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Episode One Hundred Twelve: Death By DEI · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode number one hundred and twelve to the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 0:04
  My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Harvard's equity
• 0:08
  president survives a crisis because she's an equity hire. I may have finally figured
• 0:14
  out what's really going on with Tucker Carlson. Nicky Haley gets a big endorsement
• 0:19
  in New Hampshire, and some thoughts you won't hear anywhere else about football quarterbacks
• 0:25
  currently in the news. I'm known as the Dutch Digital marketing Man. I'm
• 0:30
  a digital advertising SEO and email marketing specialist that also happens to be a big
• 0:36
  fan of John Zigler and the Death of Journalism. Do you need help reaching
• 0:40
  your target audience? Let me help you develop the riot messaging and confated message
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  in the best channels for your business. Please visit my website, the Dutchdigitalmarketingman
• 0:51
  dot com and let me help you tell your story. The website is the
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  Dutchdigital Marketingman dot com. If you want to go grow your business, Peter
• 1:00
  can help. That's the Dutch Digital Marketingman dot com. And hey, thanks
• 1:06
  for sponsoring the show. In our last episode of the podcast, I speculated
• 1:11
  that it was possible that the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, maybe the
• 1:17
  second domino to fall in the controversy over elite academic institutions and their presidents and
• 1:25
  alleged anti semitism with regard to their congressional testimony last week, and it turns
• 1:32
  out that that did not happen. Claudine Gay has survived this firestorm, and
• 1:40
  the reason why she has survived this firestorm at Harvard is maybe more interesting and
• 1:48
  significant than if she had actually been fired or forced to resign, as was
• 1:53
  the president of the University of Pennsylvania following all the controversy in the aftermath of
• 1:59
  their care rational testimony about alleged anti Semitism on campus and for instance, whether
• 2:05
  or not it would be against the code of conduct at these universities if someone
• 2:10
  called for the genocide of Jewish people. And Clauding Gay is a very I
• 2:16
  think, interesting and dangerous figure and very telling figure about both academia as well
• 2:23
  as our culture as a whole. And you know, even the way it
• 2:29
  was reported in the New York Times, her surviving this controversy, I think
• 2:34
  is extremely telling about what is really going on here and frankly, why she
• 2:38
  really was able to survive this mess, because in the New York Times world,
• 2:45
  this was still all about the congressional testimony. New York Times headline Harvard's
• 2:51
  board says president will stay despite calls for her ouster and then sub headline Clauding
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  Gay, who became the university in July, faced criticism for her response to
• 3:04
  questions at a congressional hearing about anti Semitism. Now that's first of all,
• 3:08
  putting it in the best light possible for Claudian Gay, but it's more importantly
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  than that, it's omitting an incredibly important element of this story, which is
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  that when she became under fire for her congressional testimony, which frankly, I
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  didn't think was as bad as many people did, because I'm a free speech
• 3:29
  advocate and I think context does matter in these situations. But I dealt with
• 3:34
  that extensively in episode number one hundred and eleven. But for where we're going
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  with this particular element of the story, that is a whitewash of what actually
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  transpired, and it also eliminates what happened in the aftermath of that, because
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  this is generally what occurs when someone gets in trouble, right when you get
• 3:54
  in trouble in one area, people that want to see you gone, they
• 4:00
  searched for other weapons to make it happen to finish you off. We see
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  this occur constantly in public life, and that's what happened with Claudine Gay because
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  she got hit with not one, but multiple allegations that she had engaged in
• 4:17
  plagiarism throughout her career at Harvard, for instance, her dissertation and her thesis.
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  And this was these were on multiple occasions credible allegations of plagiarism, which
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  used to be an automatic black Mark death penalty for somebody in academia. It's
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  about as grave as sin, a sin as you could commit, other than
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  you know, being in favor of only women playing women's sports. That's probably
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  worse than plagiarism in this day and age by far. But I digress.
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  And it was not just right wing news outlets that we're coming up with these
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  allegations of plagiarism. The Harvard newspaper itself investigated this and found that they believed
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  or that it seemed as if there were these allegations reached the level where they
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  would be a violation of Harvard's code of conduct. Yet the New York Times
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  completely ignores this. If we just pretend it didn't happen, then it didn't
• 5:24
  really happen, because this would be very inconvenient for us, because this would
• 5:28
  actually force us to deal with how it is that Claudiine Gay got her job
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  despite the fact that she's not qualified and the fact that she botched her congressional
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  testimony, and the fact that she appears to have committed numerous acts of plagiarism.
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  And by ignoring this, you know, the mainstream news media helps her
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  out and they help their own narrative. But why she survived this is so
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  incredibly telling, and it's really kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. In short,
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  she was too big to fail. Glunning Gay could not fail at Harvard
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  because for her to fail would mean that the entire system of equity is a
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  fraud. Because that's clearly how she got her job. She got her job
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  because she is a black female. Now she happens to be straight, but
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  her name is Gay literally gay, So I guess that kind of helps take
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  care of that element of checking the boxes. I'm being facetious, obviously,
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  but she is married with a child, but she is very, very liberal.
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  She's black, and she's a female. That's why she got her job.
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  Now, I'm not saying she's not a smart person, but I'm positive
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  that if she was a white male, there is zero zero chance she would
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  be president of Harvard. And if she was a white male, there's even
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  less than zero. That's mathematically possible chance that she would have held on to
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  the job. In the aftermath of what happened with the congressional testimony, combined
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  with these credible allegations of plagiarism, but even worse to me than the plagiarism,
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  and plagiarism is bad, obviously, but I guess it's you know,
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  it's subjective. Now depends on the situation. In a situation of ethics,
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  now, we only care about plagiarism if the Left wants the target to be
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  taken care of. This is the target they needed to protect because to protect
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  her is paramount to their entire movement of equity, which is something I have
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  talked constantly about on this podcast. Equity is the end of America. Equity
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  of outcome as opposed to equal opportunity is the end of America. And that's
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  what the left wants they want equity of outcome, And frankly, I think
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  it's both a political movement as well as a movement based in racism. I
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  mean, you have to be a racist, You have to be a true
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  racist to believe that it is the job of government or academic institutions to enforce
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  equity of outcome, especially in twenty twenty three, especially since we are now
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  this far away from living in a world where under the law everyone had equal
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  rights and equal opportunity. Does that mean we're living in a perfect society,
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  obviously not. Does that mean we stop trying to move forward and progress and
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  make sure that we continue to try to make sure that people are protected regardless
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  of their gender, or their race, their ethnicity, of course, but
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  it is delusional to believe that, you know, here in twenty twenty three,
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  a couple of generations into this movement of civil rights, where we now
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  do live in a world where under the law everyone is equal with equal opportunity.
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  It's delusional to think that we have to now enforce equity of outcome.
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  And it's based in racism. That's what it's based it. It's based in
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  racism, because you have to be a racist to believe that certain groups are
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  not capable of competing on an equal playing field. You have to believe that.
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  Now, no one ever gets forced to admit that. That's the basis
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  of this, because the left wing media will never ask this question or delve
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  into this from this standpoint. But that's the basis of it, and that's
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  one of the reasons why I abhor it. One, it's unfair, and
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  it creates bad outcomes, and it, ironically enough, creates situations where you
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  get people who in very powerful positions who are unqualified, like for instance,
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  Clauding Gay. But it's also incredibly insulting to people of certain backgrounds and ethnicities
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  and genders, sexual orientations, whatever, that somehow they can't compete because of
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  these qualities. I don't believe that. I believe everyone is capable of competing
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  on an equal playing field. And that is the basis of what America is
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  supposed to be about, but very quickly no longer is about. And so
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  this equity movement based in racism is a political weapon, is a political weapon,
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  just like climate change is a political weapon, like COVID was a political
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  weapon, and they the left seize it exactly that way. So this is
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  their opportunity to change America forever. This is the moment they've been waiting for.
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  America is on its knees because of COVID, and we're inflamed because of
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  George Floyd. And this is our chance and we must grab it to change
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  evil America into the vision that we all have for it as leftists in elite
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  academia where we know better than anybody else does. And Gay writes this memo
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  to the College of Arts and Sciences, the faculty of the College of Arts
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  and Scientists, where she's a dean at the time, and the context and
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  timing here is really really interesting and important because effectively, I view this memo
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  as her audition to be the president of Harvard. It was already known at
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  this time that there was going to be another president of Harvard named in fairly
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  short order, and she was considered to be a candidate. And so what
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  she wrote here is not just a window into her own soul and the nature
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  of a woke elite academia, but also how she got the gig and why
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  she can't be fired now because she's too big to fail, and because really
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  she's a person who has been rewarded because of the rules she helped create,
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  eight which are now making it impossible to get rid of her. It's it's
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  a hell of a scam. But I'm just going to read some of this
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  memo because I think this tells you everything you need to know about the dangers
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  of equity and how deeply rooted it is in elite academia and at the highest
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  levels of liberalism and the left and the establishment, and how pervasive this is
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  throughout our society, because these powerful people really do believe this, or at
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  least pretend to believe this. And you know, I am someone who has
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  been very much more on the record than anyone else I know about how dangerous
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  this whole concept of equity is, how it's based in racism, that you
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  have to be a racist to believe in equity of outcome, because otherwise you
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  would believe in equity or equality of opportunity, because if you if you believe
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  everyone really can be equal or should be equal, we should have equal opportunity
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  and let the chips fall where they may. Now, does that mean we
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  live in a perfect society? No? Do we need to be careful?
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  Yes? Do we need to make sure that racism is eradicated the remnants of
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  it, yes, But for two generations now, we've been living in a
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  country where legally everybody is treated the same way. So at some point,
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  at some point, we got to let go and say, Okay, equal
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  opportunity, let the chips fall where they may. Let's make sure we remain
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  vigilant and that people are not taking advantage of especially not for their race,
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  or their religion, or their ethnicity, or their gender or sexuality, whatever
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  it is. I'm all in favor of that, but it's gone way,
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  way too far now, and we've just abandoned equality of opportunity, and liberals
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  have decided, I believe, in a very racist decision, although it's politically
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  motivated that Hell, you know what, screw equality of opportunity. That's not
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  giving us the results we like, and we don't want to examine why we're
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  not getting the results we like because that might be too uncomfortable. So instead
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  we're going to change from a quality of opportunity to equity of outcome. And
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  this memo by gay really is a smoking gun here. So this is what
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  she wrote in the late summer of twenty twenty, and she talks at first
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  about obviously the historic pandemic and how that's changing the world, and then she
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  writes, meanwhile, a second pandemic is unfolding, one with deeper roots in
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  American life. People across the world have risen up in protest against police brutality
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  and systemic racism, awake to the devastating legacies of slavery and white supremacy like
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  never before. This is twenty twenty. She's writing this in the Cause for
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  racial justice Heard on our streets, also echo on our campus as we reckon
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  with our individual and institutional shortcoming and with our faculties shared responsibility to bring truth
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  to bear on the pernicious effects of structual inequality, even as our opportunities to
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  be together on campus are limited. Remember, the IVY League was the worst
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  of all the academic institutions when it came to COVID. The IVY League canceled
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  their basketball tournament first in March of twenty twenty, which I believe started the
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  entire panic. And they did not even have any sports at all in twenty
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  twenty twenty one school year, not for the entire year, not in basketball,
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  football, baseball, track, nothing. They had no sports. They
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  were totally wrong. The smart people were the dumbest by far when it came
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  to their response to COVID. They were the most masked, They were in
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  the most remote learning. The IVY League's killed sports, even though there's not
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  one athlete, not one college athlete died during COVID, not one, and
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  there's been no blowback, no nothing, no accountability, no exposing in the
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  media of just how dumb the IVY League was, how wrong they were,
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  how wrong we were to follow their lead. So she's referring to our limited
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  opportunities to get together on campus because we're pretending that this is something that our
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  students would be very vulnerable to medically. Back to her memo, now is
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  the time to re engage and reconnect, both with each other and with the
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  promise of our mission to advance knowledge and discovery and service of a more just
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  world, meaning more equity based world. This moment offers a profound opportunity for
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  institutional change that should not and cannot be squandered. The national conversation around racial
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  equity continues to gain momentum, and the unprecedented scale of mobilization and demand for
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  justice gives me hope In raw candid conversations and virtual gatherings convened across the FAS.
