Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Thirty Five: Spit or Swallow?

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Episode Two Hundred Thirty Five: Spit or Swallow? · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirty five of the
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Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
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Speaker 1: your host on today's show. As Signal Gate predictably fades away,
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Speaker 1: Trump stirs things up with more talk of a third term.
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Speaker 1: The Gavin Newsome restoration tour takes another dangerous turn. Trump
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Speaker 1: speaks out on Tiger Woods, dating the mom of his
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Speaker 1: favorite grandchild. The jfk assassination in Saturday reaches a new
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Speaker 1: level of lunacy. Stephen A. Smith humiliates himself yet again,
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Speaker 1: and nearly everyone is getting it wrong on the real
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Speaker 1: issues surrounding the radical changes to college basketball and March Madness.
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Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with a bit
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Speaker 1: of a programming disclaimer. Normally I tape this now that
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Speaker 1: we've gone to once a week on Wednesday morning here
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Speaker 1: on the West Coast. I'm taping this, however, on Tuesday
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Speaker 1: evening because of a scheduling conflict, and so hopefully nothing
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Speaker 1: huge will happen on Wednesday morning. I think I'm as
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Speaker 1: up to date on the news of the day as
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Speaker 1: I possibly can be, including the results of the special
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Speaker 1: elections that occurred on Tuesday night, specifically in Wisconsin, where
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Speaker 1: Elon Musk spent tens of millions of dollars in a
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Speaker 1: lot of time and personal capital campaigning for essentially the
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Speaker 1: Republican candidate to flip the Wisconsin State Supreme Court back
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Speaker 1: to being conservative as opposed to where it currently is
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Speaker 1: in liberal Democratic hands. That effort failed, and it failed
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Speaker 1: rather spectacularly as the liberal Democrat, although it's a technically
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Speaker 1: non partisan election, the liberal female one big keeping the
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Speaker 1: Wisconsin Supreme Court in liberal hands for the foreseeable future
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Speaker 1: because this is the second straight seat that has been
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Speaker 1: won one in Wisconsin on Supreme Court in a highly
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Speaker 1: contested race by the Liberal Democrat, and that has potential
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Speaker 1: ramifications down the road in all sorts of different directions.
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Speaker 1: But to me, the biggest takeaway is this is a
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Speaker 1: classic example of where Trump really does have personal magic
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Speaker 1: that cannot be transferred. I mean, this is the guy
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump who has won two presidential elections largely because
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Speaker 1: he was able to pull off upsets in Wisconsin and
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Speaker 1: yet in that same period of time that is not
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Speaker 1: translated elsewhere. And this was a resounding, essentially defeat for
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Speaker 1: Elon Musk and for the Republican candidate and n a
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Speaker 1: victory for Democrats, which goes against the grain of this
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Speaker 1: entire narrative that Democrats are in complete, total disarray, that
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Speaker 1: their brand is crap, it's toxic, their approval ratings have
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Speaker 1: never been lower. Okay, I buy all, but when it matters,
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Speaker 1: this was a very significant race and Democrats won this
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Speaker 1: in a big way. And I have constantly over the
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Speaker 1: years referred to the Trump era in Republican politics as
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Speaker 1: a bit of a drug high, where I think Donald
3:21
Speaker 1: Trump is giving Republicans far too much of a rosy
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Speaker 1: perception of their own ability to win elections because he
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Speaker 1: has a magic with a certain segment of the population
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Speaker 1: that simply does not show up. They either don't show
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Speaker 1: up or they don't vote Republican when he's not on
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Speaker 1: the ballot. And I think this is a very troubling sign.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to overplay it, but it's a very
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Speaker 1: troubling sign for the future of the Republican Party, especially
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Speaker 1: if and when Donald Trump leaves the stage. Now whether
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Speaker 1: or not he's going to leave the stage when he's
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Speaker 1: supposed to has become a miss topic of conversation over
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Speaker 1: the last several days. This is because he gave a
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Speaker 1: very strange interview to Kristen Welker of NBC, who hosts
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Speaker 1: Meet the Press. The reason I say this was strange is,
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Speaker 1: to my knowledge, this interview was neither scheduled nor recorded,
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Speaker 1: which doesn't make any sense to me at all. I mean,
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Speaker 1: you know, the way Kristin Welker described this was that
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump called her, and I have heard no recording
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Speaker 1: of this. There's apparently no video of this. If there is,
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Speaker 1: I've somehow missed it. I don't believe that's possible, given
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Speaker 1: how much I looked into this, But there's no evidence
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Speaker 1: that this was actually a recorded interview. But this interview
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Speaker 1: made a lot of news, and why you would call
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Speaker 1: for a quote quote unquote print interview with a television
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Speaker 1: host on NBC is nonsensical to me. By the way.
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Speaker 1: It's also particularly funny because a couple of weeks ago,
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Speaker 1: Ronald Trump refused to answer a question from an NBC
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Speaker 1: news reporter because he basically said he was boycotting NBC.
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Speaker 1: And I thought at the time, that's awfully weird because
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Speaker 1: he gave his first interview after winning the election to
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Speaker 1: NBC and Kristen Welker, and now here he is apparently
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Speaker 1: proactively calling her and breaking major news on a couple
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Speaker 1: of fronts, one of which was that he said that
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Speaker 1: he was pissed off at Vladimir Putin. I found to
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Speaker 1: be almost hilarious if it wasn't so serious that he's
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Speaker 1: pissed off at Vladimir Putin for questioning get this Zelensky's credibility,
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Speaker 1: which of course is rather rich coming from a guy
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Speaker 1: who told the entire world in public at the White House,
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Speaker 1: with Zelensky sitting there, that he doesn't have the cards
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Speaker 1: in his negotiation with Russia. And this is something that
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Speaker 1: dovetails with a warning that I gave a couple of
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Speaker 1: episodes ago where I did not think Trump was doing
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Speaker 1: this negotiation in a remotely logical fashion. It wasn't even
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Speaker 1: passing negotiation one oh one, where if you have two parties,
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Speaker 1: one has all the leverage, which you've already made clear
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Speaker 1: in your public statements, statements that I don't think should
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Speaker 1: have been public. I think if Trump wanted to undress Zelenski,
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Speaker 1: he should have done it in private. But he made
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Speaker 1: it very obvious to the whole world, including Vladimir Putin,
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Speaker 1: that Zelensky has no cards, has no leverage. Well, if
6:22
Speaker 1: you have a situation like that and you are trying
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Speaker 1: to broker a cease fire agreement in this particular situation,
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Speaker 1: you have to go to the party that has the
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Speaker 1: leverage first, because otherwise it's not gonna work. Trump went
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Speaker 1: to Zelensky, got a deal with him, and then he
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Speaker 1: goes to Putin. But Putin doesn't matter whats the deal.
6:41
Speaker 1: Putin has no incentive to take that deal because he
6:44
Speaker 1: knows he has the leverage. So you have to go
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Speaker 1: to the person with the leverage first, find out what
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Speaker 1: they will accept, and then you go to the person
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Speaker 1: without the leverage, in this case Zelenski, and you say, Okay,
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Speaker 1: here's the shit sandwich. Are you to eat it? And
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Speaker 1: Trump is now shocked and apparently pissed off that that
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Speaker 1: strategy on his part has not worked out to this date,
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Speaker 1: which I predicted it would not. But that was not
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Speaker 1: the biggest headline from this Donald Trump Christen Welker interview.
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Speaker 1: The biggest headline dealt with the fact that Donald Trump,
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Speaker 1: using stronger language than he ever has to this point,
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Speaker 1: made it clear that he has not closed off the
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Speaker 1: option of running for a third term as president of
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Speaker 1: the United States. Now you can split hairs. You can
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Speaker 1: claim that he was joking, even though he said very specifically,
7:44
Speaker 1: I'm not joking. I don't know what more he has
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Speaker 1: to say for people to stop believing that he's joking
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Speaker 1: about this when he says I'm not joking. But he
7:55
Speaker 1: made it very obvious that this was not an avenue
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Speaker 1: he was closed off, and in fact seemed to be
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Speaker 1: one that he was quite interested in. Now, he did
8:05
Speaker 1: kind of put out there, well, you know, we got
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Speaker 1: a lot of work to do and it's a long
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Speaker 1: way off. I'm not making that decision now. But frankly,
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Speaker 1: to me, that's irrelevant. That actually doesn't help the situation
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Speaker 1: at all, for reasons i'll explain in just a bit.
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Speaker 1: But instead of reading to you quotes from this effectively
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Speaker 1: a print interview with a television host, I'm going to
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Speaker 1: play this clip from Kristen Welker herself, which NBC posted
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Speaker 1: on their social media platforms, with her explaining what happened
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Speaker 1: during this conversation slash interview that she had that was
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Speaker 1: initiated with President Trump. You're gonna hear Trump's voice, but
8:44
Speaker 1: that is not from this interview. That is from a
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Speaker 1: past statement from Trump. That was placed within this video
8:52
Speaker 1: that was released by NBC News, and so this should
8:55
Speaker 1: give you some context for that. What happened in that
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Speaker 1: interview between Trump and Welker sident.
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Speaker 2: Trump called me this morning. We discussed a range of topics,
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Speaker 2: including the possibility of him serving a third term. He's
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Speaker 2: joked about it.
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Speaker 3: I've raised a lot of money for the next race
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Speaker 3: that I assume I can't use for myself, but I'm
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Speaker 3: not one hundred percent sure.
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Speaker 2: But these were his most extensive comments yet. He told
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Speaker 2: me he's not joking. He said there are methods by
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Speaker 2: which you could do it, but he said it's far
9:26
Speaker 2: too early to think about it. He said he's focused
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Speaker 2: on his current job. At the same time, I did
9:31
Speaker 2: press him on those methods. There's been some discussion about
9:35
Speaker 2: the possibility of Vice President jd. Vance running perhaps at
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Speaker 2: the top of the ticket, with President Trump running in
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Speaker 2: the number two slot, and then swapping if they were
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Speaker 2: to win. President Trump telling me that is a method.
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Speaker 2: He said there are other methods. I asked if he
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Speaker 2: could give me details, and he said flatly no. Now,
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Speaker 2: President Trump's allies have said that they are seriously looking
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Speaker 2: at this.
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Speaker 1: We're working on there, not prepared to talk about it publicly,
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Speaker 1: but in a couple of months, I think we will be.
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Speaker 2: Here's what you need to know, though it is incredibly
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Speaker 2: complicated to change the constitution. Serving a third term is
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Speaker 2: prohibited by the constitution, so this is something that would
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Speaker 2: be far out of reach by any measure. And again
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Speaker 2: President Trump insisting for right now, he's focused on his
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Speaker 2: current job.
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Speaker 1: Now. One of the many problems with interviews, especially in
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Speaker 1: this day and age where we expect everything to be
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Speaker 1: on video, but especially when it comes to Donald Trump,
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Speaker 1: is that if it's in print, Trump fans aren't gonna
10:36
Speaker 1: believe it. If they don't want to believe it, they're
10:38
Speaker 1: just not They're gonna say it's fake news. They're gonna
10:41
Speaker 1: say she's making it up, even if Trump doesn't deny it,
10:44
Speaker 1: or they're gonna say that she's misinterpreting it, or they're
10:47
Speaker 1: gonna say that what he says he wasn't joking you
10:49
Speaker 1: was actually meaning that he was joking. They're gonna just
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Speaker 1: rationalize whatever whatever works for them. However, Fox News Channels
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Speaker 1: Peter Doucy in this particular case, followed up. He did
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Speaker 1: the right thing. He followed up in oppress availability with
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Speaker 1: Donald Trump at the White House, asked him about this
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Speaker 1: particular topic. So now we have actual video of Donald
11:12
Speaker 1: Trump effectively saying most of the same things that he
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Speaker 1: apparently said to Kristen Welker. And here's what that sounded like.
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Speaker 4: If you were allowed, for some reason to run for
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Speaker 4: a third term, is there a thought that the Democrats
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Speaker 4: could try to run Barack Obama against you?
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Speaker 5: I'd love that term, boy, I'd love that. That would
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Speaker 5: be a good one. I'd like that. And no, people
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Speaker 5: are asking me to run. And there's a whole story
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Speaker 5: about running for a third term. I don't know. I
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Speaker 5: never looked into it. And they do say there's a
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Speaker 5: way you can do it, but I don't know about that,
11:44
Speaker 5: but I have not looked into it. I want to
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Speaker 5: do a fantastic job. We have four years, just about
11:49
Speaker 5: almost close to four years. It's time is flying, but
11:53
Speaker 5: it's still close to four years, and we're getting a
11:56
Speaker 5: lot of credit for having done a great job in
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Speaker 5: the first almost one hundred day.
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Speaker 1: So it is very obvious that Welker's report was accurate
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Speaker 1: and that Donald Trump is not closing off serving a
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Speaker 1: third term in office as President of the United States. Now,
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Speaker 1: there are two massive problems, at least two massive problems
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Speaker 1: with this. The first is that it is clearly unconstitutional
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Speaker 1: for Trump to do this. It is very very obvious
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Speaker 1: if you don't believe me. Jonathan Turley, Law, professor of
12:33
Speaker 1: George Washington University. He's on Fox News Channel all the time.
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Speaker 1: He's one of the few semi objective people that has
12:41
Speaker 1: kind of gotten on the Trump train, even though he's
12:43
Speaker 1: a an academic and he's never been known as a conservative,
12:48
Speaker 1: but he's gotten a lot of conservative street cred because
12:50
Speaker 1: he's been a lot more fair to Donald Trump over
12:52
Speaker 1: the last few years. Fox News Channel loves him. He
12:55
Speaker 1: put out a very extensive column going through this argument
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Speaker 1: and made it very very clear, very very obvious, that
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Speaker 1: there is no legitimate argument, no matter how you parse
13:05
Speaker 1: the language in the Constitution, for Trump to run for
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Speaker 1: a third term. Now, there are those that are going
13:11
Speaker 1: to claim, as Kristen Welker implied, that you could have
13:15
Speaker 1: a situation where Trump ran for vice president, and say JD.
13:21
Speaker 1: Vance ran for president and Vance wins, and then he
13:24
Speaker 1: steps aside and Trump as president. By the way, Turley says,
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Speaker 1: that's not even constitutional because he couldn't run as vice
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Speaker 1: president because he wouldn't be eligible in Turley's interpretation, to
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Speaker 1: be president anyway, and that's part of the eligibility to
13:39
Speaker 1: run for vice president. And so Turley believes he'd be
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Speaker 1: taking off all sorts of ballots. There'll be all sorts
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Speaker 1: of problems, political problems, legal problems, not to mention, I
13:50
Speaker 1: don't think it would be even remotely successful if, even
13:53
Speaker 1: if you won all the legal challenges to this, because
13:56
Speaker 1: it would just not pass the smell test, and there's
13:59
Speaker 1: not nearly enough Trump cult members to carry that kind
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Speaker 1: of a situation to victory, even against the Kamala Harris
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Speaker 1: or even against the Gavin Newsom. I actually think that
14:11
Speaker 1: would be the one path that would provide a way
14:15
Speaker 1: for a Gavin Newsom or a Kamala Harris to win
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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. So do not buy, and I
14:21
Speaker 1: certainly don't buy this idea that there are loopholes in
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Speaker 1: the constitution. Now, this is totally and completely wrong constitutionally,
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Speaker 1: But I actually think it's even worse than that, because
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Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is currently doing and shows no sign
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Speaker 1: that there's any off ramp to this path that he
14:40
Speaker 1: has now chosen this is I think this is actually
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Speaker 1: an incredibly underrated story. It's very much underrated on the
14:46
Speaker 1: right wing media because they don't want to talk about
14:49
Speaker 1: this at all, because they want to ignore this. They
14:51
Speaker 1: want to pretend Trump is just joking. They don't want
14:54
Speaker 1: to have to take a stand on this because they
14:57
Speaker 1: know Trump's wrong about this. They know he's wrong legally, constitutionally,
15:01
Speaker 1: and they probably also know he's wrong politically, so they
15:04
Speaker 1: just want this issue to go away. The left wing media,
15:07
Speaker 1: of course, is all exercised about this, and I think
15:09
Speaker 1: they have right to be. But even the left wing media,
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Speaker 1: I think is somewhat underplaying the political ramifications for this,
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Speaker 1: mainly because they don't really care about what I care about,
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Speaker 1: and what I care about is making sure a Democrat
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Speaker 1: does not win in twenty twenty eight. And Donald Trump
15:27
Speaker 1: has just accepted and started down a path that will
15:32
Speaker 1: lead to a Democratic victory in twenty twenty eight, barring
15:36
Speaker 1: Democrats shitting the bed even worse than I think they're
15:40
Speaker 1: capable of doing. And here's why. It's not just because
15:44
Speaker 1: if he actually goes through with this, I think it
15:47
Speaker 1: would be electoral catastrophe. I mean, my god, can I
15:51
Speaker 1: mean Seriously, folks, if they ever tried to do an
15:54
Speaker 1: end round, an n run around the Constitution with JD.
15:58
Speaker 1: Vance running a ten campaign and Donald Trump being vice
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Speaker 1: president so that he could then and I don't even
16:05
Speaker 1: know how, you know, what would be the leverage that
16:07
Speaker 1: Trump would have over Vance once they won. I don't
16:10
Speaker 1: even know what that would be. But okay, fine, let's
16:12
Speaker 1: pretend everything went exactly the way they hope that ticket
16:16
Speaker 1: would get crushed on principle alone. I don't know what
16:21
Speaker 1: the numbers would be, but they would not win. They
16:23
Speaker 1: would not win. There would be that would be unacceptable
16:26
Speaker 1: to too large a number of people, many of whom
16:30
Speaker 1: would be Republicans. There's just no way that would be successful.
16:35
Speaker 1: But it doesn't even have to get that far to
16:38
Speaker 1: be a massive problem for twenty twenty eight. Here's where
16:42
Speaker 1: I really get angry, because Trump is let's let's use
16:47
Speaker 1: basic psychology. Let's lose use what we understand about Donald Trump.
16:51
Speaker 1: The reality is the guy has a massive ego. He's
16:54
Speaker 1: incredibly narcissistic, he's incredibly insecure, he needs to be loved.
17:00
Speaker 1: He loves the fact that people are talking about the
17:04
Speaker 1: idea of a third term because in his mind. It
17:07
Speaker 1: shows what a great job he is doing. People like
17:11
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon. We discussed this in the last episode of
17:13
Speaker 1: the podcast, where I believe Steve Bannon is using this
17:16
Speaker 1: as a way to create an opening for him in
17:19
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty eight Republican presidential primary. And I think
17:23
Speaker 1: right now this is going better than Steve Bannon could
17:26
Speaker 1: possibly have ever imagined. You know why, because what Donald
17:31
Speaker 1: Trump has chosen to do in an incredibly selfish fashion,
17:35
Speaker 1: not just selfish for himself over for instance, Jade Evans,
17:39
Speaker 1: but I believe selfish for himself when it comes to
17:42
Speaker 1: the future of the country. What Donald Trump has decided
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Speaker 1: to selfishly do by embracing this issue instead of doing
17:48
Speaker 1: the right thing with just say no, I'm sorry, I'm
17:51
Speaker 1: not interested. It's not constitutional, and you know, somebody else
17:56
Speaker 1: is going to be the Republican nominee in twenty twenty eight,
17:58
Speaker 1: that would be that is is the only acceptable answer.
