Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Thirty Seven: The Art of the Deal

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Episode Two Hundred Thirty Seven: The Art of the Deal · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty seven of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host of today's show. Trump caves on tariffs, at
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: least for now, but at what cost. CNN feels forced
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: to insist they don't really hate America. Trump is threatening
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: CBS again. Bill Maher gives his meeting with Trump. Rave
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: reviews the Master's Golf Tournament is incredibly exciting but also
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: largely misunderstood. And there's yet another supposedly unthinkable development in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: college football that was actually easily predictable. We spent much
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of the last episode of the podcast talking about the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: stock market collapse in the wake of Donald Trump basically
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: putting tariffs on most of the world. And it was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: only moments after I stopped recording episode two hundred and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: thirty six Trump announced that he was pausing most of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: those tariffs for ninety days. And when I learned the news,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: almost immediately after I stopped recording, I thought, Okay, do
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I have to do something about what was said in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the podcast? Do I make an edit? Do I add
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: something a disclaimer? And I thought, you know what, I'm
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: just going to leave it as this one because it's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: part of the organic nature of this podcast that we
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: don't really do a lot of edits, and we keep
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in some mistakes, and we also just acknowledge that, especially
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: in this very crazy Trump era, the world is going
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to change on a dime on a regular basis, and
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  Speaker 1: it's basically impossible to try to keep up with it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But also mostly I kept it as it was because
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I really pretty much laid out the foundation for what
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I thought was going to happen. I just didn't think
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it was going to happen that fast, which was that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Trump would cave, because it's part of Trump's DNA, it's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: his mo to bluff and to cave, and that's essentially
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: what has happened so far when it comes to tariffs. Now,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to review a week ago, Trump put this pause on.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure what the hell that really means.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The stock market recovered most, although certainly not all, of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: its losses in the first few days of tariff Mania.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: By the way, as of this taping, it is currently down.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: The stock market is pretty significantly today. Gavin Newsome, of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: all people, governor of here in California, is suing to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: stop the tariffs, claiming that they're illegal, which is pretty
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: bizarre that Gavin Newsome maybe on the right side of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: this issue. I have no idea about what the prospects
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: for this lawsuit are, but it is interesting that Newsome
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: appears to be on the correct side of the issue,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: but both politically and maybe even constitutionally. And what apparently
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: happened a week ago according to the Wall Street Journal,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and they did some pretty good reporting on this, is
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  Speaker 1: that it was perfectly fine from the Trump administration perspective
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: for the stock market to at least temporarily collapse in
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the wake of all of these tariffs. And I explained
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: my view of why that happened. It wasn't just that
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the tariffs happened, it was the way that they happened.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: They were so ridiculous and based on such nonsense that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I think people lost confidence that Trump knew what the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: hell he was doing, and so that was part of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: why what was already baked into the market accelerated dramatically.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: But the Trump administration seemed to be fine with that
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: because that was temporary. What was really freaking them out
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: was the fact that the bond market went in the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: opposite direction of what they anticipated, and that started to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: set off really significant alarm bells for good reason, because
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: if you have, you know, both of them going haywire
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you could have a collapse of
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the entire economy. And what's most interesting from a media
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: perspective about what transpired is that, according to the Wall
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Street Journal, one of the key moments was Jamie Diamond
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of JP Morgan going on Fox Business and doing an
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: interview with Maria Bartaroma. Now, of course you got Fox Business.
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  Speaker 1: Trump watches Fox all the time. Maria Bartaroma is an
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  Speaker 1: anchor person or an interviewer that Trump seems to like,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and you know that gives the whole thing credibility in
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  Speaker 1: Trump's mind, and that Jamie Diamond effectively sent a message
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  Speaker 1: to Trump that the economy was going to tank, we
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: were going to go into recession if we didn't reverse course.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And at that point Trump apparently cried uncle. Now, of
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  Speaker 1: course he's blaming other people because he doesn't want to
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  Speaker 1: seem like he's weak, and he put out a statement.
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  Speaker 1: He actually made a statement publicly that I thought was
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  Speaker 1: pretty interesting on a number of levels, and he described
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  Speaker 1: what transpired and what facilitated this pause on tariffs is
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that people got yippie. Now, he wasn't specific about who
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: was getting yippie, and of course he's the one in charge,
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  Speaker 1: so ultimately he's the one that got the yips. For
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the record, you know, I find it very interesting that
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  Speaker 1: to use the term yippie, because the yips are very
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: much associated with golf, either the putting yips or the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: chipping yips where you basically lose your nerve. And of course,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: my sense is Trump being a golfer, that that's what
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: he's referring to, and his putting stroke is very, very yippy.
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  Speaker 1: So I do think there's relevance here to why Trump
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: chose the the word yippie. But here's what Trump said
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: in trying to explain his dramatic reversal, at least temporarily
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: on these massive tariffs across the globe. A two hours later,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: there was a pause put in on the terraff. Can
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you walk us through what you're thinking about why you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: decided to put a ninety day pause.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit
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  Speaker 2: out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: unlike these champions.
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  Speaker 1: Now I had several questions about what the heck Trump
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: really meant there. I do think again, using a golf term,
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  Speaker 1: there is a real insight as to what's going on
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in Trump's head and how he perceives this. He does
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: seem to be blaming everyone else, like you didn't have
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  Speaker 1: the nerve that I did, as if he's not totally
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: in charge, especially in this particular situation. There's another parallel
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to golf my view, and that is that Trump's whole
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: persona here, his whole plan, his whole strategy, at least
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: strategically in the public perception, is very similar to his
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: golf game. His golf game is you know, I claim
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to win club championships all the time, but we never
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: see any video, we never see any scores, we don't
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: have any details. So we just got to trust him,
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  Speaker 1: trust him that he was victorious. Well, that's the whole
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: plan here, which is this is gonna be the art
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of the deal. So you're not gonna really be able
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: to see unless because no one really gets into the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: details here, You're not gonna be able to see what
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  Speaker 1: I really did when it comes to all these deals
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  Speaker 1: I'm supposedly gonna make in lieu of tariffs that are
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  Speaker 1: gonna be great for America. You're just gonna to trust
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  Speaker 1: me that I won, trust me that I won, trust
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  Speaker 1: me that I won, just like when you trust me
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  Speaker 1: that I won when I claimed that I won club
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: championships in golf. So I do think that there's a
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: similarity there, and I do think that that's largely what
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen now. Of course, everybody in the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: administration immediately was forced to go out there and said,
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  Speaker 1: this is the art of the deal. This is the
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  Speaker 1: master negotiator. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa whoa, whoa,
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  Speaker 1: whoa whoa. Hold on a second, here, this is bullshit,
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  Speaker 1: even by Trump standards. First of all, as I articulated
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  Speaker 1: in the last episode of the podcast, there's an inherent
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: problem here. There's an inherent contradiction in the entire philosophy
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of tariffs. There's several but the primary one in my
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: view is, Okay, is this really a great policy to
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  Speaker 1: save the middle class of America, to save American manufacturing,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to save the middle class, make America great again? Or
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is this simply a negotiation tactic? Which is it? And
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  Speaker 1: it's absolutely astonishing. It's not surprising, but it's still astonishing
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  Speaker 1: given the nature of the Trump cult, the MAGA cult,
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  Speaker 1: that there was zero blowback. As far as I can tell,
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  Speaker 1: that Trump, at least temporarily has totally abandoned the saving
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  Speaker 1: of the American middle class and American manufacturing and American jobs. Again,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going by what his own words and apparent philosophy
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  Speaker 1: on tariffs are or were or is. I'm going by
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  Speaker 1: by his own view of this. Okay, you think tariffs
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  Speaker 1: are going to save American manufacturing, save the middle class,
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  Speaker 1: make America grade again. So if you give up on them,
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  Speaker 1: aren't you giving up on everything you said that they
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  Speaker 1: would do. And by the way, aren't you giving up
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  Speaker 1: on them because you sold out to the corporate elite
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  Speaker 1: like Jamie Diamond and all the other corporate executives that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: were calling Susie Wiles according to the Wall Street Journal,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: panicking about what was going to happen. I mean, if
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  Speaker 1: you believe Trump's own view of tariff's this was an
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  Speaker 1: absolutely shocking and catastrophic sellout to the corporate elites, betraying
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  Speaker 1: the magabase. Now, I don't believe that, because I don't
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  Speaker 1: believe that the tariff thing was ever real. I never
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  Speaker 1: thought this was going to be a long drawn out situation,
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  Speaker 1: although I thought it'd be longer than a few days.
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  Speaker 1: But regardless of the time period, I've always thought that
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  Speaker 1: this was a negotiating tactic, because that's Trump's m that's
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  Speaker 1: Trump's DNA. But if you go by what he said
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  Speaker 1: and what the philosophy here supposedly was, this was a
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  Speaker 1: massive sellout, a massive sellout. Now, of course you put
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the ninety day pause on it, and you always have
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the plausible deniability. Oh no, no, I'm not backing off
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  Speaker 1: the policy. The policy is still going to be there. Well,
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  Speaker 1: what's different in ninety days? And that's the other part
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  Speaker 1: of this that I just don't get from. Okay, let's
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  Speaker 1: say it's all a negotiation, negotiation tactic. Easy for you
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to say a negotiation tactic part of the deal, right, Well,
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  Speaker 1: if you have already proven to the world that you
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  Speaker 1: don't have the balls, the pain tolerance, at least in
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  Speaker 1: the short run to go through with this, and you've
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  Speaker 1: exposed to the world what our vulnerability is here, specifically
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to China. By the way, and I've always, as I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: said in the last episode, of the podcast. This is
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  Speaker 1: really mostly about China, China, the EU and maybe Canada.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing else really matters. So when you hear all these
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  Speaker 1: stories and right now they're just stories. There's no reality
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to it that Trump is going to make deals with
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  Speaker 1: seventy five countries that are begging to make deals. No
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  Speaker 1: evidence of that yet, none, And I have no trust
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  Speaker 1: that that's real. And I really don't have any trust
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  Speaker 1: that it's real because in putting on the pause, you
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: have lost all the leverage. It is absolutely amazing to
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  Speaker 1: me that a guy who has obviously made his bones
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: in real estate and you know, Art of the Deal
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  Speaker 1: was his best selling book, and that's what he's most
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  Speaker 1: well known for, this great negotiator, So many times it
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: appears to me as if he does not understand the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: basics of leverage. And when you have shown that you
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: don't have the pain tolerance, you've shown what our vulnerability is,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: which is, oh my god, if you sell our treasuries
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and the bond market goes in the opposite direction of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: where it's supposed to go, when the stock market goes down,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and this whole you know, the economy shifts and the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: way that it was going for a few days, we
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: are going to cry on call. And so if you
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: pause something and show that, okay, stop the fight. Stop
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the fight. Now we're going to negotiate what is your leverage,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: You're going to go back to the same Now I
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: was the only Now you've lost three months, and I've
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: talked constantly about how there's a massive time problem here.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Even from the start, Trump didn't have enough time to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: make this work. Well, you have pause ninety days, you've
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: lost another three months. And the biggest issue here is
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the inherent uncertainty that all of this causes. Nobody knows
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: what to do. Manufacturers in America don't know what to do.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I'm amazed that the stock market hasn't collapsed a second
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: time yet again as of this taping. It's going down today,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: but it's nowhere near what it was before Trump issued
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the pause on the tariffs. By the way, there's to
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: be clear, you know, if a democratic administration had hand
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Donald their president, whether Donald Trump or whoever, Joe Biden,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, whoever, put out a social media post saying
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: bye bye bye, meaning the stock market, and before that happened,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and then the tariffs got paused, there was all sorts
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: of evidence of insider trading, that people had gotten the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: word that Trump was about to pause the tariffs and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: made heavy purchases in the stock market, and the evidence
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: of this seems to be, if not overwhelming, extremely strong.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: That something happened with regard to insider trading. That's all
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the right wing media would be talking about. It's all
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the right wing media would be talking about if this
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: happened in a democratic administration. It doesn't prove that Trump
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: had anything to do with it, or that there even
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: really was insider trading, because sometimes people can make really
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: good guesses. But the reality is that's not the way
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the right wing media would be perceiving it if this
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: was a democratic administration. And so the right wing media
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: has ignored the insider trading situation largely. They've ignored the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: complete and total sellout of the middle class based upon
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Trump's own philosophy of tariffs. And they have completely ignored
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about when it comes to giving up
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: your leverage, because you've already proven that you don't have
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the guts to go through with this. You don't have
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the strength to go through with this, either psychologically or
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: from the basics of the financial markets, largely because of
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: what happened with bonds, and then that leads me to China,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: because I said in the last episode of the podcast,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. This
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is all about China, China, China, and I don't think
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: we can win this with China, not because we don't
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: have advantages, but because we don't have time. We don't
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: have time on our side, and Trump certainly doesn't have
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: time on his side. China can wait forever. China also
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: has complete control over their own policies that to worry
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: about politics really or courts really, they don't really even
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: have to worry that much about their own people, the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: perception of them among their population, So they don't have