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  So the aftermath of George Floyd's brutal murder, members of our community spoke
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  forcefully and with searing clarity about the institution we aspire to be and the lens
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  we still much travel to be the harvard of our ideals. In other words,
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  we need more women and more people of color to get jobs that they
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  cannot be fired from. That's what really is the essence of this. It
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  is up to us to ensure that the pain expressed, problems identified, and
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  solutions suggested set us on a path for long term change. And then she
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  says, as a first step towards building our capacity for inclusive excellence, I
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  soon will point the inaugural Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. There's
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  an Associate Deed of Diversity Inclusion and Belonging for the FAS. Their work will
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  be dedicated that the creation and implementation of an FAS wide strategic vision for inclusive
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  excellence that enables all members of our community to be seen or heard in the
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  flourished, except for like white males and maybe some agents. They will report
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  directly to me and will work closely with the FAS Senior Leadership Team to develop
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  concrete goals and identify personal, departmental, divisional, and school level actions for
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  building an effective and active culture of anti racism in the fas AS. If
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  there's I guarantee there is not one person who would ever she's speaking to in
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  the FAS, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, that would ever even think
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  about doing or saying anything remotely racist. This is an I guarantee you a
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  non problem, except for, you know, reverse racism, which I do
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  think is very active within liberalism where they don't think minorities can compete on their
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  own, which is why they believe in equity. I doubt that's what she's
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  referring to there. It's just unbelievable. This is a fantasy world this woman
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  lives in. Then, under the heading expand Leadership Opportunities for Staff of Color,
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  Gee, I wonder why a black woman would be in favor of expanding
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  leadership opportunities for staff of color, She writes, I will launch a study
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  of the hiring, professional development, and promotion practices that may contribute to the
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  low representation of minority staff in manaturial and executive roles carrying significant decision making responsibility
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  and authority. WHOA. So it's basically she's threatening the same system that decided,
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  you know what, here's how we get around this problem. Let's hire
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  her as our present today, led by the incoming Associate Deed of Diversity,
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  Inclusion and Belonging and working closely with a whole bunch of other people I won't
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  name, the study will identify concrete steps we can take to increase racial diversity
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  of senior staff and recommend near and long term hiring goals for the fas.
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  These initiatives are just a starting place. So let's be clear by what that
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  just was. First of all, that was taking political advantage personal advantage of
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  a trumped up crisis involving the George Floyd situation in the midst of a global
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  alleged pandemic that was being grossly overreacted to, especially by places like Harvard,
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  and deciding, you know what, this is our opportunity to make sure that
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  we get more jobs that we, as people of color and who are not
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  males, we are an a more powerful position now and we're going to take
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  advantage of this. So she writes this memo and lo and behold, guess
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  what happens. Harvard decides, I guess, under the threat that they're not
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  going to be seen as woken of, to hire her as president as a
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  black female. And then she gets in trouble because of this congressional testimony and
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  because of allegations of plagiarism. And they can't get rid of her. Why
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  because she's an equity higher, too big to fail. If she fails,
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  the whole thing collapses. It's exposed as a fraud. She was not qualified
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  for the position, so we must keep her in the position. It's so,
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  this is the upside down world we're living in, you know, in
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  a weird way. I'm the only person I know that has this theory about
• 21:48
  COVID. But you know, if she was actually qualified for the job,
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  they probably would get rid of her, right because we live in this upset
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  down world, because if she was really qualified, it would not be a
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  condemnation of the entire system of equity. Well, here's my analogy to COVID
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  that no one else has act. I truly believe that if COVID had been
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  anything close to what had been predicted back in March and April, and May
• 22:21
  of twenty twenty, if it had really been bad, I mean it was
• 22:25
  bad at that time, but if it had been historically bad, catastrophic,
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  and like Gaven Newsom claimed, twenty six point five million Californians would get COVID
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  in eight weeks if anything close to that had happened after that initial surge or
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  wave, whatever you want to call it. I actually believed the experts would
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  have said, Okay, let's go back to normal now. I really believe
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  that. But they couldn't. They had to play pretend for two years because
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  otherwise they had to admit that they had botched the initial projection that this was
• 23:00
  a false alarm. So instead they pretended that we were all being held together
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  by masks and social distancing and not going to school, that was all a
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  fraud, so that the experts would not have to admit that they were wrong
• 23:15
  in their initial projections. So if they had been right initially, they wouldn't
• 23:22
  have been as invested emotionally and professionally in the whole idea that we have to
• 23:26
  keep these things going otherwise we're going to be exposed in a weird way.
• 23:30
  It's the exact same thing here. If Clauding Gay was not so clearly unqualified
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  with plagiarism and her view of equity and everything else, then they would And
• 23:42
  the way she handled her testimony, which a lot of people didn't like in
• 23:45
  Congress, they would have been able to fire her. But they can't because
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  literally, because she's not competent, she's not qualified, so they must stand
• 23:56
  by her. This is the way the left now think, and the media
• 24:00
  is enabling it at every step of the way. Why because she has force
• 24:06
  field protection. Versity president of the University of Pennsylvania only had mild force field
• 24:11
  protection because she was a woman. All right, That gives you some protection,
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  but a black woman gives you another level of force field protection. This
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  is the way the media looks at it. They will not criticize you if
• 24:26
  you are a super liberal black woman. They are inherently, deftly afraid of
• 24:33
  attacking you. That's why The New York Times completely ignores the entire plagiarism issue.
• 24:40
  And it's not just by the way at Harvard or even in elite academia.
• 24:45
  This whole equity scam is pervading every element of American life. Just earlier
• 24:52
  this week, James O'Keefe, who I don't like and don't trust, although
• 24:56
  he's done some really interesting things over the years. Formerly a product Veritas,
• 25:00
  he's now on his own. He released a leaked video of the CEO at
• 25:04
  IBM very specifically, although I think o'keef may have, as he often does,
• 25:11
  overplayed some of what was said, but in essence, he had these
• 25:17
  leaked videos of the IBM CEO outlining how executives are punished and rewarded based upon
• 25:26
  their equity hiring practices. And then they were really pretty straightforward about it.
• 25:32
  You gotta hire people of certain colors and not hire other people like, for
• 25:37
  instance, whites and Asians. And I just I don't understand how Asian people
• 25:42
  are not in sensed by all this, I mean Asians. The fact that
• 25:45
  Asians could still be voting liberal or Democratic in this day and age is just
• 25:51
  beyond my understanding or comprehension. But I digress. This was another great example
• 25:56
  of just how pervasive this equity prob is and I'm seeing it in everyday life.
• 26:02
  I see that this is not just theoretical anymore. It is it is
• 26:07
  seeping into the way people view everything. I mean, I'll give you an
• 26:15
  example, I know a local school principle. I can't be more specific than
• 26:22
  that, a local school principle who's hasn't had the job very long, so
• 26:29
  it's not like they have a long tenure or something like that, and they're
• 26:32
  well established and they're just kind of taking it easy. Who literally does not
• 26:37
  show up for work, does not show up for work on a regular basis,
• 26:42
  with no excuses, and they'll claim they're sick or busy or whatever,
• 26:48
  work from home or whatever. They're a principle of a school literally hardly ever
• 26:53
  shows up for school. I probably don't need to tell you they're black mail?
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  Now does anybody believe that? And I guarantee you the people that are
• 27:04
  working with this person, or are not really working with because he's not there.
• 27:08
  The people that are underneath this person are very much aware of what this
• 27:15
  situation is and they might whisper about it, but they're not going to do
• 27:19
  anything about it because it's too dangerous because if you raise a concern about it,
• 27:25
  you're a racist. And so I mean, and this is pervading every
• 27:32
  element of life. And by the way, one of the worst parts of
• 27:33
  this is you now, as a logical person who understands that we're in the
• 27:38
  midst of this equity age, affirmative action everywhere in every element of life,
• 27:45
  and we see it in the media. I mean, my god, it's
• 27:47
  almost illegal to see more than two or three white males on television at the
• 27:51
  same time. It's like the producers automatically, you have to press a panic
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  button if that happens you just for the purposes of appearances, you need a
• 28:03
  female or a person of color on there, just to be able to justify
• 28:07
  continuing the segment. And then that's not an exaggeration. That's literally the way
• 28:11
  they look at this. It's not doesn't have to be enforced by the government
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  or even directly enforced by the bosses. Everybody knows it. You can't appear
• 28:22
  to be too white or too male. You just can't. But the worst
• 28:26
  part of this is every achievement by someone of color, or sometime in some
• 28:33
  cases by a woman, or depending on your sexuality, whatever, whatever check
• 28:41
  boxes are involved in a situation, anyone in that category who achieves something automatically
• 28:48
  has that achievement come under suspicion. And I hate that. I hate that
• 28:56
  with a white hot passion. It is incredibly damaging, incredibly damaging, because
• 29:04
  you know, sometimes it's not true, but oftentimes it is. But just
• 29:08
  that suspicion alone ought to piss anybody off of person of color who achieves something,
• 29:15
  because now your achievement is automatically degraded, because we must presume in this
• 29:21
  era of equity that maybe, just maybe you didn't really deserve it, you
• 29:26
  didn't really achieve what was claimed, Especially when people like Clawting Gay are holding
• 29:33
  on to their jobs when nobody else who wasn't a black female would possibly be
• 29:40
  able to survive. These are really important and serious situations where equity is driving
• 29:48
  the bus, and the whole concept of equity is seeping into all sorts of
• 29:56
  areas of American life, and it's a cultural cancer that I don't know that
• 30:03
  it can be removed, and it's harming every race. It's obviously harming white
• 30:08
  people in Asians because they're losing out on opportunities, but it's harming people of
• 30:15
  color because their achievements are now inherently under suspicion and will be until this problem
• 30:22
  is ever rectified, which I doubt that it will be, because people like
• 30:26
  Clauding Gay are not only in charge, but they can't be removed because they
• 30:33
  are crusaders for equity. They are results of equity, and equity is so
• 30:40
  incredibly important and at the core of the liberal agenda that they cannot get rid
• 30:47
  of a clauding gay. And to me, this was a seminal moment,
• 30:51
  a seminal moment in where we are in our culture. The clauding gay survive
• 30:56
  this, and it goes to the much bigger issue of a quality of opportunity
• 31:00
  being transformed into equity of outcome, which, as I've said many many times
• 31:06
  before, but I can't say it enough, is the death to America.
• 31:11
  And now I want to transition to what's going on with regard to the presidential
• 31:15
  race. And I have thought long and hard about whether or not I want
• 31:18
  to play this following clip, and I decided, you know what, I
• 31:22
  have to, because I think I've become like a lot of people, so
• 31:26
  desensitized to the insanity of Donald Trump and the fact that Trump, a four
• 31:33
  time indicted, former failed president who was a fraud to begin with, is
• 31:38
  clearly going to be the Republican presidential nominee and could end up being the next
• 31:44
  president again that when he does things like he did a couple days ago.