18:02
Speaker 1: But doing it the way Trump is currently doing it
18:05
Speaker 1: and giving zero indication that he's gonna turn you away
18:10
Speaker 1: from that path anytime soon, it has effectively cut the
18:14
Speaker 1: nuts off of jd Vance. Jd Vance's balls are now
18:19
Speaker 1: in a jar. Somewhere in Donald Trump's desk, And maybe
18:24
Speaker 1: that's part of the strategy here when it comes to
18:27
Speaker 1: Trump and the mob boss that Donald Trump views himself
18:31
Speaker 1: as being, and how he often acts as a mob boss.
18:34
Speaker 1: Maybe this is something he sees as a leverage point
18:38
Speaker 1: for whatever way he wants to use it over JD. Vance.
18:41
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. I never know what's just
18:43
Speaker 1: an ego move. I don't know what Trump is actually
18:46
Speaker 1: thinking about in the long term. He's not a chess player.
18:49
Speaker 1: But if he is thinking about this in the long
18:53
Speaker 1: term and the way this is all gonna work out,
18:56
Speaker 1: he's gotta be smart enough to understand. He has just
18:59
Speaker 1: made it impossible for jd. Vance to prepare to run
19:04
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. Impossible. When I say his nuts
19:10
Speaker 1: are in a jar, they're in a jar. He can't
19:13
Speaker 1: do anything. He can't raise money, he can't try to
19:17
Speaker 1: create a political staff, he can't visit swing states in
19:23
Speaker 1: Republican primary states, he can't do anything. And everywhere he
19:27
Speaker 1: goes he will be asked whether or not he believes
19:32
Speaker 1: Donald Trump can and should run for a third term.
19:36
Speaker 1: And he must because of who Trump is. He must
19:41
Speaker 1: back Trump. One hundred percent, one hundred percent. He has
19:46
Speaker 1: no other political choice, not just because he's the vice president,
19:50
Speaker 1: but because Trump's endorsement in twenty twenty eight, assuming he
19:54
Speaker 1: doesn't run for president, is going to be the only
19:56
Speaker 1: thing that matters. So JD. Vance is going to end
20:00
Speaker 1: up saying things that I guarantee he doesn't really believe
20:04
Speaker 1: that are not conducive for him to win the presidency
20:07
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, all to remain viable for the
20:11
Speaker 1: Republican nomination in twenty twenty eight. Because if he were
20:14
Speaker 1: to say, now, I don't think President Trump is eligible
20:18
Speaker 1: to run for a third term, That's it for Jade Vans.
20:22
Speaker 1: That's it for JD. Vans. He would not get Donald
20:25
Speaker 1: Trump's endorsement, in my view, and he would lose a
20:28
Speaker 1: huge portion of the Trump cult base right off the bat.
20:33
Speaker 1: Because it doesn't matter what the issue is anymore. I
20:37
Speaker 1: told you this was my biggest fear about a Trump
20:40
Speaker 1: victory in twenty twenty four. You've got a god king now,
20:44
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter what the actual issue is. You
20:48
Speaker 1: are not allowed to criticize or push back against anything
20:54
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump says. We're singing in the right wing media.
20:58
Speaker 1: Nobody in the right wing media will take Donald Trump
21:00
Speaker 1: on anything, And maybe this is a way for Trump
21:04
Speaker 1: to test that he loves testing people to see how
21:08
Speaker 1: much they really are devoted to him, how loyal they
21:11
Speaker 1: really are to him. And if you're willing, especially as
21:15
Speaker 1: alleged constitutionalists, people like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, people
21:20
Speaker 1: like that, formerly Glenn Beck, people like that, if they're
21:23
Speaker 1: willing to go that far to the mat and say,
21:27
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm fine with Trump trying to run
21:29
Speaker 1: for a third term, then that's the ultimate victory for Trump.
21:34
Speaker 1: He will have defeated them so thoroughly that they will
21:37
Speaker 1: be willing to give up any and all principle and
21:40
Speaker 1: risk losing the twenty twenty eight election just to prove
21:44
Speaker 1: their devotion to him. To put it in Hoktua terms, basically,
21:50
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight is going to be a battle between
21:53
Speaker 1: spit Trump fans and swallow Trump fans, and JD. Vance's
22:00
Speaker 1: gonna have to prove he's a swallow Trumper, and he's
22:04
Speaker 1: gonna have to swallow any objection to this idea that
22:08
Speaker 1: Trump can't run for a third term or can run
22:12
Speaker 1: for a third term. And I don't know how he
22:15
Speaker 1: possibly runs in twenty twenty eight. He is beyond handicapped,
22:21
Speaker 1: and Steve Bannon has to be licking his chumps. Because
22:25
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon has nothing to lose. Jade Vance has everything
22:30
Speaker 1: to lose. He's the vice president of the United States,
22:33
Speaker 1: He's the presumed Republican presidential nominee. He's he's, you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: not too many steps away from being president himself, assuming
22:42
Speaker 1: nothing bad happens to Donald Trump between now and then.
22:45
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon doesn't have that. But Steve Bannon can ride
22:49
Speaker 1: this issue all he wants, and then when and if
22:52
Speaker 1: Trump decides, you know what, it's just not worth it.
22:55
Speaker 1: I'd rather play golf the rest of my life. This
22:57
Speaker 1: isn't you know, And who knows what the kind of
23:00
Speaker 1: institution would be. I'm not going to do this. By
23:02
Speaker 1: that point, Bannon may be in a far better position
23:06
Speaker 1: than Dvances, especially if Trump doesn't endorse fans for whatever reason.
23:12
Speaker 1: And so that's the part of this that is not
23:15
Speaker 1: getting nearly enough attention. Donald Trump just made j D
23:20
Speaker 1: Vance's run for president in twenty twenty eight inherently and
23:24
Speaker 1: fundamentally dysfunctional unless and until he completely disavows this idea
23:32
Speaker 1: of running for a third term, which I don't think
23:35
Speaker 1: he's going to do because I think he loves it
23:39
Speaker 1: too much. I think it plays to his ego and
23:43
Speaker 1: his narcissism way too much, way too much. And you know,
23:48
Speaker 1: if I'm always trying to come up with constructive criticisms
23:54
Speaker 1: and ideas and theories about how, okay, how do we
23:57
Speaker 1: fix this problem solutions? I don't know who Trump's really
24:01
Speaker 1: listening to right now. I thought it was Susie Wiles.
24:04
Speaker 1: I was told it probably isn't Susie Wiles. It might
24:06
Speaker 1: be Stephen Miller. But whoever Trump really trusts This cannot
24:10
Speaker 1: come from Jade Vance himself because of the obvious self interest,
24:14
Speaker 1: but Trump somebody, And again this goes back to my
24:16
Speaker 1: biggest concern about twenty twenty four. Not only is he
24:20
Speaker 1: a god king, but there's nobody close to him. Forget
24:23
Speaker 1: about the right wing media. There's no one close to
24:25
Speaker 1: him that's gonna tell him no other than maybe Susie Wiles.
24:29
Speaker 1: No one is gonna have the balls to say, mister President, no,
24:33
Speaker 1: this is not a good idea for you or for
24:34
Speaker 1: the country. But somebody has got to convince him that
24:40
Speaker 1: this is not in his own self interest, and it's
24:43
Speaker 1: not in his own self interest because if he were
24:46
Speaker 1: to try this, he would lose, which would destroy his
24:50
Speaker 1: legacy as a winner. He's a winner now, He's won
24:53
Speaker 1: two out of three elections and one has an asterisk
24:57
Speaker 1: because of COVID, not because of election irregularity. But he
25:02
Speaker 1: goes away now, assuming this is a remotely successful second term,
25:06
Speaker 1: He's got a heck of a legacy. But if he
25:09
Speaker 1: loses try to do an end run around the constitution,
25:13
Speaker 1: that changes everything. So he's going to care about that,
25:15
Speaker 1: But he's also going to care about the fact that
25:19
Speaker 1: if he loses trying to run for a third term,
25:22
Speaker 1: then he's going to spend the rest of his life
25:24
Speaker 1: not on the golf course but in a courtroom. Not
25:27
Speaker 1: necessarily because of court battles involving the potential end run
25:31
Speaker 1: around the presidency, but because Democrats are going to do
25:34
Speaker 1: the same thing to him if they take over that
25:37
Speaker 1: they tried to do last time, because that's how much
25:39
Speaker 1: they hate him. And I think it's possible theoretically to
25:43
Speaker 1: convince Donald Trump that this whole charade is not in
25:46
Speaker 1: his own self interest, But I don't know if there's
25:49
Speaker 1: anybody willing or able to make that argument to him.
25:52
Speaker 1: But this is a big problem. This is a big problem,
25:55
Speaker 1: and it's way beyond just the constitutionality or lack there
26:00
Speaker 1: of this whole idea of trying to finagle away for
26:04
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to get a third term. And I don't
26:05
Speaker 1: even talking about what that would be a good idea
26:08
Speaker 1: to have a guy in his mid eighties as president
26:10
Speaker 1: who just won his second term partially running against the
26:14
Speaker 1: guy who was too old to be president. I mean,
26:17
Speaker 1: mine boggles at all the layers of issues here. And
26:20
Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems in this whole scenario I've
26:24
Speaker 1: already alluded to it is that if this is the
26:28
Speaker 1: path that Republicans go down, then it brings in all
26:32
Speaker 1: sorts of possibilities on the Democratic side that I did
26:35
Speaker 1: not think were likely or even remotely likely not that
26:39
Speaker 1: long ago, because I have never taken the third term
26:43
Speaker 1: issue all that seriously. I thought, Okay, Trump will joke
26:47
Speaker 1: about this, but this is not something that's going to
26:50
Speaker 1: be real, and it's not one hundred percent real yet,
26:53
Speaker 1: but it's starting to feel really, really real. And one
26:58
Speaker 1: of those scenarios, which is the worst possible scenario that
27:02
Speaker 1: I can think of. Things can always turn out worse,
27:06
Speaker 1: unfortunately in this day and age. But the scenario that
27:09
Speaker 1: I've always feared the most is that Gavin Newsom ends
27:12
Speaker 1: up somehow becoming President of the United States in twenty
27:15
Speaker 1: twenty eight. And I had somewhat discounted that on a
27:19
Speaker 1: couple of different levels. One, I didn't think he could
27:22
Speaker 1: win the Democratic nomination, especially I Kamala Harris as running herself,
27:25
Speaker 1: two people from California. She's first in line because she
27:29
Speaker 1: was the vice president and because she's a black female.
27:32
Speaker 1: He can't win that kind of a primary. Well, it
27:35
Speaker 1: now looks like Kamala Harris may underline, may run for
27:39
Speaker 1: governor of California, replacing Gavin Newsom, which opens up the
27:45
Speaker 1: Democratic primary. And I never thought that if Newsom won
27:49
Speaker 1: the primary, he could be the JD Vance because Newsom
27:53
Speaker 1: has so many skeletons, so many problems. Yes, he's a
27:56
Speaker 1: good looking guy, and he's a skilled talker, and he
28:00
Speaker 1: does have you'll have access to money, and he has
28:03
Speaker 1: enough celebrity and all that, but he's way too far left.
28:07
Speaker 1: And I thought that on an even playing field, JD
28:10
Speaker 1: Vance would beat him. And might maybe beat him fairly easily.
28:14
Speaker 1: But JD Vance with his testicles in a jar until
28:18
Speaker 1: the last possible moment, all the play caate Donald Trump's
28:22
Speaker 1: ego might not be able to beat Gavin Newsom, and
28:26
Speaker 1: I guarantee you. I shouldn't guarantee, but I feel strongly
28:31
Speaker 1: that even Gavin Newsom would be able to beat a
28:34
Speaker 1: charade campaign of Vance running on behalf of Donald Trump
28:40
Speaker 1: to get him a third term in office, which is
28:43
Speaker 1: just a crazy idea. But Gavin Newsom could win a
28:47
Speaker 1: race like that because there'll be enough people that will
28:49
Speaker 1: just say no, no, it doesn't pass the smell test.
28:52
Speaker 1: I don't care who the opposition is. We're going in
28:55
Speaker 1: another direction. So this whole Gavin Newsom thing has gotten
29:01
Speaker 1: me much more agitated, especially since Newsom is on this
29:05
Speaker 1: restoration tour, this revisionist history tour where he started this podcast,
29:10
Speaker 1: as if he doesn't have enough things going on in California.
29:12
Speaker 5: Is that?
29:13
Speaker 1: I mean, it is unbelievable to me that the California
29:16
Speaker 1: just two months ago, let's go over a little over
29:19
Speaker 1: two months ago, suffered the worst natural disaster in its
29:23
Speaker 1: modern history, has all sorts of other massive problems and
29:27
Speaker 1: the sitting governor decides. You know, I'm going to devote
29:30
Speaker 1: a lot of my time to a podcast talking to
29:35
Speaker 1: middle ranged quote unquote right wing commentators, all because I'm
29:40
Speaker 1: going to revise the history and the narratives surrounding me
29:43
Speaker 1: because I want to run for president in twenty twenty
29:47
Speaker 1: eight without that being the stated goal, but it's obvious
29:50
Speaker 1: to anyone with half a brain. Well Newsom did an
29:54
Speaker 1: interview with Bill Maher just a few days ago, and
29:58
Speaker 1: this is this is in interesting on a couple of
30:00
Speaker 1: different levels. Bill Maher used to be known as a
30:04
Speaker 1: far left liberal host of HBO's Real Time, but in
30:10
Speaker 1: the last couple of years he's actually become somewhat of
30:14
Speaker 1: a not a right winger, but somebody that right wingers
30:17
Speaker 1: can go, Oh my gosh, Bill Maher is the voice
30:20
Speaker 1: of reason. How the fuck did that happen? I've said
30:22
Speaker 1: that many times on this podcast. How did Bill Maher
30:25
Speaker 1: become the voice of reason when it comes to liberal politics?
30:30
Speaker 1: And it kind of started with COVID and he lives
30:34
Speaker 1: in California, and he's experienced all sorts of horrible democratic
30:38
Speaker 1: liberal policies and over regulation, and he doesn't like wokeism,
30:43
Speaker 1: and you know, he thinks that Democrats have lost their
30:46
Speaker 1: minds on the transgender issue, and he at least seems
30:49
Speaker 1: to have a semblance of an idea of what Middle
30:51
Speaker 1: America is about, even though he's lived most of his
30:53
Speaker 1: life in Los Angeles. And you know, so Bill Maher
30:58
Speaker 1: is a guy who now has a little bit of
31:00
Speaker 1: street cred, especially now that he's actually visited with Donald
31:04
Speaker 1: Trump in the White House, something I'll get to in
31:06
Speaker 1: a second. But he's a guy has a little bit
31:08
Speaker 1: of street cred among the middle moderates and even some
31:12
Speaker 1: right wingers. And so the fact that Bill Maher seems
31:16
Speaker 1: to be participating in this Gavin Newsom restoration tour is
31:21
Speaker 1: even more concerning to me because Newsom is actually doing
31:26
Speaker 1: this in a pretty strategic and so far way too
31:30
Speaker 1: effective fashion. I mean, it just never occurred to me
31:33
Speaker 1: that it would be possible for Gavin Newsom to paint
31:37
Speaker 1: himself as some sort of a moderate, which he most
31:40
Speaker 1: obviously is not. He is a far left lunatic. And frankly,
31:44
Speaker 1: the idea that Bill Maher doesn't hate Gavin Newsom in fact,
31:49
Speaker 1: in fact, he seemingly likes him, wants him to run
31:51
Speaker 1: for president is bizarre to me, given what some of
31:54
Speaker 1: Marr's objections about the Democratic Party in California are. It
31:59
Speaker 1: seems like Mar's not thinking this through for a guy
32:03
Speaker 1: who's clearly very smart. I mean, on COVID alone, I've
32:06
Speaker 1: gotten there through this one hundred times. But Gavin Newsom
32:09
Speaker 1: was absolutely horrendous in every possible way on COVID, in
32:13
Speaker 1: ways that should infuriate Bill Maher. But somehow Newsom and Mar,
32:19
Speaker 1: and to Mars's credit, he pushes back a little bit.
32:22
Speaker 1: In this first clip, I'm gonna play two clips for
32:23
Speaker 1: you from this interview. The first clip goes with this
32:26
Speaker 1: whole idea that Newsom is condemning the Democratic brand as toxic,
32:33
Speaker 1: even though he's not accepting any personal responsibility for the
32:36
Speaker 1: fact that he is a large part of why the
32:39
Speaker 1: Democratic brand is toxic. But they get into these issues
32:43
Speaker 1: involving transgenderism, and you know, Newsom has allegedly separated himself
32:49
Speaker 1: from his party on whether or not biological males can
32:53
Speaker 1: play or should be able to play sports in female
32:57
Speaker 1: sports in high school and college. Even though just after
33:01
Speaker 1: this interview, the California Assembly, which essentially works for Gavin
33:05
Speaker 1: Newsom shot down not one, but two different bills that
33:11
Speaker 1: were proposed by Republicans that would have prevented biological males
33:16
Speaker 1: from playing female sports. On a one hundred percent party
33:21
Speaker 1: line vote. Not one Democrat, not one Democrat, voted in
33:26
Speaker 1: favor of these two bills. They went down on a
33:28
Speaker 1: party line vote. Even after Newsom got all sorts of publicity.
33:33
Speaker 1: Fake publicity was all bullshit. It was all a manipulation
33:37
Speaker 1: by Newsom to try to make it look like, oh no,
33:40
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those crazies. I understand this is
33:42
Speaker 1: inherently unfair. And so here's a little bit of back
33:45
Speaker 1: and forth between Gavin Newsom and Bill Maher dealing with
33:49
Speaker 1: issues related to the perception of Democrats. And you know,
33:54
Speaker 1: you're going to get the idea that maybe Bill Maher's
33:56
Speaker 1: not on board here with Gavin Newsom and is at
33:59
Speaker 1: least holding his feet somewhat to the fire. But that
34:02
Speaker 1: would change later on in the interview. But here's here's
34:05
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsome in the latest chapter of his restoration project.
34:10
Speaker 1: They've got to mature.
34:11
Speaker 6: So about this, So what do you say to people
34:12
Speaker 6: who say, well, this sounds all very good, but Governor,
34:16
Speaker 6: you were the poster boy for a lot of this
34:17
Speaker 6: stuff I see today the Trump administration is they talked
34:22
Speaker 6: about I know if this is true, but they talked
34:24
Speaker 6: about the fact that California had a rule that schools
34:28
Speaker 6: cannot be required to notify parents if their kids in
34:34
Speaker 6: school have changed their gender, their pronouns. That's the kind
34:39
Speaker 6: of thing, even though it doesn't affect a lot of people,
34:42
Speaker 6: that makes a lot of people go, well, you know what,
34:45
Speaker 6: that's the Party without common sense. Now, if that's your state,
34:49
Speaker 6: how are you are you?
34:51
Speaker 1: I just disagree with that. I mean, the law was
34:54
Speaker 1: you would be fired.
34:55
Speaker 7: A teacher would be fired if a teacher did not
34:58
Speaker 7: report or snitch on a kid talking about their gender identity.
35:02
Speaker 7: I just think that was wrong. I think teachers should teach.
35:04
Speaker 7: I don't think they should be required to turn in kids.
