We have
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: an AI fear factor update with football season starting. We
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: also have a major war on football update. And the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: world of golf marketing creates a massive and strange controversy.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with a topic
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: that I have probably mentioned in almost every single episode
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of the Death of Journalism podcast. And that, of course,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is the never-ending saga of the Penn State Joe Paterno
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and Jerry Sandusky story, which all of a sudden exploded
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: into the national news in a way that it really
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: has not in many, many years. And of course, I
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: have the inside story of what's really going on here.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And it has been incredibly frustrating and bizarre and strange.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And I have tried behind the scenes and in public
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to try to influence how this is all going to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: turn out. And I've got a lot to say about this.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So let me get right to it. It's very likely
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that you're already aware that there is a hearing, at
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: least currently scheduled for September 15th. the 8th, where Jerry
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Sandusky has an evidentiary hearing in Pennsylvania court, where so-called
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: victim number 10, Ryan Rittmeier, is supposed to recant his testimony.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: There's also talk of Frank Peralotto, the investigator that has
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: kind of taken over the case, testifying, as well as
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor, Frank Fina, being forced to testify. And very
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: much to my surprise, This has all of a sudden
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: been given a ton of credibility, this hearing, by the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media. Now, this started with a little bit
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of a trickle on the local level, and I'm still
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: not 100% sure how it exploded nationally because it wasn't
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: based upon events, and it certainly wasn't based upon truth
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: or reality. Because as you know, this Ryan Rittmeyer, I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: think you know because I've mentioned it several times before,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: This whole Ryan Rittmeyer recantation issue is something that I
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: have been right at the heart of for over a year.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: And I knew instantaneously that this was not as it
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: was being portrayed. And of course, I'm used to over
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the last 15 years, the news media taking the exact
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: opposite stance of whatever the truth is. And it's almost
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: 100% against the cause of certainly Jerry Sandusky, but usually
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: even Joe Paterno. and Penn State. And it was very
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: odd and disconcerting and surreal to see, frankly, a lot
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of coverage that was taking this very, very seriously, more
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: seriously than it deserved to be taken based upon what
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I knew to be the truth in a way that
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: was actually very positive to Jerry Sandusky. And I think
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that the moment that this went from a very minor
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: local story to something that exploded nationally occurred because, for
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, ABC World News Tonight, in their online edition
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: at first, before then doing an online article about it,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on their online broadcast, Aaron Katursky, who's a pretty good reporter,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: well-known ABC News reporter, did a story about the recantation
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: or alleged recantation of so-called victim number 10, Ryan Rittmeyer,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And I found this report to be very interesting, one,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: because you can tell there's a lot of shock on
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the part of the anchor woman and a lot of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: tentativeness on the part of Aaron Katursky. Like, what's really
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: going on here? How could this be happening? Because we've
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: been telling people for 15 years on and off that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Jerry Zadusky is the worst person that ever lived and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: so obviously guilty that we never even needed to take
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a look at his case. We were much more focused
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: on the Joe Paterno angle, the Penn State cover-up, and
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: no one even bothered to check the math on whether
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: or not Jerry Sadusky was actually guilty. Oh my God,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: is it even theoretically possible that we got this wrong?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: But just for the record, because it will kill a
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: couple birds with one stone, here is that ABC News
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: online broadcast story about this hearing that was scheduled for
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: September 8th, where Ryan Rittmeyer, so-called victim number 10, was
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: going to recant his testimony that he gave a trial
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: in his allegations and accusations of sexual abuse against Jerry Sandowski.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Well, a surprise development in the case of convicted sex
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: abuser and former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky. ABC
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: News has learned that one of his accusers, known as
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Victim 10, during the trial is expected to recant his
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: testimony at a hearing next month. The now 82-year-old Sandusky
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: was convicted back in 2012 on 45 counts of sexually
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: abusing boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky is currently serving
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: a 30- to 60-year prison term. Let's get right to
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: our chief investigative correspondent, Aaron Katursky. So what more are
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: we learning, Aaron?
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Well, it's scheduled for September 8th, Kira, and we know
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: that at this hearing, Jerry Sandusky is expected to be there.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: So is one of the prosecutors who was then with
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the Pennsylvania attorney general's office. And so is this victim
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: number 10, who was one of the young men who
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: testified that Jerry Sandusky abused him. during that period of
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: more than a decade when he was found to have
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: abused as many as 10 boys. Now this victim appears
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: to be preparing to recant that testimony and tell the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: judge that Sandusky maybe didn't abuse him, at least not
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: the way that he said at trial.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So do we know what may have led to this
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: reversal of testimony?
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: We only know there was a sworn affidavit submitted by
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: Victim 10 where he said that at first, when he
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: was first interviewed by the Pennsylvania State Police about Sandusky,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: he didn't really recall being abused. the way maybe others
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: had suggested and it appears that he has come to
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: believe his testimony was either coerced or he was sort
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: of coached into what to say or came to believe
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: under persistent prodding and questioning by investigators that he was abused,
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: but looking back on it now, all of these years later,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: that he now believes something else and is prepared to
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: tell the judge what that is and that his testimony
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: at the time against Sandusky may not have been fully accurate.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Well, do you think, you know, could recanting his testimony
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: impact Sandusky's current sentence in any way?
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: It's a great question, Kira. And at this stage, this
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: is just an evidentiary hearing. This is not going to
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: be a motion for a new trial or anything like that.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: But Sandusky has long maintained his innocence. This trial upended
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Penn State University. If you'll recall, Kira, Joe Paterno, the
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: legendary coach, was was forced out. Sandusky clearly, too. He
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: had a charity for disadvantaged young men. That was completely upended. Also,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: to think now that this conviction may have been based
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: at least in part on what at least one witness
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: believes to have been false testimony. I think let's see
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: what the judge does and whether other witnesses end up
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: standing by their testimony.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Now, after that report, things really started to get serious
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: from a national media perspective. It was picked up by ESPN,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: which never does anything. It's remotely fair in this case,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but they're obviously in the ABC family. The New York
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Times picked it up, which meant The Athletic picked it up.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Virtually every major news organization that I could tell did
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: some sort of story, all parroting the same narrative, which
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: was that so-called victim 10, Ryan Rittmeyer, has filed an
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: affidavit And he is going to recant his testimony at
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: open court. And this is part of an evidentiary hearing
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: as part of Jerry Sandusky's attempt to try to get
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a new trial in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And of course,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I'm watching this on the sidelines, mostly going, what the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: hell is going on? This is crazy. Because I knew
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: that Ryan Rittmeyer had not fully recanted. And I knew
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: this because I was the only person to have ever
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: interviewed Ryan Rittmeyer. And I did so a little bit
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: over a year ago. And you may recall, I discussed
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: about several aspects of this interview. This interview was incredibly bizarre,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: as is everything in this case, from the very beginning.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: And it was mostly very strange because of Frank Perlato.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And I basically concluded that Ryan Rittmeyer, even if he
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: did fully recant, which I had no evidence that he
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: had actually done so, and no belief that he had
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: done so, that his testimony was going to be worthless.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Because I had warned Frank Prelato numerous times that he
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: had done several things to completely and totally compromise the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: legal and evidentiary value of any recantation by Ryan Rittmeyer.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: By the way, Frank, had actually acknowledged this on multiple
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: occasions to me and just said basically, and I somewhat
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: understood this, that the ends justify the means. We're in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a desperate situation. This is a Hail Mary pass. I
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: need to do whatever I can to get something to
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: happen for Jerry Sandusky in court. And basically what transpired here,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and this is a very, very long story, but I'm
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: going to give you the short version, is that a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: guy by the name of Chad Dubin, a former Penn
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: State wrestler who listened to our podcast with the benefit
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: of hindsight, and who we interviewed on With the Benefit
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of Hindsight, decided because he was convinced that Jerry Sandusky
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was innocent, this would have been a couple of years ago,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that he was going to visit all of the accusers
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of Jerry Sandusky. And he got basically nowhere with almost
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: all of them, except for Ryan Rittmeyer. And it's my
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: belief the only reason why he got anywhere with Ryan
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Rittmeyer is because Ryan Rittmeyer's wife, Jasmine, who I would
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: later interview, and you can find that for yourself on YouTube,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in a fantastic interview, has a conscience and is a
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: good person. And I think she had her suspicions. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: so they brought Chad back after they sent him off.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And long story short, that began a relationship between first
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Chad and Ryan Rittmeyer. And then Chad sent Ryan Rittmeyer
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to Frank Peralotto. And this is where things get really
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: very sketchy. from an ethical perspective, because Frank Peralotto does
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a number of things, all of which I was vehemently against.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: One of them is that he gets him to sign
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: an affidavit, which reads, and I don't think this has
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: ever been made public, but I have a copy of it,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: which reads mostly like a contract for Ryan Rittmeyer to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: participate in a documentary film and be paid for that.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Right there, that's pretty much game, set, match in a
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: case like this. regarding the credibility of any recantation that
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: may come from that. But it didn't stop there. Frank
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: also had Ryan live with him in the Florida Keys
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: for multiple months. I don't know how long, but it
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: was for multiple months. And not only did he live
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: with him rent-free for an extended period of time, he
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: ended up dating the daughter of Frank's longtime companion or girlfriend.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know what she is. But That was a
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: significant relationship. And I don't think I've ever mentioned this publicly,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: but at one point that relationship became a problem for
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: any sort of recantation by Ryan Rittmeyer. This is how
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: crazy this whole situation is. Because the daughter was an
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: abuse victim and Frank started to believe that Ryan didn't
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: want to jeopardize the relationship by fully recanting that he
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: himself was a sex abuse victim because it was something