• 31:49
  It doesn't have nearly the impact that it should. I have often used the
• 31:55
  metaphor that you know, Trump is immune to all viol ruses, you know,
• 32:00
  ironically, because he botched the COVID panic response in a huge way,
• 32:06
  but he has so many viruses that nothing can kill him. And this I
• 32:13
  think was further proven by what he put out, which was essentially an infomercial
• 32:21
  for a new set of trading cards. He did this before, to great
• 32:25
  mockery. And you know, there were people who thought of the time when
• 32:30
  he did this at the beginning of the year, that this was the beginning
• 32:34
  of the end for Trump, that the magic was gone, that he had
• 32:37
  promised this big announcement and instead all it was was were these ridiculous trading cards.
• 32:44
  Well, apparently, at least in his mind, those trading cards were
• 32:47
  a big success, and he's at it again, only this time it's even
• 32:52
  worse. The trading cards are not just Donald Trump as superhero. There Donald
• 32:59
  Trump celebrating his mugshot, his famous iconic mugshot, and he's even now with
• 33:08
  regard to this trading card mugshot addition, offer that you can buy from him
• 33:16
  to I guess pay his legal bills. He is selling pieces of his mugshot
• 33:23
  suit, which reminded me very much of the controversy that was I was at
• 33:30
  least partially involved in regarding OJ Simpson's acquittal suit, which became a major issue
• 33:37
  in how OJ Simpson ended up getting arrested in that whole Las Vegas situation that
• 33:42
  I've discussed extensively previously, because I was very much involved in that. Although
• 33:47
  I wasn't actually there, I might as well have been. But I digress.
• 33:52
  We've got Donald Trump selling pieces of his mugshot suit with the mugshot of
• 33:59
  the of these trading cards. And this is one of those things where I
• 34:04
  think I had to play the clip because you have to hear this to fully
• 34:07
  believe it and appreciate it. So this is the infomercial that Donald Trump put
• 34:13
  out asking you to spend your hard earned money on his trading cards, the
• 34:19
  Mugshot Edition. Hi, everyone, this is your favorite President, Donald J.
• 34:23
  Trump, with some very exciting news. My last two Trump digital trading
• 34:28
  card collection sold out in just hours, and now I'm back with my latest
• 34:32
  series called the Mugshot Edition. I wonder where that came from. The Mugshot
• 34:37
  edition forty seven, all new stunning cards. And here is the best part.
• 34:42
  I'm doing two important things for my Trump collectors for the first time.
• 34:46
  We're creating a real physical Trump card. Purchase forty seven digital cards, and
• 34:52
  we'll mail you a beautiful trading card. It is an authentic piece of the
• 34:57
  suit I wore when I took that now famous smugshot. And it was a
• 35:00
  great suit, believe me, a really good suit. It's all cut up
• 35:05
  and you're gonna get a piece of it. I'll be autographing some of them.
• 35:08
  A true collector's item. This is something to give to your family,
• 35:12
  to your kids and grandchildren. With a purchase of forty seven of the Trump
• 35:16
  Digital Trading cards, you will also be invited to join me for a gala
• 35:21
  dinner at my beautiful mar Alago, my home in Florida. You've perhaps heard
• 35:24
  of it. It's become a pretty famous place. We just had our first
• 35:29
  dinner for my collectors and we had a lot of fun together. That was
• 35:32
  a great evening. That was a fantastic evening. Some people call these cards
• 35:37
  pop art or modern art. I wish I looked as good as I do
• 35:40
  on those cards. And I can tell you they give me muscles where believe
• 35:45
  me, I don't have them. I wanted to keep my Trump digital trading
• 35:49
  cards at the same price ninety nine dollars each, So go to collect Trump
• 35:53
  Cards dot Com. It's really easy to buy. They sold out incredibly fast
• 35:59
  the last time. I think the Monkshot edition will sell out even faster.
• 36:04
  So don't miss out. Go to collect Trumpcards dot Com. Go right now
• 36:08
  and collect your own exclusive piece of American history, and we'll all have fun
• 36:14
  together, have a good life. Now. I could talk for a long
• 36:45
  time about how ridiculous that is. I'm not gonna bother im, not gonna
• 36:50
  waste your time or my time or what's left in my voice, because it's
• 36:53
  just so patently obvious that this is absurd. It's ridiculous, and this is
• 37:00
  the kind of thing that is going to be brought back up when Trump is
• 37:04
  the nominee, regardless of whether or not he's a convicted felon or not,
• 37:07
  and when people are really paying attention, it's going to rub people the wrong
• 37:12
  way. Independent voters are going to go, what the hell is that?
• 37:15
  And you know, but it's consistent with who Trump is. He's a fraud,
• 37:22
  it's all about him. It's all about money. And you know,
• 37:27
  it's very clear he's already been using political action money to help fund his defense
• 37:34
  in the fraud case. That's a matter of public record now. So people
• 37:37
  who have been spending their hard earned money, people who don't have great means,
• 37:44
  who have been supporting the Donald Trump pack, are effectively paying for his
• 37:49
  defense. And I'm sure there will be in other cases as well. In
• 37:52
  the financial fraud case that he's currently facing in New York. And there's no
• 37:58
  blowback to this, there's no outrage. The right wing media is not going
• 38:01
  to go apoplectic over this for many reasons, but I've said many times before
• 38:07
  it because they don't want to piss off the Trump call, which is their
• 38:09
  core customer base. And it's really all about money, and you know,
• 38:15
  it's symbolic of what the entire right wing MAGA movement has become. It's a
• 38:21
  grift, it's just about making money. And you know, I talked a
• 38:25
  lot in episode number one hundred and eleven about the sellouts the live golf tour
• 38:30
  which Trump is involved with that because he's getting paid by the Saudi royal family
• 38:36
  to rent out his golf courses, and he's been very much promoting the Live
• 38:39
  Golf Tour. It's all about selling out. It's all about what you can
• 38:44
  do to use your situation to make money. And I don't think it's a
• 38:50
  coincidence that all of this is happening at the same time that Tucker Carlson,
• 38:55
  who I talked about extensively in episode number one hundred and eleven and have been
• 38:59
  all you long, because I think he's been a key figure in Donald Trump
• 39:04
  becoming the Republican presidential nominee, just as I predicted what happened back in March
• 39:09
  and April of this year because of Tucker Carlson paving that path, paving that
• 39:15
  narrative for him and then becoming his MVP. Tucker Carlson is making the media
• 39:20
  rounds because he's promoting his new subscription service. He's going to go to a
• 39:29
  subscription service. He's been putting out his content for free on Twitter and getting
• 39:34
  millions and millions of views every time, mainly because Elon Musk has been regularly
• 39:39
  promoting his work because I think, well one Musk likes Carlson in too,
• 39:45
  because Musk thinks it's good for Twitter and trying to build the brand of Twitter
• 39:50
  as a place where this kind of content may become very common. But Tucker
• 39:54
  Carlson is now going to offer you, the hard working, real American out
• 40:00
  there, the opportunity to hear all the conspiracy theories your heart desires, and
• 40:05
  get all the populist fairy tales you could ever want, all the therapy you
• 40:10
  could ever ask for, for just seventy two dollars a year, That's right.
• 40:15
  For seventy two dollars a year, you can subscribe to Tucker Carlson's website
• 40:20
  and get all these conspiracies and populist fairy tales and all the pro Trump Maga
• 40:25
  content you could possibly want. And so he's doing the media rounds, and
• 40:31
  you know, he did an interview with Megan Kelly to promote his new subscription
• 40:36
  service. And this was not surprising to me, although I've had a few
• 40:40
  people come to me and say, zig did you see this? I saw
• 40:45
  a couple of clips of it, but I did not see the whole thing
• 40:46
  because I didn't want to watch it because I was these are two people I
• 40:50
  used to have respect for, and I knew it would be a love fest,
• 40:53
  and it absolutely was by all accounts, Megan Kelly did not press him
• 41:00
  on any of the things that she would ordinarily like, for instance, the
• 41:04
  fact that he called essentially his former boss at Fox News Channel the C word,
• 41:09
  and that that was really the essence of why he got fired. That
• 41:14
  has been erased from MAGA history. And even Megan Kelly, who supposedly is
• 41:19
  this champion for women's rights and against the abuse of women in the media business,
• 41:24
  here she is effectively ignoring and enabling Tucker Carlson doing this to a female
• 41:32
  not just colleague, but a superior at Fox News Channel. No, that
• 41:37
  narrative is dead now. We're into the narrative of well, you know,
• 41:43
  obviously he was just too dangerous to the establishment. We're never really going to
• 41:46
  know exactly why Tucker Carlson was fired. But it's actually a positive for his
• 41:52
  narrative now because it's kind of like Tucker's own indictment. I mean, they
• 41:57
  happen at almost the same time, remember, I mean, in the middle
• 42:00
  after Trump's first indictment, and Tucker embraced Trump, and that was a big
• 42:06
  warning sign for me that things were not going to turn out well here.
• 42:08
  Then Tucker got fired and in the minds of right wing media consumers. It's
• 42:15
  a lot like what happened with Trump and the indictments Trump. It's indictments proves
• 42:19
  how dangerous he is to the establishment. Well, Tucker being fired by the
• 42:24
  number one right wing media outlet somehow is proved that he's dangerous to the establishment.
• 42:31
  Just bullshit. That's not the way it went down. That's not really
• 42:37
  what it means at all. But that's the narrative because that fits in what
• 42:40
  has become effectively the conspiracy industrial complex in the right wing media. Everything's a
• 42:49
  conspiracy. I've talked about this a lot, where one conspiracy leads to another,
• 42:54
  leads to another, and each one you buy, it becomes easier and
• 42:58
  easier to buy at the next one, or to sell the next one.
• 43:02
  If you're Tucker Carlson and he's spewing all sorts of insane conspiracies. My favorite,
• 43:09
  which he did in the Megan Kelly interview, is he's still pretending that
• 43:15
  Jeffrey Epstein was murdered. Now, the reason I find this so telling is
• 43:21
  that when he interviewed Donald Trump himself, Donald Trump, who was president at
• 43:28
  the time when Epstein died in a federal prison, a federal prison where his
• 43:32
  Trump's own Attorney General, Bill Barr is literally in charge of the federal prison
• 43:39
  So the you know, the hierarchy here is very clear, from Trump to
• 43:45
  Barr overseeing the federal prison system. Epstein dies allegedly by his own hand suicide,
• 43:53
  that's the conventional wisdom of the story. But we all know he was
• 43:58
  really murdered, even though we don't have a guy damn suspect, which is
• 44:00
  impossible because there will only be a couple of people who would have access to
• 44:05
  that cell. We would know their names, we would know their actions after
• 44:09
  the so called murder, and if they ever got any money or quit their
• 44:14
  job or went to another country or whatever. There's no suspect did this murder
• 44:19
  of Jeffrey Epstein because it didn't happen, because he actually did kill himself.
• 44:22
  But Carlson asks Trump about that, and Trump effectively says to him, nah,
• 44:30
  yeah, Epstein, I think killed himself, and Carlson just ignores it.