35:07
Speaker 1: And by the way, turning that we're talking about their parents.
35:09
Speaker 6: How can you snitch? The idea of a snitch and
35:12
Speaker 6: a parent to me, doesn't compline.
35:14
Speaker 8: I just I don't.
35:14
Speaker 7: But what is the job of a teacher.
35:17
Speaker 1: It's to teach.
35:17
Speaker 7: If Johnny's talking about some identity issue or some issue
35:21
Speaker 7: about liking someone of the same sex, is that the
35:23
Speaker 7: teacher's job to.
35:24
Speaker 1: Then report that.
35:25
Speaker 7: By the way, in this law, the teacher can still
35:28
Speaker 7: do that, but they can't be fired if that's what
35:32
Speaker 7: it can't be fired if that's not what they do,
35:34
Speaker 7: because that's something I think is I just think that
35:36
Speaker 7: was fair.
35:37
Speaker 1: I don't think that's inappropriate.
35:38
Speaker 6: You know a lot of people lately talking about this
35:40
Speaker 6: eighty twenty issue, and I think you are on the
35:43
Speaker 6: other side of this now, the side with the eighty
35:45
Speaker 6: eighty being eighty percent of the people in this country.
35:48
Speaker 8: Again, this is the issue of should.
35:50
Speaker 6: Biologically born men be able to compete in women's sport?
35:55
Speaker 6: That's tough, and you know you I saw the polling
35:58
Speaker 6: here in California. I think you were a trader for
36:01
Speaker 6: saying this. You know, when those kind of people call
36:03
Speaker 6: you a trader, there's a word for that.
36:05
Speaker 8: Electable.
36:09
Speaker 6: If the Democrats and eighty percent of the people are
36:13
Speaker 6: with you on this now, if the Democrats can't get
36:16
Speaker 6: with eighty how are they going to do something when
36:19
Speaker 6: it's a fifty one to forty nine.
36:21
Speaker 7: No, Look, I get it, and that's it. Look, and
36:23
Speaker 7: the other side weaponizes these issues. They dehumanize, they attack,
36:27
Speaker 7: they demean and they've weaponized this issue extraordinarily. Well, that said,
36:32
Speaker 7: the fundamental question is it fair? And I can give
36:35
Speaker 7: you example after example. Just in my home state, there
36:37
Speaker 7: was someone that won a triple jump by eight feet.
36:42
Speaker 7: All right, it's just but it's you know, serious, and
36:44
Speaker 7: we had two people in the state champion.
36:46
Speaker 1: This broke my heart. Two years ago.
36:47
Speaker 7: I'll never forget. Eighteen months ago, we had two extraordinary
36:49
Speaker 7: athletes that got into the final state finals.
36:51
Speaker 1: Trans athletes got in the state finals. The backlash was
36:54
Speaker 1: so bad.
36:55
Speaker 7: They didn't even compete, and the other two people that
36:57
Speaker 7: were kicked out weren't able to compete. It was fundamentally unfair.
37:00
Speaker 7: We haven't been able to figure that out. So I
37:02
Speaker 7: expressed that as a fierce champion of lgbt Q rights, Yes,
37:06
Speaker 7: and with a record that I don't have with anyone,
37:08
Speaker 7: you have the credit.
37:10
Speaker 1: Now, as I said, that's not a bad interaction between
37:13
Speaker 1: Bill Maher and Gavin Newsom. But somehow Bill Maher then
37:19
Speaker 1: effectively endorses Gavin Newsom to run for president, referring in
37:25
Speaker 1: this clip to the idea that Newsom ought to be
37:29
Speaker 1: in Iowa, which is obvious although inaccurate allusion to the
37:34
Speaker 1: Democratic primary Iowa is not even remotely relevant in Democratic
37:39
Speaker 1: politics anymore, and Gavin Newsom should be happy about that,
37:42
Speaker 1: because I don't think he would do very well in
37:45
Speaker 1: an Iowa caucus, regardless of whether Kamala Harris was running
37:49
Speaker 1: on the Democratic side or not. But that's neither here
37:51
Speaker 1: nor there. The point of this is quite obvious that
37:54
Speaker 1: even though Bill Maher lives in California and has all
37:57
Speaker 1: sorts of objections to the the current Democratic Party that
38:01
Speaker 1: ought to lead him to being vehemently against Gavin Newsom,
38:04
Speaker 1: he's clearly enthralled with Newsom. I don't know whether it's
38:08
Speaker 1: his personal charm, is good looks, the fact that he's
38:11
Speaker 1: somewhat eloquent. I don't know his celebrity status. I don't
38:14
Speaker 1: know what it is. But here's Bill Maher essentially urging,
38:18
Speaker 1: almost begging, Gavin Newsom to run for president.
38:22
Speaker 6: Given that we are in this dire situation, I feel
38:25
Speaker 6: like we don't have time anymore for the old bullshit.
38:28
Speaker 8: You know, the old Are you running for president?
38:30
Speaker 1: Well?
38:31
Speaker 6: You know, there's an exploratory committee and I'm looking at it.
38:34
Speaker 6: I'm happy with my job as governor. I mean, your
38:36
Speaker 6: future is not in California. Your future is in Iowa.
38:42
Speaker 6: Let's dispense with the bullshit. We need someone who's going
38:45
Speaker 6: to be the champion.
38:46
Speaker 8: Are you going to do it or not?
38:47
Speaker 6: Just come on tell us.
38:52
Speaker 9: We don't have time for the vostay now.
38:54
Speaker 7: By the way, I deeply respect that I can't stand
38:57
Speaker 7: the bullshit as well, and I mean that, But this
39:00
Speaker 7: is not my purpose or passion.
39:01
Speaker 1: It's not my meeting.
39:02
Speaker 7: It's not everything. Every the cynicism that's out there that
39:05
Speaker 7: every movie's making is some move to some longer term
39:08
Speaker 7: strategy or short just.
39:09
Speaker 6: If you're a guy who could do it, who could
39:11
Speaker 6: get it done?
39:12
Speaker 1: Who could will?
39:13
Speaker 7: I deeply respect that I affect the question, but I
39:16
Speaker 7: don't have any grand plans.
39:17
Speaker 1: It's the respects of that.
39:17
Speaker 7: I'm trying to do the best I can and also
39:19
Speaker 7: trying to be accountable by the way. You want things
39:21
Speaker 7: to change, you got to change, And that's what the
39:22
Speaker 7: podcast is about.
39:23
Speaker 1: That's my recognition of where we're weak. Can I got
39:26
Speaker 1: to call balls and strike Now? When I saw that,
39:29
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, this is going to
39:32
Speaker 1: be a serious fucking problem. This is going to be
39:35
Speaker 1: a serious fucking problem. I mean, I realize we are
39:38
Speaker 1: way far out right now, and a lot can happen.
39:41
Speaker 1: But I've always said presidential campaigns are like aircraft carriers,
39:46
Speaker 1: you know, they are very difficult to turn around. And
39:48
Speaker 1: I don't like the path that Trump has put the
39:50
Speaker 1: Republican Party on, and I don't like the path that
39:54
Speaker 1: is being paid for Gavin Newsom here on the Democratic side,
39:57
Speaker 1: especially I Kamala Harris ends up deciding to for governor
40:01
Speaker 1: of California, And I don't like the idea that even
40:04
Speaker 1: the semi rational people on the left, Bill Maher are
40:07
Speaker 1: buying into this idea that Gavin Newsome can somehow bridge
40:13
Speaker 1: the gap between insanity and rationality. When it comes to
40:16
Speaker 1: middle of the Middle of America. That is lunacy, that's insanity.
40:21
Speaker 1: That that I mean, it's just unbelievable to me that
40:25
Speaker 1: we can even have to worry about this, given who
40:29
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has been. Now, I'm not pressing the panic button.
40:32
Speaker 1: His history is his history, and much like Kamala Harris
40:36
Speaker 1: what happened with her, it's difficult to run from your history.
40:39
Speaker 1: It's you know, you're gonna have the media on your side.
40:41
Speaker 1: They're not nearly as powerful as they used to be.
40:44
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Newsom, you know, is unbeatable or
40:47
Speaker 1: anything close to that. I'm just saying this is a
40:50
Speaker 1: problem I thought was done with that. Now all of
40:52
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's clearly not been one percent handled this.
40:58
Speaker 1: This this d has not been buried fully. He's not
41:04
Speaker 1: even in the casket anymore, and he's coming up out
41:07
Speaker 1: of the earth. And I don't like it because this
41:10
Speaker 1: would be the worst possible case scenario for the United
41:13
Speaker 1: States for Gavin Newsom to be the next president. And
41:16
Speaker 1: I can see a path. I can see a path,
41:20
Speaker 1: and it's not that difficult right now. And it's pretty
41:23
Speaker 1: ironic that this is Bill Maher involved in this particular
41:27
Speaker 1: situation because Bill Maher ended up meeting with Donald Trump
41:31
Speaker 1: at the White House thanks to a mutual friendship with
41:35
Speaker 1: Kid Rock. What a world we're living in where Kid
41:38
Speaker 1: Rock asks the President of the United States, Donald Trump
41:41
Speaker 1: for a favor to meet with his friend Bill Maher.
41:44
Speaker 1: They meet, and by Kid Rock's account, it went spectacularly well,
41:51
Speaker 1: which is remarkable on so many levels. I mean, let's
41:54
Speaker 1: be clear, Bill Maher has been one of Donald Trump's
41:58
Speaker 1: harshest critics. He has donated millions of dollars to Democratic candidates,
42:04
Speaker 1: including opponents of Donald Trump, and yet somehow he gets
42:10
Speaker 1: an invitation to the White House to meet with the President.
42:14
Speaker 1: It's just it is an amazing quirk. There's so many
42:17
Speaker 1: quirks in Trump's personality, but one of the more remarkable
42:21
Speaker 1: is that Trump likes nothing better than a former enemy
42:28
Speaker 1: to become at least somewhat friendly to him. And now
42:34
Speaker 1: mar is an extreme example. But it's just how insane
42:37
Speaker 1: is it that Bill Maher now has a closer relationship
42:41
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump than Trump's former vice president Mike Pence,
42:46
Speaker 1: or his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or a whole
42:50
Speaker 1: bunch of other people that were exceedingly loyal to Donald
42:53
Speaker 1: Trump right from the start, who were part of his
42:56
Speaker 1: first term that Trump decided for whatever reason to jettison
43:00
Speaker 1: out of his life. Sometimes because they did the right thing, like,
43:04
Speaker 1: for instance, Mike Pence. But that's Donald Trump's world. If
43:09
Speaker 1: you are incredibly loyal to him up front, but for
43:12
Speaker 1: whatever reason he decides it's in his interest to kick
43:16
Speaker 1: you out of his club, kick you out of out
43:20
Speaker 1: of his mafia, then you're done. There is almost no
43:26
Speaker 1: coming back from that. There have been a couple of exceptions,
43:28
Speaker 1: but there's almost no coming back from that. But if
43:30
Speaker 1: you're an enemy, an arch enemy from the start, and
43:34
Speaker 1: you soften on Trump just a little bit, you get
43:37
Speaker 1: invited to the White House. Even though Trump put out
43:39
Speaker 1: a social media post thing, he didn't really like doing
43:41
Speaker 1: this because he was getting some pushback from his fans, like,
43:43
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? Why are you meeting with
43:45
Speaker 1: Bill Maher? He's been terrible to you. So he blamed
43:49
Speaker 1: it on his friendship with Kid Rock. But you know,
43:52
Speaker 1: apparently it went very well. Now I don't know. Bill
43:55
Speaker 1: Maher says he's not going to talk about this until
43:57
Speaker 1: his next episode of Real Time an HBO, and I'll
44:01
Speaker 1: be fascinating like everybody else to find out what his
44:03
Speaker 1: take on it is. But according to Kid Rock, it
44:06
Speaker 1: went exceedingly well, and I'm sure that Donald Trump was very,
44:10
Speaker 1: very charming. Now, I don't think it's going to change
44:13
Speaker 1: Bill Maher, but it is what a strange, fascinating world
44:17
Speaker 1: in which we live. This is even something worthy of discussion,
44:21
Speaker 1: which it is because I think it does matter from
44:23
Speaker 1: a media narrative perspective. Now, speaking of Trump, I want
44:29
Speaker 1: to play a couple of clips that really don't have
44:31
Speaker 1: all that much to do with each other that I
44:33
Speaker 1: found interesting from Trump since the last episode of the
44:37
Speaker 1: podcast actually three, to be exact. The first is Trump
44:42
Speaker 1: taking a crack at the definition of what a woman is. Now,
44:46
Speaker 1: this is relevant for a couple of reasons. It was relevant,
44:48
Speaker 1: frankly to the whole Newsome and mar discussion about how
44:53
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party gets mired in these these problems where
44:57
Speaker 1: they can't even relate to the app Bridge voter because
45:00
Speaker 1: they're not even willing or able to say what the
45:05
Speaker 1: heck a woman is. So Donald Trump was asked this,
45:08
Speaker 1: and somewhat humorously, he took a crack at answering it.
45:12
Speaker 1: I didn't think his answer was spectacular, but it wasn't
45:14
Speaker 1: bad either. But more thanything else, I thought it was
45:18
Speaker 1: worthy of playing, partially because of the humorous elements of it.
45:21
Speaker 1: So here's Donald Trump, the President United States, providing his
45:25
Speaker 1: answer for what is the definition of a woman?
45:29
Speaker 8: What is a woman?
45:30
Speaker 5: And why is it important that we understand the difference
45:32
Speaker 5: to men.
45:33
Speaker 3: Well, it's sort of easy to answer.
45:35
Speaker 5: For me, because a woman is somebody that can have
45:38
Speaker 5: a baby under certain circumstances.
45:40
Speaker 3: She has a quality a woman is a person who's
45:44
Speaker 3: much smarter.
45:45
Speaker 1: Than a man. I've always foid.
45:48
Speaker 3: A woman is a person that doesn't give a man
45:50
Speaker 3: even a chance of success. And a woman is a
45:53
Speaker 3: person that in many cases has been treated very badly.
45:56
Speaker 3: Because I think that what happens with this crazy, this
46:00
Speaker 3: crazy issue of men being able to play in women's
46:04
Speaker 3: sports is just ridiculous and very unfair to women and
46:07
Speaker 3: very demeaning to women. And that's got to be about
46:10
Speaker 3: a ninety four percent. I read today it was a
46:12
Speaker 3: ninety four percent issue. And I watched the other day.
46:15
Speaker 3: I watched a congressman, a well known Democrat congressman, fighting
46:19
Speaker 3: for the fact that men should be allowed to compete
46:23
Speaker 3: essentially in women's sports, And I say, I hope they
46:27
Speaker 3: keep that going because they'll never win another election.
46:30
Speaker 1: That's a big deal.
46:30
Speaker 5: But women are basically incredible people do so much for
46:34
Speaker 5: our country, and we love we love our women, and
46:37
Speaker 5: we're going to take care of our women.
46:39
Speaker 1: I would give that answer about a B or B plus.
46:43
Speaker 1: Of course, most Democrats can't get above a D minus.
46:47
Speaker 1: That's the best they could possibly do in their definition.
46:50
Speaker 1: Most of them won't even take a shot at answering
46:54
Speaker 1: that question. They're afraid to even respond to it, which
46:57
Speaker 1: is part of why it was funny that Trump did,
47:00
Speaker 1: especially in the way that he did and trying to
47:02
Speaker 1: answer the question what is a woman now? Speaking of women,
47:06
Speaker 1: I spent a probably too long a portion of the
47:09
Speaker 1: last episode of the podcast talking about the fact that
47:12
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods has a new romantic partner, a woman by
47:17
Speaker 1: the name of Vanessa Trump, who happens to be, in
47:20
Speaker 1: my view, the mom of Donald Trump's favorite grandchild, who
47:25
Speaker 1: is Kai Trump Now. She's the mom of several different children,
47:29
Speaker 1: five I believe, and she has quite a story dating history,
47:33
Speaker 1: and she was once married to Donald Trump Junior. And
47:36
Speaker 1: I theorized half jokingly, partially with tongue in cheek, but
47:41
Speaker 1: not completely. I theorized that if this relationship sticks, it
47:46
Speaker 1: could dramatically alter the royal succession plan, which by the way,
47:51
Speaker 1: may have already been altered by Trump's discussion with Kristen
47:55
Speaker 1: Welker and Peter Doucy about running for a third term.
47:58
Speaker 1: I'm not one hundred percent sure to put jd vance
48:01
Speaker 1: in that royal succession plan anymore. I'm not saying it's
48:04
Speaker 1: not going to happen but I'm not nearly as confident
48:06
Speaker 1: as I was even last week. But I joked that
48:09
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty six or so, Tiger Woods could end
48:13
Speaker 1: up being the presidential nominee for the Republican slash Trump Party,
48:18
Speaker 1: which is what it is now. And I think it's
48:19
Speaker 1: important to understand that it is the Trump Party now,
48:23
Speaker 1: and Tiger Woods being part of the Trump tribe certainly
48:27
Speaker 1: puts him in the mix. Given his celebrity and his
48:31
Speaker 1: financial resources, and given what his father wanted for him
48:36
Speaker 1: and other elements of his public life, I wouldn't surprise
48:40
Speaker 1: me if Tiger Woods would have an interest in that,
48:43
Speaker 1: especially since his golf career is on its very last
48:46
Speaker 1: legs literally and figuratively well. Donald Trump was asked about
48:53
Speaker 1: his reaction to Tiger Woods dating Vanessa Trump, and his
48:58
Speaker 1: answer was extraordinary and I believe one thousand percent consistent
49:06
Speaker 1: with my take in the last episode of the podcast
49:09
Speaker 1: that if this relationship ends up having legs, better legs
49:14
Speaker 1: than Tiger currently has with a blown out Achilles tendon,
49:18
Speaker 1: but figurative legs, if this lasts and Donald Trump really
49:22
Speaker 1: is part of the Tiger Woods really is part of
49:26
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump tribe, that this could have significant political
49:31
Speaker 1: ramifications down the road. And here is Peter Doucy once
49:35
Speaker 1: again asking the question on a lot of people's minds,
49:38
Speaker 1: doing so very succinctly, And I thought, in a very
49:43
Speaker 1: good fashion, this was exactly the way I would have
49:45
Speaker 1: asked the question myself. This is Peter Deucy asking President
49:49
Speaker 1: Trump in the White House for his reaction essentially to
49:53
Speaker 1: Donald Trump now seeing Tiger Woods be part of his tribe.
49:58
Speaker 4: What is your thought about Tiger Woods now becoming part
50:01
Speaker 4: of the broader Trump family.
50:04
Speaker 3: Well, I love Tiger and I love Vanessa, and uh,
50:08
Speaker 3: they had a great relationship. I happened to think the
50:11
Speaker 3: relationship with my son, Uh.