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: any of the same burdens and restrictions on their power
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: that Trump has on his and effectively, in my view,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: they have us by the balls because they own a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: large part of our debt and it's uncertain as to
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: how much influence they really played on our bond market,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: but it certainly seems to be logical that China played
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a significant role in causing the panic that resulted in
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the pause. Now, the pause did not directly one hundred
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: percent impact China. But now Trump is, as he's doing,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: constantly confusing everything by lifting some of the tariffs in
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: certain areas like technology whatever. You So I don't even
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: understand fully what's being tariffed and what's not being tariffed.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And but the reality is we are in a trade
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: war currently with China. And there was a clip from
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Victor Gaio or Gayo
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Gao maybe I guess that's how it said, Victor Goo
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that I want to play here because to me, this
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: articulates almost one my concerns about why we are not
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: in a leveraged position, certainly not nearly to the extent
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: that those in the Trump administration have claimed when it
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: comes to a trade war with China. And Victor Gao
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: was doing an interview on Channel four I believe in Australia,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and he is he's known as the de facto spokesperson internationally,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the international spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party. It's not
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: an official position, but he does a lot of interviews
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and here he's into a discussion with the female news
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: anchor and really articulates to me my greatest fear, which
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: is exactly as I've been saying, that China doesn't give
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a shit that all the things that you know, if
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: we I think what's happening here is that we see
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the strengths and weaknesses of each side through the prism
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of the Chinese looking at the world the same way
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: that we do. In other words, if if we were
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: in China's position, we would consider ourselves to be in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the weaker standpoint of the weaker position that we would be
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: leveraged against the United States. But they don't look at
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it that way because their situation is different, their value
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: system is different, and their view of time is completely different.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And that's really what Victor gal centers in on on
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: this I think very telling statement did Frankly, I think
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: every American ought to see because it's just that chilling.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: But here's Victor Gal on again Channel four. I believe
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: in Australia.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: China is fully prepared to fight to the very end
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: because the world is big enough that the United States
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: is not the totality of a market in the world.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So if the United States wants to go in that
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: direction of completely shutting itself out of the Chada market,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: be my guest.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And China will lose the US market, which I've
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: said it's fifteen.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: We don't care, we don't, we don't care.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: China has been here for five thousand years. Most of
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: the time there was no United States, and we survived.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: And if the United States wants to bully China, we
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: will deal with the situation without the United States, and
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: we expect to survive for another five thousand years.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: When you hear Donald Trump say China wants a deal,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't know how to go about it. They're
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: proud people.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: JD.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Vance talks about Chinese peasants.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: What do you make of their conduct in this respect?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: If JD.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Evans thinks that he's dealing with the peasants in China,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: and I'm proud to be a descendant of the peasants.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Most of us are descendants of the peasants anyway, that's
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: our tradition. We are farmers before, but now we are
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: one of the leading industrialized economists in the world. So
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: JD.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Evans doesn't know what he's talking about, and therefore I
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: don't think there will be China US dialogue unless the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: United States changes its attitude towards China deal with China
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: as it is. She'll respect to China, She'll respect to
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: the Chinese people, and don't try to impose your prejudice
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: and bias the view about China or about the rest
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: of the world.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Now, when I saw that, I was like, Okay, this
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: is exactly what I was hearing this. They don't care.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: They're in the long haul, and you know, it doesn't matter.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: You know, if we think that we are in a
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: leveraged position in certain ways economically, if they're not accepting
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the same basis for evaluating reality, which they're not. They're
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: living in a completely different environment in China, and they
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: are willing to endure a lot of short term, maybe
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: even long term pain in order to win this. We
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: are not, and we've already proven that. So to me,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: what Trump has done here is actually put us in
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a much worse position because now he's exposed us as
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: having extreme vulnerabilities and not having the balls to go
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: through with this, or China now knows they have us
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: by the balls. There's a couple of analogies that I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: think are pretty appropriate here. There's Trump as a surgeon analogy,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and that is that I'm trying to be as fair
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and reasonable as I possibly can, as I oem always
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: am with Trump. But you know, Trump looks at the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: American economy and sees it in the long run, We've
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: got cancer, which I agree with. We've got several cancers.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: We have a debt cancer, and you know we also
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: have a lack of manufacturing cancer and a middle class cancer.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I get all that. I'm willing to accept the diagnosis. Right,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And Trump, at least publicly has stated that he has
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: no choice. But in order to save America, to make
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: America great again, we must do major surgery. And in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: major surgery, of course, there's a theory is almost always
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: short term pain to long term gain or survival. Right,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I'm with him on all that. That's fine, And so
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: here's what ends up happening. Trump decides, Okay, here's the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: surgery we're gonna do. We're gonna place these tariffs on everybody,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: almost everybody across the world. And you know, it's gonna
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: be short term pain, but this will allow American manufacturing
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to return and do all sorts of great things. It's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: going to reduce the cost of our debt, which actually
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: ended up doing the opposite in the short run, which
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: is partially why everyone panicked and uh, you know, this
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: is what's gonna make America great again. And everyone around
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Trump was like give him the side eye, like are
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: you sure you really want to do this? And they're
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: thinking he's not really gonna go through with the surgery,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: is he? I mean, because everyone knows this isn't gonna work.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: We're gonna lop off a couple of limbs here, and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be blood everywhere, and everyone's gonna panic and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and it's just gonna be awful. But everyone is also
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: afraid to tell him not to do it, because you know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: he the one in charge, he's the top surgeon. So
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: he goes ahead and finally does it. Everyone's like, holy shit,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I can't believe he did this. And in the first
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: bit of the surgery, there's blood everywhere, and finally some
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: people around Trump started to say, you know, maybe we
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: should put a pause on this, let's stop, let's reevaluate this,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and Trump the surgeon decides, Okay, you know, maybe that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: a better idea. I'm gonna pause this, so he stops
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: the surgery in the middle. But you still have a
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: patient that's got multiple cancers that are eventually going to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: be terminal. How long it's going to take, no one knows.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And so now what do you do. You've created blood,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you've created some damage. It hasn't been catastrophic yet, But
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: now what are your other options? Where do you go
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: from here? And that leads me to a second analogy
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: that maybe even better, although my guess is that Trump
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: fans will hate this even more than the Surgeon analogy.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: If you know anything about Civil War history and the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Battle of Gettysburg, probably the most famous and most catastrophic
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: military tactic in the Civil War history was what was
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: called pickets charge. And this was a move by General
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Lee of the Confederacy having picket charged the Union forces. Uh.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: And it was a complete and total disaster, I mean,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: total wipeout catastrophe and really ended the Battle of Gettysburg,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: which then turned the war to the Union side, and
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: obviously the Confederacy lost. And here's my analogy here with terrorists,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: So the terrorists are pickets charge. Trump is Lee Lee.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: It's this idea that many people now think was freaking
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: crazy to go ahead and do this. Even though some
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: people are telling Lee this is a bad idea, This
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: isn't gonna work. Even Pickett didn't seem to be completely
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: convinced that this was a really good idea. And so
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in this particular case, you know, there's enough communication maybe
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you know there's their cell phone, uh in in Gettysburg.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And Lee is able to see that the beginning of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Pickett's charge is not working out well, and he texts
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Pickett and says, all right, call it off, retreat and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: uh and you know there's some casualties, but it's not catastrophic.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So they retreat. And of course, in this analogy, the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Confederate media, the right wing media, in this analogy, cheers
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Lee is a freaking genius, the master negotiator, the art
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of the deal. He showed the Union that we're willing
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and able to do. He's just gonna hold off. Now
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you're gonna put a pause on pickets charge. Well, the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: reality here is you've still got a problem. You still
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: have the Union army there in a leveraged position against you.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: You're in foreign soil, effectively in Pennsylvania, when most of
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: your forces are from Virginia. And now what are you
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: gonna do now that you've paused things? You've already proven
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: that the charge from picket isn't gonna work, that you
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: don't have the balls to go through with it, not
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to mention that it's a bad tactic, And so how
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: are you in any better position than you were before
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you started pickets charge, even though you were brilliant enough
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to call it off to limit casualties and prevent a catastrophe.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So I think both of those analogies have value. Neither
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of are perfect, But the reality of the situation is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we're actually, I believe, worse off right now then we
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: were a couple of weeks ago before this whole thing started.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Even though in magnet world they think that this was
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: fantastic and that now Trump is going to be able
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to negotiate all these deals with all these countries. Well,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: until I see proof of that actually happening, which I'm
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: skeptical of, I'm not going to believe that that was
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: really effective negotiation tactic, partially because we've already exposed that
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: we don't have the leverage. When you put the pause
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: on it, you've proven that you're not willing to go
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: through with this. You've proven you don't have the strength
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to carry it out, either psychologically or financially. Again, I
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: don't think you can overestimate the importance of what happened
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: in the bond market. And because now that's essentially our balls.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: We've now proven to the whole world, especially China, that
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: don't go after the bond market that you know, we're
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: going to my uncle immediately. And so I don't see
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: how you win from here maybe, And I don't know,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I don't see any strategy at all for getting out
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a possibility that Trump basically lets this
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: fade away and says never mind, and it will claim
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: some sort of victory by ending the tariffs, even though
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: there will be no great deals made. That's probably the
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: most likely scenario, and he'll definitely get away with that
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: magworld thanks to the right wing media. But economically that's
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: not going to help anything. And you know, the stock
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: market is not nearly everything obviously in the economy, but
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the stock market matters. Stock market is down significantly since
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Trump took office. And you know, we've not passed any
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: sort of tax cut, there are no real laws being passed.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: There's some decent things happening on illegal immigration, but almost
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: everything else is getting caught up in the cour Some
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of the stuff on illegal immigrations being caught up on
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the courts. DOGE seems to be largely a failure, which
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: are going to get to momentarily. But this is all
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to me not looking very good. We're not even one
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: hundred days into this yet, and I don't want to
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: make any sort of conclusions as if yet, and I've
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: tried to be very very open minded, but as of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: right now, this is almost a shit show. Which is
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: hilarious because in magaworld they think this is a fantastic administration.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And Trump's approval ratings are all over the map. Some
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: are really good, some are really bad. I think it's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: very difficult for polsters to be able to accurately discern
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: what his approval rating is. But certainly in Maga world
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: they think that everything is just honky dory and amazing.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I'm certainly not in that camp now as far as
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: China is concerned. There was another development that was also
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: pretty darn scary, and this was in the realm of media,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Facebook or Meta. And you know, Facebook is in the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: middle of a trial right now, monopoly trial that's not
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: looking particularly good for them. But there was a congressional
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: hearing last week that had some explosive testimony from what
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I would I guess you would call a Facebook meta
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: whistleblower named Sarah Wynn Williams, who was a top Facebook
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: executive several years ago, and she testified under oath to
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Congress in an absolutely scathing manner about Facebook's relationship with
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: China and how they were doing the bidding for China,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: specifically on the issue of giving user information and censoring
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: free speech. And frankly, I'm not sure which I'm more
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: concerned about in her testimony, the actions of Facebook or
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the actions of China. It's probably a little bit of both.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: But since I have kind of defended, or I just defended,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I've praised Mark Zuckerberg for having this come to Jesus
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: moment on free speech and talking a good game even
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: during the twenty twenty four election, and I acknowledged that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: it was certainly possible that part of what was happening
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: was that Zuckerberg was afraid of Trump winning the election
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and the ramifications of that, and he needed to kiss
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Trump's ass, and he needed to change his persona when
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: it comes to America and free speech. And so I'm
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: not being naive here, I just was liking a lot
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of what Zuckerberg was saying. I even put forward the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: theory that maybe Zuckerberg was having his own personal evolution
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: as he was becoming a real adult, and a lot
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of real adults when they understand the real world, they
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: become more conservative. But maybe I was. Maybe I was
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: being a little bit naive. I don't know, because this
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: is just absolutely astonishing testimony that, frankly, I'm amazed didn't
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: get more publicity. But here is a former Facebook top executive,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Sarah Wynn Williams, testifying to Congress about the relationship between
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Facebook and China.