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that they shared in common. Now, that was Frank's view.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I have no way of knowing how accurate that was.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: It didn't make total sense to me because, as I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: would later learn when interviewing Ryan DeRittmeyer, Ryan believes, and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: apparently stated at the time as a very young boy,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that he was sexually abused by an uncle. So, I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: don't know how that would kill their sex abuse connection.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: But anyway, the point of this is how unbelievably strange
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and inappropriate the whole situation is. But Ryan was willing
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to sign a second affidavit saying lots of very positive
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: things for Jerry Sandusky's defense, that he had perjured himself,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that his allegations that he testified to at trial were
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: not accurate, he has no memory of being a direct
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: memory of being sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky. The prosecutors
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: manipulated him. I believe he also says that Penn State
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: never vetted his claims, that his lawyers, which were, you know,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Ross Feller Casey and Andrew Shubin, one of the primary
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: lawyers in this case, effectively lied, made stuff up to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Penn State to try to get as much money as possible.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: All that stuff is very positive. But I knew that
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that was not the full story. And I knew that
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: because in the course of trying to get Ryan Rittmeyer
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to fully recant, Frank and I decided to do a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: recording with Ryan Rittmeyer. Now, the purpose of this recording
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: was twofold. In my mind, it was to, one, find
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: out what the hell Ryan Rittmeyer is actually saying and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: try to prove that he was not actually sexually abused
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: by Jerry Sandusky. That was my primary agenda. But a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: secondary agenda, and this was more Frank's, you know, this
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: was his incentive structure because he was still hoping against
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: hope against trying to figure out a way to get
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Ryan to recant. In my mind, the recantation at this
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: point was not that big of a deal because I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: already knew it had been compromised ethically and legally. But
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Frank was unwilling to accept that. And I totally get
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: what Frank was trying to accomplish. I get the intent.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: And Frank thought that it would be great if I
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: could educate Ryan about the case against Jerry Sandusky. Because
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: one of the many theories I have about this case,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and I believe that Ryan's experience validates this in numerous ways,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: is that the glue that held the case against Jerry
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Sandusky together was the fact that none of these guys
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: were abused themselves, but they thought that at least most,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: if not all, of everybody else that was testifying against
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky must have been abused. That not everybody could
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: be lying. They're being told this by people they trust, prosecutors, detectives,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Even a news media member, Sarah Ganim, who would end
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: up winning the Pulitzer Prize. People close to them are saying, hey,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: this could be very good for you, specifically their plaintiff's attorneys.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And so they go along in what I call a bet.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And the betting aspect of this is really important because
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Ryan is one of those accusers, and there are several
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of them, who is a really avid gambler. And I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: don't think that's a coincidence because a lot of what
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this was, was looking at the scenario that was unfolding
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: in front of them and deciding to place a bet.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I'll go along with this. This could be very, very
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: good for me if this all goes the way that
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: my attorney is saying that it might. And so the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: theory was that if we could educate Ryan, who knew
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: nothing about the rest of the case against Jerry Sadusky,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I cannot emphasize that enough. Ryan Rittmeyer knew almost nothing
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: about the case outside of his own allegations against Jerry Sandusky.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And so if I could have the opportunity in the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: course of both interviewing Ryan as well as educating Ryan,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: asking him questions that are basically loaded with information and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: getting his analysis of what that meant, if I could
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: educate Ryan that there's no evidence that anybody else was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: actually sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, that that might allow
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Ryan to go, you know, cross the goal line and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: fully recant and to not hold on to one or
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: two very vague, ever-changing allegations where He doesn't really know
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: when it happened. He doesn't know the year. He doesn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: know the month. The location seems to change. There's no
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: details that maybe he would realize, oh my gosh, this
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: whole thing was a scam and that there's an innocent
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: man in prison and he says he's found religion. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: is it possible that he'll finally do the right thing?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So I said to Frank, let's do it. And Frank
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and I, I made an agreement that, in my view,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: was not made in good faith by Frank Berlato, because
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I thought we were agreeing that we were going to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: release the interview. It was just that we would figure
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: out a way to do it in a mutually acceptable fashion.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: In other words, the presumption would be we were going
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to release it unless it was a disaster, because it
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: could theoretically be a disaster. And that we would just
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: agree on, okay, we're going to do it on this website,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: your website, my website, whatever, my YouTube account. And the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: only thing I wanted was to have the ability to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: record the video myself, which we did. Because that would
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: at least give me some semblance of control. Well, in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: leading up to this, there were all sorts of problems.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: You know, the story kept changing, the rules kept changing.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Frank changed the rules literally five minutes before the interview
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: finally actually started. He was acting far more like Ryan
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Rittmeyer's lawyer or his father, his guardian. I mean, the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: relationship was so incredibly weird Then he was an investigator
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: who was trying to prove that Ryan Rittmeyer was never
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: sexually abused by effectively Frank Berlato's client, who is Jerry Sandusky.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And so I went along with it basically because there
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: was no other option. And I frankly was just kind
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of curious as to all right, what was Ryan Rittmeyer
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: all about? How bad of an allegation was this? How
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: bad of a witness is he? Is it possible to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: get him to a point where he might fully recant,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: even though I knew that that would have very little
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: legal and ethical value? And so I went ahead with it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing, it was a technical disaster, partially
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: because Frank wouldn't even get into the same room with Ryan.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: They were in the same house. This is how crazy
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: this whole thing was. They were in Frank Peralotto's house
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: at the Florida Keys. But for some reason, I can't
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: remember if Frank didn't want to go upstairs or downstairs.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: They were doing it from two different locations in their house.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And I don't know whether that was helping to cause
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: technical problems. But we had problems with the feed. And Frank,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I thought, was going to participate in this interview. But
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: he really didn't, except for one moment. Literally, the only
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: time he participated. This is not an exaggeration. is early
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: on in the interview, and I'm talking to Ryan about
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: his money that he got from Penn State, which was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: over $ 5 million. And I asked him where the money
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: went and how he lost it. And he explained that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he made a lot of bad choices. He'd done drugs
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and gambling and bought cars and made some bad investments.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: And so basically the money was all gone. And I'm paraphrasing,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: but this is a very specific paraphrase, very accurate. He
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: defends his loss of the money by saying, you know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I lost the money pretty fast, but I didn't lose
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it as fast as most lottery winners do. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: what was that? And so I say, so you think
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: of yourself as a lottery winner. And Ryan immediately realizes
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that he has stepped in it and he starts to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: get angry with me. Of course, I don't back down
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: because I want to find out what did you mean
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: by this? So I start pressing him on how it
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is he could possibly think of himself as a lottery winner.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: How is that consistent with someone who was paid because
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: they were a victim of child sexual abuse? And lo
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and behold, Frank Parlato steps in like a referee at
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a boxing match to give Ryan a standing eight count
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: so that even though I have him on the ropes,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I can't knock him out. I mean, he literally acted
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: as if he was Ryan Rittmeyer's attorney. And this is
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: one of the many problems of this whole incredibly strange
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: situation because the relationship between Frank and Ryan has been
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: beyond bizarre. I don't even know whether to call it
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a father-son relationship, a guardian relationship, relationship, a mentor-mentee. I
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's so weird. And obviously the fact that
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Ryan was at this point still dating the daughter of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Frank's longtime companion further complicates the whole situation. But Frank
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: clearly was not on the side of Jerry Sandusky. I'll
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: give you another little insight during this entire saga. At
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: one point, Frank becomes so convinced by Ryan being unwilling
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to recant that he starts to think, he actually told
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: me this. Frank Perlato told me that he believed that
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Jerry might be guilty because of Ryan Rittmeyer not being
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: willing to recant. And I'm like, are you a moron?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I think I literally said that. How could you possibly
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: be so stupid? We have proven the case beyond all
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: shadow of a doubt. There's no way that the least
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: important accuser at trial, which is Ryan Rittmeyer, who barely
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: knew Jerry Sadowski, I'm not convinced he knew him at all,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: which I think is partially why Ryan was willing to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: mostly recant. I have a theory about that, that because
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Ryan did not know Jerry, there's no guilt in acknowledging
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: that he lied. These guys that knew Jerry very well
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and treated him like a father and had a lot
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: owed to Jerry because he was the best thing that
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: ever happened to them, for them to admit that they lied,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more psychological baggage involved in that. But
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Ryan doesn't have that baggage. Now, he does have other baggage,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: which is, I'm a big believer that that being a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky accuser doesn't just get you a lot of money.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: If you're perceived as a victim of Jerry Sandusky, you
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: get a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of your life.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: All the mistakes that you made after the age of
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: 12 or 13 are erased. All the drug use, the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: robbery conviction where you went to prison in Ryan's case,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the gambling... the bad marriage, all of it, it gets
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: erased because you have a built-in excuse. Every mistake you've
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: ever made in your life is erased because you were
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a victim of Jerry Sandusky. That's a difficult thing to
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: give up. And I think that's one of the many
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: reasons why Ryan did not 100% fully recant in our interview. Now,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: my basic takeaway from the interview was I didn't believe
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Ryan Rittmeyer was an actual victim of Jerry Sandusky before
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I spoke to him, I was even more positive he
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't a victim of Jerry Sandusky after I spoke to him.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that a rational analysis of some of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: that interview would lead most people to conclude the same thing. Now,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: we've not released any of that interview yet. I still
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: think we probably will. We might even do so fairly shortly.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And the main reason why we have not is because
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Frank Peralotto is a lunatic. And has told me that