50:14
Speaker 5: I think I happened to think the relationship was hurt
50:16
Speaker 5: very badly by the witch hunt that went on Russia, Russia, Russian,
50:19
Speaker 5: all the crap that they put Don through who knew
50:22
Speaker 5: nothing about it. But Vanessa and Don had a very
50:25
Speaker 5: good relationship. They have incredible children, five incredible children, all
50:31
Speaker 5: good athletes, all great students, like great and uh they
50:35
Speaker 5: broke up, you know, quite a while ago, and uh, well,
50:38
Speaker 5: which was to be very sad, cause I think they're
50:41
Speaker 5: both great, Don and Vanessa and uh, Tiger actually called
50:44
Speaker 5: me a few months ago and he and you'd have
50:47
Speaker 5: a very special, very good relationship with Tiger. I played
50:50
Speaker 5: golf with him a couple of times over the last month,
50:53
Speaker 5: and he's a fantastic guy and a fantastic athlete. And
50:55
Speaker 5: he told me about it, and I said, Tiger, it's good,
50:59
Speaker 5: it's I'm very happy for both. I just let them
51:03
Speaker 5: both be happy. Let them both be happy. They're both great.
51:07
Speaker 1: From a purely human perspective, that is an extraordinary statement
51:12
Speaker 1: coming from the President of the United States. I mean,
51:14
Speaker 1: I realized we're so desensitized to everything in this gaen age.
51:18
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean that this story is crazy.
51:21
Speaker 1: Right in any other era, it's all we would be
51:24
Speaker 1: talking about. It's all we would be talking about. I mean,
51:28
Speaker 1: if the same thing happened with Michael Jordan, let's say
51:32
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen nineties, you know, pick your if
51:35
Speaker 1: it was Clinton, and if you had a daughter, whatever.
51:38
Speaker 1: I mean, just extraordinary, what's happening here. There's almost no
51:42
Speaker 1: way to come up with an analogy for it. How
51:46
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing this whole scenario is. And I think seriously
51:51
Speaker 1: could have significant ramifications into the future. But from a
51:55
Speaker 1: human perspective. This is Donald Trump talking about a man,
52:01
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods, for whom he obviously has an enormous amount
52:04
Speaker 1: of respect for good reasons, given the fact that he's
52:07
Speaker 1: given the presidential metal freedom, and he's a huge figure
52:11
Speaker 1: in the golf world, and he's obviously has an extraordinary
52:14
Speaker 1: amount of steam for Tiger Woods in his golf career.
52:18
Speaker 1: But this is a guy, Let's face it. All we
52:20
Speaker 1: know so far is it. Tiger Woods is having sex
52:23
Speaker 1: with his son's ex wife. That's all we really know
52:27
Speaker 1: right now. And Tonald Trump, the president is not just
52:32
Speaker 1: fine with it. He seems to be thrilled with it,
52:36
Speaker 1: which is just remarkable on so many fronts. But I
52:39
Speaker 1: do again, I'm going to put it out there one
52:41
Speaker 1: last time. I promise not to talk about this again
52:44
Speaker 1: unless there's really significant reason to do so. But I
52:47
Speaker 1: think that this has some theoretical long term political ramifications,
52:53
Speaker 1: because it's obvious, couldn't be more obvious that Tiger has
52:58
Speaker 1: Trump's blessing. Here. In fact, he even seemingly, at least
53:01
Speaker 1: according to Trump's telling of it, asked for Trump's blessing.
53:05
Speaker 1: How remarkable is that that it appears again with Trump?
53:09
Speaker 1: You never know what's true and what's not, But it
53:11
Speaker 1: appears as if Tiger Woods asked for or at least
53:15
Speaker 1: informed Donald Trump early on of this relationship to make
53:20
Speaker 1: sure he was okay with it, and he clearly was,
53:23
Speaker 1: so that story is right now. It's by far my
53:27
Speaker 1: favorite story of twenty twenty five, even if it doesn't
53:30
Speaker 1: end up resulting in Tiger Woods running for twenty thirty
53:34
Speaker 1: six Republican slash Trump Party presidential nomination, which I do
53:38
Speaker 1: think is a legitimate possibility, underlying possibility way down the road.
53:44
Speaker 1: The third clip that I want to play from Donald
53:47
Speaker 1: Trump deals with the issue of autism and the idea
53:52
Speaker 1: that somehow there's got to be a reason for an increase,
53:57
Speaker 1: a dramatic increase in the cases of autum that have
54:00
Speaker 1: been diagnosed so throughout the country. And Trump has previously
54:05
Speaker 1: expressed some cynicism that this could just be happening because
54:10
Speaker 1: of increased awareness, and much like RMK Junior has implied
54:16
Speaker 1: that he seemingly believes that there could be a connection
54:19
Speaker 1: with the vaccines, even though there have been studies done
54:22
Speaker 1: on this, legitimate studies that have shown no correlation, no causation. Now,
54:30
Speaker 1: this is a classic correlation versus causation situation. You could
54:35
Speaker 1: make a correlation argument if you wanted to. You could
54:39
Speaker 1: make a correlation argument with all sorts of things with
54:42
Speaker 1: regard to what would happen, all sorts of reasons why
54:46
Speaker 1: theoretically we use the correlation argument why autism cases may
54:51
Speaker 1: have exploded in the United States. But you can't make
54:56
Speaker 1: scientifically a causation argument. I'm getting confused. You cannot make
55:02
Speaker 1: the causation argument. Correlation does not mean causation, and that
55:07
Speaker 1: seems to be a very difficult thing for Trump and
55:10
Speaker 1: RK Junior to understand. Now. RK Junior has an agenda here.
55:16
Speaker 1: He didn't like the vaccines, So if he can prove
55:18
Speaker 1: that somehow vaccines or get people to believe the vaccines
55:21
Speaker 1: are the cause for a massive increase in autism cases,
55:25
Speaker 1: that's a win for him. And it appears as if
55:29
Speaker 1: RK Junior's argument has influenced Donald Trump fairly significantly, and
55:36
Speaker 1: he talked about this whole issue once again in a
55:38
Speaker 1: way that didn't create much news. But to me, this
55:42
Speaker 1: is a really underrated issue because if in fact, Trump
55:46
Speaker 1: becomes convinced that there is a causation here and that
55:50
Speaker 1: this is somehow a reason to dramatically scale back childhood vaccines,
55:57
Speaker 1: something that Rik Junior seemingly wants to do that would
56:01
Speaker 1: have massive implications in the real world and eventually in
56:06
Speaker 1: the political realm as well. But here, once again is
56:09
Speaker 1: Donald Trump talking about this issue in a way that
56:12
Speaker 1: to me makes very very little sense.
56:16
Speaker 3: There's so many things that we are doing wrong. Something happened.
56:20
Speaker 3: If you go back twenty years autism, think of it,
56:23
Speaker 3: one in twenty thousand children. Think of that one autism.
56:29
Speaker 5: You see it all over, one in twenty thousand children.
56:33
Speaker 5: Now it's one in thirty six children.
56:37
Speaker 3: Now what the hell is that all about. There's something
56:41
Speaker 3: out there and we got to find it.
56:44
Speaker 5: But can you imagine one in twenty thousand and now
56:46
Speaker 5: it's one in thirty six, not thirty six thousand, One
56:50
Speaker 5: in thirty six children.
56:52
Speaker 3: And I see it.
56:53
Speaker 1: I see it all the time.
56:54
Speaker 3: And so there's something, there's something out there, and we're
56:59
Speaker 3: going to find it. We're doing something really wrong, and
57:02
Speaker 3: it might be very simple to even correct. But we're
57:05
Speaker 3: looking very hard, and Bobby's looking very hard, and we're
57:07
Speaker 3: going to figure it out.
57:10
Speaker 1: Now, there are two things I want to say substantively
57:14
Speaker 1: on what Trump said there. The first is that to me,
57:19
Speaker 1: the reason, the most logical reason, the Okham's razor reason
57:23
Speaker 1: for why there has been an explosion in autism cases
57:28
Speaker 1: that have been diagnosed, is that it has effectively become
57:31
Speaker 1: a social contagion. That we are far far more aware
57:35
Speaker 1: of autism than we were before that In the past,
57:39
Speaker 1: there were probably many many cases where autism was not
57:43
Speaker 1: diagnosed and it was just thought to be something else
57:46
Speaker 1: or that wasn't on people's radar. Now it's on everyone's radar.
57:50
Speaker 1: There's an entire literal spectrum of autism. It's incredibly easy,
57:56
Speaker 1: especially if your parents want you to be placed on
58:00
Speaker 1: that spectrum of autism, for a child to be put
58:03
Speaker 1: on there, there is incentives now from a potential parental perspective,
58:09
Speaker 1: as well as from the doctor's standpoint or from an
58:12
Speaker 1: education standpoint, there are all sorts of incentives for people
58:18
Speaker 1: children to be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.
58:23
Speaker 1: And so to me, it makes a hell of a
58:25
Speaker 1: lot more sense. I'm not saying this is the only reason.
58:27
Speaker 1: There could be other reasons, and I'm not against finding
58:31
Speaker 1: out what those are. But to blame the vaccines when
58:35
Speaker 1: there is no evidence that I can see so far.
58:39
Speaker 1: And as I've said, there have been multiple studies that
58:41
Speaker 1: have been done that debunked any sort of causation between
58:46
Speaker 1: vaccines and autism. And frankly, you know, most of the
58:49
Speaker 1: spokespeople for this issue are not very credible people. I mean,
58:53
Speaker 1: Jenny McCarthy is one or more notable people that were
58:56
Speaker 1: really pushing this issue. I'm sorry, that's not really convincing
58:59
Speaker 1: to me, but it doesn't really even matter to me.
59:02
Speaker 1: The more logical scenario here is this becomes effectively a
59:06
Speaker 1: social contagion where we go from not even being aware
59:11
Speaker 1: of autism to now it being a huge issue and
59:14
Speaker 1: there being actually some some direct, some indirect incentives for
59:20
Speaker 1: children to be diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.
59:25
Speaker 1: And my wife is a special ed teacher and she
59:27
Speaker 1: knows quite a bit about this. We've talked a lot
59:29
Speaker 1: about it. But this is, you know, a lot of
59:32
Speaker 1: observation on my part and as far as it's using
59:35
Speaker 1: basic common sense and logic. Again, there could be other
59:40
Speaker 1: causes for this explosion, but I don't see the logic
59:45
Speaker 1: that it would be the vaccines. I'm not even sure
59:47
Speaker 1: the timing of that theory really works out all that well.
59:51
Speaker 1: But the second part of this that I haven't seen
59:54
Speaker 1: anybody mention it is awfully I shouldn't say anybody. I've
59:58
Speaker 1: seen a few people kind of go in this direction,
1:00:00
Speaker 1: but not quite as far as I'm going to go
1:00:02
Speaker 1: with it, which is not unusual for the death of
1:00:05
Speaker 1: journalism podcasts. But inherent in what Trump is saying is
1:00:11
Speaker 1: somehow this idea that autism is like inherently negative, that
1:00:16
Speaker 1: like it's a disease, like it's cancer or heart disease
1:00:21
Speaker 1: or or you know, something that obviously everyone would want
1:00:26
Speaker 1: to be eradicated. And I don't, first of all, think
1:00:30
Speaker 1: that's true. I don't think it's fair to the people
1:00:33
Speaker 1: who have autism. And the part that I've not heard
1:00:36
Speaker 1: anybody else mention, and maybe somebody has, I've just missed it,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: is that this is the same president who's number one advisor,
1:00:48
Speaker 1: the guy who's referred to as the co president, Elon Musk,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: is somebody who clearly is very autistic, whether it's Aspergers
1:00:59
Speaker 1: or whatever. I believe he said that he has Aspergers,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: But I mean, he's clearly autistic, And so how does
1:01:08
Speaker 1: that make any sense? If you're if you're making this
1:01:11
Speaker 1: sound as Trump is, like, this is a negative that
1:01:14
Speaker 1: we need to stop that. We need to you know,
1:01:17
Speaker 1: if in fact, vaccines or anything else are causing autism
1:01:21
Speaker 1: cases to explode, we need to stop that. Well, hold
1:01:25
Speaker 1: on a second. You know, part of what made Elon
1:01:29
Speaker 1: Musk a genius, if he is a genius, and Trump
1:01:32
Speaker 1: would say that he is, has said that he is,
1:01:34
Speaker 1: acts as if he is, is the fact that he
1:01:37
Speaker 1: has aspergers. So how does that make any sense? It is,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: it is something that is a problem at times, depending
1:01:48
Speaker 1: on where you are on the spectrum, and sometimes it's
1:01:51
Speaker 1: a very big problem. But to act as if this
1:01:54
Speaker 1: is a disease the way we think of normal other
1:01:58
Speaker 1: diseases like those that I mentioned, or that those that
1:02:02
Speaker 1: are autistic should be somehow, at least if you use
1:02:05
Speaker 1: the logic that Trump is putting out there, be stigmatized
1:02:10
Speaker 1: by having autism is one wrong and rather bizarre and ironic.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Given the place that Elon Musk has in his administration.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: I would love for somebody, I'm not aware of anyone
1:02:21
Speaker 1: doing this, asking Trump about his views of autism viz
1:02:26
Speaker 1: a vi Elon Musk. I would love to know what
1:02:30
Speaker 1: he would say about that that would be fascinating. If
1:02:32
Speaker 1: it's happened, I'm unaware of it, but I do find
1:02:36
Speaker 1: that very interesting. And I have expressed previously that I
1:02:39
Speaker 1: do not trust RFK Junior on this particular topic. I
1:02:42
Speaker 1: think RFK Junior is a nut on a whole series
1:02:46
Speaker 1: of issues. And you know, he has tempered his language
1:02:51
Speaker 1: since you know, his nomination to be head of Health
1:02:54
Speaker 1: and Human Services on the issue of vaccines, and so
1:02:57
Speaker 1: far he hasn't done anything that I'm aware of that
1:03:00
Speaker 1: would be damaging to the use of vaccines, but it's
1:03:04
Speaker 1: clearly part of his persona. He wrote at least one
1:03:07
Speaker 1: book about it that was very well known, and I
1:03:11
Speaker 1: just don't think that he is on the right side
1:03:14
Speaker 1: of that particular issue. I don't think the evidence is
1:03:16
Speaker 1: there to back him up, and it feels as if
1:03:19
Speaker 1: he has Donald Trump's ear on this, which I think
1:03:22
Speaker 1: is potentially very very dangerous. Now, whenever you talk about
1:03:27
Speaker 1: RFK Jr. And his loneliness, one of the reasons I
1:03:30
Speaker 1: think he's nuts is because he believes that the government
1:03:35
Speaker 1: effectively killed both his uncle and his father, JFK and
1:03:40
Speaker 1: RFK in that order. And I am someone who strongly
1:03:45
Speaker 1: disagrees with that view, and I don't think there's any
1:03:48
Speaker 1: evidence that the federal government killed JFK. For instance, we've
1:03:52
Speaker 1: talked a lot about the JFK assassination. I have my
1:03:56
Speaker 1: own theory of how it actually happened. I am very
1:03:58
Speaker 1: much in the camp of Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,
1:04:02
Speaker 1: but I think the Warrant Commission blew it on the logistics.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the single bullet theory, and I've
1:04:08
Speaker 1: explained many many times. You can go back to episode
1:04:11
Speaker 1: seventy one of the Death of Journalism podcasts for probably
1:04:14
Speaker 1: my most extensive breakdown. It was an extremely extensive, almost
1:04:18
Speaker 1: two hour breakdown of all of the evidence in the case.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: But this story will never die. It will never die,
1:04:26
Speaker 1: and it's gonna yet another life cycle this week because
1:04:32
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Luna Republican the hottest Republican female Congress, hottest Republican
1:04:39
Speaker 1: congress person period. I don't know that she's the hottest
1:04:43
Speaker 1: woman in Congress. That might go to AOC but she's
1:04:46
Speaker 1: a Democrat. But you know, she's apparently a former stripper.
1:04:49
Speaker 1: She's modeled swimsuits. She looks very good in a swimsuit
1:04:53
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Luna but she's crazy. She crazy, and she held
1:04:59
Speaker 1: here this week on the jfk assassination. This is a
1:05:04
Speaker 1: woman who a few weeks ago claimed, before the so
1:05:08
Speaker 1: called classified files were released, which were a big nothing burger,
1:05:13
Speaker 1: she claimed that evidence in there that she had seen
1:05:18
Speaker 1: indicated that there were two shooters, that there were two shooters,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: not just one. There were two shooters that killed JFK.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: And then just before she held this hearing where she
1:05:32
Speaker 1: invited a bunch of media people, I mean there were
1:05:36
Speaker 1: no actual witnesses, just Oliver Stone, a fictional movie director,
1:05:41
Speaker 1: and a couple other people. I think we have lost
1:05:43
Speaker 1: their goddamn minds. Before that actual congressional hearing, which was
1:05:48
Speaker 1: nothing but a way for her togain on camera and
1:05:50
Speaker 1: get publicity, which she obviously loves. Shocking for someone who
1:05:55
Speaker 1: was well known during their campaign for modeling a Trump swimsuit,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: that she be looking for attention. But she went on
1:06:02
Speaker 1: Fox News Channel with Jesse Waters and made a claim
1:06:06
Speaker 1: that got again a lot of publicity. It got a
1:06:09
Speaker 1: lot of news coverage when she claimed that the documents
1:06:12
Speaker 1: that were going to be released indicated that there were
1:06:14
Speaker 1: two shooters which nothing like that has been remotely the case.
1:06:18
Speaker 1: That's just not true. I don't even know what the
1:06:20
Speaker 1: hell she was referring to there, If anything, I don't
1:06:23
Speaker 1: know if she was making it up, but it certainly
1:06:25
Speaker 1: wasn't accurate. I knew it wasn't going to be accurate
1:06:27
Speaker 1: because there weren't two shooters. We know there was one shooter,
1:06:30
Speaker 1: and we know it was Lee Harvey Oswald. But okay,
1:06:33
Speaker 1: so she claims first that these documents are going to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: prove that there were two shooters, and then she makes
1:06:38
Speaker 1: this claim on Jesse Waters that NBC, the television network
1:06:44
Speaker 1: NBC has been hiding for apparently based upon her telling
1:06:49
Speaker 1: of it over sixty years, a tape that proves that
1:06:53
Speaker 1: Lee Harvey Oswald could not have been the assassin because
1:06:57
Speaker 1: he was outside the school book Depository building, not far
1:07:01
Speaker 1: from from the limousine where JFK was riding, and therefore
1:07:06
Speaker 1: he could not have been the shooter. And Jesse Waters
1:07:09
Speaker 1: was rather understandably taken aback at this allegation. I mean,
1:07:14
Speaker 1: this is an extraordinary claim. Now when you're gonna hear
1:07:18
Speaker 1: this clip, I believe that Jesse Waters is initially referring
1:07:21
Speaker 1: to Oliver Stone, the movie director of the film JFK
1:07:25
Speaker 1: starring Kevin Costner, which came out in nineteen ninety one,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: which is a fictional film that is based largely on
1:07:33
Speaker 1: a trial that did happen, where the theory of the
1:07:38
Speaker 1: New Orleans DA Jim Garrison completely fell apart. The jury
1:07:43
Speaker 1: did not buy it at all because it was completely
1:07:46
Speaker 1: full of bullshit. It was a conspiracy theory that everybody
1:07:52
Speaker 1: and their mother was involved essentially in the assassination of JFK.
1:07:56
Speaker 1: The jury did not buy it. Everyone was acquitted in
1:07:59
Speaker 1: record time. Jim Garrison is a complete and total fraud.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: So while it was cinematically a fantastic piece of movie making,
1:08:07
Speaker 1: it was a fictional movie. But it's Oliver Stone, I believe,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: who is the subject of Jesse Waters' inquiry here. But
1:08:15
Speaker 1: this is where Congresswoman Luna goes into this looney tunes
1:08:21
Speaker 1: idea that NBC has been censoring this tape that would
1:08:26
Speaker 1: prove Oswalt's innocence. And here's what it sounded like the
1:08:30
Speaker 1: night before the congressional hearings on Fox News Channel.