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: During my time at Meta, company, executors lied about what
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress,
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: and the American public. I sit before this committee today
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: to set the record straight about these illegal and dangerous activities.
• 33:39
  Speaker 7: Meta's dishonesty started with the betrayal of core American values.
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: Mark Zuckerberg pledged himself a free speech champion, yet I
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: witnessed met her work hand in glove with the Chinese
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: Communist Party to construct and test custom built censorship tools
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: that silenced and censored their critics. When Beijing demanded that
• 34:08
  Speaker 7: Facebook delete the account of a prominent Chinese dissident living
• 34:12
  Speaker 7: on American soil. They did it, and then lied to
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: Congress when asked about the incident in a Senate hearing.
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: The willingness to censor was not the only troubling thing
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: I witnessed. I watched as executives decided to provide the
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: Chinese Communist Party with access to Meta user data, including
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: that of Americans. Meta does not dispute these facts.
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: They can't.
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: I have the documents. As recently as this Monday, they
• 34:46
  Speaker 7: claim that they do not operate their services in China,
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: another lie. In fact, they began offering products and services
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: in China as early as twenty fourteen. That hasn't stopped.
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: Their own SEC filings from last year show that China
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: is now met as second biggest market.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's becoming very very obvious that our number
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: one geopolitical foe really is China. It's not really Russia
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: right now. Russia's obviously preoccupied in Ukraine. Trump likes to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: believe he has a great relationship with Putin. I am
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: very concerned about Russia and Putin. I'm not at all
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: going soft on them, But to me, this is much
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: more about China, and that increases the importance of if
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: we're going to be in a trade war with China,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: we better fucking win. But I'm not sure that we can,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: because I don't think we have nearly the weapons at
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: our disposal that really matter, as many in the Trump
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: administration pretend that we do, which I've already explained the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: why and the how on that. Now I want to
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: move to another couple of issues related to the media
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump. And of course Trump is constantly attacking
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the media most of the time. I agree with him
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: on that. Obviously, no one has more disdain for the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media than I do. I probably have at
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: least as much as Donald Trump does, because Donald Trump
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: has I oftentimes love the media. I mean, the media
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: is what made him the Republican candidate in twenty sixteen.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: That seems to be something people have long forgotten, But
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it was the mainstream news media that played in a
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: huge role in Donald Trump getting the Republican nomination in
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. I've written and talked extensively about that. But
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I do think that Trump has gone too far in
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: many occasions. On many occasions and in many ways, and
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: he's beating this drum too much. And yes, I know
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: his base loves it, and as someone who has disdained
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: for the news media, I should enjoy it as well.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is funny, but sometimes it goes too far,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I think it is purely a method of distraction.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: And his base loves him dunking on the media and
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: they love the mic drops and they think he's hilarious,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and sometimes he is. I will one hundred percent give
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: him that. But there was a remarkable episode that occurred
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: at the White House earlier this week when the head
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of the El Salvadorian government was meeting with Donald Trump.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And I want to play a couple of clips here.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The first is Donald Trump going after Caitlin Collins of CNN.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: She's the White House correspondent for CNN, and obviously CNN
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: is a very consistent target of Donald Trump and of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the maga world. I get it, I understand it. I
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: don't think it's based in any sort of delusion. I
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: think largely CNN, although not totally, is very biased against
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and has been very biased against Donald Trump.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have that much disdain for Caitlyn Collins. I
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: think she's a liberal pretending to be a moderate, which
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: always bothers me. But I don't think that she's the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: worst defender. But obviously, Caitlyn Collins had that infamous town
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: hall in New Hampshire in the twenty twenty four presidential
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: primaries that went very very poorly for her and for CNN,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: and so Trump loves to dunk on her because he
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: thinks that it has been good for him in the past,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and not without good reason for thinking that. So here
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: was in the White House, Donald Trump going after Caitlyn
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Collins over this, over her questioning over this issue of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: deportations and boot camps and Al Salvador and this big
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: controversy that frankly, I'm not that into. I mean, I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: think we got way way more important things to worry about.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I get why some people are concerned about the due
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: process issues. I get it, but you know, to me,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: this is way down on the priority list. But this
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: was Donald Trump going after Caitlyn Collins at the White House. Well,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the President, you said that if the Supreme Court said
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: You said that on Air Force one just a few
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: days ago, and they said that it must keep facilitating.
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: keeping criminals out of our country? Why can't you just
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: say that?
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Why do you go over and over and that's why
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: nobody watches you anymore?
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: You know you have no credibility. Please go ahead.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: So then after that, Trump is basically commiserating with the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: leader of El Salvador over this issue of numbers involving
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I guess it's immigration deportation and why it is that CNN,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: of all places, won't actually tell the truth. And he
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: makes the statement that it must be because CNN hates America.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: And here's what that sounds like.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: In the military now, Marines, the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard,
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: every slot is I mean, we have the best numbers
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: we've ever had. We caught recruitment recruitment numbers, and we've
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: never had anything like if we had records on every
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: single at every single level. But very important, the policemen.
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: The policemen are joining forces now that we really were
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: having a hard time with policemen because we weren't protecting
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: our police, and we cherish our police. Police are great,
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: and the firemen and everybody else. But we have the
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: highest numbers that we've ever had, the most enthusiasm. We've
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: great enthusiasm, and on trade and other things, we're doing great.
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: We're taking in billions and billions of dollars we made
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: two weeks ago. I gave them a little bit of
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: a pause because you know, you have to show a
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: little flexibility. We go back to what we have to do.
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: The markets have been very strong once they got used
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: to it, but we were losing two billion dollars a day.
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: There's no company big like this, but it's the biggest
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: deal ever met. Now we're making three billion dollars a day.
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: We're a great country, but we had stupid people running
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: this country. And I can say what they've done to
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: us at the border should never and can never be forgotten.
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: It's a sin what they did. And you were helping
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: us out and we appreciate it.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, what you're doing with the border is remarkable. It's
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: drug what ninety five percent, it's ridical.
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: As this morning, ninety nine ninety nine point to be exact.
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: Why are those numbers not in the media, Well, they
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: get out with the fake news, you know, like CNN,
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: CNN over here doesn't want to put them out because
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: they don't like they don't like putting out good numbers.
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: They don't like putting out because I think they hate
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: our country. Yeah, but it's a shame. You're right, isn't
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: that a great question? Why doesn't the media, Why don't
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: they put out numbers? Yeah, it's crazy, right, we're doing Christy,
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: could you maybe say a couple of words about the border,
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: how we do it? Yeah, it's just been absolutely phenomenal.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: What a great leader can do. Clear direction, Our laws matter. Now,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: obviously this is going way off on a tangent for
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: what is supposed to be this meeting at the White
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: House between the President United States and the leader of Valsalvador.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: That somehow we're using all of this to attack CNN.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's particularly appropriate for the President United
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: States to be saying that a major news outlet hates America.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: You know, you can make an argument that some people
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: who have been allowed on CNN certainly hate America. I
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: get that there's there's ample evidence of that. But as
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: an institution, as a media outlet, the CNN really hate America,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. And I don't think Trump really
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: believes that either. But all of this created the rather
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: hilarious and very telling set of circumstances where after this
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: event was over with Dana Bash, who was anchoring CNN's
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: coverage of it, felt compelled to make the unprecedented statement
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: in a very almost frightened tone, that yeah, despite what
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the President said, CNN does not hate America. We need
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to make this on the record, this official statement that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: CNN does not hate America. This is where we are, folks,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: And that's here's what it sounded like on CNN.
• 43:47
  Speaker 8: Our reporters, Jeff Zelini, I want to start with you,
• 43:50
  Speaker 8: you are at the White House. Before I get you,
• 43:53
  Speaker 8: I just want to say, for the record, since we
• 43:56
  Speaker 8: heard President Trump say in the Oval Office that CNN
• 44:00
  Speaker 8: hates our country, CNN does not hate our country. That
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: should go without saying. I've been here for thirty two years,
• 44:08
  Speaker 8: and I see a rhetorical device in him trying to
• 44:14
  Speaker 8: say such a thing.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, Mago world loved that. I mean, that
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: went viral online. Oh my god. Trump is such a god.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: He forced CNN to try to claim that they don't
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: really hate America. And look, I don't know that was
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the right way for CNN to do it. I don't
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: think it helped anybody. I don't think anybody that was
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: watching them was really convinced. Oh oh, before you said that,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Dana Bash, I thought CNN hated America. Now I'm convinced
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you don't really hate America. That's not going to happen.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: And of course, in this social media age, that clip
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: was going to go viral and Mago World was going
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: to dunk on CNN further and Dana Bash further, and
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: it was just going to make Trump look great because
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: he's a genius. Because here he is. This is all
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: part of his strategy to make the left wing media
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: look bad, to diminish their already diminished influence and power,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: because they just look silly. And you know, Trump's a genius.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: That's the basic narrative on the right wing. Trump is
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a genius. And you know what, I don't know how
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: much of this is by design, how much of this
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: is by luck. I really don't think that Trump purposely decided, Okay,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make CNN the issue of this meeting with
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the leader of l Salvador, and that they're gonna therefore
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: be forced to, you know, to claim publicly that they
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: don't hate America because I just said that they hate America.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's his whole plan. I just I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: think he goes by whatever his gut is telling him
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and whatever feels good in the moment. And he was
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: irritated by Caitlyn Collins question, and so he decided to
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: go all out on CNN, and then of course seeing
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: takes debait and they look silly and rinse and repeat.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: This continues to happen on an almost a daily basis.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the positive benefit of this is.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I really don't. I mean again, I have disdain for
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media in general, and I have been extremely
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: critical of CNN on many and many occasions. They have
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: absolutely deserved it. But I just I don't see where
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: this is going. How does this make America grade again?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I just don't see that. And speaking of making America
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: great again, Donald Trump is somehow connected making America grade
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: again with threatening the license of CBS. And this is
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in the context of the President United States suing Paramount
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and CBS over numerous stories that Donald Trump doesn't like,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: specifically the very shady editing of the Kamala Harris sixty
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: minutes interview from late in the twenty twenty four campaign,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: something that we documented on this podcast in which I
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: thought was very wrong in the way CBS did it.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I did not believe that it was illegal, nor could
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: it be or should it be illegal. And I believe very,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: very strongly that there is a massive difference between candidate
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump talking about suing CBS over stories he doesn't like,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: which I think would just be wrong but not that
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: huge deal, and President Donald Trump actually suing a company
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: with whom he's in negotiations for a settlement. Apparently there
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: have been all sorts of rumors that Paramount is eventually
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: going to cave. That has not happened as of yet,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: but you know, meda cave. ABC caved, and so I
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: think Trump now sees this as you know, he's the
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: guy who has mastered the art of the deal. He
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: can get all sorts of money for his for his
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: presidential library, he can make these media outlets that he
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't like suffer. There's even some logic to this from
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a strategic standpoint, But to me, that's where the line
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: gets crossed. When you are the president of the United States,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: first of all, you should not be suing media companies.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: You just shouldn't be doing it. That is too much
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: in line with totalitarianism and authoritarianism. It just doesn't happen.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: It should not happen in America, and especially when the
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: basis of the lawsuit is incredibly flimsy. I mean, can
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you imagine if if that really was deemed to be
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: illegal what sixty Minutes did with Kamala Harris's interview. I
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: think it was totally wrong. It was ethically wrong, it
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: was journalistically wrong, and it needed to be exposed and
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: it needed to be criticis. But for that to be illegal,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: that would open up a Pandora's box that would make
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: reporting almost impossible, especially in this day and age. It
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: would be impossible. You'd be getting sued into oblivion on
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a consistent basis. And maybe that's what Trump wants. Maybe
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: he doesn't really even want a fourth estate, which, by
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the way, it's consistent with the talitarianism and authoritarianism. I'm sorry,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people think, oh, that's TDS,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: that's Trump's arrangement syndrome. John, He's not really being a totalitarian. Yeah,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: actually he is. And he put out a statement the
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: other day that frankly didn't just go over the line.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: It urinated all over the line, and it's very obvious.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: But this was his statement on social media regarding CBS.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: He put out some very vague and I didn't think
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: particularly compelling our gu imments about all the things that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: CBS has done wrong to him. That's basically what it is.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: They don't put out stories he doesn't like. But he
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: concluded the social media post with this paragraph, they meaning
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: CBS should lose their license exclamation point. Now before I
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: finish with the rest of this social media post from
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: President Donald Trump, that alone, right there is absolutely totally
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: wrong and scary. And if a Democratic president did it,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: every single conservative in the media would be going out paplectic.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, if this was being done to a conservative
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: media outlet, everyone would be losing their minds, and rightfully so.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: The president of the United States candidate Trump is a
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: very different story than President Trump because now he has
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the power to do something about this. This isn't just
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: him saying, gee, I think they ought to lose their license.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: He's the guy in charge. And when he writes they
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: should lose their license exclamation point, he follows it up
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: by saying, hopefully the Federal Communications Commission the FCC, as
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: headed by its highly respected chairman Brendan Carr, a guy
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: put there by Donald Trump, will impose the maximum fines
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: CBS is out of control at levels never seen before,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and they should pay a big price for this. Make
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: America great again. Exclamation point all capital letters. I'm sorry, folks,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I realize Trump trolls, I realize Trump jokes. I realize
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: that a lot of this is bluster and may even
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: be a negotiating strategy with regard to the settlement of
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: this lawsuit. I would like to believe that that's really
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: what's going on, And a large part of me does
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: believe that that this absolutely absurd, public rhetic rhetoric coming
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: from a US president, completely inappropriate, totally anti American, is
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: mostly a negotiation tactic to pressure paramount CBS into settling
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: that lawsuit. That it hasn't happened yet. That's my perception
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: here is that he thought they were going to cave,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: he thought they were going to settle. It hasn't happened yet,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: So now he's going to amp up the pressure because
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: he's the master of the art of the deal. Doesn't
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: matter that you have to break all sorts of inciboles
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and precedents as president, including threatening the license of one
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of the three major television networks. It, I mean, the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: mind boggles, And I realize I point out the hypocrisy
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: thing all the time, but the right wing media would
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: be rightly, correctly appropriately going bananas if the exact exact
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: same thing was happening to a conservative media outlet by
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: a democratic president. And these types of things set a precedent,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: it desensitizes us to this insanity. And even if Trump
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: is bluffing, as he mostly you know, probably is and
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: usually is, like with the tariffs, then what's going to
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: happen down the road when somebody else is far more
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: serious about this and they make the exact same statement
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and nobody reacts to it. Well, because you know, Trump
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: said it and nothing happened, So what's the big deal?