• 44:36
  And the funniest part of that whole interview, and to me it might
• 44:38
  be the funniest most telling interview of the entire year in that realm, is
• 44:44
  it Trump who did not have even appeared to realize how important this topic was
• 44:52
  to his own base. That's how I interpreted it, that Trump didn't even
• 44:55
  understand that in Maga world, Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, and then if you
• 45:01
  don't believe he was murdered, you're somehow an establishment cock. And so in
• 45:07
  the middle of that interchange exchange with Tucker Carlson, Trump suddenly realizes, oh
• 45:15
  oh, and then he kind of gives Tucker Carlson. He throws him a
• 45:17
  bone, says, I don't know, maybe gives him some way to get
• 45:22
  out of this and save face. But it's obvious that Trump knows that Epstein
• 45:28
  killed himself, yet Carlson takes that as meaningless. Yet simultaneously he's now an
• 45:37
  open Trump supporter. So how does this make any goddamn sense? Publicly,
• 45:45
  Tucker Carlson loves Trump, he's active Trump supporter. His own words, now
• 45:52
  he's totally on board. Yet with no evidence whatsoever on the Epstein thing,
• 45:59
  he believes that Trump is wrong or is he just that dumb? He doesn't
• 46:04
  think that maybe Trump had more information about this than he does. And Tucker's
• 46:09
  really big into well, you know, I have sources, I spoke to
• 46:14
  people. My God, he believes the CIA killed JFK simply because one unnamed
• 46:19
  person told him it was true. That's the way Tucker looks at the world,
• 46:24
  or at least pretends to. Oh, somebody in the know told me.
• 46:28
  And I'm one of those people in the club of the famous people who
• 46:32
  would know stuff like this. I've heard things, I know things you don't
• 46:36
  know. Trump isn't in that club when it comes to the Epstein situation.
• 46:42
  And I realize I talk a lot about the Epstein thing. I don't think
• 46:45
  it's that important in it of itself. It's interesting, but to me,
• 46:49
  it's so emblematic of the larger picture here, where Tucker is either delusional or
• 46:58
  he's just lying to himself, or this whole thing is just a fraud and
• 47:01
  a grift. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think I think
• 47:07
  I now have an understanding of what Tucker's motivation here is, because I've been
• 47:14
  going back and forth between all right, is Tucker losing his mind? Is
• 47:21
  he just desperate because he got fired and he needs to stay relevant and so
• 47:24
  now therefore he needs to cuddle back up with MAGA, And I think,
• 47:31
  and this is I actually kicked myself because this is actually so simple and I
• 47:36
  should have been able to understand this sooner. While I still think it's possible
• 47:39
  that something has happened in Tucker's personal life and that he is actually losing his
• 47:45
  mind, I really think that if there's a play here, Tucker's play is
• 47:51
  he is going to be the heir to Maga Inc. That's what this is.
• 47:57
  He is understood now that he's in this post Fox News Channel era where
• 48:02
  he believes independent media is the future. So he's never going to work for
• 48:07
  a major corporation again. And he understands, I think, and he's a
• 48:13
  very smart guy. This is what's so frustrating to me about this. Tucker
• 48:15
  Carlson's a very smart guy. He understands that Trump is old and regardless of
• 48:22
  whether or not he wins or not, Trump is only going to be around
• 48:27
  for another couple of years. But his movement isn't going to disappear. They
• 48:35
  have cultivated millions of millions Americans of Americans, these real Americans, hard working
• 48:42
  Americans, blue collar people, populous, who now believe this crap, who
• 48:47
  now believe in this view of the world, who now believe in this conspiratorial
• 48:53
  concept that everything is outside of their control, and that there's this group of
• 48:59
  peopleeople that are dictating events, and that that weirdness they're victims, and that
• 49:06
  you know, these these conspiracies are real and they're pervasive, and they're commonplace,
• 49:13
  and they you know, somehow magically people can be killed in prison with
• 49:16
  no suspects, and it can happen right under the nose of Donald Trump and
• 49:21
  Bill Barr and no one ever know or care about it. This is the
• 49:25
  worldview they now have. This has been building for decades, getting progressively worse,
• 49:34
  and these people are going to need a leader, and they're going to
• 49:37
  be vulnerable to someone taking their money. And once Trump is gone, who
• 49:44
  is going to be that person to be the leader? I actually think that
• 49:49
  that explains for Fake Obama Swamy. For fake Obama Swamy, I think that's
• 49:54
  his real goal too. I think that for Fake Obama, it's interesting that
• 50:00
  he and Tucker, you know, kind of cozy, but not super cozy.
• 50:05
  I think that they're actually either going to be rivals or maybe they'll join
• 50:08
  up together. I'm not sure, but they see themselves as the heir to
• 50:15
  MAGA Inc. The business, not the political movement. The political movement of
• 50:22
  MAGA has very little value. It's probably not, although the polls indicate differently
• 50:29
  right now, gonna drive Trump back into the White House. It could,
• 50:32
  but I still doubt that. But regardless of whether or not it's a politically
• 50:37
  powerful enough movement to put Trump back in the White House, it will always
• 50:42
  have financial power. And these people will always be vulnerable to a grift.
• 50:47
  And I think the fake Obama Swami sees it. I think Tucker Carlson sees
• 50:52
  it. I think that's why he embraced Alex Jones. I think that's why
• 50:57
  he's embracing Donald Trump to an extreme degree now openly saying that he's a Trump's
• 51:04
  supporter, which, by the way, he should never have been posting the
• 51:07
  forum for other candidates. That was ridiculous. He's now stated that he was
• 51:13
  already an act of Trump's supporter at that point. But that's kind of stuff
• 51:16
  no longer matters anymore in this day and age. But you know, he
• 51:22
  and and there's even talk that Tucker's going to be Trump's vice presidential nominee.
• 51:27
  And I found it very interesting that in this media tours that where he's he's
• 51:31
  promoting his subscription service. Tucker has been asked whether or not, you know,
• 51:37
  he could be Trump's VP, and he has not put cold water on
• 51:42
  that idea at all, at least not that I have seen. And you
• 51:46
  know, is it possible that that could happen. We're living in such a
• 51:50
  crazy world. I guess it is possible. But just by virtue of it
• 51:54
  being talked about, I think helps Tucker create the illusion or the perception that
• 52:04
  he is the heir to maga Ink, not the Republican Party from a political
• 52:09
  standpoint, maga Ink, the business. And that's what this seventy two dollars
• 52:16
  a year subscription service is all about. That to me, is what is
• 52:21
  really going on with Tucker Carlson. Why he thinks he needs all this money?
• 52:25
  I don't know. Obviously, when you build a standard of living based
• 52:29
  upon his salary at Fox News Channel, that's a very tough thing to give
• 52:32
  up. And he sees a business opportunity here, and he's going to cash
• 52:37
  out and he's probably going to be successful at it because he's a smart guy.
• 52:43
  Now, I guess he can live with himself lying all over the place.
• 52:47
  But I'm not even a hundred percent sure he's lying anymore. He may
• 52:50
  have actually convinced himself that this stuff, or at least some of this stuff,
• 52:53
  is real, but I'm not even sure about that because one of the
• 52:59
  interviews I've seen him do, which I thought was absolutely hilarious and so telling
• 53:06
  about what a scam and a griff this whole situation is, was with a
• 53:10
  video podcast I had never heard of before called Way of the Apes, and
• 53:15
  apparently it's a very pro conspiracy pro you know, aliens from out of space.
• 53:23
  I mean, the people running it seemed fairly intelligent, but you know,
• 53:28
  what they were saying was completely ridiculous. And so Tucker does an interview
• 53:31
  on this podcast and he gets asked the question, are there any stories you're
• 53:38
  afraid to talk about? Now? I found this to be fascinating and really
• 53:47
  a smoking gun for what's really going on here and how smart Tucker really is
• 53:52
  and how good he is at manipulating this situation. So are there stories that
• 53:58
  even you, Tucker Carlson, are afraid to discuss because they're just so dangerous?
• 54:05
  What a tremendously convenient device to be able to use to protect yourself from
• 54:10
  not having to explain your dramatic change of position and to be able to say,
• 54:15
  you know what, it's just such a dangerous subject. I can't go
• 54:21
  there. So here he is Tucker Carlson's response to that question, what are
• 54:27
  the stories you're too afraid to talk about because they're so dangerous? And he
• 54:32
  talks about the twenty twenty election and UFOs slash aliens from outer space. And
• 54:38
  here's what that sounded like on the way of the Apes podcast. There are
• 54:44
  two, yes, there are too. One is the twenty twenty election.
• 54:50
  And I think that I was far too dismissive of some of the claims made
• 54:54
  about it. And I think there may be some merit to some of the
• 54:58
  wildest possible claims of at that election. And I haven't proven it yet,
• 55:02
  but I've you know, look, I'll just say, and you know this
• 55:07
  of course very well, both of you, that whenever you have politics,
• 55:09
  you've got a lot of sleazy people and liars and people just want to get
• 55:13
  their candidate elected or get paid or whatever. You've got a lot of lying
• 55:15
  around all political campaigns. So it's very hard to know what's true, and
• 55:19
  sometimes it takes years to figure it out. So there are a lot of
• 55:22
  stupid mercenaries making claims about fraud in that past election that were you know,
• 55:28
  they couldn't back up. But that doesn't mean that all of those ideas were
• 55:32
  wrong, and I think that some of them were right. Is what I'm
• 55:36
  learning, and you know, I'll just leave it there. The second thing
• 55:38
  that bothers me is the UFO story, And you know, the more you
• 55:44
  dig into that and talk to people with actual knowledge of it, again,
• 55:46
  that's another story where there are some you know, fanciful ideas floating around that
• 55:51
  are just you know, there's no evidence that they're true. But if you
• 55:53
  talk to people who you know, have actual knowledge of it that they gathered
• 55:58
  themselves, parts of that story that I do not understand at all that are
• 56:02
  really really really dark. It's so dark that I, you know, haven't
• 56:07
  told my wife about it. I mean, I haven't verified any of this,
• 56:10
  but this is not just stuff that I read on the internet. I
• 56:13
  know you all are very very grounded in that story, so I think,
• 56:15
  I know you know what I'm talking about, But there's some stuff there that's
• 56:19
  just like, man, I'm not even sure what that means. There's a
• 56:22
  spiritual component there that I don't fully understand. So, yes, that story
• 56:27
  bothers me, and I think last thing, I'll say that one of the
• 56:29
  reasons that we've had all these disclosures and all these what ten whistleblowers at this
• 56:34
  point and it hasn't really become front page. It's part of its suppression.
• 56:37
  You know, parts of the government don't want you to know about it,
• 56:39
  but part of it is the public can't deal with it. It's too far
• 56:43
  out, the implications are too profound, and so and I understand that because
• 56:49
  I've heard things where I'm just like, oh man, I don't even really
• 56:52
  want to know that. Honestly, now, from a substantive standpoint I have
• 56:57
  gone through before, the entire concept that it has been proven that we've been
• 57:04
  visited from aliens fromunter space is bogus. It's very much like the Jeffrey Epstein
• 57:09
  situation because no one will tell me who the suspect is in that case,
• 57:15
  and no one will tell me what planet these aliens came from, because it
• 57:19
  is not possible, it is not mathematically possible for we for us to have
• 57:24
  been visited by aliens from outer space. You've got to tell me your planet,
• 57:30
  right, and there's no planet we know of where the distance is even
• 57:35
  remotely plausible to have been covered for some somebody from another planet to get here.
• 57:42
  So you've got to tell me what planet theoretically has advanced life. And
• 57:47
  then we know the distance they are from here. And then, oh,
• 57:51
  by the way, because we know the speed of light, not only do
• 57:54
  we know the insane amount of time it would take to get here, we
• 57:59
  also know that when left, there would be nothing here on Earth for them
• 58:04
  to think was worth visiting. And then once they got here, why the
• 58:08
  hell would they not do anything or let us know that they're here for sure?
