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Episode Two Hundred Ten: The Death Of MeToo · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number two hundred and ten of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism Podcasts. My name is John Zickler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host on today's show. The Matt Gates Attorney general
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: nomination implodes in confusing fashion. The media tries to me too,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: defense nominee Pete has.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Said, but so far it isn't working.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Trump makes a couple of horrendous new picks, more evidence
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we should never be blindly following the so called science experts,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and what all the chaos in college football is really
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: telling us about this stupid news system. Since our last
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: podcast episode, the big news has been the fact that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's original nominee to be the Attorney General of
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the United States, Matt Gates, has withdrawn his nomination. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: this is an outcome that is perplexing in a number
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of ways. First of all, the headline is that this
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is great news because, as I and many other commentators
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: have said, this was an absolutely terrible pick for attorney general.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to bother to go into why, because
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: now it's clearly obvious that was always the case. But
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: what is fascinating to me about this is what actually happened.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And I have been.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Thinking a lot about this, and I cannot come up
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: with a scenario that explains all the apparent known data points.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I just can't.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: And sometimes in Trump world, that's just the reality, because
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: sometimes things just don't make total sense. You know, there's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: basically two tracks here. Either this was an example of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: total incompetence and overconfidence, or this was somehow four dimensional
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  Speaker 1: chests that this was an amazing strategic gambit to get
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: rid of Gates, get him out of the implications of
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: this ethics investigation, and basically put up a sacrificial lamb
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: so that Republican senators can say, well, we killed one
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of Trump's picks, and maybe that'll make it easier to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: get in the replacement, for instance, Pam Bondi from a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: former attorney general from Florida, or some other picks that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: are on the borderline because they already have their scalp.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: That's the four dimensional chess theory on this. And I'm
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: always extremely hesitant to a tribe a tribe ascribe it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: would be the prober word to ascribe any sort of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: four dimensional chess to Donald Trump. I just don't think
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that's the way he works. I often say that he's
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: playing checkers not chess. Sometimes he's even playing shoots and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: ladders and not even checkers. So I don't really believe
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: it's four dimensional chess. But it may have by Trump
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: luck worked out that way.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: The more obvious.
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  Speaker 1: Explanation is in competence and overconfidence. That Trump really wanted Gates,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: which was insane, and that they just completely miscalculated how
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: much capital they had, that they were riding high after
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this big election win, and maybe they thought that they
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: could get Gates through because nobody in the Republican Senate
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: would have the balls to stand up to Trump.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: That makes some sense to me, But from.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Gates' perspective, I don't understand how this scenario makes any sense.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: He's not even returning to Congress, which is really the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: part of this that's most perplexing. If Gates had says said, oh, well,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that didn't work out. But I was elected to the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: next Congress, and even though I withdrew from Congress because
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days, because I was going to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: go through this nomination process.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to go back to being a US
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: congress person.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: That would make some sense to me. But this is
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: not good for Gates. My god, Gays is currently being
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: paid to do cameos. He's part of the Cameo website
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to make money doing voice messages for Pete random people
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: who are paying him.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not making this up. He's basically doing.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Only fans for all intents and purposes, only with his
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: clothes on. Now, this is right after.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: A few days ago he was going to be the
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: next Attorney General of the United States. This is bizarro world.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: So it makes no sense from Gates's perspective.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: He's pretending he might run for governor of Florida when
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Rond De Santis is turned out in twenty twenty six,
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  Speaker 1: which I guess is possible because in Trump world, you
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: were always alive as long as you have Donald Trump's endorsement. So,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: no matter what the Ethics Committee investigation says about Gates,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: no matter how much of an asshole he is, if
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump gives him his endorsement to be the next
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: governor of Florida and Ron De Santis doesn't get involved,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't you know, endorse some other candidate, then Gates will
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: get the nomination, and you get the Republican nomination in
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Florida these days, you're probably gonna win. So it's not
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: an impossible scenario. It also could be though he's just
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: floating that out there because he wants people to still
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: take him seriously. Maybe he'll have some sort of right
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: wing media career on Newsmax.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Who knows. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: But from his perspective, this did not work out well.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And from Trump's standpoint, this really didn't work out well,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: which is why I'm not convinced of the four dimensional.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Chess theory on what really happened here.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, Trump is now gonna have an easier time getting
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Pam Bondi through the Senate then he would have it
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: if he had just nominated her first, because that's just
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the way things work in politics, and in perception, Well,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: we can't knock down a second one. So she's not
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: as shocking as Cakes was. She would have been shocked
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: fucking without the Gates pick. If she had been the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: first pick, people have been going, Wow, Pam Bondy is
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a thirty general, but in comparison to the Gates she
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: seems great. So that's a positive in theory for Trump.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: But there's a big cost here, whether this was by
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: plan or by accident or some combination, And the cost
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: really is that Trump's are of invincibility, and the Republican
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Senate is now basically gone because Gates just didn't get
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: knocked down, He got completely torpedoed and destroyed. He didn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: even get off the launching pad. And there were multiple
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Republican Senators who were willing to at least privately say yeah, no,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: we're not doing this. And so that's a loss for Trump,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: that's a loss in his perceived power and authority. You
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: got to remember Donald Trump becomes riding high, but he
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is a lame duck president. Now he's a different kind
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of lame duck, but he can't run for reelection. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: so the Republican Senate is showing right off the bat
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that there is a line that they will not cross,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and Matt Gates apparently crossed it. They're forcing them to