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Not to mention, we're living in a world where a
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: huge portion I don't know what the percentage is, but
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: a huge percentage might even be close to half of
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Trump's political base would be thrilled if CBS was put
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: out of business. That is not the way. That is
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: not the path. I mean, the path has always been
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: to expose their journalistic malpractice, create more competition, hold them accountable,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and try to get some semblance of fairness in their coverage.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: You don't, especially when they haven't actually broken the law.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: You don't illegally threatening their license. I mean, it would
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: be not illegal to threaten their license, but it would be,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: in my view, illegal to take their license without legitimate
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: legal foundation or grounds. And that's what Trump wants to
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: do here. And nobody in the right wing media is
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: standing up against this. Nobody, which has always been my
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: greatest fear about Trump two point zero, because now you
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: have Trump as a god king who can do no wrong,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: and nobody will stand out to him in any way,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: shape or form. And that is a very very dangerous situation,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: even if he's not really serious about taking away the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: license for CBS. But if you're Brendan Carr, the head
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: of the SEC, what do you do now? Now you
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: have to at least act like you're willing to do this,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: because that's the world we're living in now, where the
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: President United States and the head of the Republican Party
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: is a god King, and it doesn't matter that's what
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: he's suggesting is insane or wrong, or unethical or maybe
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: even illegal, it doesn't matter. He at least has to
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: pretend that he's going to do it. And all of
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: this this is I mean, I realized most people don't
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: give a shit about the license for CBS, But if
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: you care at all about having a free media, a
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: free press, a fourth estate, which is critical for our
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: entire system and foundation of our society and government, you
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: cannot support this, especially without really good legitimate reason, which
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Trump does not have here. Now, I mentioned earlier that DOGE,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the Department of Government Efficiency, maybe one of the greatest
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: disappointments so far when it comes to the Trump two
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: point zero administration. And of course for most people, most
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: MAGA supporters, they think this has gone absolutely fantastically well.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: But without much fanfare, it was announced that Elon Musk
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: has slashed his I don't know if it's his projections
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: or his his goal for how much money is going
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: to be cut from federal spending this year from a
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: trillion dollars to one hundred and fifty billion dollars, which
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: is an eighty five percent decrease. That's pretty fricking substantial.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: That's essentially admitting failure. And if you've noticed, Elon Musk
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: has gone much more quiet lately. He did not appear
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: to be at all in favor of the tariffs. I
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: think there may have been a little bit of a
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: rift with regard to Trump on that issue. Obviously, he
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: is enduring an enormous amount of personal pain when it
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: comes to what's happened with Tesla over the course of
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: the first few months of the Trump administration. I would
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: love to know what Elon Musk's true temperature is right now,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: but reading the tea leaves this is not good. There
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: have been rumors he is leaving DOGE in May, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: if that ends up happening, I mean this that will
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: be and I don't I don't. I want to hold
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: off on making any conclusions about this until it's actually real.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: But right now this looks like essentially a catastrophic failure
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: where you ended up not saving very much money at all,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: creating all sorts of chaos, all sorts of dysfunction, and
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: creating the narrative that if anything goes wrong within government
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: that's really really bad, then the Trump administration and Elon
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Musk have to be to blame for it because they
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: radically altered everything. They slashed and burned, and that then
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: you know, if something ends up slipping through the cracks,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: even if it's not really related to the Doge, the
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: media is gonna run crazy with it. They've already tried
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: to do that with plane crashes, which was as nine
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: didn't really work. But if anything like that happens in
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the future, there's gonna be an incredible opportunity for Democrats
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: to blame Elon Musk and Doge, especially since Elon Musk
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: has seemingly become politically radioactive, totally failed in the Wisconsin
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court race. His public approval rating numbers are terrible,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: and so I don't want to I want to hold
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: off on any conclusions yet, but there are really bad
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: signs when it comes to Elon Musk's role in this administration.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And I have said constantly, tell me about the relationship
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: between Trump and Musk at the end of Trump two
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: point zero, and I'll be able to tell you an
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: awful lot about whether or not this was a success
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: or a failure. And right now it's not looking good
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: now as far as the media and Trump there is
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: some what Trump I'm sure would consider to be good
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: news and I believe be very interesting news, and that
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: is that Bill Maher, the very liberal host of HBO's
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Real Time, met with Donald Trump with Kid Rock. Kid
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Rock apparently was the one that set this up. This
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: happened a couple of weeks ago, and Mar refrained from
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: speaking about it publicly until he hosted Real Time on HBO.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: And what Mars said was really, I thought fascinating on
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of different levels. I would say that basically
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Mar's takeaway was that Trump's really actually a great guy
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: in person. He's not really at all like the public persona.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: And to be clear, you know, marn had to know
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: when he made this statement that he was gonna get
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: criticized by the left a lot. And I have been
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: absolutely baffled by how it is that Bill Maher became
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: the voice of reason on the left. But he absolutely has.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: And I have no problem with Mar meeting with Trump
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: or Trump meeting with Mar. I'm all in favor of
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: constructive communication and trying to see if you can come
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to some sort of agreement. It's obviously mostly a publicity stunt,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: since Bill Maher is a comedian who does a talk
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: show on HBO, and for Kid Rock to be the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: one that is brokering this situation is pretty hilarious on
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: its own. So I don't think this is the most
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: significant thing in the world, but I did find it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: more than worthy of mention what Bill Maher actually said
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and how he described the real Trump as opposed to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the public persona of Donald Trump. And here's what Bill
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Maher had to say on HBO's Real Time.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: Guy I met is not the person who the night
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: before the dinner shit tweeted a bunch of nasty crap
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: and going to derange asshole I want was. I read
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: it and thought, oh, what a lovely way to welcome
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: someone to your house. But when I got there, that
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: guy wasn't living there. Now does Trump want respect? Of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: course who doesn't. My friend said to me, what are
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: you going to wear to the White House? I said,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know, but I'm not going to dress like Zelensky.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you that, but okay, just for starters.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: He laughs.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: I'd never seen him laugh in public, but he does,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: including it himself, and it's not fake believe me, as
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: a comedian of forty years, I know a fake laugh
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: when I hear it, and I thank you for the example.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: In the Oval Office, he was showing me the portraits
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: of presidents and he pointed to Reagan and said, in
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: all seriousness, you know the best thing about him his hair.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: I said, well, there was also that whole bringing down
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: communism thing. Waiting for the button next to the diet
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: coke button to get pushed and I go through the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: trap door. But no, he laughed, he got it. I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: said to him. At one point, mister president, you know
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: the dog. That's unusual in the White House. He said, well,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of the presidents they had a dog for
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: political reasons.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I said, no, people love dogs. That's what that is.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, that's true. At one point we were
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: walking through his amazing it is an amazing tour of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: the whole house, and I don't remember exactly what we
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: were talking about, but it must have been something with
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: the twenty twenty election, because I know he used the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: word lost, and I distinctly remember saying, wow, I never
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: thought i'd hear you say that. He didn't get mad.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 4: He's much more self aware and he lets on in public. Look,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: I get it. It doesn't matter who he is at
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: is on the world stage. I'm just taking as a
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: positive that this person exists, because everything I've ever not
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: liked about him was I swear to God, absent at
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: least on this night with this guy. Bob kid Rock
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: told me the night before, he said, if you want
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: to get a word in edgewise, you're gonna have to
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: cut him off.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: He'll just go on. Not at all.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: I've had so many conversations with prominent people who were
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: much less connected, people who don't look you in the eye,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: people don't really listen because they just want to get
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: to their next thing, people whose response to things you
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: say just doesn't.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Track, like what.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: None of that with him, and he mostly steered the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: conversation to what do you think about this? I know
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: your mind is blown, so's mine.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Now. The part of what Bill Maher was saying there
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: that really kind of baffled me a little bit was
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: that Mars seems to be indicating that this is a
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: great thing that Donald Trump is not who he appears
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: to be publicly, the real Donald Trump is a much
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: different guy than the public persona. And my thought was,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: how is that necessarily a good thing. Let's pretend that
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Mar is one hundred percent right, And I'm not sure
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: that he is, because how does he know that he's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: not acting in private in order to snow Mar? I mean,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the reality is. I only met
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump once for at most five minutes, and I
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: was not really surprised at all when I met him
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: backstage at the Today Show about who he was and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: who he wasn't. And so it's kind of weird to
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: me that mar seemed to be a bit surprised by
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: who the real Donald Trump is. But I guess my
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: point is, when you're that different in private than your
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: public persona, doesn't that raise questions about your authenticity? Which
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: is the real Donald Trump? I mean, how is that
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: a good thing? How is that a good thing? Oh,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: don't worry, folks, He's really not like that in private.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: He's he's much more self aware, he's much nicer. He
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: actually laughs, he admits he lost the twenty twenty election.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: To me, I don't get that. I mean, so, you know,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: are you lying to me today or are you lying
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to me yesterday. I mean to me, I do not
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: understand how that's actually a good thing. Of course, you know,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I pride myself on authenticity, and I'm exactly the same
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: way in every aspect of my life. Obviously, Donald Trump
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: is not. And I get he's a politician and he's
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: apparently very, very charming. I have no problem believing that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is a very charming guy. Let's be clear,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Celebrity is one of the most powerful forces in the universe.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Nobody has more celebrity than Donald Trump. No one has
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: more power currently than Donald Trump. Power and celebrity are
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: are incredibly intoxicating, especially to a person like Bill Maher.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Now Bill Maher probably doesn't think that because Bill Maher
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: has been around famous people his whole life, and he
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: probably thinks he's not that impacted by it. But it's
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: essentially the currency of Bill Maher's existence is how famous, powerful,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: or rich you are. That's how you value a human being. Well,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is off the charts by all those metrics.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: So it's how a lot easier to be charming when
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: you're hosting somebody at the White House, and your President
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: of the United States and the most famous person in
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: the world, You're going to be able to charm Bill
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Maher pretty fricking easily. And it seems to me as if,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: you know, Bill Maher was maybe duped a bit by
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Again, I don't want to criticize it, because
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I think mostly this is a positive thing, and I
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: actually applaud Bill Maher for being honest about his interaction
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: with Donald Trump, because he's not going to get a
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: lot of prey from his base audience for this. Now.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Of course, he may not know what his base audience
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: is anymore because he's pissed off the far leapt quite