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: he'll sue me if I release it. And I don't
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: really care that much about that. And I don't think
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: he has a case. But it just never seemed like
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the right strategic time to do it mostly because I
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: knew it would not be good for Jerry Sandusky's appeal efforts.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: So I have a lot of different factors that I'm
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: weighing here. What is the right thing to do? I
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: have an obligation to the truth, but I also don't
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: want to sabotage the appeal efforts of a guy who
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is going to likely die in prison as an innocent man.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And so I have sat on the interview But I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: never believed that Ryan had moved much, if at all,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: after that interview, which again was a little bit over
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a year ago. And to me, the proof that Ryan
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: had not fully recanted came from, inadvertently, Frank Peralotto. Because
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: less than a month after that interview, is the date
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: on this affidavit that Ryan Rittmeyer signs that gets part
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: of Jerry Sandusky's legal filing. And not long after that
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: gets filed, Frank very dramatically texts me and says, it
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: is now time for us to discuss the release of
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the Ryan Rittmeyer interview. As if I'm going to be going, oh,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to joy. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Frank. I'm guessing
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: he was a little bit shocked, but I basically told
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: him to go fuck himself because I really wasn't that
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: interested anymore. One, because I knew Frank wasn't a good
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: faith actor, that I couldn't deal with him because he's
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a lunatic, that I couldn't come up with any deal
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: with him because I couldn't trust him. And also because
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I knew that the interview wasn't any good. because of
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the fact, in the bigger picture, in the perception of
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the public, because Ryan does not fully 100% recant. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the fact that Frank had contacted me, seemingly wanting the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Ryan Rittmeyer interview to become public, whether that would have
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: ever happened or not, who knows, was very, very telling
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to me. Because that was the first major clue I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: had that Ryan Rittmeyer had not recanted. Because if they
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: had gotten a magical recantation after our interview, Frank would
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: have had no interest in the interview that I did
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: with Ryan because he didn't recant in that interview. In fact,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: he would have had the opposite desire. Instead of making
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: it public, he would have probably wanted it deleted. And
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: so when nothing happened after that that was consistent with
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a full recantation, I became very, very convinced that nothing
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: had changed. that there was no full recantation from Ryan Rittmeyer.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And even when all these news stories exploded over the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: last week, I was still completely unconvinced. And I started
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to basically go on a public and private campaign to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: try to get this hearing stopped because I was totally
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: convinced that this hearing would be a disaster because Ryan
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: would at best provide ambiguous testimony, Frank Peralotto, if he
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: was forced to testify, would get crushed by the prosecution,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: because it was clear from the prosecution filings that they
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: were somehow aware, or at least suspicious, of the circumstances
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: surrounding the recantation and Frank's role in in getting this
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: alleged recantation and that this was going to be a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: complete and total catastrophe. And as part of this effort,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I went back and I watched the Ryan Rittmeyer interview again.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: We had some technical issues and thankfully our executive producer,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Mike Agavino, went way out of his way to be
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: able to retrieve the video, which we now have. But
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I watched the whole thing and one, I was actually
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised that I had done a pretty good job
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: in nailing Ryan to the wall under very, very difficult circumstances.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: But more importantly than that, it was very obvious to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: me that this is a bad dude who doesn't care
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: about the truth, who is never going to just do
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the right thing and is not going to fully recant,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: especially in the biggest stage of his life. in a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: public court, which is going to be different than in
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the trial where his name was protected by the media.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Now his name is out there. There's going to be
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: all sorts of media coverage. There's going to be a
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: large crowd there. Jerry's going to be there. All this
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: weight on his shoulders. This guy is not going to
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: hit a home run under those circumstances. There's just no
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: possible way. And so privately I started to campaign and
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: publicly I started to campaign and for the idea that
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: this cannot be allowed to happen. So I started to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: message the key people that I'm still in contact with.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And I publicly put out a few statements, including a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: video that I made for X and on Facebook, outlining
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the shorter version of what I just told you and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: explaining that this hearing cannot be allowed to happen because
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: of the reasons I've already stated. It will be a disaster.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: It should never have gotten this far. I warned many,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: many times during this entire process that this was a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: disaster waiting to happen. And so as if things could
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: get even stranger or more bizarre or more surreal, I
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: was a little curious as I started to make these
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: public statements and do some interviews. which I'll get to
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: in just a little bit, which included the Charlie Kirk show,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: which was fascinating. But I was expecting that I was
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: going to hear from Frank Parlato at some point, because
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Frank and I have had almost no contact since the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Ryan Rittmeyer interview. We've had a little bit. I did
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: give him a heads up on something involving Ryan Rittmeyer
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and a lie that he had clearly told that Jasmine,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: his wife, had documentation proving, and he was appreciative of that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: But that was a very short text exchange. And so
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I was curious, okay, how pissed off is Frank going
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: to be about me campaigning to kill this hearing and
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: me being publicly critical of him, although I've tried very,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: very hard to be as fair as I possibly can,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: given the circumstances that I knew he was facing. And
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: sure enough, I got eventually a phone call from Frank,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: which I did not answer at first because I was curious, okay,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: is he going to leave a message? What's he pissed
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: off about? How pissed off is he? And then he
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: texts me and he says, essentially, I need your advice.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Can you call me? I'm like, okay, I'll bite. And
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: then long story short, this could only happen in John
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Ziegler's life. This guy who I loathe and who loathes
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: me and has written an article, you know, basically calling
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: me the devil, which he did back when this whole
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: thing blew up over a year ago, is now asking
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: for my advice on how they can get out of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: this situation. Now, you know, a lesser man might say,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: go fuck yourself. You want my help now after you
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: didn't listen to me? But I didn't even force him
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to go through that apology part of this. I probably
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: should have. I was probably way too nice on him.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: But my goal has always been what's best and some
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: semblance of justice here. So I decided to put that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: off to the side and put on my fireman's cap. Basically,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: to use the fire analogy, this is a situation where
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: for over a year, I've been saying, don't go into
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that house. There's a fire. And then I went into
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the house myself and saw how bad the fire is.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And I came out and said, don't go in there.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: This is a really bad fire. And Frank went in
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: there anyway. And now here he's saying, help, help, please
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: save me from this fire that you warned me about.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, let's see what we can do.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So I probably spent at least, I don't know, an
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: hour and a half, two hours over multiple phone calls
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: with Frank this week trying to figure out, OK, what
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: do we do at this point? Because Frank agrees that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: this hearing cannot go forward. And apparently now, whether it
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: was us or whatever it was, I don't know. But
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sadowski's attorneys have also been convinced that this hearing
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: cannot go forward. And it will not go forward. And
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not at the time you
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: get this podcast, whether that will be actual breaking news,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: but that's news. I'm telling you something that's not been
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: made public. I've implied it already in multiple public statements
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that I was confident that this hearing was not going
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: to happen. But I am now about as positive as
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I can possibly be. And effectively, I am reporting that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: there's not going to be a hearing on September 8th.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: And I am very, very concerned as of this taping
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: as to how this is going to be portrayed. Because
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: it's very likely to be portrayed as, aha, the Sandusky
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: defense team and Jerry Sandusky himself tried to perpetrate a
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: fraud with the help of Frank Perlato by lying about
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: what Ryan Rittmeyer was going to testify to, that there
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: was never going to be a full recantation. And while
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: there's some truth to that, that's a truth that really
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't give you the full story for obvious reasons, because one,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Jerry Zendusky is a clearly innocent man, and two, Ryan
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Rittmeyer did recant a lot of his testimony, and there's
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: another part of this recantation issue that the court didn't
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: even allow into testimony, which I think is actually even
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: more important, and that is that the full, real, 100%
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: recantation of victim number nine, Sebastian Payden's mother, I think
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: is way more powerful than what Ryan Rittmeyer put down
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: in an affidavit because she was the final prosecution witness
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And Ryan Rittmeyer came forward effectively because of his mom.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And he got paid $ 20 million by Penn State. And
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: now his mom is saying the whole thing was a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: lie manipulated by the prosecution. She doesn't believe Sebastian was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: abused by Jerry Sandusky. And she doesn't believe Jerry Sandusky
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: was a pedophile. And that's all real. But the court
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: didn't allow that into the hearing, maybe because they understood
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that it would be even more powerful than what Ryan
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Rittmeyer was going to say. Although this whole hearing was
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: basically because of a technical error that the judge made.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: So the fact that this was even happening was a
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: borderline miracle to begin with. So what do we do? Well,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: here has been my suggestion. My suggestion, which at this taping,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: I think is the plan, but given the incompetence of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the Sandusky team and the dysfunction and the fact that
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: it's very difficult to even communicate with Jerry currently because
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: apparently he's being punished for some bullshit in prison that's
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: taking away some of his privileges. I mean, it's always something.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: It's always something. But my suggestion has been, okay, you
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: need to put out a proactive statement and you need
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: to say the following three things. Number one, we have
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: concluded that we're not gonna get a fair hearing. We
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: cannot get a fair shake in the state of Pennsylvania.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And so therefore we are canceling not just this hearing,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: but we are ending our appeal in the state of Pennsylvania.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And we are now heading to federal court, which is
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: something that I have been urgently urging for many years
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: And several years ago, I thought I had convinced Jerry
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Sandusky that that was his only path to any semblance
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of an exoneration, but he's afraid to do so because
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you only get one shot in federal court. And if