• 58:14
  And then there's the whole issue of why in the world would the government
• 58:17
  hide this they'd actually been If they actually had proof of life from outer space,
• 58:22
  there would be great prestige and being the first country to prove that.
• 58:27
  I mean, the whole thing is just nuts. But I want to address
• 58:30
  the tactic. And the tactic is there are certain things that I know that
• 58:37
  you, the little people don't know. And I'm in the know, and
• 58:40
  I know you, the guy asking me these questions, you're in the know
• 58:44
  too, And we're both so scared of what we have been told that we
• 58:47
  can't even talk about this. We can't talk about it because we can't justify
• 58:52
  it based upon facts and logic. Similar to the twenty twenty election situation.
• 58:59
  Why in the world with Tucker Carlson change his mind about that when one,
• 59:05
  there's been no evidence on which to base a massive change in mind, but
• 59:08
  two, there were people involved in that allegation who have pled guilty to serious
• 59:15
  crimes for their involvement in that, I mean, including Sidney Powell. I
• 59:22
  mean, how in the world over time does that allegation get stronger based I
• 59:30
  guess, I guess in his mindset or in the mindset of his fan based
• 59:34
  well the indictments in that situation, and somehow even the guilty please actually further
• 59:39
  justifies the credibility of the theory, because otherwise, why would they be going
• 59:45
  after these people they weren't so dangerous with what they were were alleging happened in
• 59:52
  the twenty twenty election. It's just nonsensical. And there's a reason why Tucker
• 59:57
  doesn't want to go into the details. It's not because it's so disturbing and
• 1:00:00
  dangerous. It's because he needs to change his position on that in order to
• 1:00:05
  be the heir of Maga Inc. But he can't do it based upon facts
• 1:00:08
  and rationality, so he's relying on the it's just too dangerous and disturbing.
• 1:00:15
  I'm just not even gonna go there, which is just such a crock of
• 1:00:20
  bullshit. But this is what Tucker Carlson has become, and I believe that
• 1:00:24
  this is all part of a strategy to become the heir of Maga, Inc.
• 1:00:30
  And he'll probably be very successful at it. And you too can be
• 1:00:34
  part of this. For just seventy two dollars a year, you can subscribe
• 1:00:37
  to Tucker Carlson's subscription service and get all the nutty bullshit, Maga friendly conspiracy
• 1:00:45
  theories and populous fairy tales you could possibly want. And that, ladies and
• 1:00:51
  gentlemen, is the smartest, most credible, most entertaining commentator in the history
• 1:00:58
  or modern history of the of the Right Way media. That's where we are
• 1:01:00
  now, Tuck Our Carlson, thank you so much. Thanks for playing.
• 1:01:04
  Everybody, have a safe drive home. I mean, just it's unbelievable what
• 1:01:09
  has happened here, and I unfortunately I've called a lot of it, but
• 1:01:13
  I'm kicking myself. We're not realizing what the bigger picture really looks like here.
• 1:01:19
  Now. With regard to the twenty twenty election, I have, as
• 1:01:22
  I often do, a nuanced view of what happened there. I do not
• 1:01:29
  believe that there was an actual systematic effort or actual reality that the election was
• 1:01:37
  stolen from Donald Trump, meaning that votes for him were not counted, or
• 1:01:43
  that votes for Joe Biden were created out of thin air, or that the
• 1:01:46
  votes were purposely miscounted, or anything like that. I don't think there's any
• 1:01:51
  evidence of it. There's no logic of it. Our system is set up
• 1:01:54
  with safeguards to prevent that from happening. We have this thing called the precinct
• 1:01:59
  system, which makes that basically impossible. Okay, I don't believe any of
• 1:02:02
  that. That's all bullshit. Trump lost that election under the rules of that
• 1:02:10
  election. Okay, we use another bizarre Ziglar analogy. It's kind of like
• 1:02:15
  what happened with the Kansas City Chiefs with the off sides play that's gotten so
• 1:02:19
  much controversy. Yes, the player was off sides, hardly ever called,
• 1:02:24
  but those are the rules. So you know, you can argue whether or
• 1:02:28
  not the rules should have been enforced at that time, but those are the
• 1:02:31
  rules. And by the rules, the chiefs lost. I agree that the
• 1:02:37
  rules of the twenty twenty election were bogus. Now they were bogus partially because
• 1:02:43
  Trump himself got duped in the entire COVID panic. But the COVID panic was
• 1:02:49
  used to change the rules, and they changed the rules in a way that
• 1:02:53
  were not advantageous to Donald Trump, that were advantageous to Joe Biden and the
• 1:02:59
  Democratic candidates in general. Although it should be pointed out Republicans actually did better
• 1:03:06
  in some of the congressional elections than they were supposed to do, which is
• 1:03:09
  a weird part of the stolen election, right, so awfully weird that Republicans
• 1:03:16
  gained seats in the House in an election that was stolen for Democrats. So
• 1:03:22
  I've always disagreed with those rules, but those were the rules. And the
• 1:03:25
  main thing that happened in twenty twenty was the mass expansion of mail in balloting,
• 1:03:32
  which I've always felt was a recipe for there to be fraud. Now,
• 1:03:38
  not fraud in the way of votes being stolen, but votes being manipulated
• 1:03:45
  in ways that were never intended to be I got into a big fight with
• 1:03:49
  Stuart Stevens our guest a couple episodes ago, former Republican consultant now member of
• 1:03:54
  the Lincoln Project, and you know, he was trying to claim that mail
• 1:03:59
  in balloting is just that's a liberal fantasy. Mail in balloting has all sorts
• 1:04:03
  of problems. It's very obvious to anyone who's actually lived a real life that
• 1:04:09
  you have a lot of old people who get their ballots mailed to them,
• 1:04:13
  and guess what happens. They get visited by relatives, children, grandchildren,
• 1:04:19
  sometimes maybe even friends, and who fills out their ballot for them, either
• 1:04:26
  knowingly or not knowingly, or maybe even people who have recently died. They
• 1:04:30
  get ballots and then when they're mailed to their home it becomes incredibly easy for
• 1:04:36
  someone else to fill that ballot out. Now, does that always mean that
• 1:04:41
  the person that gets voted for would not have been voted for under normal circumstances.
• 1:04:46
  No, but it certainly opens up that possibility, and it very likely
• 1:04:51
  happens on a very wide scale basis, enough to impact a very close election.
• 1:05:00
  Well, there's a new poll out by Rasmussen, a polling group that
• 1:05:03
  I don't trust. They normally are very pro Trump, although weirdly they are
• 1:05:09
  all over the map on Joe Biden's approval. I mean, it's bizarre how
• 1:05:13
  much Joe Biden's approval changes under Rasmussen polling. But they just came out with
• 1:05:19
  a very very interesting poll that is getting a lot of play in the right
• 1:05:25
  wing media, and understandably so. And here's how The Blaze reported on it.
• 1:05:29
  One in five voters who cast mail in ballots during the twenty twenty presidential
• 1:05:32
  election admit to participating in at least one kind of voter fraud, according to
• 1:05:39
  a new poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute. Specifically, twenty
• 1:05:45
  one percent of mail in voters admitted they filled out a ballot for a friend
• 1:05:54
  or family member. Twenty one percent of mail in ballots. Ten percent of
• 1:06:00
  mail in voters admitted that a friend or family member filled out of ballot on
• 1:06:04
  their behalf. Now that's really interesting because the fact that those numbers are so
• 1:06:11
  similar twenty one percent and nineteen percent gives the numbers themselves credibility, right,
• 1:06:16
  because you're looking at this from both directions. Either you filled out a ballot
• 1:06:23
  for a friend or family member, or you had a friend or family member
• 1:06:27
  fill out a ballot for you, and those numbers are almost identical. Seventeen
• 1:06:31
  percent of mail in voters admitted they voted in a state where there were no
• 1:06:36
  longer a permanent resident, and seventeen percent of mail in voters said that they
• 1:06:43
  signed a ballot for a friend or family member with or without his or her
• 1:06:47
  permission. Each of these instances constitutes voter fraud. Using only the most conservative
• 1:06:57
  estimate, twenty one percent of fraudulent ballots is still astronomical. There were,
• 1:07:04
  according to election data, forty three percent of twenty twenty voters cast ballots by
• 1:07:11
  mail, which was an all time record by far the highest percentage in US
• 1:07:15
  history. Because of the COVID panic, twenty one percent of that forty three
• 1:07:19
  percent mail in figure yields approximately nine percent, which would be about fourteen million
• 1:07:29
  ballots cast in twenty twenty that were fraudulent. Now, again, I want
• 1:07:34
  to be cleared and this, by this definition, fraudulent is means technically not
• 1:07:41
  legal, doesn't follow what was supposed to be the law. Right that the
• 1:07:45
  naively people thought that this would these laws would be followed by people when they
• 1:07:51
  gave ballots to everyone in the mail. That doesn't mean that they were cast
• 1:07:58
  for people that they weren't intended to be cast for. That the person who
• 1:08:02
  was sent the ballot, you know that they didn't intend their vote to go
• 1:08:05
  one way and it went another. There's no evidence to that. There's no
• 1:08:10
  way to know how much the actual result was impacted by this, Okay,
• 1:08:15
  so I'm willing to accept as a ballpark figure. It seems high to me.
• 1:08:20
  I mean, it's a ridiculously high number. But let's say, for
• 1:08:24
  the sake of argument, there were fourteen million ballots that had theoretical problems with
• 1:08:29
  it. There's no reason inherently to believe that more of those ballots would be
• 1:08:34
  would have been cast for Joe Biden than for Donald Trump. Accept when you
• 1:08:42
  consider the demographic issues, obviously Republicans tend to do better with older voters.
• 1:08:49
  Democrats do better with younger voters. So to the extent that this was generally
• 1:08:56
  a situation where older voters were being replaced by younger voters who were voting multiple
• 1:09:03
  times, it is certainly logical to think that Democrats benefited from that, and
• 1:09:10
  maybe benefited from that quite dramatically. There's no way to know. So I
• 1:09:16
  am not someone who is naive about this. I actually hate mailing balloting as
• 1:09:20
  much as anybody, because it's obviously a situation that is ripe for there to
• 1:09:28
  be fraud or double voting or people stealing other people's votes. And it's ridiculous
• 1:09:32
  that the media pretends that this really isn't an issue. Is it as big
• 1:09:36
  an issue as this poll indicates. I have my suspicions. I'd like to
• 1:09:42
  know a little bit more about the poll. I haven't had a chance to
• 1:09:44
  take a look at the internals on it because it just came out the morning
• 1:09:46
  that I'm taping this episode of the podcast. But that's an extraordinary result and
• 1:09:54
  it deserves more investigation. And the result of this should not be ah ah,
• 1:10:00
  Donald Trump really won the twenty twenty election. The result of this should
• 1:10:03
  be we need to stop or at least crack down or regulate mail in balloting.
• 1:10:11
  It's obviously ridiculous. It's a ridiculous concept that people are not going to
• 1:10:16
  manipulate other people's ballots, especially in a situation where older people don't know what
• 1:10:23
  the hell's going on off oftentimes, and again, there's also situations where people
• 1:10:28
  have recently died and the media continues to pretend that this is not a real
• 1:10:32
  or significant issue, and it absolutely is. Now as far as the Republican
• 1:10:39
  race, there was one major development over the last couple of days, and
• 1:10:43
  that is that the New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu has endorsed Nicky Haley.