1:08:34
Speaker 10: He said, because of these new releases, it's conclusive that
1:08:38
Speaker 10: the CIA was running Oswalt, running him, and he also
1:08:43
Speaker 10: said that he doesn't think all of the documents have
1:08:45
Speaker 10: been released. Is that your understanding too.
1:08:49
Speaker 11: Yeah, so we're actually in the process of tracking down
1:08:52
Speaker 11: two specific documents. And also to Jesse, I would like
1:08:55
Speaker 11: to actually tell the American people it was made away
1:08:58
Speaker 11: to meet this evening that NBC actually has a video
1:09:02
Speaker 11: that's never been seen before. We're actually going to be
1:09:04
Speaker 11: sending a letter requesting that from NBC because it allegedly
1:09:08
Speaker 11: shows Oswald near the vehicle when the assassination took place,
1:09:12
Speaker 11: which means that he couldn't have been the shooter. So again,
1:09:15
Speaker 11: we're tracking down all this information. But look, there's even
1:09:18
Speaker 11: a CIA document that came out that mister Morley pointed
1:09:20
Speaker 11: out that actually said that the CIA never bought the
1:09:23
Speaker 11: lone gunman theory. And so I think the American people
1:09:26
Speaker 11: had an inclination as to what we were saying, but
1:09:28
Speaker 11: we never had the hard evidence until now. And so
1:09:31
Speaker 11: it's important to note that in a free and fare society,
1:09:33
Speaker 11: how could you operate or have an agency operating in
1:09:35
Speaker 11: the shadows. And so kudos to President Trump, also Director
1:09:39
Speaker 11: Radcliffe and Tulcy Gabbard for pushing for this transparency. It
1:09:42
Speaker 11: is going to be generational changing that they've done this,
1:09:45
Speaker 11: and we hope to bring forward legislation to to ensure
1:09:47
Speaker 11: that this never happens again for future generations to come.
1:09:50
Speaker 10: You're saying NBC has been keeping this tape of Oswald
1:09:54
Speaker 10: under wraps.
1:09:57
Speaker 11: Correct. In fact, Director Stone actually told us that he
1:10:01
Speaker 11: was showed this tape, that it was a secondary copy,
1:10:04
Speaker 11: and that he said that this could blow open the
1:10:06
Speaker 11: entire GfK investigation. What I will also tell you, though, Jesse,
1:10:11
Speaker 11: is he said the NBC has been very, very much
1:10:13
Speaker 11: so guarding this tape, and so I believe that that
1:10:16
Speaker 11: tape belongs to the American people. We are going to
1:10:18
Speaker 11: be sending a letter asking for that tape, and I
1:10:20
Speaker 11: would encourage everyone to ask NBC to release that tape
1:10:24
Speaker 11: to the public. It's important not just for our investigations,
1:10:27
Speaker 11: but so the American people know the truth as to
1:10:29
Speaker 11: what happened with John F.
1:10:30
Speaker 9: Kennedy.
1:10:32
Speaker 1: Now, when I saw that, I was like, Okay, I'm
1:10:36
Speaker 1: not one hundre percent sure I know what Congresswoman Luna
1:10:39
Speaker 1: is referring to there, but I am positive that this
1:10:42
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent bullshit. And sure enough, it was
1:10:47
Speaker 1: one hundred percent bullshit. First of all, the tape to
1:10:51
Speaker 1: which she is referring has been public for basically sixty years.
1:10:57
Speaker 1: You can view it yourself. It's displayed at the library,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the museum that is at the sixth floor of the
1:11:07
Speaker 1: school Book Depository building. This is not something that's being
1:11:11
Speaker 1: hidden now. To be abundantly fair to Congresswoman Luna, this
1:11:16
Speaker 1: tape that she's referring to apparently is a copy and
1:11:20
Speaker 1: that apparently there's an original that I don't know whether
1:11:24
Speaker 1: or not this is true or not, but that the
1:11:26
Speaker 1: story is that somehow NBC has the original and that
1:11:30
Speaker 1: it is Oliver Stone. I believe. I believe it is
1:11:33
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone's theory that the original would be of a
1:11:37
Speaker 1: higher quality, and if the higher quality version of this film,
1:11:43
Speaker 1: which has been widely public for decades and decades and
1:11:47
Speaker 1: is not secret, is not being censored, that if the
1:11:50
Speaker 1: better quality version of this was made public, we would
1:11:53
Speaker 1: be able to prove that le rv Oswald was not
1:11:57
Speaker 1: inside the school Book Depository building and therefore could not
1:12:00
Speaker 1: have been in the shooter's layer on this explore and
1:12:03
Speaker 1: therefore could not have been the assassin of JFK. That's ridiculous.
1:12:10
Speaker 1: It's completely First of all, the film doesn't show anything
1:12:13
Speaker 1: anything remotely definitive about it being Lee rb Oswald. It
1:12:17
Speaker 1: is just purely speculation. I'm not even sure, having watched
1:12:22
Speaker 1: the film many times, who the hell they're referring to.
1:12:27
Speaker 1: And that's probably why they're claiming they need a higher
1:12:29
Speaker 1: quality of the original film. But we don't need this
1:12:34
Speaker 1: film to be of higher quality to already know that
1:12:37
Speaker 1: the entire narrative here is ridiculous because there were many
1:12:43
Speaker 1: workers from the school book Depository building thirteen. I believe
1:12:47
Speaker 1: Gerald Posner, the author of the book Case Closed, who
1:12:50
Speaker 1: if I've had on this podcast before, and I have
1:12:52
Speaker 1: a great deal of respect for it's the best book
1:12:55
Speaker 1: probably ever written about the assassination, even though he's wrong
1:12:57
Speaker 1: about the single bullet theory. He tweeted out that there
1:13:02
Speaker 1: are thirteen workers from the school book Depository building who
1:13:07
Speaker 1: were in that very area where Congresswoman Luna and Oliver
1:13:12
Speaker 1: Stone are claiming that that might be Lee Harvey Oswald.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: All thirteen said that they did not see Oswald there. Now, okay,
1:13:23
Speaker 1: maybe you don't believe those thirteen people. Well, we have
1:13:26
Speaker 1: a police officer who is positive that they found Oswald
1:13:33
Speaker 1: inside the building on the second floor, in the break room,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes after the assassination. Which I've always
1:13:40
Speaker 1: felt is, you know, Oswald's attempt to try to create
1:13:44
Speaker 1: an alibi, but an alibi that doesn't really make a
1:13:46
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of sense given who Oswald was.
1:13:49
Speaker 1: This is an extremely political guy, extremely political, a guy
1:13:54
Speaker 1: who thinks of himself as a man of history and
1:13:56
Speaker 1: the president of the United States, you know, once in
1:13:59
Speaker 1: a lifetime situation is driving in an open limousine right
1:14:03
Speaker 1: past his workplace. And he's not going to be looking
1:14:06
Speaker 1: outside a window. He's not you know, he's not gonna
1:14:10
Speaker 1: be outside in the in the parade route. He's in
1:14:14
Speaker 1: the break room having a coke. No, he's he is
1:14:18
Speaker 1: scurried down to the second floor after having shot the
1:14:21
Speaker 1: president from the sixth floor, something for which there was
1:14:25
Speaker 1: plenty of time for him to do. So we have
1:14:28
Speaker 1: all sorts of witness testimonies showing that Oswald could not
1:14:32
Speaker 1: have been where Congresswoman Luna, for some reason desperately wants
1:14:36
Speaker 1: him to be. And by the way, I mean this,
1:14:39
Speaker 1: I guess goes without saying, but this is how little
1:14:42
Speaker 1: trust trumpsters have in the news media in this day
1:14:47
Speaker 1: and age where we've just completely forgotten that there's a
1:14:51
Speaker 1: huge incentive, a huge incentive for a news media outlet
1:14:55
Speaker 1: like NBC News if they somehow had from their local
1:14:59
Speaker 1: affiliate footage from the assassination the aftermath of the assassination
1:15:04
Speaker 1: of JMK with a even remotely credible depiction of Lee
1:15:12
Speaker 1: Harvey Oswald, you don't think that that would have been
1:15:16
Speaker 1: reported immediately immediately. What is NBC's incentive to keep this,
1:15:23
Speaker 1: this magical original, this film. What is their incentive to
1:15:30
Speaker 1: keep what would be a massive news story away from
1:15:33
Speaker 1: the American public. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless
1:15:38
Speaker 1: your theory is that this conspiracy goes so far as
1:15:44
Speaker 1: to include the NBC affiliate in Dallas on November twenty
1:15:49
Speaker 1: second in nineteen sixty three. And by the way, if
1:15:51
Speaker 1: the conspiracy was that big and that wide, then why
1:15:54
Speaker 1: didn't someone destroy the fucking tape. It's just so insane,
1:16:02
Speaker 1: and I don't even understand what they're trying to accomplish
1:16:05
Speaker 1: other than save face. I really think that's the bottom
1:16:09
Speaker 1: line here. If I'm trying to give them as much
1:16:11
Speaker 1: credit as I can and presuming they're not totally insane
1:16:15
Speaker 1: or imbecilic or both. They touted these files so hard
1:16:21
Speaker 1: and for so long, they need to come up with something, anything,
1:16:25
Speaker 1: to show that this was worthwhile and that they weren't.
1:16:28
Speaker 1: You know, this wasn't al Capone's vault. You know, the
1:16:31
Speaker 1: whole Heraldo Rivera fiasco, Well, that essentially is his al
1:16:36
Speaker 1: Campone's vault. There's nothing there, There's nothing of any real
1:16:40
Speaker 1: significance there. But Luna knows that this will get media attention,
1:16:46
Speaker 1: and she knows that the Trump base loves this narrative
1:16:49
Speaker 1: because the Trump base is so goddamn conspiratorial. I mean,
1:16:53
Speaker 1: this is an issue that used to be Democrat driven,
1:16:56
Speaker 1: the assassination of JFK being a massive conspiracy. Now it's
1:17:00
Speaker 1: a Republican driven conspiracy, I think, largely as I've said previously,
1:17:04
Speaker 1: because Republicans love the whole deep state narrative, and Trump
1:17:08
Speaker 1: loves the deep state narrative. And if there's a deep
1:17:11
Speaker 1: state that once killed an American president not that long ago,
1:17:15
Speaker 1: then my god, the deep state is capable of anything.
1:17:19
Speaker 1: But this NBC tape is just ridiculous, and the hearing
1:17:25
Speaker 1: itself was no better. In fact, you know, Congresswoman Luna Is.
1:17:33
Speaker 1: You know she's the hottest Republican congresswoman Lauren Bobert. I
1:17:38
Speaker 1: don't think she's hot, but some Trump's Trumpsters think that
1:17:41
Speaker 1: she is. She's in a similar boat as far as
1:17:44
Speaker 1: craziness and alleged hotness. I mean, she's basically congresswoman hand
1:17:50
Speaker 1: job from the I think it was the Phantom of
1:17:53
Speaker 1: the Opera that she took her boyfriend to and was
1:17:56
Speaker 1: videotaped engaging in some rather explicit behavior. But Lauren Bobert
1:18:02
Speaker 1: was questioning Oliver Stone about a theory that she thought
1:18:10
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone had involving Vice President Johnson being behind the assassination,
1:18:18
Speaker 1: which is just a crackpot theory on so many goddamn
1:18:21
Speaker 1: levels it's almost not even worth going into. But the
1:18:24
Speaker 1: reason I'm going to play this clip is not because
1:18:26
Speaker 1: of the insanity of the theory itself. It's the fact
1:18:30
Speaker 1: that it wasn't even Oliver Stone's theory. Lauren Bobert mistook
1:18:37
Speaker 1: a Oliver Stone or actually it was a Roger Stone
1:18:42
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory for an Oliver Stone conspiracy theory. Roger Stone
1:18:47
Speaker 1: being the nutty former Trump political aid who is just
1:18:52
Speaker 1: completely crazy and not credible at all, she mistook something
1:18:58
Speaker 1: that Roger Stone had said and was asking Oliver Stone
1:19:02
Speaker 1: about it. Oliver Stone was very confused, and it was
1:19:07
Speaker 1: another one of the witnesses that finally figured out what
1:19:10
Speaker 1: the problem was. And then Bobert tried to pretend that
1:19:13
Speaker 1: that's not really what was transpiring, even though obviously it was.
1:19:16
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like at the congressional hearing.
1:19:19
Speaker 12: Mister Stone, you wrote a book accusing LBJ of being
1:19:27
Speaker 12: involved in the killing of President Kennedy. Did these did
1:19:33
Speaker 12: these most recent releases confirm or negate your initial charge
1:19:41
Speaker 12: being involved in the assassination of President Kennedy?
1:19:46
Speaker 8: No?
1:19:51
Speaker 13: No, no, I didn't closely at the film that there's no.
1:19:55
Speaker 13: It accuses the President Johnson, Okay, being part of a
1:20:00
Speaker 13: complicit and a cover up of the case, but not
1:20:04
Speaker 13: in the assassination itself, which I don't know.
1:20:06
Speaker 9: What do you think that he was complicit with? Yes,
1:20:08
Speaker 9: or I'll get to you the cover up?
1:20:09
Speaker 13: Well, how about for starters appointing Alan Dulles ahead of
1:20:13
Speaker 13: the CIA. It was fired by Kennedy to the commission itself,
1:20:16
Speaker 13: to the Warren Commission, and he goes to almost every
1:20:19
Speaker 13: meeting and he's pretty much in charge of the Warren
1:20:21
Speaker 13: Commission from the beginning. Alan Dulles, that's part of the
1:20:25
Speaker 13: evidence that points to President Johnson's either incompetence or involvement.
1:20:32
Speaker 12: Mister Morley, I think you had something to add on that.
1:20:35
Speaker 7: I think you're confusing mister Oliver Stone with mister Rogers Stone.
1:20:39
Speaker 13: Yet.
1:20:40
Speaker 9: Sorry, it's Roger Stone who implicated LBJA and the assassinators
1:20:44
Speaker 9: of the President.
1:20:45
Speaker 8: It's not my friend were there.
1:20:47
Speaker 12: I may have misinterpred that, and I apologize for that, folks.
1:20:52
Speaker 1: That's what this hearing was. In a nutshell, it was
1:20:56
Speaker 1: a bad joke. It was an embarrassment. It was nothing
1:21:02
Speaker 1: but a plea for attention, and it got a lot
1:21:06
Speaker 1: of attention, not quite as much as I thought that
1:21:09
Speaker 1: it might. I thought that Oliver Stone's presence might have
1:21:14
Speaker 1: created a bit more media coverage than it seemingly did.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: Maybe Stone is too far past his time, you know,
1:21:23
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, I mean, I mean, it is amazing
1:21:25
Speaker 1: that Oliver Stone in twenty twenty five is testifying at
1:21:30
Speaker 1: a congressional hearing, you know, claiming that JFK was a
1:21:35
Speaker 1: victim of a massive conspiracy, calling for a reinvestigation of
1:21:40
Speaker 1: the assassination one more time now almost sixty two years later,
1:21:45
Speaker 1: when he makes a film in nineteen ninety one. By
1:21:49
Speaker 1: the way, a huge part of the narrative of that
1:21:51
Speaker 1: film is one day, all these you know, classified documents
1:21:56
Speaker 1: are finally going to be released, and then we'll know
1:21:58
Speaker 1: the truth. Well, the only reason why Oliver Stone's testimony
1:22:03
Speaker 1: was remotely relevant is he should have been asked one question, Okay,
1:22:07
Speaker 1: now everything's been released, why didn't we learn anything new?
1:22:10
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone, to my knowlogy wasn't asked that. If he did,
1:22:15
Speaker 1: it certainly didn't make it enough news to hit my radar.
1:22:18
Speaker 1: But I mean, Oliver Stone is a guy who at
1:22:21
Speaker 1: one time was a very very talented filmmaker. He made
1:22:27
Speaker 1: fictional films. JFK is probably the best or worst, depending
1:22:33
Speaker 1: on your perspective, example of a movie that was historically based,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: allegedly historically based movie that was fantastic cinematically and horrendous historically.
1:22:48
Speaker 1: And I've already alluded to my major objections to the movie.
1:22:52
Speaker 1: But Jim Garrison, you know, the star of this movie,
1:22:56
Speaker 1: played by Kevin Costner, is a complete and total fraud,
1:23:00
Speaker 1: A total fraud, a scam artist, a guy who was
1:23:05
Speaker 1: an attention wore, a guy who ruined lots of lives
1:23:09
Speaker 1: in this investigation and was totally humiliated. He was exposed
1:23:16
Speaker 1: as a fraud, his case was effectively laughed at by
1:23:21
Speaker 1: the jury. But because he got rehabilitated by Oliver Stones
1:23:27
Speaker 1: movie in nineteen ninety one. Now, somehow, because you know,
1:23:32
Speaker 1: all the modern media members, very few of them have
1:23:36
Speaker 1: any real knowledge of this case at all. And now
1:23:39
Speaker 1: the right wing media, I mean, Glenn Beck, is completely
1:23:42
Speaker 1: all in on the conspiracy to kill JFK, which is
1:23:47
Speaker 1: just amazing. I wish I could have a conversation with
1:23:49
Speaker 1: my former friend Glenn Beck about this. But you know,
1:23:53
Speaker 1: the right wing media loves this whole narrative. The mainstream
1:23:57
Speaker 1: media is too young now for an one to really
1:24:00
Speaker 1: remember that we've already done this. We already had a
1:24:04
Speaker 1: congressional investigation into this in the nineteen seventies. It was
1:24:08
Speaker 1: headed by John Conyer as a Democrat from Michigan, who
1:24:11
Speaker 1: was probably one of the dumbest members of Congress in
1:24:15
Speaker 1: American history. And I mean that seriously, and that came
1:24:19
Speaker 1: to a bogus, erroneous conclusion that there was probably, although
1:24:24
Speaker 1: not definitively a conspiracy to kill JFK. But they didn't
1:24:28
Speaker 1: come close to proving any of it because there's no
1:24:30
Speaker 1: evidence for it. But back to Oliver Stone. Look, you
1:24:35
Speaker 1: know six degrees of John Zigler. I have a very
1:24:37
Speaker 1: good friend who knows Oliver pretty darn well has worked
1:24:41
Speaker 1: with Oliver Stone fairly extensively. The guy is very talented,
1:24:45
Speaker 1: but in my view, based upon my assessment of his
1:24:48
Speaker 1: public comments, not just you know, around the assassination, but
1:24:53
Speaker 1: other topics, I think he's a great filmmaker, but he's
1:24:56
Speaker 1: fucking crazy, which, by the way, is not unusual. A
1:24:59
Speaker 1: lot of g filmmakers are fucking crazy. I know. It's
1:25:04
Speaker 1: a little bit like Quentin Tarantino, although I think Tarantino's
1:25:07
Speaker 1: not as crazy as Oliver Stone. And the Oliverstone I
1:25:09
Speaker 1: saw at this congressional hearing is not just nuts, but
1:25:13
Speaker 1: he's getting too old. He's over the hill now. He's
1:25:16
Speaker 1: way lost as fastball Oliverstone. So the idea that Oliver
1:25:20
Speaker 1: Stone was the star of this congressional hearing, it's just
1:25:23
Speaker 1: an embarrassment to the United States of America. And by
1:25:26
Speaker 1: the way, just to substantively address some of what Stone said,
1:25:32
Speaker 1: there the whole idea that Johnson could be behind the
1:25:37
Speaker 1: assassination is so ludicrous.