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you don't win in federal court, you can't go back
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to state court. And Jerry, understandably, is terrified of living
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: the rest of his days in prison with absolutely positively
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: no hope. I get that. But since I always use
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: football analogies for obvious reasons in this case, trying to
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: appeal in Pennsylvania is like trying to constantly kick 87-yard
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: field goals into the wind. There's no chance. Federal court
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: is probably a 53-yard field goal. Who knows what the
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: arch is and the weather conditions. But at least it's
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: theoretically makeable. Yes, if you miss it, it's over. But
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: at least you've got a shot. And in a federal court,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: it's an unelected judge who doesn't care about Pennsylvania politics.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: And there's plenty of stuff that a rational judge will
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: look at regarding this case and go, what the fuck
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: was that all about? And hopefully order a new trial,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: which will never happen because the prosecutors aren't going to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: want a new trial and the accusers aren't going to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: want a new trial because they've already gotten paid their
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: money and gotten away with their scam. So, and then
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a third part of this equation that I have urged
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to be put into a statement is, is that this
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: will also allow for more time to find documentary proof
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of new evidence that has come to our attention regarding
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: the corruption of prosecutor Frank Fina. And that's not a bluff.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: That's true. There has been new information from a remarkable
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: source indicating that Frank Fina engaged in inherent corruption corruption
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: surrounding the start of this case against Jerry Sandonsky, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that there's documentary proof of it. But there's going to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: take some time to get the documentary proof. So I
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: have said, that's the statement. We can't get a fair
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: shake in Pennsylvania. We're moving to federal court, and we
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: need time to prove more Frank Fina prosecutorial corruption. Now,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that's what I told Frank Perlato. Frank was 100% on
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: board with that. And the problem is that Jerry Sadusky's attorney,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: which has been the case throughout, and I don't know
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: this current attorney, some guy named Russo, sounds like a
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: fucking idiot once again, because they don't want to make
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: a public statement. They just want to file in court.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: And they also don't want to play ball with us
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: with regard to to the timing of the filing in court.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Because I have said to Frank, you've got to get
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: this attorney to file this motion to cancel this hearing
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: as late as possible. Ideally, the Friday before Labor Day,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: because this thing will be forgotten. That's the strategy, which again,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Frank agreed with. But according to Frank, there's no indication
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that Jerry's attorney has a clue about this stuff or
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: cares about this stuff. And he's not even going to
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: put into the filing elements that we want that could
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: be used as a statement. And he's not going to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: put out a public statement at all. I have no
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: idea why. I have no idea why Frank is as
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: baffled and as frustrated as I am. But it's obvious
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: we're not going to get any help from Jerry Sandusky's attorney.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: So as of right now, The only plan we have,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: which is not going to work, I'm basically just telling
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: you this because it's so sad, pathetic, and frankly funny,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: is that there is a Zoom, for some reason, Jerry
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Sandusky is still allowed to participate in for tonight, that
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Frank is going to be part of along with Dottie Sandusky.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And under my suggestion, what they're allegedly going to do
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: is they're going to take a statement that I wrote
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that includes all the elements that I just told you,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: and they're going to hopefully print it out in large font,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and they're going to put it up to the screen
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and hopefully have Jerry Sadusky read it in a way
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: that they can record him on video doing so. I
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: have zero expectation that this is going to go in
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: any way, shape, or form in a way that is
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: productive or even usable. But it's the only thing that
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I could think of to where we might be able
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to get out a statement that would be taken seriously
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: before Jerry Sandusky's lawyers actually make this motion in court.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Because if they make this motion in court without any
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: preemptive statement that's taken seriously by the news media, And
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the news media only sees that effectively the Sandusky team
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: wimped out of this hearing. It's going to be portrayed, understandably,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: as a complete and total admission that the recantation was
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a fraud, that the defense basically didn't have what it
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: claimed that it had, which again, there's some truth to that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And it will be perceived, understandably, because obviously the news
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: media has beyond less than zero empathy or sympathy for
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sadowski's defense, it will be seen as probably something
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: even worse than if this thing had never been given
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: any attention to begin with. Now, it is Labor Day weekend.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: I think that might mitigate things to a certain degree.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: But to me, the only hope here is to be
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: proactive and to be on the offense and and to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: use this as a way of getting out of the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: quagmire of Pennsylvania and into federal court. Now, the only
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: tiny bright side that I see so far is that
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: it appears as if they're going into federal court. That
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: appears to be real, which has been my goal for many,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: many years. So if that ends up being the only
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: positive out of this complete catastrophe and as bad as
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: this might get from a media perspective moving forward, I
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: guess that's something. I guess that's the silver lining in
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: all of this, that finally Jerry has been convinced that
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: we have no choice but to go into federal court.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: So that's the situation. I am exceedingly pessimistic about how
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: things are going to go between now and the next
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: time I speak to you on the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: But as has always been the case, my pledge to
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you is to tell you the truth, the good, the bad,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and the indifferent. And that's the truth of what has
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: been transpiring regarding this hearing that's gotten so much attention
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: involving Jerry Sandusky and so-called victim number 10, Ryan Rittmeyer. Now,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: as part of this news media coverage, which you might expect,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I've been asked to do a lot of interviews. And
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: one of the interviews that I did was on the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk show. And obviously, Charlie Kirk was assassinated almost
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: exactly a year ago, but that's still the name of
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the show done by Turning Point USA. And I was
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: really interested about the background of why I was asked
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: on The Charlie Kirk Show. Because you may recall that
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: one of the more frustrating elements of the last year
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: or so has been that I cannot remember if I
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: became aware of this just before or just after Charlie
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Kirk's assassination. I honestly cannot remember. I know I didn't
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: mention it until after his assassinations. But at some point,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: either just before or just after Charlie Kirk's assassination, I
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: became aware that Charlie Kirk, not once but twice on
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: his show, had referenced the Jerry Sandusky case in a
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: very contrarian fashion, that he had essentially lumped it in
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: with Brett Kavanaugh, which indicated to me that Charlie Kirk believed,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: at the very least, that Jerry Sandusky might be innocent.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And I remember watching it going, did he mean Joe Paterno?
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: But then he said Jerry Sandusky twice. Now, I knew
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: that Charlie Kirk had followed me on Twitter and clearly
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: had some idea who I was, because you may recall
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that my daughter became a big Charlie Kirk fan just
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: before the assassination. And Charlie posted about this on X
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and sent her a signed hat and a book and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: a whole package, the whole bit. And so, you know,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: clearly there was some sign that Charlie Kirk was aware
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of what I do or did and certainly would be
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: plausible for him to know about my work on the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Sandusky case, but he had never reached out to talk
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: about it. So I was left with this seemingly unknowable
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: question about, okay, what was Charlie Kirk's opinion on this?
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: And then when I got asked on the Charlie Kirk show,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, all right, is this an indication
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: that the people around him were aware of what his
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: opinion on this was? And sure enough, the way the
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: interview began was with them talking about how Charlie had
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: discussed this case seemingly publicly. on multiple occasions and had
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: suspicions about the conventional wisdom of the case. This is
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: my paraphrase. And that had planned to talk about this
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: at some point in the future. And then he gets assassinated.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Like a couple of weeks later, after he mentions this
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: on his show, which of course, you know, somebody on
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Twitter referenced, you know what? This sounds like a situation
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: where Candace Owens might start to that Josh Shapiro was
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: behind the assassination because Charlie had gotten wind of the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: fact that Jerry Zanusky was an innocent man. It was
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: a joke, but stranger things have happened. But you can
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: imagine my.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Level of frustration as I'm hearing this about to go
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: on the Charlie Kirk show and realizing, oh my God.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, as if anything else could possibly go wrong.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, anything that could go wrong has gone wrong,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: even to the point where you finally get somebody of
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: that kind of stature to be on the verge of
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: at least somewhat taking up your cause and he gets assassinated.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, you almost can't make this shit up. You
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: just can't make it up. And the interview itself went very,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: very well. I really believe as if the two guys,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's former producer and former co-host, who did a
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: really nice job in the interview, I believe they were
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: at least mostly, if not totally convinced And you can
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: find that interview for yourself on social media. I posted
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: it on X multiple times as well as on my
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Facebook page. Maybe we'll put the YouTube video up on
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the Patreon app as well. So I was happy to
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: get a chance to do that. I even name dropped
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: my daughter Grace, which she was only somewhat impressed by.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty cool to name drop Grace
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: in a positive way. on the Charlie Kirk show, but
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: she was, she was not all that impressed, but she's
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: a 14 year old girl and 14 year old girls
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: aren't impressed by much. But that was the, the interview
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: that I have done so far that I found to
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: be most interesting. I am scheduled to do an interview
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: that could be even more fascinating today. Although I'm rather
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: trepidatious about it. I'm supposed to do, do an interview
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: with Dan Abrams on his Sirius podcast. satellite radio show.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: And the reason why that is so theoretically important to
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: me is that Dan is somebody who I really respect.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: I've worked for him at Mediate. He's the former legal
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: correspondent for ABC News. He's still a consultant there. He
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: runs law and crime website and he's highly respected. And
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: he and I have had a, not a consistent, but
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: an on again, off again conversation about this case for many,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: many years, but he's never spoken to me about it publicly.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And so when I got the invitation, I was like, oh,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: this will be great. Finally, after almost 15 years, Dan
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: and I are going to go at it on this.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: But then I got an email from the producer saying,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: we'd like to do this as a debate. And I'm like, what?