• 1:10:50
  And you know that has sent shockwaves through the DeSantis campaign because it was thought
• 1:10:58
  that Chris nu knew, a pretty pop although very liberal governor New Hampshire,
• 1:11:02
  would eventually endorse Ron De Santis, just like Kim Reynolds, the governor of
• 1:11:08
  Iowa, did with Ron De Santis, and instead he has rather enthusiastically endorsed
• 1:11:14
  Nikki Haley. And I'm someone who does not believe that endorsements matter very much
• 1:11:19
  anymore. They may create a little bit of perception with regard to either momentum
• 1:11:26
  or negative momentum. It doesn't shock me that Chris Nunu did this. He's
• 1:11:30
  outgoing as the governor, and you know, Nicki Haley is much more his
• 1:11:36
  type of Republican than Ron De Santis is. He's very much an anti Trump,
• 1:11:42
  anti Maga Republican. And in New Hampshire, you know, because of
• 1:11:47
  the rules for voting, you're able to vote. You know, as somebody
• 1:11:51
  who doesn't necessarily have to be a conservative Republican, you can vote almost anywhere
• 1:11:58
  you want as a as a member of the state of New Hampshire. If
• 1:12:02
  you decide at the last minute you want to vote in the Republican primary,
• 1:12:06
  that's very easy to do effectively. And so in theory New's endorsement would matter.
• 1:12:15
  My guess is that it will only help Haley when it comes to the
• 1:12:18
  perception of momentum. She was already going to beat Ron de Santis in New
• 1:12:23
  Hampshire anyway. I said six months ago the DeSantis campaign ought to get the
• 1:12:28
  hell out of New Hampshire. No one listens to me now. They didn't
• 1:12:30
  listen to me then. They never listened to me on anything here, even
• 1:12:32
  though I've been right ninety ninety five percent of the time. New Hampshire was
• 1:12:36
  always going to be a graveyard for Ron DeSantis, and this sou New situation
• 1:12:42
  further indicates that the problem might have though with the dessandas response to this endorsement
• 1:12:48
  of Nikki Haley, is their apparent abject lack of understanding of the history of
• 1:12:57
  Iowa and New Hampshire. And this was really troubling. Maybe they're just lying
• 1:13:01
  or they're delusional. I don't know, But did the Sandus campaign put out
• 1:13:05
  a statement in response to this that said, well, basically, you know
• 1:13:10
  what, the people of New Hampshire are going to decide based upon what happens
• 1:13:14
  in Iowa, and we're going to shock the world in Iowa. And once
• 1:13:17
  we shocked the world in Iowa, everything's going to take care of itself in
• 1:13:20
  New Hampshire. That's essentially the the Sandus response that flies in the face of
• 1:13:30
  all history when it comes to Iowa and New Hampshire. And I've talked about
• 1:13:34
  this previously. It's one of the reasons why I knew there was no hope
• 1:13:41
  in New Hampshire. I mean, I've been following this my whole life.
• 1:13:44
  There's a remarkable phenomenon that New Hampshire, especially on the Republican side, never
• 1:13:50
  goes along and apparently on the Democratic side too, but you know, I
• 1:13:55
  followed the Republican side more carefully, and I think it's more dramatic. On
• 1:13:58
  the Republican side, Hampshire never follows what Iowa does. They're much more likely
• 1:14:03
  to do the opposite of whatever Iowa does. There's really only two scenarios.
• 1:14:09
  They confirm a heavy front runner or like an incumbent president, or they go
• 1:14:17
  in the completely opposite direction of Iowa. Now, part of that's because you
• 1:14:21
  know, you have a much more conservative voter in a caucus in Iowa than
• 1:14:26
  a primary that's opened in New Hampshire. That's obviously the number one reason.
• 1:14:30
  But I think there's something also psychological about it, And the history here could
• 1:14:34
  not be more clear. In nineteen eighty eight, George Bush, vice president
• 1:14:41
  running for president, he wins Iowa, loses to New Hampshire to Bob Dole.
• 1:14:47
  Nineteen ninety six, bizarrely the favorite Bob Dole, he wins Iowa this
• 1:14:55
  time, but then loses New Hampshire to pap Buchanon. Into one thousand,
• 1:15:00
  George W. Bush one Iowa, John McCain one New Hampshire. In two
• 1:15:06
  thousand and eight, Mitt Romney came back from a loss in Iowa to win
• 1:15:12
  New Hampshire. Twenty twelve, basically the same scenario. Twenty sixteen, Trump
• 1:15:17
  loses in Iowa wins in New Hampshire. The history here could not be more
• 1:15:24
  clear yet that the Sandas campaign seemingly doesn't understand this or even worse doesn't care
• 1:15:30
  or is this lying about it? And it's just remarkable to me how out
• 1:15:36
  of touch to the Sanders campaign is again either that or they're just totally delusional
• 1:15:42
  in lying some combination thereof. But look, Rona Sanders is not gonna win
• 1:15:46
  New Hampshire period. I don't know how close Nicky Haley is gonna get to
• 1:15:51
  Trump. She could get, you know, within the ballpark of Trump in
• 1:15:56
  New Hampshire, because Trump doesn't do that well in New Hampshire, even though
• 1:15:59
  he gaves winning there, his percentage of the vote has never been very very
• 1:16:02
  high there. I don't know whether not Haley can reach that level or not.
• 1:16:08
  It's not gonna matter because eventually Trump will steamrollerr elsewhere. But I guess
• 1:16:12
  Nikki Haley thinks that her path at this point is surprise second place in Iowa,
• 1:16:19
  where she overtakes the Santis, effectively killing his campaign. She then rides
• 1:16:25
  the momentum of a Christiano endorsement in New Hampshire to maybe come in a very
• 1:16:30
  close second in New Hampshire. Then it's a two person race and you have
• 1:16:33
  Nevada followed by South Carolina, her home state, and could she win South
• 1:16:40
  Carolina. My guess is she would not win South Carolina, and at that
• 1:16:44
  point that's where it would all end, and then maybe she would be in
• 1:16:46
  a strong position to be Trump's vice presidential nominee. That's the Haley scenario here.
• 1:16:54
  If you're in her campaign, which I don't think many Republicans are,
• 1:16:58
  I just don't see where there's a lot of passion for Nikki Haley. I
• 1:17:02
  still think she would be the best vice presidential nominee if in fact Trump wants
• 1:17:06
  to win the general election. But Maga is not going to be happy with
• 1:17:12
  her at all, especially after what Vevey Obama Swami did to her in the
• 1:17:15
  last debate. So you know, I've been very much on record that Trump
• 1:17:20
  is going to win this thing. It's just a matter of when and how
• 1:17:23
  and by how much things continue to look very very bad for Ron DeSantis.
• 1:17:28
  I'm still in the camp that the best case snaro here is a respectable second
• 1:17:31
  place finish in Iowa and then get the hell out to save face and to
• 1:17:35
  save your future. I doubt that's what DeSantis is going to do, because
• 1:17:40
  I think he's very stubborn and very disciplined and really believes in his cause.
• 1:17:45
  And he's going to have enough money to keep going, and I think that
• 1:17:46
  will probably end up being a mistake. I hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately,
• 1:17:51
  whenever I'm pessimistic, I tend to be right as far as the bigger
• 1:17:56
  issue of what has happened with the Desandas camp, you know, because I'm
• 1:18:00
  so far ahead when it comes to the grieving process and if long ago accepted
• 1:18:05
  the Santas was not going to be the Republican nominee. I've already very much
• 1:18:11
  been in the autopsy phase of things, and I've been thinking a lot about
• 1:18:15
  how and why this happened, and I am not going to get too deeply
• 1:18:19
  into it in this episode, partially because of my voice. In the near
• 1:18:24
  future, I promise that I will do a full autopsy. I'm not sure
• 1:18:27
  I'm gonna even wait for the IOWA results. That's how confident I am that
• 1:18:31
  this is not going to work out. But at some point I will do
• 1:18:34
  a full autopsy of what really happened in this race, and I think you're
• 1:18:39
  going to be surprised by what I have to say in what was really at
• 1:18:44
  the essence of why it was that the Santas could never make a legitimate charge,
• 1:18:48
  and that Trump was always inevitable to win the Republican nomination. I want
• 1:18:54
  to shift gears and turn to the realm of sports, and do so in
• 1:18:58
  a way that I don't think you're going to hear anybody else talk capat and
• 1:19:01
  specifically, I want to discuss fairly quickly some football quarterbacks that are in the
• 1:19:09
  news, because I find there to be interesting and untold elements of each of
• 1:19:15
  these stories. And I want to start off with what's going on with Tommy
• 1:19:18
  DeVito of the New York Giants. Now, if you're even remotely a sports
• 1:19:24
  fan, you know that Tommy DeVito, who no one had ever heard of
• 1:19:28
  just a few weeks ago, an undrafted quarterback from northern New Jersey who lives
• 1:19:32
  at home, has become a suddenly as star quarterback for the New York Giants,
• 1:19:39
  a team that's not going anywhere this year. They would take a miracle
• 1:19:43
  for them to make the playoffs. But they're going on on a bit and
• 1:19:45
  to run recently because Tommy DeVito has given them a spark and they've won several
• 1:19:51
  games in a row. And the media is going bananas over Tommy DeVito.
• 1:19:58
  Now, why are they going over Tommy DeVito. Well, it's an interesting
• 1:20:01
  Cinderella story, and it is cute that you know, he's he grew up
• 1:20:06
  near the stadium in northern New Jersey and lives with his family and his mom
• 1:20:12
  and you know, she makes some dinner and and you know, it's a
• 1:20:15
  good story. I like the Tome, I love the Tommy DeVito's story.
• 1:20:17
  It's fantastic. I think it's a lot about what makes sports great and that
• 1:20:23
  people are having a connection to their local team, which is very hard to
• 1:20:27
  do in this day and age, where you know, everyone's a free Asian
• 1:20:30
  and people change teams all the time, and they're getting paid a ridiculous amount
• 1:20:34
  of money. You can't relate to them. They have no connection to the
• 1:20:36
  city or to the team, and they play with for three or four teams
• 1:20:41
  before they're finally retired, and no one stays any one place long enough to
• 1:20:46
  really make a connection, even if they weren't from that area or that city
• 1:20:50
  to begin with. And so this is a breadth of fresh air. I
• 1:20:54
  get all that. The part of the story with Tommy DeVito that I find
• 1:20:58
  to be most significant is the media is going bananas over his Italian ethnicity,
• 1:21:06
  and Tommy DeVito is playing right into this, and the Giants are playing right
• 1:21:12
  into this. I mean they played the Sopranos theme when they introduced him at
• 1:21:15
  a game recently. His family is extremely Italian. The TV cameras show them
• 1:21:23
  more than they show Taylor Swift. At a Kansas City Chiefs game most recently,
• 1:21:29
  the most at the Monday night game that they just won over the Packers,
• 1:21:32
  they were showing Tommy DeVito's agent, and his agent literally looks like what
• 1:21:40
  you might see in a high school play production where they were casting a mob
• 1:21:45
  figure. I mean, it's that overt, it's that hilarious, and I
• 1:21:51
  think that the agent is even playing into this whole thing where everybody is playing
• 1:21:58
  the role effectively the Sopranos family, and you know that they're having fun with
• 1:22:03
  it, which again I want to emphasize, I think is fantastic because when
• 1:22:09
  I look at race or ethnicity, I think we ought to be celebrating our
• 1:22:14
  differences, rejoicing in them, embracing them, laughing at them. And I
• 1:22:20
  just hate the whole idea that, you know, when it comes to race
• 1:22:26
  or ethnicity, everyone has to be walking on eggshells because everyone's afraid of saying
• 1:22:31
  something that's racist or politically incorrect or getting in trouble or whatever. Well,
• 1:22:36
  there seems to be one exemption to this rule, and that is Italian Americans.