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: a bit over the last couple of years, and rightfully so,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: so I admire what Bill Maher has has done to
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: a certain degree. I can't believe I'm saying that because
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: I have great disdain for Bill Maher and have for many,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: many years. But I'm very objective about this, and he
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: has said a lot of very rational things and really
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: has become the voice of reason when it comes to
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: the mainstream media on the left. So anyway, I just
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: felt that that Bill Maher was maybe being a little
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: bit naive about Trump and also just kind of having
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: a blind spot about Okay, how is this necessarily a
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: good thing that somebody is completely different in private than
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: their public persona, at least in your perception. But you
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: can decide, obviously for yourself. There was another part of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: the Bill Maher Real Time show on HBO that I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: wanted to mention, and that is that he had Steve
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Bannon on as a guest. And once again, Steve Bannon
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: is banging the drum for a third Trump term. This
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: is a topic that I think is being very much
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: underestimated for a variety of reasons. I've talked about it
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: extensively in the past. I think jd. Vance is in
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: an extremely compromised position because Donald Trump is essentially, at
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: least publicly, who knows what his private views really are,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: going back to Bill Maher's analysis of this, but you know,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: at least publicly, he has done nothing to tamp down
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: this idea that Steve Bannon is promoting that Donald Trump
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: can and will will run for a third term, even
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: though it's clearly unconstitutional. And you know, to me, I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: think this is a clear strategy by Steve Bannon to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: set up a president a run for himself. Assuming that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Trump decides, whether legally, politically or what have you that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: he cannot or will not run for a third term.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: That'll open it up for Steve Bannon. That's what I
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: think is happening with Bannon. But when it comes to
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: a Trump third term, not only would this issue not
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: come close to dying, but there's a new poll out
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: that asks a very open ended question. And I don't
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: know whether it was a good thing or a bad
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: thing that this question was so open ended, but it was,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: and so they got the result they wanted. They asked
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the question, which of these, if you're a Republican, which
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: of these candidates would you vote for in a Republican
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: primary if Donald Trump ran for a third term in office,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: not if he was allowed to, or not if it
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: was deemed to be constitutional, Just very open ended, what
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: if Donald Trump runs for a third term? And in
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: the midst of a very very crowded field of possible option,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: this poll came up with the result that Donald Trump
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: would be favored by fifty six percent. Fifty six percent
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: of Republican voters would vote for Donald Trump currently if
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: he ran for a third term. Fifty six percent. That
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: is an absolutely astonishing number if it's even close to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: being true. All of my worst possible predictions and fears
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: about the state and the future of the Republican Party
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: are one hundred percent true. Now, would that number be
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: different if you phrased it significantly different? I'm sure I
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: would like to believe that it is when you ask
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: that question so open endedly and you make it sound
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: as I mean, my guess is a huge portion of
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: people responding didn't think that it was illegal or unconstitutional
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: for Trump to run for a third term, so therefore,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: of course you would vote for Donald Trump. So I
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: would like to see the number if the question was
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: phrased more accurately. But the fifty six percent is pretty
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: frickin' astonishing and really does show just how huge a
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: problem this is going to be and how much it's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: being underestimated, clearly in the right wing media, because no
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: one in the right wing media really wants to touch this,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: and I think even in the left wing media, because
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I don't think they know what to do with it yet.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know they if they think that Trump is
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: just trolling everybody, they mention it from time to time.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: Some on the far left I think have gone apoplectic
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: over maybe too much, because I don't believe, although I'm
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: not sure. I don't believe that Donald Trump is running
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: for a third term. I don't think that's the case.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: But my basic problem is him not making it clear
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: he's not running for a third term creates all sorts
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: of problems for the Republican effort to win in twenty
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: twenty eight, specifically with regard to JD Vance's candidacy, because essentially,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: as I've said previously, Donald Trump has Jade Vance's balls
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: on a jar and they're in his desk at least
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: until forget about the endorsement, which is huge, but at
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: least until Trump makes it very very clear that he's
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: not running for a third term, which I don't think
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: he's gonna do anytime soon because I think he loves
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: the speculation. All Right, that's enough for Donald Trump. In
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: this episode of the podcast, want to move on to
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: a couple other stories. I have to at least acknowledge
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the absolute hilarity and absurdity of what happened with the
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: female Blue Origin space trip that happened earlier this week
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: that included Katie Perry and Dale King and Lauren Sanchez.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: This was all done through the Blue Origin company that
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: is owned by effectively by Jeff Bezos, who is the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: fiance of Lauren Sanchez, and essentially went in. The happening
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: here was that they pretended to go up in space.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: The trip lasted eleven minutes. They had these these I
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: think what they thought were sexy astronaut uniforms that looked
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: like something out of Star Trek. You know, they put
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: on this big show that they were going on into
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: space in a trip that was costing several million dollars
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: obviously paid for by Bezos and Laurence Sanchez. I don't
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: know if this was a wedding gift, but she got
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: to invite some of her famous friends and among them
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: were Katie Perry and Gail King. And you know, this
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: was at first portrayed as this great girl power moment
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: where this all female crew was going up into space,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: and the reality of this was was of course, very
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: very different. I don't think people fully understood until they
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: saw it what a complete and total joke it was
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: going to be. That this was essentially an amusement park ride.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's really what it was. It was an
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: eleven minute, very extrava and very expensive amusement park ride,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and in my view, it sent back women quite a bit.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: They looked ridiculous. There was audio of them screeching like
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: middle aged, you know, middle aged. They were middle aged,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: but like middle school girls screeching on the way down
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: in fear. I mean, can you imagine if it all
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: bailed crew then there was audio of them screeching and
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: fear as they were coming down, just like they were
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: riding an amusement park ride. I mean, no one would
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: ever hear the end of it, but you know, and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: Katie Perry kissing the ground when she came back to
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Earth that she had been lost in space for ten months,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: like it happened with the real astronauts. I mean, the
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: whole thing was literally ridiculous, and it was so absurd
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: that my view is that the vast majority of people,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: especially in social media, were not buying it at all.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: This thing did not go off, and went off technically
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: just like I wanted it to, but it did not
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: go off from a pr perspective, anywhere close to what
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: they had hoped or expected. I think this was seen
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: as a joke, which it absolutely was. But here's the
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: part from a media perspective, and look, the mainstream media
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: pretended like this was a real thing because it had
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: everything that they love, right. They had celebrities with Gail
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: King and Katy Perry, and had theoretical danger. And I've
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: always talked about how a news story gets exaggerated dramatically
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: based upon how far from the Earth's crust the story.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it happens on to Butcher the English language.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: I've always had this theory that if you look at
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: news coverage that the further away from the earth crust
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: a story occurs, the more exaggerated that story is going
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: to be in the news. Whether it's under underwater like
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: the Titanic sub or if it's in the air. Airplane
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: crashes always get way way more publicity, for instance, than
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: bus crashes or car crashes. And if it's in space,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: even if it's only for a couple of minutes, then
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: then it's really gonna be exaggerated because that's as far
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: as you can get from the Earth's crust. So that's
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: part of why the news media exaggerated the story. Then
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: when you add in celebrity and the all female crew,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: you know they couldn't possibly resist this. So in the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media that there wasn't that much derision. But
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: in the social media world, people were not buying this
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: at all, so much so that I almost thought it
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily worth discussing this because it was so obviously ridiculous,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: so obviously a joke, so obviously counter productive in every
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: possible way. By the way, even environmentalists were upset about
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: this because of you know, the alleged environmental impact of
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: the carbon emissions and all that, and you know, these
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: people were claiming that they were doing this, you know,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: for the Earth and all that. I mean, the hypocrisy
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: is everywhere, the absurdity is everywhere. But here's the part
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: from an immediate perspective that I want to at least
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: amplify a little bit, and that is Gail King is
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: allegedly a journalist. She hosts the Morning Show on CBS.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: She's done a lot of very high profile interviews, largely
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: because she's Oprah Winfrey's best friend. You know, in my world,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: one of the worst interviews she ever did was she
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: did the only American interview that I'm aware of with
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: the two Michael Jackson accusers in the Leaving Neverland mockumentary
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: or fictional film that I have been highly critical of
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: and she did a terrible, terrible job with that. And
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: there was a massive conflict of interest there because Oprah Winfrey,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: her best friend, had already blessed the movie. And it's
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: not a coincidence that she was the one that did
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the interview with the two frauds who are suing Michael
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Jackson's estate. But here she is an alleged journalist, and
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: to me, she demeaned herself further by taking part in
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: this ridiculous publicity stunt. But then when the reaction to
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: the amusement park ride was not as they had hoped,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: you would think that a Gail King would just laugh
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: it off and say, yeah, it was fun and I
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: don't want to make more of it than it really is,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm sorry that people took it the wrong way.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: That would be the right way in my view, to respond.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: But that's not at all what Gail King did. Here
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: is a video that Extra, the TV show Extra, the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: entertainment TV show Extra, put out of an interview they
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: did with Gail King, and the lack of self awareness
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: is often the case when it comes to the mainstream
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: news media is off the charts here where she is
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: acknowledging the criticism, but she's not getting it. She's making
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: it sexist, she's making an absurd claim that what they
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: did was the equivalent to what Alan Shepherd did fifty
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: years ago, and in general sense, just really proving exactly
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: why people were right and correct to be so dismissive
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: of this publicity stuff because these people are completely and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: totally out of touch. And Gal King further proved it
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: in this interview.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: Well, this particular capsule is called the New Shepherd.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: We duplicated that route.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 5: That route, no one said he took that ride. It's
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: always referred to as a flight or a journey, So
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: I feel that that's a little disrespectful to what the
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: mission was and what the work that Blue Origin does.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: We use space technology all the time, whether it's your GPS,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: whether it's your satellite. That doesn't just happen. Every time
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: a flight goes up, they get some type of information.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: Two of the astronauts, I still have a hard time
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: calling myself an astronaut, but two of the astronau on board.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 5: One is a rocket scientist, one is an astrophysicist activist.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 5: We're actually doing it, doing experiments, but every time one
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: of those goes up, you get some information that can
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 5: be used for something else. So I wish people would
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: do more due diligence. And then my question is, have
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 5: y'all been to space?
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Have you been in space?