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Who am I debating? I mean, I'll debate Dan. I mean,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: that's not going to be real fair to Dan, but
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to do that. But are you thinking I'm
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: going to be debating somebody else? And if so, who
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: is it? And the response was, yeah, we want you
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to debate someone else. We don't know who that will
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: be yet. And I responded very politely. I said, you're
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: never going to find somebody credible or reputable that's willing
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: to debate me on this topic. You're just not. It's
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: not possible. And so I want you to at least
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: be prepared for what happens when you're not able to
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: find anybody. I hope we're still going to do this.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: And they got it. And they said, you might be right.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: And that we're going to do this regardless. But at
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: this moment, and we're only a couple hours away from
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: when this interview is supposed to happen, I really don't
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: know the details of it. And I'm kind of in
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the camp of if anything can go wrong, it will
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: go wrong. So while I'm hopeful that this could be
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: one of the better moments of this 15-year ordeal. I'm
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: not at all confident it's all going to work out well.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I just can't imagine who the hell they're going to
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: get to possibly debate me. Who would possibly be stupid
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: enough to debate me? Not because they would think that
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I'm right. It's because anybody on the other side of
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: the story hasn't been keeping up with any of the
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: details and their information is base is 15 years or
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: 14 years old at best, and it's all wrong. And
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: why would you go up against somebody who's devoted their
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: life to this? I mean, that would make no sense.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: So I would be stunned if they found someone foolish enough,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: naive enough, stupid enough to debate me about this topic.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: But again, stranger things have happened. And of course, I'll
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: let you know what if anything happens on that front.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: As far as other people media outlets that have been
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: covering the onslaught of alleged news involving Jerry Sandusky. I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: at least have to mention what's going on with Megyn Kelly,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: since I've been very critical of Megyn Kelly after once
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: being somewhat of a fan of hers and referring to
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: her as part of the Alliance of Lunacy with Candace
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Owens and Tucker Carlson, and been very, very critical of
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of her positions that don't make any sense,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: that are not based in facts or logic or truth.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, Megyn Kelly decided to take on the Jerry
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Sandusky case, and I'm quite certain she never thought about
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: asking me on, if only because she knows that I'm
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: not a fan of hers anymore. In fact, instead she
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: had two people who knew nothing about the case on,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: and it was as bad as I expected it would be.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to watch it at all, because I
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: knew it would be terrible, but so many people sent
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: it to me, I was forced to at least be
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: somewhat aware of what was said and how the issue
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: was dealt with and how bad Megyn Kelly really was
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: about this. I'm just going to mention one specific factual problem,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: which was consistent throughout a lot of the coverage over
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the last week. And this happened even in the New
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: York Times. So when it happens in the New York Times,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen a lot of other places because
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of other news outlets just pick up what
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: the New York Times says and they go with But
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: both Megyn Kelly and the New York Times continually try
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to make this argument that, well, even if victim number 10,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Ryan Rittmeyer, has recanted his testimony, that's really not that
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: significant because there are nine other accusers who testified at trial. Well,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that's not accurate. It's factually false. That's just 100% not true.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And it's a very basic fact that it And to me,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: it's very significant. Not just because you're getting basic facts
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: wrong and that indicates you don't know what the hell
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, but it also, I think, it goes
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: beyond that. Because the numbers here matter. The reality is
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: that there were eight adults, no kids, adult men, all
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: white trash adult men from terrible backgrounds, who testified against
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Eight.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: So, If one recants, one out of eight is obviously
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: more significant inherently than one out of 10. But it
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: goes way beyond that. Because at the time of Jerry
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Zanusky's arrest before the moral panic and the firing of
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Joe Paterno and Graham Spanier and everything else, Penn State
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: putting well over $ 100 million on the table. See, to me,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: after that happens, anybody that comes forward is not credible.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: They're inherently not credible unless they have remarkable proof, which
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: nobody did. And at that time, there were only six.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: There were only six accusers. And you might say, well, John,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: six is a really strong number. How do you explain
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: six people lying? Well, of those six, four were friends,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: all pictured and named together in Jerry Sandusky's book, which,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: among other things, should automatically be highly suspect because they're
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: all basically the same age. So how is it somebody
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: could be a serial pedophile for 40 years and four
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: of the six accusers are all from the same time
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: period and he was stupid enough to put them in
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: his book pictured with their names? Something that, by the way,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: none of them objected to, none of their parents objected to.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: I know this because I spoke to the the ghostwriter,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the guy that actually wrote the book and was in
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: charge of the photographs. So you got four that are
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: all in the same friend group. And by the way,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: one of those happens to be a gambling buddy of
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: victim number 10, victim number three. And so when you
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: actually understand this, the numbers are not that large, especially
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: in comparison to the hundreds and hundreds of people they
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: interviewed from the Second Mile Charity who said nothing ever
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: happened and Jerry was the greatest thing that ever happened
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: to me. So that factual inaccuracy really is a pet
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: peeve of mine and it happens constantly, even at the
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: New York Times. And yes, even by Megyn Kelly, who
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: once again embarrassed herself as not knowing what the hell
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: she's talking about. There's another irony of the fact that
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the Jerry Sandusky story A hearing on September 8th is
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: not going to happen. And that is, I didn't even
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: realize this until this morning. But what are the odds
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: of this in John Ziegler world? On September 8th, both
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sadowski and Tiger Woods were scheduled to be in
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: court for hearings. And neither of them are going to happen.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sadowski, for reasons I just stated, and Tiger Woods
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: has now pled guilty to reckless driving. and a couple
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: of other things involving that high-profile accident where his SUV
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: tipped over on its side. And the bottom line is
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods will have his driver's license suspended for five years, which, hallelujah.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness. Tiger should never have been driving to begin with.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: So for the next at least five years, he'll be
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: forced to take a limo or a driver or whatever,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: which is what he should have been doing all along.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: So I found that to be quite remarkable that the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: chances of that there were two people who have influenced
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: my life in very different ways, maybe more than any
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: other public figures. Tiger Woods, Jerry Zdusky were both supposed
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: to be in court on September 8th and neither are
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: going to happen. There's another element to the Jerry Zaneski
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: case in another news story, although very few people connected them,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: that I want to at least mention because it goes
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to this issue of just how horrendous the media is
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to these cases of sex abuse allegations
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: and settlements especially by academic institutions. It's possible that you
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: heard a headline over the weekend that the University of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Michigan had settled for $ 1. 2 million with the accuser of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: a former Michigan assistant football coach. And I totally get
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: why everyone immediately said, oh my God, How corrupt is Michigan?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: You know, this whole Sharon Moore thing, the former head
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: coach at Michigan and his girlfriend and the alleged stalking
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: of her and threatening of her and his firing. And
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden we have an assistant coach
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: who worked for Moore who was accused of rape. And
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Michigan is handing over $ 1. 2 million to Oh my God,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the corruption runs so deep within athletics and specifically at
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: a place like the University of Michigan. And I just go,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: are you people fucking idiots? Can we look at this
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: for eight seconds? The reality is that there were no
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: criminal charges in this case. It was looked into as
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: a criminal matter. And no charges were ever filed. The
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: case was dropped. And my superficial reading of it is
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: that for good reason. There's a lot of good reason
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: to believe that there was not a rape here, which
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: is why there were no criminal charges. That what really
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: transpired here is that a lawyer realized that Michigan was
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: incredibly vulnerable because of what happened with Moore and and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: that they would immediately cry uncle to any allegation that
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: occurred within his football staff in the realm of sexual abuse.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. $ 1. 2 million for rape. By
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the way, I don't even understand why would the University
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: of Michigan be at fault or be liable at all?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the part that... There's so many elements
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: of this that are mind-blowing to me, but it just
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: makes no sense but this is an academic, liberal academic
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: virtue signaling organization that decides to throw other people's money
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: at a problem to make themselves look good and make
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: problems go away. But a lawyer is going to look
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: at this and go, aha, we can go out to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the deep pocketed organization, scare the hell out of them.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: They want this whole more issue to be gone with.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: They're probably going to pay us. So they did. And $ 1. 2 million,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: given the current market price, is basically nothing. It's essentially
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a get the hell out of here. Because again, it's
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: not their money. I don't understand this happened with Penn
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: State constantly. Penn State's a state-run liberal academic institution. They're
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: using state taxpayer money and insurance money to make themselves
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: look good in the New York Times. So it's just
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: amazing to me how nobody in the media and very
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: few people in the public can see through what's really
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: happening here. This is just a situation where where lawyers
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: are leveraging a news story to get free money. I
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: have no idea what happened between that former assistant coach
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: and that woman, but there's no evidence it was rape
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: because if there was, there would have been at least
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a criminal charge and there wasn't. And it's so obvious,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: and this is one of my pet peeves because I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: think the whole world is being dictated by what plaintiff's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: attorneys are able to do and how they're able to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: intimidate organizations and how everyone's terrified of being sued. It's
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: impacting everyday life in so many different ways. By the way,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: there's another example of that. I'm the only person on
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: the planet that would make this analogy, but I think
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: it's a good one. There's an amusement park near where
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: we live, where my kids like to go, called Magic Mountain.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: And one of their scariest rides just got shut down,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: probably forever. Why?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: Well, because there's all of a sudden a concern that
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: it might be causing some sort of brain injury. Why? Well,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: because apparently two people have died not long after going
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: on the ride. Now, again, I haven't done a deep
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: dive on this. One of them apparently had no business
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: going on the ride to begin with. But now, all
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, this is so shocking, people are coming
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: out of the woodwork to say that they've had some
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: sort of an injury related to to what they think
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: might be them riding on this ride at Magic Mountain.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: And the media looks at this and goes, oh my gosh,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: this ride, it must be horrible. It's clearly at fault.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: And there's a good reason why they shut it down.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Or there's another scenario. Because the scenario the media believes
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: is completely ridiculous. So this ride was perfectly fine for
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: over 20 years. For over 20 years. Not a hint
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: of a problem. Now all of a sudden it's causing
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: people to die? And all of a sudden people are
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: complaining about some sort of an injury related to this ride?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense. But let me tell you what
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: does make sense. You have... two flukes that happened in
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a short amount of time, all of a sudden plaintiff's
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: attorneys see blood in the water with a deep pocketed organization,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Magic Mountain Amusement Park and their parent company. And all