1:25:40
Speaker 6: You know.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: In episode seventy one of this podcast, where I go
1:25:44
Speaker 1: in depth on the evidence, there is a phone call
1:25:46
Speaker 1: between Johnson and j Edgar Hoover that neither guy ever
1:25:50
Speaker 1: thought would be made public, certainly not in their lifetime,
1:25:54
Speaker 1: and it's clear that Johnson is totally clueless about what
1:25:58
Speaker 1: has happened. The first thing he asks Hoover is whether
1:26:01
Speaker 1: or not anyone tried to shoot at him, which no
1:26:05
Speaker 1: one did, and there would be massive amounts of evidence
1:26:10
Speaker 1: somehow Johnson was behind the assassination. And the idea that
1:26:16
Speaker 1: somehow the Warrant Commission is discredited because Alan Dalles, who
1:26:21
Speaker 1: have been fired by JFK, was on the commission is
1:26:25
Speaker 1: also insane. It pretends that there weren't many other highly
1:26:30
Speaker 1: respected people who were also on the Warrant Commission. What
1:26:34
Speaker 1: they were all going to just take a dive for
1:26:37
Speaker 1: some sort of retribution plan by Dallas to avenge his
1:26:42
Speaker 1: firing by sabotaging the investigation of the JFK's assassination. I mean,
1:26:48
Speaker 1: this stuff doesn't even make any sense. And by the way,
1:26:52
Speaker 1: the whole idea that Oswald wasn't involved, which is you know,
1:26:57
Speaker 1: Luna's theory with his NBC tape, and it seemed to
1:27:01
Speaker 1: be the witnesses. I don't think any of the witnesses
1:27:05
Speaker 1: that testified to this hearing believed that Oswald was even
1:27:10
Speaker 1: one of the assassins. One of the guys said that
1:27:13
Speaker 1: there were multiple shooters, but he doesn't believe that Oswald
1:27:16
Speaker 1: actually killed JFK. So I don't even know what the
1:27:18
Speaker 1: hell that means. It seemed like he was keeping his
1:27:20
Speaker 1: options open for maybe Oswald was involved, maybe he wasn't,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter because Oswald didn't fire the kill shot,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: and there were other people that were shooting that day,
1:27:32
Speaker 1: There were other assassins, and it was this was all
1:27:34
Speaker 1: part of a massive conspiracy, probably a government conspiracy, and
1:27:38
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe Johnson was involved, the CIA was involved
1:27:41
Speaker 1: in BOFFI was involved. The part of this that I
1:27:44
Speaker 1: don't even remotely understand is okay, so what was Oswald's role?
1:27:50
Speaker 1: If he's not a shooter, why the fuck is he
1:27:54
Speaker 1: bringing a gun to work that day? The gun is
1:27:57
Speaker 1: registered to him the Manlooker car. We know he brought
1:28:01
Speaker 1: in a bag that supposedly had curtain rods in it.
1:28:05
Speaker 1: There are no curtain rods found on the on the
1:28:07
Speaker 1: sixth floor of the school book depository building. But you
1:28:10
Speaker 1: know what was found the brown bag that he allegedly
1:28:13
Speaker 1: brought the curtain rods with him in the car. It
1:28:15
Speaker 1: was buddy, a buddy of his to work that day.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: So there was a bag, but no curtain rods. But
1:28:21
Speaker 1: there was found a Madla Carcano Manlir Carcano rifle that
1:28:26
Speaker 1: was registered to him in an alias. By the way,
1:28:29
Speaker 1: the the shellcasings, the three shellcasings matched the bullets that
1:28:36
Speaker 1: were found that were also matched from the Manacre carcano. Oh,
1:28:40
Speaker 1: by the way, why did why did Oswald skip the scene?
1:28:45
Speaker 1: Why did he kill a police officer, which the evidence
1:28:49
Speaker 1: for which is overwhelming? So what was Oswald's role? Oswald's
1:28:54
Speaker 1: role was as a lookout? I mean that is I mean,
1:29:00
Speaker 1: I really honestly don't even understand what they're trying to
1:29:03
Speaker 1: prove by absolving Oswald from responsibility here. That doesn't get
1:29:10
Speaker 1: you anywhere other than it makes you look like you're
1:29:14
Speaker 1: ignoring massive amounts of evidence and your narrative makes no
1:29:18
Speaker 1: goddamn sense. But this is where we are and this
1:29:21
Speaker 1: is being driven by almost entirely the Republican Party. Congresswoman
1:29:26
Speaker 1: Luna is a Republican. Trump has been very much backing
1:29:29
Speaker 1: this whole idea, even though he claims that he thinks
1:29:34
Speaker 1: Oswald did kill the president. He might have had help,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: He's not sure, but he touted the whole opening of
1:29:40
Speaker 1: the JFK files thing, and you know, the switching of
1:29:44
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theorists from the Democratic side to the Republican side,
1:29:49
Speaker 1: which Poll's show is overwhelmingly the case when it comes
1:29:54
Speaker 1: to the JFK assassination and by the way, on other
1:29:57
Speaker 1: issues as well, but this is just the one that's
1:30:00
Speaker 1: prominently in the news right now. To me, is a
1:30:03
Speaker 1: great example of how Trump, somewhat to his credit and
1:30:08
Speaker 1: why he has won two presidential elections, really took away
1:30:13
Speaker 1: an important part of the Democratic Party's constituency, which was
1:30:18
Speaker 1: dumb crazy people. Dumb crazy people generally voted Democrat in
1:30:26
Speaker 1: my lifetime, but now dumb crazy people, especially if they
1:30:29
Speaker 1: happen to be white, the dumb crazy people vote for Trump.
1:30:34
Speaker 1: They see him as one of their own. And you know,
1:30:40
Speaker 1: you live with that. You live by the sword, you
1:30:43
Speaker 1: die by the sword. And once Trump is gone. I
1:30:46
Speaker 1: wonder what's gonna happen with these dumb crazy people. Where
1:30:50
Speaker 1: are those votes gonna go? But this is what happens
1:30:54
Speaker 1: when you have this constituency of dumb crazy people. You
1:30:59
Speaker 1: have of congresswomen like Luna grand standing on Fox News
1:31:04
Speaker 1: Channel and holding these bogus congressional hearings to put on
1:31:09
Speaker 1: fictional filmmakers where your fellow congress women don't even know
1:31:14
Speaker 1: what their theory is and are mistaking them for Roger Stone,
1:31:19
Speaker 1: all to pursue a theory for which there's no evidence,
1:31:21
Speaker 1: which makes no goddamn sense. Now, there was one congressional
1:31:28
Speaker 1: hearing that I thought was very productive that occurred in
1:31:32
Speaker 1: the last few days. This was at the end of
1:31:34
Speaker 1: last week. This dealt with the issue of the public
1:31:37
Speaker 1: funding of NPR and PBS, and I have a bit
1:31:41
Speaker 1: of an intimate relationship to this story, not just because
1:31:47
Speaker 1: I've been following it for a very, very long time.
1:31:50
Speaker 1: I've been in radio a lot. Although I've never worked
1:31:52
Speaker 1: for a public radio station NPR, my father has been
1:31:56
Speaker 1: on the board nationally of NPR and public broadcast thing,
1:32:00
Speaker 1: especially in the Boston area, for a long time. So
1:32:02
Speaker 1: he and I have had a lot of conversations about
1:32:04
Speaker 1: the inner workings of that. And you know, interesting way enough,
1:32:09
Speaker 1: he's been on the board with the Koch brothers, who
1:32:11
Speaker 1: are considered, or were considered one of them at least
1:32:14
Speaker 1: is dead now to be Republican funders, super rich guys,
1:32:18
Speaker 1: but you know they were. Actually they put a ton
1:32:20
Speaker 1: of money into public broadcasting, especially in PBS and NPR,
1:32:25
Speaker 1: and it's something that my father was very much familiar
1:32:28
Speaker 1: with with his time on the board with them, and
1:32:31
Speaker 1: so I don't have an inherent animus against NPR and PBS.
1:32:37
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that everyone is kind of missing
1:32:39
Speaker 1: the boat here. I despise their bias. My father and
1:32:45
Speaker 1: I talk about this all the time. He accepts that
1:32:48
Speaker 1: there's bias. He doesn't understand that there's as much bias
1:32:51
Speaker 1: as there really is, although I've been trying to convince
1:32:53
Speaker 1: him for many years. To me, I actually think there's
1:32:58
Speaker 1: a place, especially in this modern era. I think there's
1:33:02
Speaker 1: more of a place for public funded broadcasting because of
1:33:07
Speaker 1: the fact that we have so much fragmentation and the
1:33:09
Speaker 1: business model is so broken, and there's especially in the
1:33:13
Speaker 1: local level, there's no way to produce substantive news without
1:33:19
Speaker 1: there being some public funding because it can't work in
1:33:24
Speaker 1: the current business environment. And I think that there is
1:33:28
Speaker 1: an important role for NPR and PBS to play. So
1:33:33
Speaker 1: in my view, the focus here ought to be on
1:33:37
Speaker 1: getting rid of the bias, not in getting rid of
1:33:40
Speaker 1: the public funding, because the money is not all that much,
1:33:44
Speaker 1: especially in the larger scheme of things, and I think
1:33:47
Speaker 1: that there is a public benefit here, and I would
1:33:50
Speaker 1: argue that the need and the benefit is actually greater
1:33:53
Speaker 1: today than it was when PBS and NPR were created,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: because back in that day, the business model was such that, frankly,
1:34:03
Speaker 1: there wasn't that much difference in the substantive nature of
1:34:06
Speaker 1: the news you were getting elsewhere. But now the whole
1:34:09
Speaker 1: system has collapsed, and so sometimes the only place you
1:34:13
Speaker 1: can get substantive news or programming would be on NPR
1:34:19
Speaker 1: or PBS. It's just that it's incredibly liberally biased, which
1:34:24
Speaker 1: is wrong when it's being funded through public tax dollars.
1:34:29
Speaker 1: So to me, that's where Republicans ought to be focusing
1:34:33
Speaker 1: their are is how do we stop the bias, How
1:34:37
Speaker 1: do we make this fair instead of this being the
1:34:41
Speaker 1: public funding of left winning propaganda. Well, the head of NPR,
1:34:45
Speaker 1: a woman by the name of Katherine Mayer, who is really,
1:34:48
Speaker 1: Oh my god, She's like the AI version of the
1:34:54
Speaker 1: worst elitist liberal female you could possibly imagine. She's semi attractive,
1:35:00
Speaker 1: she's blonde, she's an elitist, she's well educated, completely out
1:35:05
Speaker 1: of touch, and she got ripped to shreds by too
1:35:11
Speaker 1: at least two different Republican congressmen. And I'm going to
1:35:14
Speaker 1: play both of these clips. They're a little bit long,
1:35:17
Speaker 1: but they're worth it because this is unlike the JFK
1:35:23
Speaker 1: congressional hearing. This is a congressional hearing where public leaders
1:35:28
Speaker 1: are being held to account and we're getting to the
1:35:31
Speaker 1: truth of a matter that really is very relevant in
1:35:34
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. The first clip I want to play
1:35:37
Speaker 1: is Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio, a very controversial guy,
1:35:42
Speaker 1: a guy I do not like because of his hyper
1:35:45
Speaker 1: support of Donald Trump, but a guy who I have
1:35:47
Speaker 1: probably defended more so than anyone else in the entire
1:35:51
Speaker 1: media world on the bogus Ohio State wrestling scandal that
1:35:56
Speaker 1: liberals try to bring him into in order to get
1:36:00
Speaker 1: media coverage, and they were successful in doing that. So
1:36:03
Speaker 1: I have quite a history with Jim Jordan. But here
1:36:06
Speaker 1: is Jordan questioning the head of NPR and effectively eviscerating her.
1:36:11
Speaker 9: The former senior business editor friend PR.
1:36:13
Speaker 14: How long you work at MPR.
1:36:14
Speaker 9: I believe he was there just over twenty five years?
1:36:17
Speaker 14: Twenty five years award winning journalists? Do you win any awards?
1:36:21
Speaker 9: Are time to anybody?
1:36:22
Speaker 1: Award?
1:36:22
Speaker 14: That's pretty important in it? That is a pretty distinguished journalists,
1:36:26
Speaker 14: right certainly? And I wrote, he wrote a long story
1:36:29
Speaker 14: about what you do at NPR is MPR.
1:36:31
Speaker 9: Biased, Congressman, I have never seen any instance of never
1:36:36
Speaker 9: of pro political bias determining editorial decisions.
1:36:39
Speaker 14: Now, well, mister Berliner in his story a couple last
1:36:46
Speaker 14: year wrote, I've in the DC area editorial positions at MPR.
1:36:52
Speaker 1: He said he found eighty.
1:36:54
Speaker 14: Seven registered Democrats, zero Republicans.
1:36:57
Speaker 1: Is that accurate?
1:36:59
Speaker 9: We do not track the numbers or the voter registration,
1:37:02
Speaker 9: but I find that.
1:37:02
Speaker 14: Was award winning journalists who worked twenty five years at MPR.
1:37:06
Speaker 14: Mister Berliner was he lying when he wrote that?
1:37:08
Speaker 9: I am not presuming such. I just don't have We
1:37:11
Speaker 9: don't track that information about our journals. Eighty seven to zero,
1:37:15
Speaker 9: and you're not biased? I think that is concerning if
1:37:17
Speaker 9: those numbers are accurate, it's concerned.
1:37:19
Speaker 14: I mean, it wasn't forty four, forty three, wasn't sixty
1:37:23
Speaker 14: twenty seven, It wasn't seventy seventeen. It wasn't even eighty
1:37:27
Speaker 14: to seven. It was eighty seven Democrats, zero Republicans. And
1:37:32
Speaker 14: you say MPR is not biased. How about the big
1:37:36
Speaker 14: stories over the last few years? According to mister Berlinner again,
1:37:39
Speaker 14: he wrote on the Trump Russia story, he wrote, at MPR,
1:37:44
Speaker 14: we hitched our wagon to Trump's most visible antagonist's representative,
1:37:49
Speaker 14: Adam Shipp, And they said the interviewing twenty five times
1:37:51
Speaker 14: that accurate.
1:37:52
Speaker 9: I was not there at the time, but those numbers
1:37:54
Speaker 9: sound accurate.
1:37:55
Speaker 14: Those sound accurate. But then he said, when the Moller
1:37:57
Speaker 14: report came out, and they said, Muller said, Robert Mueller
1:38:00
Speaker 14: said he found no evidence of collusion. He said, Russia
1:38:03
Speaker 14: Gate faded from our programming.
1:38:05
Speaker 1: Is that accurate?
1:38:06
Speaker 9: Again, I was not there at the time. I couldn't say.
1:38:09
Speaker 9: You couldn't say I was not at unpeer at the time.
1:38:11
Speaker 14: Didn't prepare for that. You knew we were going to
1:38:13
Speaker 14: ask you about this guy, didn't you. It's come up
1:38:15
Speaker 14: like six thousand times already into hearing.
1:38:17
Speaker 9: I just didn't say whether it faded from our coverage.
1:38:20
Speaker 1: How about this story.
1:38:21
Speaker 14: October twenty twenty, New York Post had the Hunter Biden
1:38:24
Speaker 14: laptop story, and one of those editors, I guess one
1:38:28
Speaker 14: of those eighty seven Democrat editors said this, We don't
1:38:32
Speaker 14: want to waste our time on stories that are not
1:38:34
Speaker 14: really stories. We don't want to waste the listeners and
1:38:36
Speaker 14: readers' times on the stories that are just pure distractions.
1:38:39
Speaker 14: Without a pure distraction story.
1:38:41
Speaker 9: Our current editorial leadership believes that that was a mistake,
1:38:45
Speaker 9: as do I.
1:38:45
Speaker 14: Yeah, the whole country knows that was a mistake. Definitely
1:38:48
Speaker 14: impacted the election, or I think it certainly impacted the election.
1:38:51
Speaker 14: How about the COVID origin story. That's pretty big story too, right,
1:38:55
Speaker 14: mister Berliner said, we became fervent members of the team
1:38:59
Speaker 14: natural Origin, even declaring that the lab leak was debunked
1:39:02
Speaker 14: by scientists. Turns out, though the lab leak is what
1:39:04
Speaker 14: most people think actually caused the COVID virus.
1:39:08
Speaker 9: Sorry, sorry, sor a question there there is.
1:39:10
Speaker 14: You guys were oh for three on the three the
1:39:13
Speaker 14: three of the biggest stories in the last five years.
1:39:15
Speaker 14: You guys were oh for three and yet you maintain
1:39:18
Speaker 14: that NPR is not biased.
1:39:20
Speaker 9: A Congressman, I do not believe we are politically biased.
1:39:23
Speaker 9: To know, we are a nonpartisan organization on partisan organization.
1:39:27
Speaker 1: That was effective questioning by Jim Jordan, and he's known
1:39:29
Speaker 1: for effective questioning and a lot of these hearings. But
1:39:32
Speaker 1: I may have actually liked the questioning of Congressman Gil
1:39:36
Speaker 1: another Republican in this committee, because he brought up some
1:39:41
Speaker 1: of Mayor's old tweets that were incredibly, in my view,
1:39:47
Speaker 1: essentially racist and very much in keeping with wokeism and
1:39:52
Speaker 1: virtue signaling. And Mayor's answers were just absolutely awful and disingenuous,
1:40:00
Speaker 1: and I think they spoke for themselves as to what
1:40:03
Speaker 1: was really happening when she was questioning and here's being questioned,
1:40:06
Speaker 1: and here's what that sounded like.
1:40:08
Speaker 15: It's interesting because a lot of your thinking, as expressed
1:40:10
Speaker 15: by your public statements, is deeply infused with economic and
1:40:15
Speaker 15: cultural Marxism. Do you believe that America is addicted to
1:40:19
Speaker 15: white supremacy?
1:40:21
Speaker 9: I believe that I tweeted that, and as I've said earlier,
1:40:23
Speaker 9: I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the
1:40:26
Speaker 9: last half.
1:40:27
Speaker 8: Decade, it has evolved. Why did you tweet that?
1:40:30
Speaker 9: I don't recall the exact context, sir, so I wouldn't
1:40:33
Speaker 9: be able to say.
1:40:34
Speaker 15: Okay, do you believe that America believes in black plunder
1:40:37
Speaker 15: and white democracy?
1:40:39
Speaker 9: I don't believe that, sir.
1:40:42
Speaker 8: You tweeted that.
1:40:43
Speaker 15: It is reference to a book you were reading at
1:40:45
Speaker 15: the time, apparently The Case for Reparations.
1:40:48
Speaker 9: I don't think I've ever read that book, Sir.
1:40:50
Speaker 8: You tweeted about it.
1:40:52
Speaker 15: You said you took a day off to fully read
1:40:55
Speaker 15: The Case for Reparations. You put that on Twitter in
1:40:57
Speaker 15: January twenty twenty.