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: Go to space or go to Blue Origin and see
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: what they do and how they do and then come
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: back and say this is a terrible thing. I've had
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 5: so many girls and women and some guys who are saying, well,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 5: I saw what you did. I'm thinking maybe I should reconsider,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: maybe I could do this too, the young girls in particular,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: but it's not just the young girls.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: We're also encouraging.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: I mean the boys look at it and see what
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: women and young girls can do. So, you know, I
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: know there are cranky Yankees, I know there's some haters,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: but I'm not going to let people steal my joy
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: and steal the joy of what we did or what
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 5: we accomplished that day.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just not going to let it in. I'm not.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: These are some of my friends that I just found
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: that SoundBite to be absolutely remarkable. I mean, as much
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: as I am fully aware of the lack of self
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: awareness and the delusional nature of celebrities in general and
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media personalities, in particular, I am still always
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: astonished when I see or hear something like that, like,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: how could you not get it? How could you possibly
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: even refer to yourself as an astronaut, How could you
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: diminish what Alan Shepherd did fifty years ago? How could
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: you pretend that this was a sexist The criticism of
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: us is sexist. It's just completely ridiculous and absurd. And
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: yet this is a person who has a very high
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: profile position as an alleged journalist hosting the CBS Morning Show.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Absolutely amazing, But I have to say this, this was
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: one of those situations where thank God for social media,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: because if there was no social media, we would have
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: really just seen the mainstream media view of this publicity stunt,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, while people might have talked amongst themselves,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: there would be no public backlash because the mainstream news
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: media was not going to attack this absurdity for all
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: the reasons I already mentioned, including the celebrity and even
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: the race of some of those that were involved, including
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: Gail King. You're not allowed to criticize them. So this
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: was a classic situation where social media saved the day,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: whether it was on TikTok or whether it was on
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: Twitter x or elsewhere. There was a completely different view
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: of the world night and day between the way the
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: news media handled this absurdity and the way that social
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: media did. In this case, social media was dead on
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: and the mainstream news media, for the most part, was delusional.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Turning now to the Masters Golf Tournament. In the last
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, I did an extensive preview of
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: the Masters, and I told you that I thought that
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: there was a real good chance that this would be
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: one of the greatest Masters of all time, certainly one
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: of those that would become indoubibly etched in the history
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: of the golf tournament, that it would be forever memorable
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. One because we hadn't had
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: a truly memorable Master since twenty nineteen, and I felt
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: like all of the stars were aligning for there to
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: finally be another great Masters, and I actually underestimated just
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: how great in many ways, not always, but in many ways,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: this particular Masters was. First of all, before I get
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: to Rory McElroy and how he won the tournament and
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: all all the different elements of that story, I do
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: want to at least mention that the other parts of
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: the Masters were there as they have always been. But you,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: I think often take for granted, because it's not going
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: to be that much longer, that we're still going to
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: have Jack Nicholas hitting the ceremonial first shot. Gary Player
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: may be around for quite a while. As I joke
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: on a yearly basis, Gary Player, who is almost ninety
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: years old. You know, Father Time and the Grim Reaper
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: are famously undefeated, but I think they're getting a little
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: nervous about Gary Player. I mean, how the hell he's
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: still doing. What he's doing at almost ninety is truly
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: amazing and inspiring. But Jack, at the age of eighty five,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: who I've been very worried about. I think I've mentioned
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: on the podcast previously that a couple of years ago
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: I started to hear the sound of death in his voice,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: and now I'm convinced that, well, maybe it was just
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: a cold, but he's eighty five, and he's not in
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: great shape, but mentally he's still almost one hundred percent there,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: doing much better than I expected. He was able to
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: hit the ceremonial opening t shot, he was able to
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: participate in interviews, and you know, CBS did a really
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: nice job commemorating the fortieth, not the fortieth that's next year.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: The fiftieth anniversary was nineteen seventy five Masters victory, which
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: was the first Masters I ever saw, had a huge
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: influence on my life, was the first sporting event I
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: ever saw in color. It's probably a big part of
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: the reason why I'm a golfer to this day, because
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: I was just so enamored by what I saw on
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: television in that great Masters in nineteen seventy five. I
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: do think, barring catastrophe, that we're going to get Jack
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: there for the fortieth of his nineteen eighty six win
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: next year, in nineteen eighty six. But I still maintain
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: after nineteen eighty six is commemorated with the fortieth anniversary
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: next year, you know, we're already in the gravy realm
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: of having Jack Nicholas around, So I'm not sure people
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: are fully appreciating just how how precious that is and
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: how much time there may not be left. I'm confident
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: about next year, but after that, I would be really
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: surprised if we saw Jack Nicholas still hitting the ceremonial
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: t shot, say in twenty twenty seven. But that was
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: great to see Bernhard Longer almost making the cut at
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: the age of sixty seven. And when I say almost
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: making the cut, I mean he came as close to
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: making the cut as you put possibly can. I mean
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: he missed about a ten foot par put on the
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: last hole by at most an inch, maybe half an inch.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: That would have had him do something absolutely insane. I mean,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: nobody ever makes the Masters cut in their final Masters
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: because if you were, if you still thought you had
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: a chance to make the cut, you wouldn't be announcing
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: beforehand that this is your final Masters. I mean, so generally,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: when you say, okay, this is my final Masters, and
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: especially when you're sixty seven years old, you're doing so
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: because you know your game is nowhere near competing. And
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: so I guess it's kind of appropriate that the person
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: that would break that rule would be burn Hard Longer.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Because Bernhard Longer, I mean, wow, I mean I have
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: so much admiration for him, not just as a golfer,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: but if you know his personal story, I mean, this
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: guy has character in every bone of his body, by
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: every measure of the word. I mean, if you could
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: bottle what is in Bernhard Longer from a character perspective
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: and give it to everybody on the planet. This world
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: would be such a better place, it would be unbelievable.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I would trust Bernhard longer with almost anything, because, I mean,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: he has character in every sense of the world word,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: and it comes out in his golf game. And it
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: was almost in a way it was appropriate that his
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: last Masters he almost made the cut what would have
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: been a record of sixty seven years old. But there
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: was only a little bit of a downside in that,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: you know, he came up the eighteenth fairway not knowing
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: whether or not he was going to play another two
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: rounds or not, and so it kind of took away
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit. And even when he finished, there was
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: still a like a one percent chance that he still
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: could have made the cut. So it did take a
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: little bit away from the moment, not that much, but
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: it certainly is worthy of mention that my God to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: be able to do what he has done. I mean,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: it is just I don't think that non golfers have
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: any appreciation for how utterly insane it is that you're
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: almost making the cut at the Masters at sixty seven
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: years old, when you're you know, you're not very tall,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: you're not big at all. You can't hit the ball
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: more than say, two hundred and fifty two hundred and
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: sixty yards. You're playing against guys that are, you know,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: forty seven. One player in this tournament was forty seven
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: years younger. He beat a guy who's on the pro
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: tour who was forty six years younger than he is.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, absolutely amazing, and that certainly added to the
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: allure of this particular tournament. Especially Freddie Couples had a
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: really good first round and then kind of faded the
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: second round to also barely missed the cut. But I've
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: always said that part of what the Masters is about
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: is basically fooling middle aged men into believing they're not
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: really getting older, or old men, that they're not really
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: that old. And I mean that sincerely. That is a
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: huge part of the allure of the tournament. It's part
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: of the magic. The course doesn't change very much at all.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: They've been forced to because of technology, but you know,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: the players in the tournament rarely changed. You see the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: past champions on a yearly basis, Bernhard Longer and Freddie Couples,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: who won in the nineteen eighties, In the early nineteen
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: nineties are still competitive. Jack Nicholas and Gary Player and
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: Tom Watson are the ceremonial tea shots. This is all
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: designed and understandably and rightfully so, into fooling guys like
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: me and older into not realizing just how old we
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: really are and how close to death we really are,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: if you really want to get morbid about it. That's
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: really part of the allure of the Masters. Now, the
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: other part of the magic of the Masters. I've said
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: this previously is that the Masters understands that part of
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: what makes a tournament dramatic and part of why the
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: Masters is what it is, is that you can almost
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: be assured that in any particular year, something really good
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: is going to happen to somebody who is already at
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: least somewhat famous, and there's a very good chance of
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: something really bad is also going to happen to somebody
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: who is already at least somewhat famous. That happens almost
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: every year. And the reason why it happens that a
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: partially because the field is so small, partially because of
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that so many of the players that are
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: in the tournament are past champions and therefore are already
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: somewhat famous, partially because of the nature of the golf course.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: I talked about this in the last episode that it's
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: almost impossible now for someone who's not in the top
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: twenty in the world to be highly competitive, and inherently,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: if only the top twenty players in the world can
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: be competitive, because of the nature of the golf course
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: and the nature of getting into the tournament, those players
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: are going to be at least somewhat known, not just
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: in the golf world but in the larger public as well,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: and so almost statistically it's inevitable that if you have
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: a close tournament and there's drama on the back nine
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: on Sunday, something great is going to happen to somebody famous,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: and something bad is going to happen to somebody famous,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: and that's really good drama. And obviously that happened in
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: spades in this particular Masters. Now. I had said in
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: the last episode that this tournament was going to be
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: all about Rory McElroy, and a lot of what I
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: said turned out to be very accurate, and a lot
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: of what I said turned out to be very inaccurate.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: This tends to happen with my predictions because I make
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: predictions that are incredibly precise and extensive, and so you know,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to get wrong, and inevitably you're going
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: to get some things right. The part I got wrong
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: was that I thought that the first round that Rory
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: McElroy played was going to be really the most important,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: because generally he does not get off to a good
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: start in majors, and especially not at the Masters, and
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: I thought that if he didn't play well enough in
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: the first round, he was going to have a tough
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: time making up enough ground by the end of the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: tournament to win, especially since historically the first round of
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: the Masters, especially in recent years, has really told the tale.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: And I essentially turned out to be wrong about this,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: although in my defense, I did tweet out after the
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: first round where Rory made two double bogees coming in
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: and shot an even part seventy two, that he still
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: had a chance. He was on the list of eleven
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: guys that I put out on that Thursday night saying
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: these are the guys that can still win. By the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: way of those eleven guys, I think seven or eight
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: of them turned out to finish in the top ten,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: and obviously Roy McElroy was one of them. Now, had
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: you told me that Roy McElroy before the tournament that
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: he would shoot seventy two in the first round and
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: that he would make four double bogies throughout the tournament,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: you told me those two things, I would have said,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: there is no chance in the world that Rory McElroy
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: wins this tournament. None. Now, I had said before the
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: tournament in the last episode of the podcast, I thought
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: this was a great opportunity for Rory, that he could
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: win this, that he could complete the career Grand Slam,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: and that part of the the opportunity here was the
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: fact that there are very very few other top players
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: that are playing very well that were really kind of
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: in a very strange state in golf right now, where
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: because of slumps, because of injuries, and because of a
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: lot of the top players selling out to the live
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Golf Tour where they don't play real golf, where they're
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: playing essentially member guest events that are only fifty four
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: holes and not seventy two holes, which is a big difference.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: You know, probably not a coincidence that Bryson d Chambeau
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: crapped out in the final round. He's not used to
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: playing seventy two holes anymore, especially not under that kind
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: of pressure. And so you have a situation where Rory's
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: playing great, He's won two tournaments coming into the Masters,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: but none of the top competition is playing at an
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: elite level. Xander Schoffley's injured after having one two Majors
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: last year. Scotti Scheffler got an injury over Christmas, and
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: he's not quite what he was. Certainly last year, I
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: went through a whole less of players. So nobody is
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: playing at a very very high level except for Rory McElroy.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: But he had the psychological baggage of finally winning the
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: Masters and achieving the career Grand Slam. And I also
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: said that I had a very complicated view of Rory McElroy,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: a love hate relationship, if you will, with Rory. There's
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: a lot I like about Rory. There's a lot that
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: is always you know, given me the hebgbi's about Rory
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of it. In his personal life, what happened
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: with his engagement with carolineolse in Nake, the story behind
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: how he met his first wife is his only wife
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: at this point. The fact that he filed for divorce
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: from her very publicly less than a year ago. We've
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: completely forgotten about That's that has been a race from
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: the entire public memory. I mean there is other than
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: maybe on social media, but you know, there is no
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: trace anymore. The idea that less than a year ago
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: Rory Macroy publicly filed for divorce and apparently very and
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: sensitive fashion from his current wife and the mother of
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: his beautiful daughter, and so all that has always made
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: me a little questioning about Rory. I also didn't like
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that he helped facilitate the COVID panic back
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. I didn't like how he handled the
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: taking of the cell phone of a college golfer at
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: the TPC tournament last month. I thought that was a
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: dick move. You know. So there's all sorts of things
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: about Rory that have always made me question him. But
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: when he became the Prince Valiant, fighting for the PGA Tour,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: fighting against liv golf, I got on the bandwagon. I
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: thought he was fantastic. Okay, you know, new respect for Rory,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: but he has sense essentially given that up. He's essentially folded.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: He's gone soft on live golf, and I think he's
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: done so largely for his own selfish interest. One, I
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: think he got tired of the fight, and two, I
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: think he realized that it was in his financial interest
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: to reshape the PGA tour in a way that would
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: allow the live guys to come back into the fold eventually. Now,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: whether that's going to happen or not, no one knows
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: at this point, and there's no sign that is going
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: to happen as of yet. But my admiration for Rory
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: faded because he really, I thought, whimped out on the fight.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: And I have a lot of a lot of things
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: that are wrong with me. I mean a lot of weaknesses,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: and one of my weaknesses is that I don't like
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. And when I really do like
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: somebody and then I feel like they don't live up
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: to that standard that I have held for them or
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: set for them, I probably react too negatively to that.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: And that's what's happened with Rory, you know, because I
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: take it very seriously. I'm not a fan of too
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: many people. So when I become a fan of you
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: because of your courage and you're standing up for what
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: is right and fighting a good fight, and then you
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: essentially abandoned that fight, that pisses me off, especially when
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: you have all the background stuff and you know, the
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: COVID thing and his personal relationships and everything else I
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: just mentioned, and the fact that you know, from a