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: of a sudden they start trying to find people that
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: feel like they've been injured or suffered because of this ride. Why?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Because they know there's going to be money involved. How
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: can people not see this? And it's very much the
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: same dynamic as what happened with regard to the University
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: of Michigan and this $ 1. 2 million settlement. It just never ends,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: the insanity. The media is bad on a lot of issues,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: but they could not be worse when it comes to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: the issue of sexual abuse allegations. in particular, or lawsuit-related
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: stories in general, because they just do not fully understand
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the impact that that has on the way that organizations,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: especially liberal academic organizations, respond to any sort of threat
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: of legal pressure. Now, speaking of other issues in the
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: news with regard to the law and the criminal cases,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: I have to at least mention what's going on with
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts. This is the story
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: of the woman who killed her three young children and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: is now on trial and claiming that she is not
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: guilty by reason of insanity because of postpartum psychosis. And
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely in the camp of those that believes that
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: this defense is utterly and totally ridiculous. And it appears
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: as of this taping that we're likely gonna get a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: hung jury. Jury is currently deadlocked. I don't know how
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: much longer the judge is going to force them to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: continue to deliberate. But it seems pretty obvious that they're
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: not going to be able to come to a unanimous decision. Now,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I think I foolishly predicted that you'd be convicted of something.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what I said. But if I
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: had thought this through, I should have been predicting a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: hung jury. Because one of the things that I was
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: not fully aware of, which is really astonishing, and I
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: don't think it's gotten nearly enough attention, is that the
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: way that the insanity defense works is completely ridiculous in Massachusetts. Because, look,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I am not somebody that thinks that an insanity defense
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: should be, in most cases, taken seriously. Because if you
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: did take it seriously, you're creating a massive loophole for
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: virtually every major crime that ever would be committed. But
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: I'm at least open to it. It is possible that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: someone could be completely, totally out of their minds and
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: not be 100% criminally culpable. Now, you put them in
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: a mental institution or whatever, in a hospital, whatever, but
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: there still has to be some sort of punishment. But
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: here's the problem. In order for that to be decided
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: by a jury, in a rational world, The burden of
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: proof should be on the defense to prove the insanity.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: That's apparently not the case in Massachusetts. That bizarrely, absurdly,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and yes, frankly, insanely, the burden is on the prosecution
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: not just to prove guilt, but to prove you were
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: not insane. Think about that. Think about how nuts that is.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the person was not insane? That to me is ridiculous.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: And it's not the law in most of the country,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: but apparently effectively is the law in Massachusetts. And how
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: in the world you can possibly get a unanimous verdict
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: under those circumstances when This woman, Lindsay Clancy, has a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: fan base, has a legitimate fan base of super liberal
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: women who are supporting a woman who murdered in cold blood,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three of her children. And
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: then some of them have the audacity to try to
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: blame the dad, which is just beyond insanity. I mean,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: that's the only insane thing in this entire case that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I think has been proven. The insanity of those who
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: truly want to believe that it was the dad who
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: actually killed her three children, even though she's admitted it
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: or her defense team has admitted it. But from a
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: legal perspective, I don't know how you possibly can have
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: a functional legal system when you have that large of
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: an incentive for anybody to disclaim insanity because the prosecution
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: is forced to prove that you weren't. So I will
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: be stunned if there is a unanimous verdict in this case.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure that there's going to be hand-wringing no
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: matter what happens. But the fact that we cannot get
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: an easy conviction of a woman who is admitting that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: she killed her three children with no overt evidence of insanity.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, the defense didn't provide any legitimate evidence that
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I can see. that she was remotely in quote unquote
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: insane or really suffering from postpartum psychosis. She was acting
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: quite rationally around the time of the murder of her
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: three children. And the fact that we can't get an
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: easy conviction here is unbelievable. And I do agree with
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: those that think that the cause of women's rights is
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: going to be hurt by this, especially if she were
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: to be acquitted. because the entire premise here is that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: a woman can't be held responsible because of her hormones. Now,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: it's more complex than that, but I do think that
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: the perception of women in positions of authority and power
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: is being harmed by this case, and I don't think
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: that's irrational. I have an AI update rather quickly. As
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we do two fear factors on this podcast.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: We do an AI fear factor, which is currently at 7.5
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: out of 10, and a Gavin Newsom becomes president fear factor,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: which is currently at 6 out of 10. And I'm
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: going to move the fear factor up just slightly to
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: 8 out of 10. And I'm going to do so
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: for a reason that I'm not 100% solid on, but
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: I think you'll understand why. And that is because Bill Gates,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: a guy I don't like, A guy whose reputation has
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: taken a hit because of his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: although it's very clear that he didn't do anything criminal
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: in his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Did some things that
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: might have been very stupid and very wrong. And he's
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: admitted that and apologized for that. But I don't like
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates. I hated him during COVID. I'm not a
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates fan, other than the fact that I do
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: think he's intelligent. And obviously, he's been extremely successful as
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: the founder of Microsoft. But Bill Gates is someone who
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: has been very, very positive and very pro-AI. And a
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: few days ago, late last week, he switched that position
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: rather dramatically. And he wrote a long blog post and
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: he did a video presentation and then he did some interviews,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: including on CNN with Anderson Cooper. explaining why he is
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: much more concerned about AI and has kind of changed
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: his position that he believes it is possible that AI
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: may end up being a social and cultural catastrophe. And
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: here's a short summary of some of what Bill Gates
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: had to say.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: AI is both the most powerful tool for advancing equity
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: and the greatest threat to equity that humans have ever invented.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: AI's ability to replace and exceed human cognition will usher
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: in one of the most turbulent eras in history. Many
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: jobs will disappear, white-collar jobs first, with blue-collar ones to follow.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: I worry that we aren't preparing. There's no plan to
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: ease the entry into the AI era, and not even
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: a plan to have a plan. The world has a
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: chance to act now before unemployment rises sharply. communities are hurting,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: and public trust has eroded.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Now, the reason why Bill Gates' statement and his rather
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: dramatic shift on AI has an influence on me is
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: because I'm a big believer in self-interest. And to me,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: that is an admission against self-interest, as far as I
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: can tell, regarding what Bill Gates is saying. One, for
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: someone as with as large an ego as Bill Gates
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge that he might have been wrong in his
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: initial assessment, that's to me fairly significant. There's also a
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: potential financial self-interest here. He's also going against the grain
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: of a lot of his peer group. And so I'm
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: sure he's probably going to take some heat from within
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: his bubble. So I don't take that as gospel, what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates said, But I do find it to be relevant.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: And I do find it to be consistent with a
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: lot of the things that I've been worried about. My
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: biggest concern about AI, and I have many, is that
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: we are just not prepared politically, socially, culturally, economically for
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: what this could be. And I have said for quite
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: some time that my only real hope here is is
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: that maybe AI from a technological perspective is going to
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: hit a wall and never reach AGI. I am still hopeful.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: That's basically the reason why we're not at a 10
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: out of 10. If I was 100% convinced that we
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: were going to reach AGI, we'd probably be at a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: 10 out of 10 on the fear factor. But if
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: we do hit AGI, and it does destroy jobs the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: way that Bill Gates and others have said that it
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: might or will, in very short order, in remarkably short order,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: far faster than it's ever happened before in the modern
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: history of man with regard to a technological advancement, then
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: we're done. We're done. We cannot handle it. That's the
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: part of this that is so concerning to me. Our
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: society is already incredibly fractured and fragile and divided. And
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: we're basically hanging by a thread in so many different
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: ways And this could be just a sledgehammer to a
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: house of cards if Bill Gates is correct. And there's still,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: you know, almost every other week, there's a story of
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: scary AI simulations and what happens with AI when it's
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: left on its own devices and all the damage that
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: it can create and how uncontrollable it might end up being.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: And all of that I think is very significant and very,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: very scary. And just as an indication of how poorly
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: prepared we are to handle AI from a media perspective,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: there was a really remarkable story that you probably didn't
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: hear about involving a Wall Street Journal op-ed on bonds.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't get more boring than that. A
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal op-ed on bonds, basically taking issue with
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Scott Besson, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's strategy with regard to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: the bond market. by a guy by the name of
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Stanley Druckenmiller, who is a very well-renowned expert in this area.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: And I actually remember when the op-ed first came out,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of liberals were using it as ammunition to
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: go after Scott Besson. But then something amazing happened. Druckenmiller
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: acknowledged And for him to acknowledge this, it must have
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: really been rather pervasive. He acknowledged that he used AI
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: to write the Wall Street Journal op-ed, which I've never
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: heard of before. I've never heard of a prominent op-ed
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: writer admitting in a major media outlet that they had
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: used AI to write the editorial. But then the Wall
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Street Journal defended the use of AI. It defended the
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: use of AI. I don't even understand how that's possible.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: So to me, the floodgates are open. If we're not
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: going to hold the lie on writing a Wall Street
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Journal op-ed and making sure you don't use AI, to
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: express your opinion on a significant issue of financial interest,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: then we're doomed because this is the ultimate slippery slope.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: Where do you draw the line? If that doesn't go
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: over the line, where are you going to draw the line?
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: And this is the Wall Street Journal, one of the
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: more reputable news media outlets. So that to me was
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: another reason why I have edged up the AI fear
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: factor from 7.5 to 8.0. I want to turn now
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: to football. Obviously, football season is starting. High school, college
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: and soon pro. And there's several stories that I want
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: to quickly go through that I think are very relevant
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: to the situation involving football and why football, I think,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: is in peril in many different ways. Obviously, I have
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: been extremely outspoken about how broken college football is. And
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles, there have been a couple of
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: very dramatic examples of that just within the last few days.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I've been amused at how much attention the lack of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: crowd at USC, USC, obviously University of Southern California Trojans,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: their home game against San Jose State got nationally because
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: it was hot. It was 94 degrees, which, you know,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: And it was pretty humid for us here in Southern California.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of the country, that's not a big deal.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: But in Southern California, that may have been one of
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: the many reasons why the Coliseum was virtually empty in
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: a way that was quite jarring. And the photos went viral.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: And within the college football world, everyone's been talking about this.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: And there's all sorts of different reasons and explanations and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: theories about I put out a theory which went semi-viral
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: on X that why are people confused by why there's
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: a lack of enthusiasm for going to see USC football games?