1:41:00
Speaker 9: Apologies, I don't recall that I did. Okay, I'd no
1:41:02
Speaker 9: doubt that your tweet there is correct, but I don't recall.
1:41:06
Speaker 15: Okay, do you believe that white people and inherently feel
1:41:10
Speaker 15: superior to other races?
1:41:11
Speaker 9: I do not.
1:41:12
Speaker 8: Don't.
1:41:13
Speaker 15: You tweeted something to that effect. You said I grew
1:41:16
Speaker 15: up feeling superior. Ha, how wide of me? Why did
1:41:19
Speaker 15: you tweet that?
1:41:20
Speaker 9: I think I was probably reflecting on what it was
1:41:23
Speaker 9: to be to grow up in an environment where I
1:41:26
Speaker 9: had lots of advantages.
1:41:27
Speaker 8: It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.
1:41:31
Speaker 9: I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I
1:41:33
Speaker 9: was just reflecting on my own experiences.
1:41:35
Speaker 8: Do you think the white people should pay reparations?
1:41:37
Speaker 9: I have never said that, sir.
1:41:40
Speaker 8: Yes you did.
1:41:40
Speaker 15: You said it in January of twenty twenty. You tweeted, yes,
1:41:44
Speaker 15: the North, yes, all of us, Yes, America, Yes, our
1:41:47
Speaker 15: original collective stin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations, yes on
1:41:51
Speaker 15: this day.
1:41:51
Speaker 9: I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir.
1:41:54
Speaker 8: What kind of reparations was it a reference to.
1:41:57
Speaker 9: I think it was just a reference to the idea
1:41:58
Speaker 9: that we all owe much to the people who came
1:42:01
Speaker 9: before us.
1:42:02
Speaker 8: That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted.
1:42:07
Speaker 15: Okay, how much reparations have you personally paid, sir?
1:42:12
Speaker 9: I don't believe that I've ever paid reparations.
1:42:15
Speaker 8: Okay, just for everybody else.
1:42:17
Speaker 9: I'm not asking anyone.
1:42:18
Speaker 15: Seems to be what you're suggesting. Do you believe that
1:42:21
Speaker 15: looting is morally wrong?
1:42:22
Speaker 9: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to
1:42:25
Speaker 9: it as counterproductive. I think it should be prosecuted.
1:42:27
Speaker 8: Do you believe it's morally wrong? Though?
1:42:29
Speaker 15: Of course, of course, then why did you refer to
1:42:31
Speaker 15: it as counterproductive? Very different, very different way to describe it.
1:42:36
Speaker 9: It is both morally wrong and counterproductive as well as
1:42:39
Speaker 9: being tweeted.
1:42:39
Speaker 8: It's hard to be mad about protests.
1:42:41
Speaker 15: In reference to the BLM protests not prioritizing the private
1:42:46
Speaker 15: property of a system of oppression. You didn't condemn the looting,
1:42:50
Speaker 15: you said that it was counter productive. NPR also promoted
1:42:55
Speaker 15: a book called in Defensive Looting. Do you think that
1:42:57
Speaker 15: that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?
1:43:00
Speaker 9: I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe
1:43:03
Speaker 9: that was.
1:43:03
Speaker 8: At read it that you read that book, but I don't.
1:43:06
Speaker 9: Believe that I did read that book, sir.
1:43:08
Speaker 15: Do you think that a few years ago INPR educated
1:43:12
Speaker 15: America about quote, the whole community of gender queer dinosaur enthusiast.
1:43:17
Speaker 15: Do you think that that's inappropriate use of tax dollars?
1:43:20
Speaker 9: I was not an MPR at the time.
1:43:21
Speaker 15: That's not the question, though. Do you think that that's
1:43:23
Speaker 15: an appropriate use of our tax dollars?
1:43:25
Speaker 9: I think our tax dollars that we use are to
1:43:28
Speaker 9: be able to provide a wide range.
1:43:29
Speaker 15: Of I'll take that as a yes, you do believe
1:43:31
Speaker 15: that that's appropriate. Your health advisor at INNPR also stated
1:43:35
Speaker 15: in an interview that quote, fear of fatness is more
1:43:38
Speaker 15: harmful than actual fat. Would you like to explain how
1:43:42
Speaker 15: fear of fatness is more harmful than actual fat? That's
1:43:45
Speaker 15: directly that's an editorial inn PR.
1:43:47
Speaker 9: I am not familiar with the editorial, and I don't
1:43:49
Speaker 9: believe that was published during my time here.
1:43:51
Speaker 15: It's called diet culture is everywhere. Here's how to fight it.
1:43:54
Speaker 15: Do you think that that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?
1:43:56
Speaker 9: I think any reporting on health is an appropriate use.
1:43:59
Speaker 15: You and you think that editorializing that fat is not
1:44:04
Speaker 15: unhealthy is appropriate?
1:44:06
Speaker 9: I don't know that what that article is, sir, and
1:44:08
Speaker 9: I'm not familiar with it.
1:44:09
Speaker 15: With inside fake news, do you think that basic accommodations
1:44:13
Speaker 15: like doorways or seat belts represent quote latent fat phobia?
1:44:18
Speaker 9: I don't have an opinion.
1:44:19
Speaker 8: It's also from NPR. Do you think civility is racist?
1:44:23
Speaker 9: No, sir, No.
1:44:24
Speaker 15: Your outlet ran an article entitled quote when civility is
1:44:28
Speaker 15: used as a cudgel against people of color?
1:44:31
Speaker 8: That was on All Things considered? Would you like to explain.
1:44:36
Speaker 9: What I'm not on the editorial side. Sorry, I'm not
1:44:38
Speaker 9: familiar with that story.
1:44:39
Speaker 15: You talk about how NPR is news, this is This
1:44:42
Speaker 15: is editorialization, and I'll read it. For many people of
1:44:45
Speaker 15: color in the United States, civility isn't so much social
1:44:48
Speaker 15: lubricant as it is a vehicle for containing them, preventing
1:44:52
Speaker 15: social mobility, and preserving the status quote. This is garbage.
1:44:56
Speaker 15: I'll spend all of my time doing everything I can do.
1:45:00
Speaker 15: I'm sure you guys never get another dollar of taxpayer funding.
1:45:03
Speaker 15: This is complete garbage, thank you, Madam chair.
1:45:06
Speaker 1: So in both of those cases, I thought the Republican
1:45:08
Speaker 1: Congressman did a great job of exposing the head of MPR.
1:45:13
Speaker 1: But I do differ on what the end goal should
1:45:16
Speaker 1: be here because a lot of people think that this
1:45:19
Speaker 1: is about eliminating all funding for MPR and for PBS,
1:45:24
Speaker 1: just for the record, not that I matter, but I
1:45:26
Speaker 1: don't think that's the answer. I think the answer is
1:45:30
Speaker 1: whether it's creating an ombudsman with some sort of oversight
1:45:35
Speaker 1: over the budget, somebody who could be appointed who is
1:45:38
Speaker 1: an actual conservative to oversee the content and to be
1:45:42
Speaker 1: able to incentivize and prevent incentivize equality, or fairness and
1:45:50
Speaker 1: to prevent this overwhelming left wing bias that has marked
1:45:56
Speaker 1: the programming, not just the news programming, but the overall
1:45:59
Speaker 1: programming of mp are MPBS for a very very long time.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: I hope that something like that will be the solution
1:46:06
Speaker 1: here rather than just cutting all funding, because if you
1:46:09
Speaker 1: cut all funding right now, especially for PBS, you're gonna
1:46:13
Speaker 1: end up seeing stations go under because they're not going
1:46:16
Speaker 1: to be able to make it in this environment in
1:46:18
Speaker 1: all likelihood, and I think that would be a loss.
1:46:21
Speaker 1: I think that would be a loss for broadcasting, and
1:46:23
Speaker 1: I think that would be a loss for the country.
1:46:25
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think there would be some
1:46:27
Speaker 1: political cost in that as well, but also from a
1:46:30
Speaker 1: local perspective on the NPR standpoint, NPR locally, I mean,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: we've seen a catastrophe when it has come to news product,
1:46:42
Speaker 1: especially on the local level, and sometimes NPR is the
1:46:46
Speaker 1: only place you're going to be able to get that.
1:46:48
Speaker 1: And so therefore I am not in favor even though
1:46:51
Speaker 1: most Conservatives, Republicans, pro Trumpers, what have you, are very
1:46:55
Speaker 1: much in favor of this. I am not in favor
1:46:57
Speaker 1: of eliminating funding. I'm in favor of using current leverage
1:47:02
Speaker 1: to try to induce basic journalistic fairness, which really shouldn't
1:47:07
Speaker 1: be all that difficult to pull off. The White House
1:47:11
Speaker 1: Correspondence Association was involved in a bit of a controversy
1:47:16
Speaker 1: earlier this week because at the Correspondence Dinner, which used
1:47:20
Speaker 1: to be a huge deal. In fact, you could argue
1:47:22
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump's presidential aspirations began at a white White
1:47:27
Speaker 1: House Correspondence dinner because Barack Obama made the now seemingly
1:47:32
Speaker 1: huge mistake of making fun of Donald Trump while he
1:47:35
Speaker 1: was in attendance. And there are a lot of people,
1:47:38
Speaker 1: and I don't think this is irrational, who believe that
1:47:40
Speaker 1: that was the moment that Donald Trump decided to run
1:47:43
Speaker 1: for president. And we all now know how that turned out.
1:47:48
Speaker 1: But the White House Correspondence Dinner, which has been going
1:47:51
Speaker 1: sideways for quite a long time, has suddenly disinvited their
1:47:56
Speaker 1: black female comedian from performing, largely because of extremely anti
1:48:03
Speaker 1: Trump comments that she has made. And imagine how bad
1:48:07
Speaker 1: this must be for a liberal black female to get
1:48:11
Speaker 1: disinvited by the White House Correspondence Association, which is run
1:48:16
Speaker 1: by currently run by a black gay man who's about
1:48:20
Speaker 1: to take a weekend show on MSNBC. I mean, it
1:48:24
Speaker 1: has to be really bad because I think they realized
1:48:26
Speaker 1: that they were heading for a very embarrassing situation, and
1:48:30
Speaker 1: I think they were right. I actually think politically this
1:48:33
Speaker 1: was the right move for them. But I have to
1:48:35
Speaker 1: say that it's disappointing because that was a huge part
1:48:38
Speaker 1: of the event, and it's a sad statement of affairs
1:48:43
Speaker 1: that we can no longer we are so divided, we
1:48:47
Speaker 1: can no longer have a situation which only happened once
1:48:50
Speaker 1: a year, maybe maybe twice in an election year if
1:48:53
Speaker 1: you count the Al Smith dinner in New York, and
1:48:55
Speaker 1: even that didn't happen because Kamal Harrison didn't show up
1:48:58
Speaker 1: during last elections cycle, but at least Trump did. Where
1:49:02
Speaker 1: you have a situation where a president the United States
1:49:07
Speaker 1: is made fun of, and usually a lighthearted fashion, in
1:49:13
Speaker 1: front of the majority of the press corps. I thought
1:49:17
Speaker 1: that was a healthy situation and sometimes it produced very
1:49:21
Speaker 1: funny moments in both directions, in both you know, criticizing
1:49:25
Speaker 1: a Republican president as well as a Democratic president. And
1:49:29
Speaker 1: now I feel like that's probably gone because I don't
1:49:33
Speaker 1: know how you go back. Now you've just essentially fired
1:49:37
Speaker 1: a liberal black female, because you were afraid that she
1:49:41
Speaker 1: was going to be too anti Trump. I don't know
1:49:44
Speaker 1: whether not Trump's going to show up. I don't think.
1:49:46
Speaker 1: I can't even remember if he's ever shown up before
1:49:49
Speaker 1: at one of these things as president, because he obviously
1:49:51
Speaker 1: hates the press so much. But I guess you know,
1:49:55
Speaker 1: they were concerned that if Trump doesn't show up and
1:49:58
Speaker 1: they have this extreme only anti Trump comedian, that it
1:50:03
Speaker 1: would really look bad for them at a time period
1:50:05
Speaker 1: where they are already extremely low when it comes to
1:50:09
Speaker 1: the public perception of the news media. And so I
1:50:13
Speaker 1: think strategically this was the only choice that they had,
1:50:15
Speaker 1: even though I think it is it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate
1:50:19
Speaker 1: that this event appears to be on its last legs
1:50:23
Speaker 1: and this year is going to be a snoozefest without
1:50:25
Speaker 1: even any sort of a comic element. Even if it
1:50:31
Speaker 1: was going to be bad, at least it would be
1:50:32
Speaker 1: an attempt at some semblance of comedy, even though you
1:50:35
Speaker 1: could argue that looking at the state of journalism in
1:50:38
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five is comedic in and of itself. In
1:50:42
Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast, I referenced what was
1:50:45
Speaker 1: going on with the movie snow White from Disney, and
1:50:49
Speaker 1: what a disaster that has been, although maybe not quite
1:50:53
Speaker 1: as much of a disaster as a lot of the
1:50:55
Speaker 1: right wing media has been portraying it as h and
1:51:00
Speaker 1: has been hoping for it to be. I mean, the
1:51:02
Speaker 1: right wing media has been campaigning for Snow White to
1:51:06
Speaker 1: be a box office disaster for a very long time,
1:51:11
Speaker 1: to be a total flop, and there's no question it
1:51:15
Speaker 1: has been very disappointing and the audience scores are abysmal.
1:51:19
Speaker 1: And I had said in the last episode of the
1:51:22
Speaker 1: podcast that I was planning to see the movie with
1:51:26
Speaker 1: my two daughters and one of my daughters, my older daughter,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: Grace's friends, even though they weren't all that interested in
1:51:32
Speaker 1: the movie itself, they were kind of curious and they're
1:51:35
Speaker 1: big Disney fans, and you know, it was just an
1:51:38
Speaker 1: event to take a friend. Unfortunately, that did not happen
1:51:42
Speaker 1: as of yet, and I'm not sure it's ever gonna happen,
1:51:45
Speaker 1: because it got caught up in middle school girl drama,
1:51:50
Speaker 1: which I'm learning very fast is a real thing and
1:51:56
Speaker 1: is probably only exceeded in silliness by what goes on
1:52:00
Speaker 1: in the daytime hours at ESPN, which we would get
1:52:03
Speaker 1: to momentarily, but it's it's a tough call which is
1:52:08
Speaker 1: more juvenile middle school girl drama or what happens during
1:52:12
Speaker 1: the daytime on ESPN programming, But that has prevented, at
1:52:17
Speaker 1: least so far, us seeing the Snow White movie. I
1:52:20
Speaker 1: don't know whether it's going to happen. It's still in
1:52:22
Speaker 1: the works. It might happen. I really don't care if
1:52:25
Speaker 1: it does or it doesn't, because I have no real
1:52:27
Speaker 1: desire to see this film other than for the purposes
1:52:31
Speaker 1: of commenting on it. But I do want to say
1:52:34
Speaker 1: a couple of things to follow up on what I
1:52:37
Speaker 1: talked about in the last episode of the podcast. First
1:52:40
Speaker 1: is that internationally the film isn't doing that badly. Now.
1:52:46
Speaker 1: Snow White is a European story in its origin, so
1:52:50
Speaker 1: that might be part of why internationally is doing so well.
1:52:53
Speaker 1: Plus I don't think that the wokeism controversy probably has
1:52:57
Speaker 1: resonated in Europe nearly as much as it has, especially
1:53:00
Speaker 1: in the right wing here in the United States. But
1:53:03
Speaker 1: after two weekends internationally United States, domestically and internationally, the
1:53:08
Speaker 1: film has taken in about one hundred and fifty million dollars.
1:53:12
Speaker 1: Now it cost about two hundred and seventy million, so
1:53:15
Speaker 1: they're going to really struggle to even come close to
1:53:18
Speaker 1: breaking even when it's all said and done. But I'm sorry,
1:53:21
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of tough for me to describe a
1:53:24
Speaker 1: film that has gotten somewhere near one hundred and fifty
1:53:28
Speaker 1: million dollars after two weeks as being a complete catastrophe
1:53:32
Speaker 1: from a box office perspective. I mean, come on, people,
1:53:36
Speaker 1: I mean we're in an era where people generally do
1:53:38
Speaker 1: not go to the theaters nearly as much as they
1:53:41
Speaker 1: used to. That being said, there's no question this is
1:53:44
Speaker 1: a major disappointment for Disney. It may end up in
1:53:47
Speaker 1: the realm of a catastrophe or a disaster or an
1:53:51
Speaker 1: epic flop. I'm not downgrading that or diminishing that narrative
1:53:56
Speaker 1: at all. I just think that the right wing media
1:53:58
Speaker 1: has been a little bit too willing and eager to
1:54:02
Speaker 1: believe that they you know, this whole idea that you
1:54:05
Speaker 1: go woke and you go broke, which I'm not one
1:54:07
Speaker 1: hundred percent sold on. And by the way, just to
1:54:09
Speaker 1: be clear, I think there are benefits to Snow White
1:54:14
Speaker 1: being perceived as a catastrophe, because that's the way the
1:54:20
Speaker 1: media in the movie business works. Okay, we can't do
1:54:24
Speaker 1: that again. Hollywood needs to learn this lesson. And even
1:54:27
Speaker 1: if you know, I realized, the facts generally don't get
1:54:32
Speaker 1: in the way of a good story, and perception is reality.
1:54:35
Speaker 1: So I'm not against the idea of Snow White being
1:54:39
Speaker 1: perceived as a horrible mistake from a pr standpoint, and
1:54:44
Speaker 1: that Disney and their star Rachel Zegler really stepped in
1:54:49
Speaker 1: it and offended half the country. And that's why the
1:54:52
Speaker 1: movie didn't do nearly as well as it could have
1:54:55
Speaker 1: or it should have. Given obviously how big a deal
1:54:59
Speaker 1: a snow White remake should be, because to be clear,
1:55:02
Speaker 1: Snow White is what made the Disney Corporation to begin with.
1:55:06
Speaker 1: Without snow White, the animated version in nineteen thirty seven
1:55:09
Speaker 1: being a big hit, we're not even talking about Disney today.
1:55:12
Speaker 1: Disney probably doesn't even exist. They were in big trouble.
1:55:16
Speaker 1: Walt Disney put everything into Snow White and it was
1:55:19
Speaker 1: a massive hit, and the rest is literally history. But
1:55:23
Speaker 1: in the last episode of the podcast, part of my
1:55:25
Speaker 1: analysis here was that there was nobody in Burbank, which
1:55:31
Speaker 1: is where Disney's headquarters are located, not far from where
1:55:35
Speaker 1: I currently live, and very very close to where I
1:55:37
Speaker 1: used to live and work, right across the street. Basically,
1:55:41
Speaker 1: there was nobody in Burbank who was willing and able
1:55:45
Speaker 1: at the right time to say to Rachel Zegler, knocking
1:55:50
Speaker 1: the fuck off, or to head it off at the past,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: because I have a theory that at first they were
1:55:57
Speaker 1: actually fine with Rachel Zegler this narrative that this is
1:56:01
Speaker 1: a brand new snow White, We're gonna shit on the original,
1:56:04
Speaker 1: this is all about girl power, princes don't matter, this
1:56:08
Speaker 1: isn't about true love. I think that that was at
1:56:11
Speaker 1: least enabled, if not approved of, by Disney. But then
1:56:15
Speaker 1: it got completely out of hand, and then she went
1:56:18
Speaker 1: after Trumps supporters. And you know, once you create a narrative,
1:56:22
Speaker 1: the publicists no longer have the power that they used to.