• 1:22:44
  And Italian Americans have a much better sense of humor about all this.
• 1:22:47
  They almost embrace this whole you know, mob Sopranos family mythology or narrative that
• 1:22:59
  television has created about Italians in the New York, New Jersey area. Italians
• 1:23:04
  loved this, and Tommy DeVito has embraced it, and his agent has embraced
• 1:23:09
  it, his family has embraced it, and everyone's loving it. And I
• 1:23:14
  just I wish that we could do that with every ethnicity or every race.
• 1:23:19
  But can you imagine a situation where the media was making fun of just how
• 1:23:26
  black a particular quarterback or and their quarterbacks family or their agent was, or
• 1:23:32
  how Jewish their family was or their agent was, or Hispanic or I guess
• 1:23:40
  the only other exemption here would be Asian because there's some similarities here to what's
• 1:23:44
  going on with Tommy DeVito and what happened with Jeremy Lynn of the New York
• 1:23:49
  Knicks a few years ago. An Asian basketball player, and everyone thought that
• 1:23:53
  was hilarious because how often are you going to see an Asian basketball player be
• 1:23:57
  a star because everyone knows that the Asians don't play basketball, and that's understandable.
• 1:24:02
  And everyone laughed about and everyone had fun with it, and Lynn had
• 1:24:05
  fun with it, and I thought that was great too. But I just
• 1:24:10
  find it rather telling and ironic that the Tommy DeVito thing, which is getting
• 1:24:15
  way more publicity than it probably deserves because the Giants are not going anywhere,
• 1:24:19
  much to the cagrine of our executive producer Mike gat Gavino, who is a
• 1:24:24
  lifelong Giants fan. And weirdly enough, you know, Devino isn't even the
• 1:24:29
  most significant Italian quarterback Cinderella story from New Jersey going on in the NFL.
• 1:24:34
  Right now, that's Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco's thirty eight years old. A
• 1:24:39
  few weeks ago, he was on the couch and he's an Italian, very
• 1:24:44
  Italian guy from New Jersey. Different part of New Jersey. But he's playing
• 1:24:47
  for the Cleveland Browns that are still in playoff contention. But that just shows
• 1:24:50
  you the power of New York, right you could be on a team in
• 1:24:55
  New York that's going nowhere, and you catch fire and everyone loves this whole
• 1:25:00
  Sopranos narrative, and you become famous. You play in Cleveland, you might
• 1:25:03
  make the playoffs, and hardly anyone really cares, even though you're a former
• 1:25:09
  Super Bowl winning quarterback in Joe Flacco, and it's the Joe Flacco Tommy DeVito
• 1:25:15
  narrative combined narrative that has me thinking about something else. When it comes to
• 1:25:20
  quarterbacks and the media, it is the foundation of modern sports media coverage of
• 1:25:28
  football that the quarterback is everything. It is like the Ten Commandments. Now
• 1:25:36
  when it comes to every element of sports media, whether that's in commentary or
• 1:25:43
  news, radio, television, whatever it is online, it's all about the
• 1:25:50
  quarterback. And I've hated that because I've always thought one of the great things
• 1:25:55
  about football was the idea that all twenty two positions were somewhat equal. They
• 1:26:00
  were weren't totally equal, but you could argue that every position on the football
• 1:26:05
  field was somewhat as important as every other. Now, the quarterback was always
• 1:26:12
  the most visible because they are the ones that you handle the ball the most
• 1:26:15
  often. They throw the ball. That's the sexiest position. It's the position
• 1:26:20
  most people understand better than the other. I get all that. I understand
• 1:26:25
  it. You know, everyone wants to be a quarterback in their fantasies.
• 1:26:30
  Every girl wants to date the quarterback. I got it. That's always been
• 1:26:33
  It's been the case since at least the nineteen sixties and probably always will be
• 1:26:38
  the case. But I think there's a chance that the sports media has created
• 1:26:44
  a prism through which they now see the modern game of football that is completely
• 1:26:49
  wrong. And I understand why they did it. One because celebrity is everything,
• 1:26:56
  and you know, once you get to know a particular quarterback and you
• 1:26:59
  win Super Bowl and you become famous, it's much easier to talk about that
• 1:27:03
  person because everyone knows them already. You don't have to explain who they are.
• 1:27:08
  And we're coming off this era where Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls and
• 1:27:12
  the Mannings won two Super Bowls each, and you had a whole crop of
• 1:27:15
  other very dominant quarterbacks, and so the quarterback became everything, I mean literally
• 1:27:24
  everything, especially when it came to sports media coverage, and that was all
• 1:27:27
  based on the premise that you had to have a star quarterback in order to
• 1:27:34
  compete. That that was mandatory, especially in the National Football League. Well,
• 1:27:40
  let's look at what's going on right now. I realize it's a small
• 1:27:43
  sample, but right now, the hottest quarterbacks in the National Football League are
• 1:27:47
  Tommy DeVito, undrafted, Joe Flacco thirty eight years old coming off the couch.
• 1:27:54
  Jake Browning, who was highly acclaimed early in his career but has done
• 1:27:59
  nothing and all of a sudden is leading the Bengals, Will Levis, who
• 1:28:04
  is not famous at all, leading the Titans. And so you have these
• 1:28:10
  are the hottest guys. And you have Patrick Mahomes not playing all that great
• 1:28:15
  for the Kansas City Chiefs, and Aaron Rodgers never played a down. Joe
• 1:28:19
  Burrow is out with an injury, Justin Herbert is out with an injury.
• 1:28:25
  Chase Young, the number one pick in last year's draft, has been terrible.
• 1:28:29
  It may not be his fault, but that looks like it's a complete
• 1:28:31
  bus for Carolina. And I'm looking at all this and I'm going all of
• 1:28:36
  the sports media is based upon the idea that there's either hals or have nots
• 1:28:42
  when it comes to quarterbacks. You gotta have a superstar. That's the foundational
• 1:28:47
  premise of the whole essence of sports media in the modern era. And I
• 1:28:54
  think that might be totally wrong, and it might be totally wrong because the
• 1:28:58
  sport has changed. Quarterback used to be by far the hardest position, probably
• 1:29:02
  all team sports. It might still be, but it's nowhere near as hard
• 1:29:06
  as it used to be because the rules have changed. We talked about the
• 1:29:11
  wissification of the game, how open it is now, and I think we're
• 1:29:15
  now entering a realm where it's really about hot hand and who's in the best
• 1:29:19
  situation and maybe some luck. And there's so much parody in the game now
• 1:29:25
  in the National Football League that the difference between the really good teams and the
• 1:29:28
  really bad teams is basically minuscule. And the difference between the team that's going
• 1:29:31
  to win their division and team that's gonna barely miss the playoffs is almost nonexistent
• 1:29:38
  in this day and age. And so you can have out of the blue
• 1:29:42
  Cinderella stories like DeVito and Flacco and Browning and others all of a sudden do
• 1:29:47
  very very well, and other superstars that are out of the game, whether
• 1:29:50
  it because of injury or number one draft picks that aren't doing very well.
• 1:29:55
  And I laugh at how Caleb Williams is supposed to be the savior for the
• 1:29:59
  league ne year, the number one pick in the draft, and I have
• 1:30:02
  been saying all year that he's overrated. I'm sure he'll do fine, but
• 1:30:06
  he's not going to be a world beater in the National Football League and who
• 1:30:11
  could even be theoretically a bust. So I just find, you know,
• 1:30:15
  I hate the sports media in so many different ways, and I think there
• 1:30:18
  are a bunch of morons, and I just wonder is anybody going to rethink
• 1:30:24
  the entire structure. I mean, because it dictates everything about sports media coverage
• 1:30:30
  all year long. It's all about the quarterback, and maybe, just maybe
• 1:30:36
  that narrative should be changing based upon what's happening this year. One other note
• 1:30:42
  about a quarterback real quick, because it goes to the destruction of college football
• 1:30:46
  that I have been discussing quite a bit recently on the podcast. Duke's quarterback
• 1:30:53
  Riley Leonard has transferred to Notre Dame. Now, why do I care about
• 1:30:57
  that? Why should you care about that? Here's because this is an example
• 1:31:02
  of just how devastating this new world is to what should be the greatness or
• 1:31:11
  what was the greatness of the sport of college football. Riley Leonard was the
• 1:31:17
  guy who beat Clemson earlier this year on national TV at home. They upset
• 1:31:24
  Clemson. Duke has never been very good at football, and they beat you
• 1:31:28
  know, the best team in the ACC, Clemson. Now Clemson wasn't very
• 1:31:30
  good, but we didn't know that for sure at the time, and this
• 1:31:33
  was a wonderful moment where you know, Duke, these guys who actually seemingly
• 1:31:39
  go to school, they beat the powerhouse of their conference. And Riley Leonard
• 1:31:44
  had a great game. And after the game on national television, he actually
• 1:31:47
  made a plea to one of his teachers to let him out of some schoolwork
• 1:31:54
  because he was busy with the game and he didn't think he was going to
• 1:31:57
  be able to get it done in time. Interestingly, the team put out
• 1:32:00
  a video message saying sorry, I can't let you do that. And it
• 1:32:04
  was fantastic. It was real, it was or seemingly real. It was
• 1:32:09
  human, it was relatable. It actually indicated that this guy was a student
• 1:32:14
  at Duke and cared about his work, and it was a real life problem
• 1:32:16
  something people could relate to, and it was funny and it was a wonderful
• 1:32:21
  moment for Duke. They beat Clemson. It was what made college football great.
• 1:32:27
  That was a moment, that was what makes college football different certainly than
• 1:32:32
  the pro game, and what had made it a better sport in my opinion,
• 1:32:38
  than any other team sport in America. And now here we are three
• 1:32:41
  months later, and the bowl game that Duke earned by beating Clemson isn't even
• 1:32:48
  going to have Leonard in the game because he's no longer on the team.
• 1:32:54
  Because why because he's transferring to Notre Name, which is a rivals school.
• 1:33:00
  It's not really a rival football team, but you know, Duke can Notre
• 1:33:03
  Dame compete for the same basic students because they're at the same basic academic level.
• 1:33:10
  And so three months later, three months after this great moment, it's
• 1:33:14
  all been erased. Leonard's not part of the team, he's not part of
• 1:33:18
  the school. He's not even going to be going to school at Duke in
• 1:33:23
  the in the spring semester, and he's going to be at Notre Dame where
• 1:33:28
  he's going to be the quarterback next year. So what does this mean?