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: Because every single adult USC fan has been taught their
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: entire lives that the following things are what matter. Beating
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame, no longer applicable. Beating UCLA, no longer a
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: big deal because UCLA sucks. Winning the Pac-12 conference, no
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: longer applicable, doesn't exist. Going to the Rose Bowl, no
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: longer applicable because there's no conference tie-in to the Rose Bowl.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: Winning a national championship, not currently realistic. Those are the
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: things that every USC fan has been taught are important.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: None of them really exist anymore. So why is it
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: a mystery that on a 94-degree day when you're playing
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: San Jose State, No one bothered to show up for
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: the game. Now, at a real blue blood college football program,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: especially in the Southeastern Conference or in parts of the
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Big Ten, it doesn't matter who you play or what
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: the weather is. People are going to pack the stadium
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: because they really care. But I'm a big believer. I
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: say this all the time on this podcast. Yes, California
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: is unique in a lot of ways. Yes, there's a
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: lot fewer white people around here. who generally like college
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: football more than other races than there used to be. Yes,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more foreign students and foreign residents in
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles who might not give a damn about football.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: I get it. There's demographic explanations for this. And yes,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: I think the weather played a role, although there was
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: a video of USC playing San Jose State a little
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: less than 20 years ago under the exact same conditions,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: and the place was totally packed at the Coliseum. on
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: the opening week of the year. So something has changed.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: And I do believe that this is a precursor of
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen in parts of the rest of the country.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: That tends to be the case with California. And I
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: think that's gonna happen with regard to college football interest.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: Although to be fair, I've been charting the decrease in
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: college football attendance in California for years, even before the
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: NIL instant transfer madness. And part of that is demographics.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: Part of that is liberals. And they don't really like
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: football very much. I mean, the state is basically now
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: completely blue, except for the rural areas. And the universities
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: are extremely liberal. And there's an inherent aversion to football.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: That is an absolute reality. And there's so many different
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: aspects of this perfect storm. But I do think that
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: at least part of it is relevant to what's eventually
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: going to happen to the rest of the country. And
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: it was interesting to me that at the very same
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: time period, UCLA, this didn't get nearly as much attention,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: UCLA fired their athletic director because they seemingly found out
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: that they're over $ 200 million in debt, which to me
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: is the canary in the coal mine with regard to
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: the economics of all this. UCLA, while their football program
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: has sucked in recent years, Most of the rest of
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: their athletic program is in pretty darn good shape, and
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: they're losing tons and tons of money. Now, is it
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: just because of the NIL world? I mean, who the
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: hell knows? But this is not an aberration. This is
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: happening throughout the country. where the economics are just not
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: adding up. The math is not mathing. And this is
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: all part of the Pandora's box that I've talked about
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: constantly that people did not take into account when they
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: decided to radically change the entire system in a way
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: that I believe will destroy everything that's good or already
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: has destroyed everything good about college football. Now, I have
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: not watched one down of college football yet, and I
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: have no interest I've never had no interest. I have
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: no interest. I will probably watch only out of boredom
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: and accident, except for maybe this week when LSU plays Clemson.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in LSU Clemson mainly because my main rooting
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: interest is against LSU and Lane Kiffin, especially since they're
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: embroiled in this whole issue of whether or not you
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: can take former NFL players and bring them back to college,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: which is a massive controversy right now that is is
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: seemingly wrapped up in the court system. No one seems
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: to know what the rules are. And Dabo Sweeney, the
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: coach at Clemson, is very, very much against this. He's
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: about as old school as it gets. And he's going
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: up against Lane Kiffin in the LSU-Clemson game. So that,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: to me, will be interesting. And I'll be rooting against LSU.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: But that's about as pathetic as it gets when it
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: comes to a rooting interest in a sport that used
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: to be my favorite team sport by far. I've been
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: talking a lot about how tackle football is in grave,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: grave jeopardy. And there's more evidence of that this week
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: because the National Football League has now rather quietly instituted
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: a new rule. And this is complex, but I'm not
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: even going to get into the details of it. But
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the bottom line is that you can now be suspended
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: for a game in the National Football League if you
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: get caught doing one of these safety violations three times.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: One of them is the hip drop tackle, which is
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: one of my ultimate pet peeves. Because if, and I
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: talked about this previously, and interestingly, the NFL essentially decided
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: not to enforce the rule against the hip drop tackle,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: at least not on the field. There may have been some, some, um,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: some fines, although they were never official, but to my knowledge,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: there's been almost no enforcement of the rule against hip
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: drop tackling on the field. Because I think I would
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: like to believe that the football people realize this is
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: not workable because it isn't, it's completely unworkable. It is
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: one impossible to instantaneously determine whether or not a tackle
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: is can be defined as a hip drop tackle. It's impossible.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: But more importantly than that, if a hip drop tackle
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: does become legitimately illegal, football's over. Because here's why. A
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: runner can easily create the impression that they are being
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: brought down by a hip drop tackle. And so whenever
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: they need that penalty yardage, they can just fake it
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: and basically force themselves into a hip drop tackle. And
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: allegedly the hip drop tackle is dangerous. There is some
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: evidence that it is, but that's just the price of
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: tackle football. You can't have tackle football if you're going
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: to penalize a basic looking tackle. that you happen to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: define as a hip drop tackle. Most importantly, because you
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: create a massive loophole for people to fake it, to
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: essentially do the basketball equivalent of a flop. And it
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: will be impossible for referees to be able to tell
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: the difference. So very quietly, the National Football League is
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: once again, wussifying their sport and creating penalties, severe penalties.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: A one game suspension is a massive penalty for people
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: who commit the same violation three times. So that's something
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: to look for as the National Football League season starts.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: This obsession with safety, I have talked about constantly and
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: how it has apparently unintended consequences. And one of my
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: pet peeves is this issue of lightning delays. And we
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: had a really horrendous example of this this past weekend
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: at my alma mater, Georgetown University, where Georgetown held its
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: home opener in a league game, a Patriot League game.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: And at halftime, they postponed the game because there was
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: a weather system basically in the area. Now, long story short,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: there was never any rain at the stadium. There was
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: never any lightning anywhere near the stadium. By the way,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: Georgetown's football field, which is down in the depression of
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: the middle of our overpacked campus, I literally cannot conceive
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: of a football stadium more protected from lightning than Georgetown
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: University's football field. Lightning couldn't possibly strike it because it's
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: protected by all these much larger buildings surrounding it. But
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: on this particular day, there was no rain, no lightning
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: anywhere nearby. There was one small system that had lightning
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: in the general vicinity. And because these rules, once you
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: postpone a game, Out of an abundance of caution, which
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: is going to be put on our tombstone as a society,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: out of an abundance of caution, they have these absolutely
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: absurd rules where if within, I don't know if it's
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: an eight mile radius or something like that, an eight
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: mile radius, if there's any lightning strike within a 30
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: minute period after postponement, you have to restart the postponement clock,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: which is an asinine. It makes it absolutely impossible to
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: restart the game. And there was never any threat at
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: all at Georgetown. Our good friend, Steve Cortez, his son
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: plays for Georgetown, although he's currently injured. He was at
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: the contest and giving me reports of what was happening.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing was insane. And this is a
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: league game that now ends up getting canceled. It never happened.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: which destroys the entire season going forward. It's a league game.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: Not only that, but it creates, plants the seed in
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: the minds of players for the rest of their career
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: that all this preparation they're going through might be for
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: naught because you know what? We might get a thunderstorm
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: in the area and the game isn't even going to
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: happen and it will never be remade. See, The part
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: of what used to make football unique until COVID, because
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: this is absolutely one of the impacts of COVID changing
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: all the standards. Football used to be an endeavor where
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: everyone understood because you can only play one game a
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: week that you have to play the game literally come
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: hell or high water. If you wait till 1 a.m.,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: you wait till 1 a.m. It has to be played
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: because you only play in this case, in Georgetown, 11
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: games a year, or even in the NFL, you only
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: play 17 games a year. They all matter to a
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: certain degree and you can't reschedule them. It's impossible to reschedule.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: How this got lost, I don't know, but COVID was
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely a huge part of the culprit here. And because
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: of the COVID panic and the changing of the standards
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: and we've now become desensitized to insanity when it comes
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: to postponing and canceling events. This football game was never
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: in any danger whatsoever. Never happened. And now both these
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: teams will not play a full conference schedule, which is,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: by the way, the only thing they really play for
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: is the conference in the Patriot League. So, I mean,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: this to me was a classic example of how wussified
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: we have become. I will point out one more time
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: that in the history, at least the modern history, of
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: the sport, you know how many people have ever been
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: killed by lightning at a professional or college football game? Zero. Zero.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: That is a fact. Zero documented cases of people being
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: killed by lightning at a professional or college football game.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: And yet it is almost impossible, especially on the college level,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: to play a college football game in the Southeast in
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: August or September where you're going to have constant thunderstorm possibilities.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: By the way, I mentioned this among hundreds of other
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: facts in a cover story that I had been asked
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: to write for Commentary Magazine, which is supposed to be
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: out on October 1st, that I don't know what the
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: title is going to be, but the subject is the
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: wussification of American sports. And so I'm really looking forward
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: to that coming out, and I think you will be
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: as well. So that's something I'm sure I'll talk about
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: more when it comes out, which again is scheduled for
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: October the 1st. And speaking of the wussification of sports,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: and specifically football, And the war on football, I would
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: be remiss if I did not mention a phenomenon that
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: I'm picking up on already early on in this football season.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: And I always hesitate to jump to conclusions here because
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: obviously it's a very big country and we live in
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: a world where if you're looking carefully enough, it's never
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: been easier to find stories. And is it possible that
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: you're hearing more about this or I'm hearing more about
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: this because I'm looking for stories in this realm. That
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: is possible. But I am picking up on what I
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: think is the beginning of an epidemic that is going
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: to be the end of high school football as we
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: know it. And I have been outspoken in the past
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: in saying that I think liberal academics have figured out
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: how to kill football, and they're very, very jealous of football.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: And especially as over time, and this is especially the
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: case in blue states, but my guess is that this
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: is the case in red states as well. Over time,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: within a high school, almost all the teachers have become women.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: Almost all of them, not all, but a lot of
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: them are liberal women. Liberal women hate football. And male teachers,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: your gym teacher, your high school football coach, have gotten
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: more and more put on an island with almost no support.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: And they are now under attack. And I think that
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: liberal academia has figured out one of the easiest and
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: best ways to destroy football. Because I'm seeing this all
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: over the country now. And again, with the caveat that
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: is it possible that I'm just more attuned to this,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: and therefore when I'm seeing stories, I'm going, oh goodness,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: what's going on here? But I don't think that's the
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: case because this is happening in areas of the country
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: where it shouldn't happen. And it's schools where it shouldn't happen.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: But what I'm referring to is already this year, I've
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: talked about how seasons get canceled over hazing allegations, which
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: are usually way overblown. That's a favorite for liberal academics
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: to attack. In fact, I saw one TikTok video. This
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: really incensed me. This middle-aged liberal female, I think a principal,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: went on TikTok and bragged about how she effectively had
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: destroyed her high school football team because she had suspended
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: three of the seniors in what sounded like a remarkably
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: minor hazing incident. And by the way, the way that
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: she did the punishment was actually going to greatly harm
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: the person who had been hazed that she didn't seem
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: to care about. But the most remarkable part about it
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: was you could almost see her salivating and And her joy,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: she was openly joyful over what she had done to
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: the football team. And to me, this was emblematic of
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: something that is much bigger and much more dangerous and
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: much more pervasive. And it's not a conspiracy. You know
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: I hate conspiracies. But what I think liberal academics have
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: figured out is that there's something unique about football, which
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: is you need a certain number of players on the
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: team far more than, let's say basketball. Everyone knows you
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: need at least five basketball players. No one's going to
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: cancel a basketball season because for some reason you only
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: have seven players. No one's going to do that. In fact,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: it'll probably be the opposite. People will rally to that
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: team going, let's hope they can get through the season.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: Hopefully no one gets injured. And boy, they're all going
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: to have to really dig down deep. And obviously there's
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: not going to be anybody to give them a rest,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: but nobody's going to cancel a season because you only
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: have seven or eight basketball players. However, I'm seeing a
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: lot of stories where against the will of the team
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: and the coaches, liberal academics are canceling high school football
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: seasons because they only have 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 players.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: And to me, this is very, very dangerous because number one,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: participation is gonna be down for a number of reasons.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: Number one, we've got a demographic cliff starting in high
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: school where there's just fewer and fewer high school students
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: because of birth rates. Number two, the commitment to football
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: is far greater than any other sport. And if you're
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna be a star, there's less incentive for kids
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: and parents to make that kind of commitment. And there's
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of kids that are just gonna quit And
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: so it's going to be more and more difficult, especially
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: if you're not on a team that's likely to be
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: very successful and you're not a bigger school. It's going
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: to be hard to get 25 or 30 kids to
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: play on a high school football team, which is what
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: you need to have a really healthy, viable roster. Because obviously,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you've got 11 men on offense, 11 men
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: on defense and then special teams. Now, the reality of
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: small school football has always been this is not new.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: You can do it with 20, 22 guys pretty easily
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: because your better players are going to go both ways.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: That's always been the case in high school football. But
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: I think what we've seen now is that there's been
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: a lowering of the standard. And again, my cynical mind
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: believes it's because liberal academics realize this is a way
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: they can stick a fork in football. They can claim
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: it's about safety. They can say it's about safety. in
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: an abundance of caution. We need to cancel the season.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: And so all they really need is for, and I
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: don't know what the magic number is, but it seems
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: like if a team has less than 22 guys, they're
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to having their liberal school administration kill the season.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: And they can always just claim it's about safety. I mean,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: this safety over everything is going to destroy so much
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: of American life. But there are so many forces, and
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: this is not the first time I've talked about this.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: There are so many forces working against small school, high
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: school football. There's the demographic issue. There's the commitment issue.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: There's the fact that kids today Pride doesn't matter. I mean,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: it used to be if you had a team that
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: knew it wasn't going to win a championship, that didn't matter.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: You still wanted to put out as good a team
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: as you could, put on a good showing, maybe beat
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: your rival. That's why rivalries matter. Rivalries used to matter
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: because it meant that if you were a team that
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: had no chance of winning a championship or going to
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: the playoffs, your season still had some significance because maybe
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: you could beat your rival, who obviously would be at
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: your level in most situations. Well, pride is gone. Rivalries
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: are gone. Everything's about winning championships and going to the
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: playoffs at every level. And so if you're at a
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: school that's a smaller school and is fighting to have numbers,
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: you're in big trouble, especially now that liberal academics have
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: figured out that this is the easiest way to stick
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: a fork in you and maybe, depending on the program,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: maybe save some money as well by just saying, well,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: we're doing this for the safety of the kids. Even
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: though the kids want to play, Even though they put
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a ton of work into this, the coaches, the same thing,
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And oh, by the way, the other part
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: of this equation, which drives me fucking crazy, is none
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: of these liberal academics realize that when you cancel your
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: school's football season, not only are you destroying so much
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: about your own school. But what about all your opponents?