1:56:25
Speaker 1: The studios no longer have the power that they used
1:56:27
Speaker 1: to try to keep that under wraps or to turn
1:56:30
Speaker 1: it around. And Gail Goodou, the evil queen who was
1:56:35
Speaker 1: actually making way way more money than Rachel Zegler here,
1:56:40
Speaker 1: wanted no part of this. She saw blood in the water.
1:56:43
Speaker 1: She ran away as far as she could. She didn't
1:56:45
Speaker 1: do any publicity for the film they wanted to allow,
1:56:48
Speaker 1: and she certainly wanted to allow Goodo did. Wanted to
1:56:50
Speaker 1: allow this young actress, Rachel Zegler to take all the blame,
1:56:55
Speaker 1: and it certainly appeared as if Disney is now fine
1:56:58
Speaker 1: throwing Zegler under the bus. By the way, it's Ziggler
1:57:02
Speaker 1: with no ie, obviously no relation to John Zigler. Now,
1:57:06
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm mentioning all this is that we
1:57:09
Speaker 1: learned something in the last week since the last episode
1:57:12
Speaker 1: of the podcast that would somewhat go against my analysis,
1:57:17
Speaker 1: but in a weird way I think may actually promote
1:57:22
Speaker 1: it just a little bit, or at the very least
1:57:24
Speaker 1: brings in a character into this passion play that I
1:57:29
Speaker 1: very much enjoy having them be in a difficult spot.
1:57:33
Speaker 1: Let me explain. So, there was some news surrounding a
1:57:39
Speaker 1: social media post by a god the name of Jonah Platt.
1:57:44
Speaker 1: Jonah Platt is the son of Mark Platt, who was
1:57:48
Speaker 1: the producer, is the producer, one of the main producers
1:57:51
Speaker 1: of the Snow White movie, and he was responding to
1:57:57
Speaker 1: somebody online who was talking about how his father, Mark Platt,
1:58:03
Speaker 1: flew to New York City to quote unquote reprimand Rachel
1:58:07
Speaker 1: Zegler for her stepping on this movie from a pr perspective.
1:58:12
Speaker 1: And Jonah Platt, the son of Mark Platt, who was
1:58:16
Speaker 1: a huge Disney guy from way back. He wrote the following, Yeah,
1:58:21
Speaker 1: my dad, the producer, an enormous piece of Disney IP
1:58:25
Speaker 1: intellectual property with hundreds of millions of dollars in the line,
1:58:29
Speaker 1: had to leave his family to fly across the country
1:58:32
Speaker 1: to reprimand his twenty year old employee for dragging her
1:58:36
Speaker 1: personal politics in the middle of promoting the movie for
1:58:39
Speaker 1: which she signed a multimillion dollar contract to get paid
1:58:43
Speaker 1: and do publicity for now. Interestingly, it's unclear as to
1:58:48
Speaker 1: when this meeting took place. The son is referring to
1:58:52
Speaker 1: Rachel Zegler as a twenty year old. It's my understanding
1:58:55
Speaker 1: she was twenty when she got the gig, but I
1:58:57
Speaker 1: think she's twenty three now. And part of my theory
1:59:01
Speaker 1: on this whole thing is that back three years ago,
1:59:04
Speaker 1: when this whole thing started, we were in the post
1:59:07
Speaker 1: we were still basically in the COVID panic. We were
1:59:10
Speaker 1: in the post Great Reset era, and I think Hollywood
1:59:15
Speaker 1: completely overplay their hand. Liberal Hollywood thought, you know, all
1:59:19
Speaker 1: the old rules were off we could you know, Katie
1:59:22
Speaker 1: bar the door, we were unrestricted now and how woke
1:59:25
Speaker 1: we want to be? And by the time the movie
1:59:27
Speaker 1: came out, the world had changed, and obviously Trump got
1:59:30
Speaker 1: elected president again. So I don't know how to interpret
1:59:36
Speaker 1: this message. As far as the timing, the content seemed
1:59:39
Speaker 1: to indicate that this meeting took place fairly recently, as
1:59:44
Speaker 1: as you would might you might logically conclude, but the
1:59:47
Speaker 1: twenty year old reference goes against that. So I don't
1:59:50
Speaker 1: know when this meeting took place. But back to Jonah
1:59:53
Speaker 1: Platt's Internet, I believe this is on Instagram post. This
1:59:58
Speaker 1: is called adult responsibility and accountability, and her actions clearly
2:00:03
Speaker 1: hurt the film's box office. Free speech does not mean
2:00:07
Speaker 1: you're allowed to say whatever you want in your private
2:00:09
Speaker 1: employment without repercussions. Tens of thousands of people worked on
2:00:14
Speaker 1: that film, and she hijacked the conversation for her own
2:00:17
Speaker 1: immature desires at the risk of all the colleagues and
2:00:21
Speaker 1: crew and blue collar workers who depend on that movie
2:00:25
Speaker 1: to be successful. Narcissism is not something to be coddled
2:00:29
Speaker 1: or encouraged. Again, those are the rather strong words of
2:00:34
Speaker 1: Jonah Platt, the son of Mark Platt, and to my knowledge,
2:00:37
Speaker 1: Mark Platt has not issued any sort of statement condemning
2:00:40
Speaker 1: what his son said. Now, why do I find that
2:00:43
Speaker 1: interesting and worthy of mention? Well, first of all, you know,
2:00:47
Speaker 1: whenever I say something that is inaccurate, and I find
2:00:50
Speaker 1: it to be inaccurate, I try to bring it to
2:00:53
Speaker 1: the table. And I did say that I didn't think
2:00:55
Speaker 1: anyone in Burbank was in the room to be able
2:00:58
Speaker 1: to say what the fuck are we doing. I'm still
2:01:01
Speaker 1: not willing to abandon that theory, partially because I don't
2:01:04
Speaker 1: know when this meeting took place, But the fact that
2:01:07
Speaker 1: this is Mark Platt's son is really the reason why
2:01:12
Speaker 1: I'm mentioning the story, because who is Mark Platt? Mark
2:01:16
Speaker 1: Platt six degrees of John Zigler is the guy who
2:01:21
Speaker 1: was one of the key people behind ABC Disney's two
2:01:27
Speaker 1: part docu drama called The Path to nine to eleven,
2:01:31
Speaker 1: which aired on ABC in two parts on the fifth
2:01:35
Speaker 1: anniversary of Nine to eleven in two thousand and six,
2:01:39
Speaker 1: and this debacle that occurred because of the political controversy
2:01:46
Speaker 1: that ensued with Bill Clinton going to the head of
2:01:49
Speaker 1: Disney to get major parts of the movie edited out,
2:01:54
Speaker 1: even though they were perfectly accurate and Disney caving politically
2:01:59
Speaker 1: to the Clinton And this whole episode became the subject
2:02:03
Speaker 1: of my first documentary film, Blocking the Path to nine
2:02:08
Speaker 1: to eleven. And that movie was written by a guy
2:02:14
Speaker 1: in mind the name of Cyrus n Rasta, who to
2:02:17
Speaker 1: this day is probably my best friend. We live in
2:02:20
Speaker 1: the same town, and you know, his family my family
2:02:23
Speaker 1: had become very very close. Interesting the first conversation we
2:02:28
Speaker 1: ever had was a knockdown, drag out fight because Cyrus
2:02:34
Speaker 1: was supposed to come on my radio show on KFI
2:02:36
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and he was afraid from a security
2:02:40
Speaker 1: perspective because he was being threatened with all sorts of
2:02:43
Speaker 1: ramifications because of this massive controversy that had broken out,
2:02:47
Speaker 1: and I basically screamed and yelled at him that I
2:02:50
Speaker 1: had put everything on the line for this film and
2:02:53
Speaker 1: had been promoting the hell out of it because I
2:02:55
Speaker 1: loved it, and he agreed to come in, and you know,
2:03:00
Speaker 1: we've been very very close friends ever since. So, and
2:03:03
Speaker 1: he was a star of my documentary film which I
2:03:06
Speaker 1: did for Citizens United. And in that film, one of
2:03:11
Speaker 1: the villains is Mark Platt, because it was Mark Platt
2:03:16
Speaker 1: who knew who knew probably better than anybody else that
2:03:22
Speaker 1: the movie was perfectly fine deserved to be defended, but he,
2:03:28
Speaker 1: when it came down to it, completely caved, completely caved,
2:03:33
Speaker 1: and in my view, was more of a coward than
2:03:36
Speaker 1: anybody else who was in a position of authority that
2:03:40
Speaker 1: could have altered the course of that story. But he
2:03:44
Speaker 1: completely caved. Why because he was afraid of going up
2:03:49
Speaker 1: against the liberal establishment at Disney and offending the Clintons
2:03:55
Speaker 1: and specifically Bill Clinton, who was reaching out to the
2:03:58
Speaker 1: higher ups at Disney to get them to take out
2:04:01
Speaker 1: some of the parts of the movie where it was
2:04:03
Speaker 1: strongly implied accurately that Bill Clinton had the opportunity to
2:04:07
Speaker 1: take out Osama bin Laden well before nine to eleven
2:04:11
Speaker 1: and did not do so. And you know, the heart
2:04:15
Speaker 1: of the movie was almost entirely removed because of they
2:04:20
Speaker 1: weren't that many edits, but they were critical edits. Maybe
2:04:23
Speaker 1: not the heart of the movie, but at least one
2:04:26
Speaker 1: testicle was removed from the movie by Bill Clinton. And
2:04:29
Speaker 1: it was Mark Platt that allowed that to happen. He
2:04:33
Speaker 1: was a complete coward. And so you know, karma is
2:04:37
Speaker 1: a bitch. You know, this is definitely this gave me
2:04:41
Speaker 1: a lot of pleasure to see that Mark Platt's son,
2:04:44
Speaker 1: which you can only presume here he's speaking for Mark Platt,
2:04:48
Speaker 1: that Mark Platt was forced to go reprimand Rachel Zegler
2:04:52
Speaker 1: for destroying a movie that he's a producer on, Snow White,
2:04:57
Speaker 1: that I'm sure at one point was expected to make
2:04:59
Speaker 1: a ton of money that now is not going to
2:05:01
Speaker 1: because get this, the star of the show Snow White,
2:05:06
Speaker 1: Rachel Ziegler, revealed herself to be far too much of
2:05:09
Speaker 1: a leftist. So you know, that's Kara being a bit
2:05:13
Speaker 1: right there, and I'm I'm all for it. I thought
2:05:17
Speaker 1: that Mark Platt had already experienced karma because you may
2:05:20
Speaker 1: recall that several years ago when Warren Batty botched the
2:05:26
Speaker 1: announcement of who had won Best Picture, they thought one
2:05:31
Speaker 1: movie had won it, and then it turned out that
2:05:34
Speaker 1: Batty had screwed up which card to read and they
2:05:38
Speaker 1: had to give the people that had gotten the Oscars
2:05:41
Speaker 1: originally for Best Picture had to literally give up their statuettes. Well,
2:05:45
Speaker 1: one of the producers on the movie that for like
2:05:49
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds or maybe thirty seconds, thought that they had
2:05:52
Speaker 1: won the Oscar for Best Picture, was you guessed it
2:05:56
Speaker 1: Mark Platt, so I thought we would never get a situation.
2:06:00
Speaker 1: It was better as far as karma than for Mark
2:06:03
Speaker 1: Platt that to give up his oscar, physically give up
2:06:06
Speaker 1: his oscar on the stage, thinking that he had produced
2:06:09
Speaker 1: a movie that had won Best Picture, and it turned
2:06:11
Speaker 1: out that he didn't. Well, now we have a situation where,
2:06:14
Speaker 1: thanks to liberal politics, snow White has been sabotaged and
2:06:19
Speaker 1: Mark Platt is there to try to clean up the mess.
2:06:22
Speaker 1: That gave me quite a bit of pleasure. I don't
2:06:24
Speaker 1: know if it did for you, but it certainly did
2:06:26
Speaker 1: for me. You know, by the way, in the making
2:06:29
Speaker 1: of that movie, the documentary Blocking the Path to nine eleven,
2:06:34
Speaker 1: which you can still find for free online if your
2:06:36
Speaker 1: search well enough on Google, and it's a really good movie.
2:06:39
Speaker 1: It's amazing story. I remember that we were trying to
2:06:44
Speaker 1: shoot some b roll outside of the Burbank headquarters of
2:06:48
Speaker 1: Walt Disney, and we were on public property and we
2:06:53
Speaker 1: were just getting a shot I don't know, mickey or whatever,
2:06:55
Speaker 1: you know something that showed Disney on the side of
2:06:58
Speaker 1: the building, and a security guard came over to us
2:07:03
Speaker 1: and asked us what we were doing, and I explained
2:07:06
Speaker 1: what we were doing, and I said, we're on public property,
2:07:08
Speaker 1: and you know, we're not doing anything wrong. But he
2:07:11
Speaker 1: was trying to intimidate us into not filming the outside
2:07:16
Speaker 1: of the Disney corporate office, and he said something that
2:07:20
Speaker 1: I'll never forget, especially considering how everything's turned out. He
2:07:25
Speaker 1: said to us. In my memory, this was as he
2:07:28
Speaker 1: was leaving us, because I think he decided because we
2:07:31
Speaker 1: were on a public sidewalk that he didn't have any
2:07:32
Speaker 1: authority to get rid of us. He said to me,
2:07:37
Speaker 1: we're just trying to protect the magic, sir, And I thought, well,
2:07:42
Speaker 1: that's interesting. At the time, I thought, well, that's what's
2:07:45
Speaker 1: it's a cult. We're just trying to protect the magic.
2:07:49
Speaker 1: And now as I think back, and that was, you know,
2:07:52
Speaker 1: basically almost twenty years later, we're in the realm of
2:07:57
Speaker 1: eighteen years later than when that up, so it happened.
2:08:01
Speaker 1: I think about that phrase very differently because in my view,
2:08:06
Speaker 1: when you catch lightning in a bottle and you get magic,
2:08:13
Speaker 1: and Disney obviously had magic at such a certain point
2:08:16
Speaker 1: for a very long time. They held a special place
2:08:19
Speaker 1: in American culture. I mean, they have magic with my
2:08:22
Speaker 1: wife and my kids, but that magic is fading fast
2:08:25
Speaker 1: with my kids, and even my wife has you know,
2:08:29
Speaker 1: because of all the wokeness gotten disillusioned with Disney in
2:08:33
Speaker 1: any endeavor, whether it's entertainment, whether it's politics, whether it's sports.
2:08:38
Speaker 1: When you are lucky enough to have magic, you do
2:08:44
Speaker 1: everything you possibly can to protect it, everything, You protect
2:08:49
Speaker 1: it at all costs. And it's remarkable to me how
2:08:55
Speaker 1: we have seen so many institutions either not realize the
2:09:00
Speaker 1: importance of doing that fully or be unable to resist
2:09:05
Speaker 1: the temptations to do things that would risk the magic.
2:09:09
Speaker 1: And clearly Disney stopped protecting the magic, and snow White
2:09:16
Speaker 1: is the ultimate proof example or result of that. The
2:09:21
Speaker 1: magic was the goodwill that they had with Middle America,
2:09:27
Speaker 1: with the parents of young kids. You knew that if
2:09:32
Speaker 1: you were putting a Disney movie on, if you're taking
2:09:34
Speaker 1: your kid to a Disney movie or a Disney show,
2:09:36
Speaker 1: you were safe. You knew that. And the magic came
2:09:41
Speaker 1: in the fact that they had so many characters that
2:09:44
Speaker 1: immediately resonated with kids of multiple generations. And that magic
2:09:52
Speaker 1: has been squandered and their bottom line has suffered dramatically,
2:09:59
Speaker 1: not just with snow White, but their stock price has plummeted.
2:10:03
Speaker 1: Their overall movie business is barely breaking even in recent years,
2:10:10
Speaker 1: in fact losing money at times, and so that I
2:10:14
Speaker 1: now look at is a very from a very different perspective,
2:10:18
Speaker 1: because they didn't protect the magic. It reminded me of
2:10:22
Speaker 1: a phrase that a friend of mine used to use
2:10:25
Speaker 1: who worked for NFL films. And this is not just
2:10:28
Speaker 1: from him, this is this is very similar to protecting
2:10:31
Speaker 1: the magic at Disney. But you know the NFL, I don't.
2:10:34
Speaker 1: They still do, They probably do, but they're not living
2:10:36
Speaker 1: by it. The NFL has this phrase protect the shield.
2:10:41
Speaker 1: Protect the shield is basically the exact same thing as
2:10:44
Speaker 1: protect the magic, and in my view, the NFL has
2:10:49
Speaker 1: done a very poor job of protecting the shield. They
2:10:51
Speaker 1: just haven't had the ramifications of that yet. I believe
2:10:55
Speaker 1: that they eventually will in multiple ways. Currently they're not
2:10:59
Speaker 1: at all. Currently economically they're doing better than ever. So
2:11:04
Speaker 1: maybe you know, they might be the one that doesn't
2:11:06
Speaker 1: protect their magic and they get away with it, but
2:11:10
Speaker 1: I think eventually they will suffer. I believe they will
2:11:12
Speaker 1: suffer the consequences eventually for not protecting the shield. College sports.
2:11:18
Speaker 1: They have squandered their magic in all sorts of ways,
2:11:22
Speaker 1: which we're going to get to in a little bit
2:11:24
Speaker 1: of what's happening with March madness. I think even religion itself,
2:11:30
Speaker 1: not just religion the college sports. I've often talked about
2:11:33
Speaker 1: how you can't treat a religion like a business because
2:11:36
Speaker 1: that's giving up the magic of college athletics. But I'm
2:11:39
Speaker 1: talking about actual religions, you know, Christianity and Catholicism, which
2:11:44
Speaker 1: I'm most familiar with growing up in the Catholic religion.
2:11:47
Speaker 1: I think religions have allowed their magic to be squandered.
2:11:52
Speaker 1: I think even for some people this is a religious experience,
2:11:55
Speaker 1: including myself. I think even the Master's Golf Tournament is
2:11:58
Speaker 1: on the verge of allowing the magic to be squandered
2:12:03
Speaker 1: on a whole different series of levels. I think they've
2:12:06
Speaker 1: actually gone somewhat woke. They were very woke during COVID.
2:12:10
Speaker 1: But more importantly, the access that the Masters is now
2:12:14
Speaker 1: providing the public is unbelievable this year. I mean it's
2:12:19
Speaker 1: like in the olden days ten fifteen years ago to
2:12:23
Speaker 1: today when it comes to access, the Masters Golf Tournament
2:12:27
Speaker 1: has gone from Audrey Hepburn to Kim Kardashian basically no
2:12:32
Speaker 1: access at all to showing everything, showing their full ass,
2:12:39
Speaker 1: and there's nothing special about it anymore. I mean, look,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: I mean, no one's going to no golf fans going
2:12:44
Speaker 1: to complain about being able to get every aspect of
2:12:46
Speaker 1: the Masters online or on television or on their phone
2:12:50
Speaker 1: or what have you. But the mystique and the magic
2:12:54
Speaker 1: is not being protected. There. Sometimes less is more. Thanks
2:12:59
Speaker 1: for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
2:13:02
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