• 1:33:30
  Why is this important? Well one because it kills a great moment from this
• 1:33:38
  year in college football, But rationally, it also means that any kind of
• 1:33:43
  situation that similarly occurs in the future is going to be seen in a much
• 1:33:48
  different light, because everyone's always going to be on guard for the idea that
• 1:33:55
  this person may leave us, they may screw us in this nil instant transfer
• 1:34:00
  era where nothing matters anymore, so we're gonna be on guard before we embrace
• 1:34:08
  somebody. I mean, there's so many different problems with this, but you
• 1:34:13
  know, I've always felt like, you know, it takes some time to
• 1:34:17
  get a connection with a player, and it used to be back in the
• 1:34:21
  dark ages that you knew you had at least three or four years to make
• 1:34:28
  that connection with a player. Now you're in a bizarro world situation where you're
• 1:34:31
  actually hoping your stars don't play that well or maybe get a little injured so
• 1:34:36
  that they decide not to leave early. And now, which is the most
• 1:34:41
  insane thing ever, you're rooting against your own players so you can keep them
• 1:34:45
  longer. But now you're always looking over your shoulder that the guy you fell
• 1:34:49
  in love with is gonna stab you in the back. It's a bit like
• 1:34:55
  what's happened to marriage and weddings. Although you know, it's amazing to me
• 1:34:59
  that people, I guess, we're always gonna love weddings because the whole concept
• 1:35:02
  is so ingrained in our culture. But does anyone really look at weddings the
• 1:35:10
  same way that they did back in the sixties, seventies or eighties, before
• 1:35:15
  divorce became not just accepted but expected. I mean, no, Yeah,
• 1:35:20
  the parties are just as big, but that's all they are as a party.
• 1:35:24
  There's no tension or passion. There's no real drama because everyone knows you
• 1:35:30
  can get the hell out of it if it doesn't work. In fact,
• 1:35:31
  most people are expecting that to happen. I'm sure most people that went to
• 1:35:35
  my wedding weren't expecting me to still be married all these years later, Nor
• 1:35:41
  were was my wife r friend. So everyone's shocked that we're still married now
• 1:35:45
  with two kids. But we took it very seriously. And by the way,
• 1:35:49
  you know, the diminishment of the meaning of marriage is really unfair to
• 1:35:57
  those that take it seriously, because now everyone has a very lackadaisical attitude towards
• 1:36:03
  getting married because everyone knows it's not that big of a deal. You can
• 1:36:06
  get out of it. Well, it's the same kind of thing with college
• 1:36:10
  sports. You're not married to anybody, you get divorced at any time you
• 1:36:13
  want. There's no loyalty, and so therefore nothing really means anything, nothing
• 1:36:19
  has any real meaning. That's really the essence of Maybe that could be the
• 1:36:23
  description of this entire podcast. Whether it's politics because of Trump, or what's
• 1:36:29
  happened in sports or our media, nothing really matters anymore. And that's what
• 1:36:36
  I come out of when it comes to a situation like a guy like Riley
• 1:36:41
  Leonard transferring from Duke, got to this great moment and heading to Notre Dame.
• 1:36:45
  It's just symbolic of this larger reality that's really just tragic. And one
• 1:36:50
  other note when it comes to college football that I've mentioned previously, and I'm
• 1:36:56
  mildly surprised by this, but I guess they shouldn't be given the night.
• 1:37:00
  Sure of who Rondo Santis is and the fact that he's a problem solver,
• 1:37:02
  Florida's Attorney general has moved forward with an investigation of a possible lawsuit related to
• 1:37:13
  Florida State being prevented or being pushed out of the college football playoff. You
• 1:37:21
  may recall we talked about this that Florida State went undefeated, yet Alabama took
• 1:37:27
  the fourth spot in the playoff. There was a massive amount of controversy over
• 1:37:30
  this, and rond de Santis actually put aside a million dollars for a possible
• 1:37:36
  lawsuit in this area. And Florida's Attorney general, presumably in conjunction with rond
• 1:37:45
  de Santis, has now publicly stated that they are starting with an investigation and
• 1:37:51
  they may sue in order to get some sort of retribution or some sort of
• 1:38:00
  of judgment or justice I guess in their minds for Florida State being left out
• 1:38:05
  of the college football playoff. Now, I'm not a big fan of this
• 1:38:10
  from the standpoint of the role of government. I'm a small government Republican,
• 1:38:14
  I'm a libertarian. I'm not sure this is the proper role given what I
• 1:38:17
  understand the reality to be. However, politically I understand what DeSantis is doing
• 1:38:24
  here, and I'm also rooting for this in one way that I had not
• 1:38:29
  previously thought about, because in reading what the attorney general from Florida has said,
• 1:38:34
  I think the best part of this circumstance may be the discovery, not
• 1:38:41
  the actual potential lawsuit, but the discovery specifically related to the ESPN that could
• 1:38:48
  be really interesting, really juicy, and may tell us an awful lot about
• 1:38:54
  just how corrupt ESPN really is, so that I'll sign up for. I'm
• 1:39:00
  not in big favor of suing college football because Florida State didn't get chosen as
• 1:39:05
  one of the top four teams, but give me some ESPN related discovery.
• 1:39:11
  I'm all in on that, so I can be at least somewhat supportive of
• 1:39:15
  that effort. One last note with regard to football, I guess Al Michaels,
• 1:39:23
  who is really one of the last of the Mohicans when it comes to
• 1:39:26
  legendary television sportscasters. In fact, I've even used that phrase with Bob Costas.
• 1:39:31
  I've suggested that to Bob, who I occasionally communicate with via tax and
• 1:39:36
  sometimes via phone call. Bob Costas, the former NBC legend who still does
• 1:39:43
  a little bit of baseball. I've suggested to Bob that he ought to do
• 1:39:46
  a show with Al Michaels and Jim Nance called the Last of the Mohicans,
• 1:39:51
  because Nance, Michaels and Costas are really the last of that dying breed of
• 1:39:58
  the golden era of television sportscasters. We're never going to see the likes of
• 1:40:03
  these guys again, partially because of who gets chosen to be sportscasters at the
• 1:40:11
  network level, but also because of fragmentation. It's almost impossible for a television
• 1:40:16
  sportscaster to reach the level of acostas a al Michaels or a Jim Nance.
• 1:40:21
  I mean, al Michaels became famous because do you Believe in Miracles? In
• 1:40:26
  nineteen eighty Winter Olympics, a game that wasn't even carried live in the vast
• 1:40:30
  majority of America or any parts of America. I think it was only parts
• 1:40:34
  of Canada. I think it was life, but it was on tape delay.
• 1:40:39
  But it was such a famous call do you believe in Miracles? That
• 1:40:42
  it made al Michaels famous. Now, he was known before then, but
• 1:40:45
  that made him iconic. Well, it's almost impossible to be in a situation,
• 1:40:50
  at least not on a regular basis, where you have a large and
• 1:40:54
  aufe enough audience in this fragmented era for that to happen, and so Jim
• 1:40:59
  Nan, al Michaels, and Bob Costas are really all that's left. Well,
• 1:41:02
  al Michaels was taken off the NBC playoff schedule for this year. Now,
• 1:41:10
  this is only supposed to be one game. He no longer works directly
• 1:41:15
  for NBC anymore. He does the Amazon Thursday night broadcasts and frankly, it
• 1:41:20
  seems like he's mailing it in. I understand he's old and it's hard for
• 1:41:25
  him to get enthusiastic about anything anymore, but he's still good at what he
• 1:41:29
  does. He's probably the best play by play announcer of all time, at
• 1:41:31
  least in the modern era, and this has made some news that NBC has
• 1:41:38
  decided, in a surprise maneuver, to take him off of their playoff coverage.
• 1:41:44
  Now this is significant one because it does seem to be the end of
• 1:41:48
  the Al Michaels era when it comes to at least over the air television.
• 1:41:53
  Who knows how long he'll stay on with Amazon. This might be the end.
• 1:41:57
  Who knows this could be the last year he does the Amazon streaming Thursday
• 1:42:00
  night games, because it's not like they've been a massive success. But NBC
• 1:42:06
  taking him off of the playoffs does seem to be at least a sign of
• 1:42:11
  the end of an era. With regard to Alan Michaels, there's some speculation
• 1:42:16
  on the right. I don't know if this is accurate or even makes that
• 1:42:20
  much sense, but when that was announced, there were some right wing commentators
• 1:42:25
  who immediately said, what was this because of his comments about Taylor Swift.
• 1:42:30
  Michaels has been very critical of the coverage that Taylor Swift has gotten on Kansas
• 1:42:35
  City Chiefs games. And is it possible that NBC was afraid that they might
• 1:42:41
  have to give him a Chiefs game and here he would be crapping all over
• 1:42:45
  Taylor Swift. I don't think that they thought that through, and I also
• 1:42:49
  think there's much of a chance that Michaels would be doing a Kansas City Chiefs
• 1:42:54
  game, although it does appear coincidentally as if the Chiefs will be in that
• 1:42:59
  first round when Michaels was gonna be on the play by play for NBC,
• 1:43:05
  But it still would have been a long shot that that would have been a
• 1:43:09
  Chiefs game, and that would even would have been an issue. But that
• 1:43:12
  kind of shows you the world in which we're now living, where people automatically
• 1:43:15
  presume some sort of conspiracy, and right wingers, I think understandably because I've
• 1:43:23
  been saying this myself have become much more suspicious about Taylor Swift and the establishment's
• 1:43:29
  embrace of her and potentially her influence in the twenty twenty four election. And
• 1:43:33
  Michaels is a well known conservative. I mean, Costas and I have talked
• 1:43:39
  about this that one of the more interesting elements of my idea for Costas to
• 1:43:43
  do a show with Michaels and Nance is that you have three very different political
• 1:43:46
  views there. Although Michaels and Nance are very much in the conservative realm but
• 1:43:50
  in different ways, and Costas is much more of a what I call a
• 1:43:55
  logical liberal, but Michaels is off the playoffs at NBC. In researching that
• 1:44:02
  story, though, I found something that was maybe even more mind blowing.
• 1:44:06
  I did not realize that NBC's current plan for the playoffs in the NFL is
• 1:44:15
  to have one of those playoff games a playoff game only air on their Peacock
• 1:44:20
  streaming service. That's unbelievable to me. I mean, I realized that we're
• 1:44:27
  turning to streaming in a big way, but the idea that you're gonna have
• 1:44:31
  an NFL playoff game that apparently is only going to be available via a crappy
• 1:44:39
  streaming service. I mean Peacock. You don't want to get Peacock just for
• 1:44:44
  one football game unless you're a huge fan of those two teams playing. But
• 1:44:48
  this is a playoff game. You're gonna have fan bases that have been looking
• 1:44:53
  forward to this all year long. This the most important game they play all
• 1:44:57
  year long, and they're gonna have to get a Peacock streaming service in order
• 1:45:02
  to see the game. I find that impossible to believe. I'm gonna guess
• 1:45:09
  that at least in the local markets of those two teams, NBC is gonna
• 1:45:13
  make it that Peacock streaming available to over the air. I don't know that,
• 1:45:17
  but I'm just guessing that's got to be the case. But even still,
• 1:45:21
  nationally, that's gonna cause a huge hubbub because I think a lot of
• 1:45:26
  people are gonna be as stunned as I was to find out that we've already
• 1:45:30
  reached that point where NFL playoff games are only going to air on Peacock,
• 1:45:35
  but which again is a crap streaming service, and so I'll be curious to
• 1:45:39
  see whether or not that actually stands. All Right, that'll do it for
• 1:45:44
  this episode of the podcast. Hopefully you were able to survive my voice.
• 1:45:47
  I'm guessing that by the next time I do a podcast episode, I will
• 1:45:53
  finally have recovered from from this bout with COVID that I've been fighting. I
• 1:45:58
  also want to thank our producer, Mike got Gavino for getting through the editing
• 1:46:01
  issues here because we've been having some technical problems in this recording. So I'm
• 1:46:06
  guessing and I'm hopeful that this all made some sense in the way that this
• 1:46:11
  was finally put together in the final product. If it didn't, I apologize
• 1:46:15
  for that. We did the best we absolutely could, so I hope you
• 1:46:18
  enjoyed this podcast. Until next time, my name is John Zigler, and
• 1:46:23
  this has been the death of journalism podcast