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: Your opponents can't get someone to replace them. So now
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: you've just taken every single kid in every school you
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: play and you've taken one of their 10 games away,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: which they only get to play five home games in
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: their senior year. And you just took one away because
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: you're virtue signaling and because you hate football. And this,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: to me, When I say epidemic, I mean it. I
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: think there is the beginning of an epidemic here. And
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: when you add in the fact that now transfers are
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: normal and so you're a school that doesn't have a
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: great tradition and isn't a big school and you're a
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: good player, you're going to go to a bigger school,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: which is only going to further demoralize the kids that
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: are left at your school. So I think we are
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: headed to a situation where smaller high schools are, it's
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: going to be a rarity for them to have high
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: school football teams. And if that ends up being the case,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: something very significant will have been lost about American culture.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: And it will be incredibly sad. But I think we
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: are right on the precipice of that. And I think
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: we're seeing evidence of that on an almost daily basis
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: now throughout the country. One other sports-related story that I
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: need to talk about, in fact, I've been requested to
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: talk about it, deals with the world of golf and
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: golf marketing. And this is an incredibly... weird story. And
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: I did not discuss it last week because I just
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: didn't think that it had gotten enough attention to where
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: the podcast audience of the death of journalism would be
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: interested in this controversy. But now I think it actually
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: has gotten large enough. And again, like I said, I've
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: had at least a couple of people say, hey, John,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: can you give us your take on what happened with
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: regard to Good Good Golf and Callaway Golf and a
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: commercial that they put out that was so panned that
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: it has caused a massive, almost unprecedented level of damage
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: specifically to the brand of Good Good Golf. Now, for
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: the point of context, I am not a fan of
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: these now seemingly very popular, you know, online golf content outlets,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: but they're very popular among younger demographics. I actually, as
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: an old school guy, a traditionalist, I don't really like them.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I get, you know, you grow the game
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: and You know, you got to appeal to younger people.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: But to me, it's bringing in an element to the
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: sport that I don't think the sport needs. I don't
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: think the sport benefits from. And so I'm not a
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: big fan of any of these outlets. And Good Good
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: is one of the more popular ones, or at least was,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: until they did this commercial for Callaway. Callaway is a
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: golf equipment company. And the commercial was for the Good
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: Good Callaway drivers. And and this has caused an unbelievable
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: amount of controversy and outrage over what happened with regard
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: to this commercial, because apparently during the course of the
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: shooting of this commercial, one of the guys from Good
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Good assaulted a woman and she was badly beaten. And
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: she had to go into the hospital and she barely
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: survived the attack. Now, I can totally understand why that
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: has caused so much controversy and why Good Good has
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: suffered so many consequences because of that transpiring. Except that's
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: not what happened. There was no actual assault of a
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: woman or anyone else. Instead, what actually happened was during
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: this commercial, the guy from Good Good took a gun
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: out and shot fictitiously a woman and she was bloodied
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: and it was a really awful scene. And well, actually, no,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: that didn't happen either. No, that didn't happen. That's not
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: what caused the controversy. No. No, actually, what happened was
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: apparently that there was a visual effect of that appeared
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: to show the guy in the commercial pushing to the
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: ground a woman who was reaching for a driver in
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: the guy's back. That's right. By the way, it appears
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: as if the woman in question fully agreed to participate
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: in this. She knew what she was doing. She was
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: not harmed. You know, in the video, it doesn't even
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: seem like she could have been harmed. She's kind of
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: gently pushed to the ground. But this is what caused
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: all the controversy. And look, I think the commercial was terrible.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: I agree. It was awful. It's bizarre that it even
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: got approved by Good Good and by Calloway. And there's
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: a controversy over who actually approved it. But I also,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: as my sarcasm, I think, has already indicated, I also
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: believe that this has gotten way out of hand. I mean,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: this was an offense, but it was not a death
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: penalty offense, even though I don't even like Good Good.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: I think what happened here... I think the origins of
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: what happened were that they thought that they were doing
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: a spoof on a horror movie called Obsession that has
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: done exceedingly well at the box office, but mostly for
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: younger demographics. And I think in their world, people would
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: get the allusion to the Obsession horror movie. But most
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: people did not get it. Now, I'm not seeing the obsession.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: horror movie. I don't know whether or not you really
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: should have gotten it or not. But I think part
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: of what happened here was a natural result of the
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: fragmentation of our society, where in their world, something was ubiquitous.
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: But when they you know, put out this commercial, it
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: was clearly not well known enough for people to make
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: the connection to the obsession horror movie. And then you
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: have on top of that, without the people understanding the connection,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: people didn't get the idea. It seems stupid. It wasn't funny.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: Because if you're going to do something like this, it
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: better be funny or better make a really good point.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: And it clearly didn't do that. But is it warranting
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: The destruction of an entire brand? Because that's essentially what happened.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Callaway is separated from Good Good. The PGA Tour essentially
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: has canceled an event that was going to be sponsored
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: by Good Good. The Golf Channel has canceled a reality
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: show that was being put on by Good Good. I mean,
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: the Good Good brand, I think, is probably toast. Because
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: this turned out as poorly as it possibly could for
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: them because they tried to apologize. And the apology only
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: was seen as an admission of guilt, which then further
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: facilitated everybody throwing them under the bus. And their online
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: footprint is really not that large. Their number of ex-followers,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: their number of YouTube followers, it's not enormous enough to
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: be able to maintain itself. And it's a brand that's
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: based on vibes. And those vibes are all terrible now.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: And I really think when it comes to these kinds
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: of situations, Donald Trump has really shown people the way
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: that you have to go in the modern era to
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: survive this. Whenever you get into a situation like this,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: you cannot lose your balls. Trump understands this better than
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: anybody else I've ever seen. You can suffer a lot.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: But you cannot lose your balls. Because once you lose
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: your balls, it's over. And Good Good lost both their
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: brand and their balls. And now they're gone. And I
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: don't know how they possibly get it back. So from
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: a PR marketing perspective, I think Good Good is in
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: big trouble. I don't know how much trouble Callaway is
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: in on this. Although it seems to me Callaway... is
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: just as responsible as anybody else. I do think there's
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: another element of, you know, I'm a big believer that
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: oftentimes when it comes to vetting, one of the most
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: dangerous situations you can have is that everyone thinks that
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: someone else is doing the vetting. And so there may
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: have been some confusion over who, you know, who was
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: vetting this. Was it GoodGood or was it Callaway? And
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: essentially nobody really vetted this commercial. But the reality is,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: I think in the biggest of all pictures, this is
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: an indication, speaking of the wussification of America. Okay, this
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: was not good. This was deserving of, oops, we screwed up.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: Let's kill this commercial. But the reaction to it was
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: just so over the top. We'd become just so wussified
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: in everything. I mean, nobody was harmed. The woman in
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: the commercial fully agreed to consensually participate in her gently
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: being pushed to the ground. What's the big deal? It
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: is a very odd story to me. And I do
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: think it's an indication that we have just become so
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: damn soft as a society. But I have no love
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: for good good. So it's not like I'm weeping over
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: their destruction. I just find the whole thing to be
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: very strange, and yet telling about where we are as
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: a society. That'll do it for this episode of the
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. As is always the case, thanks
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Thanks for being a subscriber. Until
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: next time, so long. I'm John Zick.