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: golfing perspective, while he's obviously an extremely talented golfer, he
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: has not been very good in the clutch. Almost all
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: of his major championship wins have been blowouts under soft conditions,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: literally and figuratively soft conditions. He's never really, in my mind,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: truly earned it under super pressure conditions in major championships.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: And so I said before the tournament, I was not
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: going to be rooting for Rory. I didn't think that
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: he really deserved to be part of the pantheon of greats,
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: the Mount rushmore, if you will, golf grades by being
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: a member of the club that has won the career
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: Grand Slam. By the way, as an a side note
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: on this career Grand Slam business, everyone keeps saying that
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Rory is the sixth person to ever win the Grand Slam.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: Jeen sarah'son Ben Hogan, you know, Gary Player, Jack Nicholas,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods and now Rory McElroy. And this kind of
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: bugs me, and I guess I understand why everyone in
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: the media has to do this, But Gene Sarason had
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: no idea that he had won the Grand Slam none,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: and he really in mind, you didn't win the Grand Slam.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: First of all, the Grand Slam wasn't a thing. Second
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: of all, the Masters wasn't a thing. It really literally
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't even called the Masters. When Jeans Sarason won, it
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: was the Augusta National Invitational, I believe, and so to
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: me and I understand, they have to give Harrison credit
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: for winning the Grand Slam because that they don't then
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: somehow that's going to offend Augusta National. Right. Augusta National
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: is that powerful and they want all of their Masters
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: champions to be seen as having equal value. And this
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: was always a major championship quote unquote. The Masters was
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: not always a major championship. It became a major championship.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: It didn't get ordained by God, and it began as
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: a major championship. It was literally a club invitational. It
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: was literally a promotional tool for the Augusta National Golf
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Club that was just getting off the ground. It was
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: literally timed so that sports writers that were taking you know,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: trains from Florida from baseball spring training back up to
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: New York, could make a pit stop in Augusta at
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: the beginning of April and check out this tournament. I mean, so,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: the idea of that Gene Saracen belongs on this list
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: is absurd, But okay, fine, So that's an aside that
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: no one I'm sure cares about except for me. But
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: as far as what happened in the tournament itself, So
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: when Bryson d Chambeau made that fifty foot put on
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: the eighteenth pole at the end of the third round
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: and took a three shot lead from Corey and made
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Rory and not Corey, Rory McElroy made it a two
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: shot lead, I thought, uh, oh, Rory's in trouble here,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: because now it's not just a two shot lead, but
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: you've got Bryson d Chambeau playing in the last group
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: with Rory, and Bryson had won the US Open in
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: the head and the head battle with Rory last year
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: where Rory basically choked, missing two short putts in the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: last three holes. And it's my view that Bryson d
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: Chambeau has to be a very very difficult player to
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: play with not just because he hits the ball forever long,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: not because he has a very unorthodized style, but because
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: he's a dick. And I realized it's not a popular opinion,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: but I believe that Bryson D. Chambeau is a phony baloney.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: I think he's incredibly an authentic I think he's all
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: about the show. I think he has figured it out
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: very very well. He's very popular, especially among the kids,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: and very very popular on YouTube. And I get it,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: I understand it, but I just don't view it as
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: as authentic. I think it's a show. I think he's
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: putting on an act now. And I'm somebody who was
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to like Bryson D. Chambeau because he's a contrarian.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: He's an a kind of class you know, he doesn't
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: accept conventional wisdom. He you know, does things his own way.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: He's interesting, he's talented, he's fun to watch at times.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot to like. But I don't like
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the fact that I think he's phony, and I think
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: he's doing a lot of this in a very effective
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: way to manipulate people. And I also, you know, all
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: of this comes in the context of him having sold
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: out to live golf. I mean, to me, the sellout
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: to live golf is unforgivable. It's absolutely unforgivable. You sold out,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: You sold out everything. You sold out your sport, You
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: sold out your employer, this charitable organization, the PGA Tour.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: You sold out your golf legacy, You sold out your
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: country because you're going to work for for the Saudi
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: Arabian government in a Kamikazi attack against the PGA Tour.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: And you did sold for a ridiculous amount of money
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: to go play you know, goofy golf, member guest golf,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: fifty four hauls and shorts and you know, music and
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: all sorts of bullshit. And so I have no respect
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: for that at all. And to me, when you sold
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: out to live, you're dead to me. And then so
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: I thought that's going to be a problem for Rory psychological,
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a difficult pairing. I didn't
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: realize it was going to be a difficult pairing for
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: Bryson because Bryson's feelings apparently got hurt because Rory wouldn't
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: talk to him after the round. Bryson said that Rory
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: never spoke to him and while it might have been
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: taken a little bit out of context. It was obvious
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: that Bryson's feelings were hurt, and to that, I say,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: fuck you, Bryson, fuck you. You declared war on Rory
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: McElroy's business. And so you're in the final round of
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: the Masters. You don't get to expect there to be
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: niceties and you know a lot of chit chat and
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: conversation about your YouTube channel or whatever. That's just ridiculous.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: That would be absurd, by the way, no one would
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: ever say that about Tiger Woods, because you know, up
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: until this new version of Tiger Woods, where he's putting
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: outridiculous social media posts about announcing his new dating relationship
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: with the mother of Donald Trump's favorite grandchild, in the
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: olden days, in the glory days of Tiger he wasn't
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: talking to anybody either. So I found it very interesting
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: and very telling that Bryson had his feelings hurt. And
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: of course I'm sure part of the context of why
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: his feelings were hurt was that he played like shit.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: He played absolutely awful in that final round. Had he
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: played a Bryson d. Chambeau level round, he would have
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: won the tournament. Now, one of my predictions that turned
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: out to be about as dead on as could be.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 8: Was.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: I thought that Rory McElroy had a chance to win
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: this tournament because I thought, in good weather conditions that
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: you have to get the twelve under par maybe fourteen
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: under park. Twelve to fourteen under par was going to
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: be the winning score. If you got there, you were
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: gonna win. And Rory, given the state of golf today
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: that I've already referenced, was one of the very very
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: few people that could even theoretically get the twelve to
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: fourteen under par. Well, I was one hundred percent right
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: about that. Rory was twelve under par after the third round.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: He got the fourteen under par at one point in
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: the fourth round, and had he finished at twelve under par,
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: he would have won the tournament by one shot over
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: Justin Rose, who played one of the greatest rounds in
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: Masters history. I felt very bad for Justin Rose, and
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: for the record, not that nay one really cares. When
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: I said last week, I was not going to be
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: rooting for Rory. I should have made the caveat unless
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: he's going up against somebody like Bryson. I was rooting
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: for Rory against Bryson, And even though I'm disappointed in
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: Rory for many, many reasons, I'm not going to root
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: for Bryson d Chambeau to beat Rory McElroy, you know,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: because Rory, for all his faults, is still on the
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: right side. Bryson decided to go to the dark side
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: when Justin Rose played this absolutely astonishing final round ten
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: birdies at the age of forty four years old, almost
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: made eagle on thirteen and fifteen, missed by about a
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: combined two inches if either of those eagle attempts go
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: in and everything else stays the same, which is a
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: big if. But if it had happened, Justin Rose would
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: have won, and it would have been the greatest round
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: in the history of the Masters at forty four years old.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: And so I was actually rooting for Justin Rose once
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: it became obvious that it was really about Rory versus Rose,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: as opposed to Rory versus Bryson, because I really like
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: Justin Rose. He's a good guy. I love his swing.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: Forty four years old, never won a Master's. This is
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: probably the last shot. I mean, you know, you never
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: know for sure, but it's really really hard to come
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: back from the second time you have lost the Masters
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: in a playoff after playing. You know, if you look
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: at Justin Rose's tournament, the first round and the last round,
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: I'm almost positive I haven't done a deep dive on
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: the stats, but I would be stunned if anyone in
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: Master's history has ever shot lower combined in the first
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: and fourth rounds of this tournament. And not one for sure,
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: but I doubt anyone's ever shot better in the first
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: and fourth rounds combined period win or lose. I mean,
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: he played fantastically in the first round, in the fourth round,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: and then not so great and really kind of poorly
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: in the third round. I thought he was running out
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: of gas at forty four years old. But the comeback
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: and shoot the round that he did and almost one
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: could have been better, was absolutely remarkable. And I think
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: it's a shame that it looks like he's never going
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: to win a Masters. But as far as Rory is concerned,
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I have to say that my view of
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: him shifted a bit because of the way this whole
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: thing went down, because he he did earn it. Now,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: it's a weird way that life works and sports work,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: and certainly golf works where oftentimes you can benefit from
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: making massive mistakes, and this was a classic example, because
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: you know, this event has become one of the most
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: talked about things all year, Ry McElroy winning the Masters
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: in a playoff and finally winning the career Grand Slam,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: finally getting the Master's monkey off his back. And yet,
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: if Roy McElroy does not hit one of the worst
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: shots in the history of major championship golf, in the
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: history a major championship golf, and I'm referring to his
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: third shot on the far five thirteenth all we're from
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: less than one hundred yards in the fairway with a
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: perfect angle. Roy McElroy somehow hits the ball into Ray's
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: Creek and it's not even close by the way, it's
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: not even close. If Rory McElroy does not hit that
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: catastrophically bad shot, I don't think that many people, I
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: mean outside of the golf world, I don't think this
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: really makes a mark because if that doesn't happen, Rory
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: wins by at least two or three shots, there's no playoff,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: there's no huge drama. There's probably not nearly the remarkable
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: reaction that he had to winning the playoff where you
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: almost see an exorcism occur on the eighteenth green. I
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: thought his reaction was fantastic. It was incredibly emotional. It
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: was obviously very authentic. I didn't think it was fake
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: at all. You know, it was all these years of
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: frustration coming out. It was realizing that he's now part
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: of golf immortality forever. It's a childhood dream come true,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: all of that fantastic stuff, and he really was forced
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: to earn it because of his own screw up and
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: multiple screw ups already mentioned. He made four double bogies
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: during the entire tournament, which is completely unprecedented. No one
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: has ever done that and won the Masters. And that's
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: why if he had told me he shoots seventy two
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: the first round and makes four double bogeyes, I would
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: have bet everything. There's no chance where McElroy is going
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: to win this tournament. But he did, and he did
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: so again. I just to be clear on that shot
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: on the thirteenth toll, which the media, the sports media
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: has basically just pretended didn't really happen. I can't even
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: describe how bad that was for you. I mean, you know,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: he was wearing white slacks. Had he pooped his pants,
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: it would have been less surprising and less embarrassing than
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: what he did on that third shot on thirteen, because
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: where that pin was, and the angle he was coming from,
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: and the size of that green and the slope of
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: that green. He has all the room in the world short,
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: all the room in the world long, all the room
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: in the world left. The only place you do not
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: go there is to the right, and he nearly shanked
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: the damn thing into Ray's creek. It is. It is
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: the most inexplicably bad shot a top player has ever
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: hit in the in the course of a major championship
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: that I you know that, you know, the end of
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: a major championship where they're leading, that I can ever remember,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: And there have been some bad ones. I mean, to me,
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: that was way worse than what Phil Nicholson did at
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: the Wing Foot US Open, where he blew his t
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: shot the way left. This this was way, way, way worse.
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, you could chunk that shot and you'd be
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: perfectly fine. You could pull it, You're perfectly fine. You
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: could skull it almost and you'd be perfectly fine. The
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: only thing you don't do is exactly what he did.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't even close. Uh, and so in a
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: weird way, because of that catastrophic mistake, this Master's victory
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: is elevated because without that, there's no drama, there's no
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: redemption story, and there's no element of this, which to
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: me is you know, you know, even though I can't
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: believe you hit that shot on thirteen, I'm actually going
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: to give Rory some credit for the way he came
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: back from that, because if you think about this, the
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: stakes were already incredibly high. I mean, I said last
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: week this might be one of Rory's last chances to
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: win the Masters and complete the Grand Slam. He's got
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: less time than he realized that he does, because I
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: don't think anyone's winning their first Masters under that kind
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: of pressure at the age of thirty eight, thirty nine
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: or forty. And he's thirty five years old, so there's
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: only a couple more years left. And who knows about
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: injuries and form and how many other players are playing
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: great at the time. This was the moment. This was
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: the moment. So the stakes were already high, but they
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: actually got exponentially higher once he choke because losing essentially
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: a four shot lead with catastrophic mistakes like he made
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: on thirteen and missing all sorts of short pots coming
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: in and then boguing eighteen from the middle of the
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: fairway with a sand wedge in his hand or a
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: gap in his hand. If he loses the playoff, then
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: it's really over. There's no coming back from that. He
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: actually increased the stakes substantially. Losing in that fashion, in
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: my view, would have been catastrophic for the rest of
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: his career because psychologically, my god, how do you recover
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: from that? You had it completely won, and now you know,
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: the next time you come back, you're thirty six, and
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: the scar tissue is far greater than it was previously,
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: and the narrative is incredibly burdensome. You know, historically it
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: would be almost impossible to come back from that, and
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: so now the difference between winning and losing is even
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: bigger than it was previously. And to Rory McElroy's credit,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: he hit three or really two perfect shots in the
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: playoff and he ends up making the birdie and he wins,
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: and he collapses on the eighteenth green, and you know,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: all that emotion comes out, and you know, I have
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge that I was happy that it happened, you know,
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it was something as green Day might have said,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: it's something unpredictable, But in the end was right because
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: at least he earned it. He earned it. He earned
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: it because of his own screw ups, but he earned it.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: He showed resilience, perseverance, you know, he came through when
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: it mattered most. And I got to respect that. And
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: you know, is he probably the the least deserving player
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: in the career Grand Slam Club. Yes, but he's there
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: and he's there forever now and it's a hell of
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: an achievement and he deserves the credit. And in the end,
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: I felt good about the whole thing. And not that
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: what I'm feeling matters, But I'm just explaining, you know,
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: my evolution of thought here. So even though I said
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: at the beginning, I wasn't going to root for Rory,
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: in the end, even though he was beating Justin Rose,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, you know what, the game, the sport
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: was redeemed here, the sport was validated golf. Uh. You know,
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: this was a good thing for golf, not just from
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: a popularity perspective, but he was forced to earn it.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: He was forced to deal with his own demons, and
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: he eventually won the battle. Now, he won the battle
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: largely because of luck. And I have to say, part
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: of what made me feel good about Rory, or better
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: about Rory than I have, you know, in the last
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: year or so, is that he fully acknowledged in his
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: post tournament press conference that he I think he even
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: said the words I rode my luck all week long,
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: and that, to me, I thought was that was admirable.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's one thing to get lucky, but I'd
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: like you to admit it. And he got lucky on
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of occasions and he fully acknowledged that. And
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: so it's one of the parts of Rory that I
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: do like. He is a seemingly pretty honest, pretty authentic guy.
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: You know, he does a lot of interviews and you know,
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: he's not afraid to answer most any questions. Sometimes actually
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: think he does too many interviews. I thought he did
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: too many interviews in the lead up to the tournament.
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: But you know, so, I think the bottom line for
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: me and Rory is I got to lower my expectations.
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: As sad as that is, I have to lower my
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: expectations when it comes to public figures in this day
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: and age, you know what, you can do a hell
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: of a lot worse than Rory macklroy. He showed the perseverance,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: he showed the resilience. He earned it. He could have
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: completely folded and under the brightest lights and the biggest
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: pressure possible, I mean, the pressure of that playoff was.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: I think it was the most impactful hole one hole
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: in the history of golf that I can recall, certainly
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: in my watching of golf. And by the way, the
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: ratings for that one hole were off the charts. Almost
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: twenty million people were watching at the end when Roy
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: McElroy made bogie and then when he made birdie in
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: the playoff against Justin Rose. The ratings overall were good,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: they weren't tremendous. I think it's difficult to judge masters
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: and golf ratings in a post Tiger world. I mean,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: Tiger was not even any part of this tournament because
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: he was he was injured. Which is really the only
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: thing that kept us from being maybe the greatest masters
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: of all time is that Tiger Woods had somehow been
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: signific involved. But you know, he Tigers so distorted the
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: ratings over the last you know, twenty or so, twenty
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: five years or so, almost thirty years now since nineteen
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: ninety seven. As hard as that is to believe that,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: you know, when you judge ratings, it's very very difficult.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: You almost have to do it in a in a
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: post Tiger or non Tiger uh metrics and so because
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: of that, historically this Masters isn't going to have that
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: high a rating, although CBS and the Masters were very
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: excited about the numbers that they did get because for
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: a non Tiger Masters this was about as good as
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: it's been in a very very long time, certainly in
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: the modern history of television, now that we have fragmentation
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: and streaming and everything else. So the ratings were good,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: and they were really really good during the playoff, but
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: overall they weren't all that spectacular, and I think largely
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: because you didn't have Tiger your Woods involved in this
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: at all. As far as where Rory goes from here,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: this is where I am very critical of the sports
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: media in general, the golf media in particular. I think
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: that most of the people who make up the sports
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: and golf media are dumb. They're legitimately dumb. They, especially
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: in the golf media, They do not understand the sport,
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: and therefore we get a lot of ridiculous predictions that
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: are I believe, based mostly in hope and not in
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: rationality and reality. But you're seeing this narrative and I'm
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: seeing it everywhere where. Oh my gosh, the monkey is
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: off Rory's back. The floodgates are now going to be open.
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: And after an eleven year major drought at the age
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: of thirty five, Rory McElroy, who just won the Masters
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: with probably the worst final round of any top level
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: that I can recall. It's hard, I've tried. I cannot
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: think of a top level player winning a major with
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: a worse final round than Rory McElroy had. I mean,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: two double bogies and that shot on thirteen and like
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: six short missed plots on the back nine and boguing
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: eighteen when he could have won with a par I mean,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: that was a horrendous final round. But this guy who
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: has not won a major in eleven years and finally
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: barely wins one over a forty four year old in
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: a playoff, is now suddenly going to go on a
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: historic Tiger Woods like run where his future is unlimited.
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: That he might win another five or ten Majors, And
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, are you people fucking crazy? This reminds
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: me of the the New York Yankees torpedo bat narrative.
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: The New York Yankees had a couple of crazy home
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: run games earlier this very young season, and the media
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: went off on this narrative, Oh my god, the torpedo
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: bats have changed the game of baseball. After one hundred
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: and thirty years of playing Major League Baseball or thereabouts,
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: suddenly the game has changed because of a couple of
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: games that the Yankees played where they hit a ridiculous
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: number of home runs and they have these new torpedo bats. Now,
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: the Yankees are in first place, barely, but they're scoring
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of runs. But I don't believe that the
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: torpedo bat is all of a sudden going to fundamentally
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: change the game of baseball after all this time. I
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: also don't think that Rory McElroy finally getting lucky by
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: his own account and having all sorts of good fortune
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: and barely winning the Masters over a forty four year
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: old guy in a playoff is suddenly an indication that
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: he's going to be Tiger Woods into the future historically.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: Now there are differences, but historically, when someone has broken
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: a long drought in golf, that's generally the end, not
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: a new beginning. Now very few have done it at
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: the age of thirty five, because his drought started when
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: he was so young, at the age of twenty four.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: But when Jack broke his drought, that was the end.
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: When Tiger broke his drought in twenty nineteen, he won
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: another tour event, but he's never come close to winning
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: a major after that. He's never going to now because
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: he's because of injuries. Ben Crenshaw had a similar drought
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: between Masters wins. He never came close to winning anything
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: after that. It tends to be the end, not a
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: new beginning. Now, Rory's thirty five, He's in fantastic shape.
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: He's got a lot going for him. He's a very
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: talented player. I'm not saying he's not gonna win another
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: major championship. I get that. The rest of the schedule
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: this year really fits him very very well. The PGA
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: Championship is Atqwell Hollow, where he has won four times.
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: He four in Charlotte, although this time the course will
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: be set up differently. Presumably for a PGA championship. In
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: theory he could do very very well there. He might
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: even win there. I don't think he'll win the US
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: Open at Oakmont, which I don't think really sets up
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: particularly well for him. But you know, the British opens
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: that were all Port Rush, which is basically his hometown
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: or close to it in Ireland. And so the media
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: is very very very hopeful that, oh my gosh, we
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: have a new Tiger. That's really what they want. It's
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: essentially Tiger is like the O. J. Simpson case. For
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: the mainstream news media, they're going to spend the rest
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: of their lives searching for a new OJ Simpson case,
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: and the golf media is going to spend the rest
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: of their lives looking for a new Tiger Woods. I
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: just don't see it happening because I'm of the belief
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: that one, Rory has weaknesses in his game that were
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: exposed once again in the final round of the Masters.
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: And two I'm of the belief that the sport has
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: gotten much younger than people fully realize. I think the
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: stats bear this out as to the age of major champion.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: I think there are a ton of younger golfers that
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: are absolutely ridiculous coming into the pro game, and I
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: think you age out, you know, by forty now you
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: know there are aberrations that go against that. Justin Rose
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: almost won the Masters at forty four, but that took
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: a career performance, so there are opportunities. Again, I want
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: to make it clear, it's very plausible Rory wins another
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: major yor maybe two, maybe three, But the idea that
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: he's going to somehow get to ten or more than
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: that and really become on the Mount rushmore of all
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: golfers get up there with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: I just don't see that. I just as much as
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: the news media and the sports media, the golf media
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: really really wants to see it, I don't see it happening.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong. I've been wrong before, but I
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: don't think so. So that's my prediction about where Rory
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: goes from here. Last point on the Masters, and I
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: think this was really crystallized in this particular year for
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: a number of reasons that will become obvious as I
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: explained where I'm going with this. One of the great
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: things about the Masters, especially given where sports in general
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: and even college sports in particular have been going in
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: the last few years. Is that there is nothing about
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: the Masters that is about the money, which is kind
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: of amazing considering the fact that the Masters pays out
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: one of the highest purses of now the highest perse
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: in all of golf. So it's not like there's not
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: a ton of money. But see, the Master's business model
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: is completely different than every other golf tournament, every other
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: sporting event. They don't even get paid by CBS for
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: CBS to carry the broadcast, as they have done for
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: seventy years. They basically make all their money from ticket
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: sale and for merchandise. Merchandise is really where they make
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: almost all their money, but they don't really care. They're
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: not in this to make a huge profit because they
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: already have a ton of money for a whole variety
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: of reasons. They're doing this largely because they want to
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: put on the best tournament they can in a way
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: that is consistent with their principles. Now, I have criticized
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: how those principles have not really been upheld, especially during
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: the COVID panic and in some other ways, but from
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: a golf perspective, they've always done a really good job
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: of maintaining their principles and saying this is not about money,
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: that history and tradition matters, and in fact, we're not
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: even gonna let CBS talk about the money. You're not
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: allowed on CBS to discuss the purse. The purse isn't
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: even revealed until after the tournament is over. So they
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: go out of their way to not make it about money.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: And Rory McElroy, this is the part where this becomes important.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: Roy McElroy, who already is one of the richest athletes
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: in the world, has more money than he could possibly
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: ever spend in the rest of his life, right, so
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: money means nothing to him. You saw his reaction on
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: the eighteenth green when he won in the playoff. I
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: mean it was almost literally an exorcism of emotion. Was
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: any of that about money? Was once sentila of that
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: about money? I would say absolutely positively not. Money had
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with this. It wasn't even remotely in
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: the mindset of Rory McElroy, or any of the fans,
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: or the announcers, or any of the players playing. They
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: did not care about the money. It was about the achievement.
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 1: It was about the pursuit. It was about the history.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: It was about the glory of victory and overcoming, in
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: Mary McElroy's case, your demons and achieving something that you'd
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: always dreamed about doing. You didn't dream about the fucking money.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: The money came with it. Money's already there, but that's
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: how much it meant to Ry McElroy, Which is part
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: of why I've kind of changed my tune in this
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: episode about Roy McElroy, because it was obvious, it was clear,
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: it was authentic, and in this era of sports that
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: are all about the money, even at the college level,
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: it was incredibly refreshing. And I think partially why this
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: Roy McElroy victory maybe subconsciously has resonated so much, even
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: beyond the world of golf, to where everyone is so
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: excited about this, because it's so different. I mean, to me,
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: money has destroyed sports. I think money is the root
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: of all evil in general, but particularly in sports where
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: at the professional level in sports, what are they even
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: playing for? Why do they even give a shit? I
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: think we're almost to the point where even championships other
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: than maybe Super Bowl rings, don't really mean very much
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: to most of these guys because they already have more
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: money than their great grandchildren the stars do anyway than
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: their great grandchildren are ever going to be able to spend.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: So what's the fricking point. Well, the Masters understands that,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: and so they have gone to great lens to put
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: up a firewall on the notion that money is at
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: the essence of this tournament, even though, to be clear,
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: they're paying a ridiculous amount of money to everyone who
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: plays in the tournament. And so I do think that
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: that's an important part of this whole equation, and given
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: where we are in sports, it was it was really
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: refreshing to see somebody react that way in victory that
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: clearly had absolutely positively nothing to do with the money.
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: This was about sport, This is about victory, This was
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: about history, This was about tradition, and this was about legacy.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: Those are the things that used to matter in sports.
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 8: Now.
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not naive, I'm not a Pollyanna. It's always been
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: a business to a certain degree. It has to be
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: a business, but it's at a certain point it became
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: ninety nine percent business. Now when I was a kid
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: growing up, at least in my perception, I don't know
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: what the percentages were, but it wasn't nowhere near ninety
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: nine percent business. In the seventies, eighties and the nineties,
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: it felt like it was, you know, at least seventy
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: five eighty percent sport and just a little bit of business.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 1: But it's at a certain level it became all business.
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: We've seen that in the news media too, at a
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: certain point stopping about journalism and it became just a business.
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: Because the business model broke well, at least in golf
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: and at least to the masters, there's still this little
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: place where, even though there's a ton of money to
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: be made, that's not what it's about. Thanks for listening
• 2:13:17
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