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: endorse or support his nomination was a bridge too far.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: But there's another element of this whole situation that may
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: in the long run, be even more detrimental to the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Trump presidency. Now, obviously, especially when it comes to Trump,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: it's very difficult to predict where things are going to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: go when it comes to anything but particularly personal relationships.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But I have been one of those sounding the alarm
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: putting down the marker that the biggest question about Trump
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: two point zero is whether or not this alliance with
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk is going to be able to survive and
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: potentially even and if it does prosper I think Trump
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: two point zero could be very, very successful. However, if
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it implodes, I think all bets are off. A Musk
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: was clearly one of the major reasons why Donald Trump
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: got elected, and even for someone like me, having must
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: be a big part of an administration. Even though I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: have hesitations about Elon Musk philosophically, I agree with him
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: on a lot of things. It makes me feel more
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: comfortable that he is having a big influence over what
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: will happen in this second Trump administration. But I'm also
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: very much aware, as I mentioned in the last episode
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of the podcast, that when you have two egos this large,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the personalities, this large bank accounts, this large one guy
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  Speaker 1: way more wealthy than the other guy. But the other guy,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the less wealthy guy, is the president. But the more
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  Speaker 1: wealthy guy has a megaphone on Twitter that is as
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  Speaker 1: loud as anybody in the history of the world. You know,
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  Speaker 1: if it all works well, that can be very productive,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: but if it goes sideways, look out. And I think
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  Speaker 1: the fact that just less than two days really I
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: talked about this was one of the data points I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: used on this podcast to say, obviously Trump is going
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: all in on Gates, because Elon Musk is tweeting full
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: throated support for Gates, making what I thought found to
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  Speaker 1: be a very dangerous and depressing argument on Gates's behalf
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in verbiage that really didn't even one hundred percent sound
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  Speaker 1: like Musk and was kind of outside of his m O.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know, obviously for sure, but I implied that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, this might have been some sort of Trump
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  Speaker 1: Musk plan to try to bolster Gates's nomination, to use
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  Speaker 1: Musk's Twitter feed to do so, and not only didn't
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  Speaker 1: it work, it imploded almost immediately. I mean, if this
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: had been one of the SpaceX rocket launches, it would
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  Speaker 1: have been a complete disaster.
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  Speaker 2: Wouldn't have even gotten off the launching pad. And this
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  Speaker 2: is not.
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  Speaker 1: If this was isolated, you know, maybe not a big deal,
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  Speaker 1: but this was not the only loss, clear loss that
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  Speaker 1: Musk has been forced to take for whatever reason, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's by design, the four D Chess theory or incompetence
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or overconfidence or miscommunication or whatever it is, or some
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: something deeper than that already that maybe there's a divide
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  Speaker 1: that we.
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  Speaker 2: Don't know about.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not seeing any signs of it in Musk's public
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  Speaker 1: communication on Twitter yet or in Trump's public communication.
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  Speaker 2: But this is not the only loss that Musk has
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  Speaker 2: taken here. This was a big one.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when you provide a massive endorsement on Twitter
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that's not really your mo for Matt Gates and then
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: immediately he decides, you know what, I'm out, that's embarrassing.
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  Speaker 1: That's a loss in isolation, not a big deal, because
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot going on, and there'll be some wins
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  Speaker 1: and there'll be some losses, and we move.
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  Speaker 2: On very very quickly.
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  Speaker 1: By God, both the left and the right wing media
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: have immediately moved on for Matt Gates. And you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: left wing media is freaking out about Pam Bondi, which
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of course immediately means that the right wing thinks this
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  Speaker 1: must be a fantastic pick.
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  Speaker 2: That's the strange world which we now live in.
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  Speaker 1: If the other side is freaking out, we know that's
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that's a good person to have. Sometimes it is, but
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but not always. But you know, so you know, there's
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the whole Matt Gates thing has been kind of memory hold.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And my guess is you won't even.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: See Elon Musk ever talk about Matt Gates again. But
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just the Gates nomination must pick the wrong
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: candidate in the race to be the Senate majority leader.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: In fact, his candidate came in third, and that was
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: kind of a moment where the Republicans in the Senate
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: stood up, not just the Musk but apparently although there's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: some ambiguity about this to Trump himself, and so Musk
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: had of lost there. And then there was the secret
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the secretary of the Treasury issue, which I discussed on
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: this podcast. I said, it's awfully weird that before Trump
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: has picked the Treasury secretary, Elon Musk is on Twitter
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: endorsing one of the two most talked about candidates. I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: thought that was very weird unless he had somehow, you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: worked this out with Trump privately. Well, apparently he didn't
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: work it out with Trump privately because Trump picked the
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: other candidate.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, so Musk.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Law on all three counts here, Gates the Senate Majority leader,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and the Treasury Secretary, and I was going to play
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a clip from Laurence o'donald on MSNBC. Obviously he's a liberal,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: but he's a pretty smart guy. And even though like
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of liberals, he's wrong a lot, I think.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I think his commentary is often at least worth listening to.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And he did about a four minute monologue the other
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: day on MSNBC talking about this very issue where folks
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: at best, at best, Elon Musk has proven himself to
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: be somebody that the Republican Senate has zero fear over,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and it appears as if he doesn't have all that
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: much influence with Donald Trump, at least not as much
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: as you would think. And you know, this whole Department
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of Government Efficiency, this doge thing that Musk and Veveake
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Obama Swami are allegedly in charge of, it's basically an
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: imaginary government entity. The only power it has is in
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the ability for Musk to exert his will on a
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Republican senator or congress person or on Donald Trump.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: That's all he has. And I was one of those
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: who thought.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, being the richest guy in the world, you know,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: being able to theoretically Fund, a primary opponent for ant
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of these people having this massive megaphone on Twitter where
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: instantaneously tens of millions of people within the Republican base
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: are gonna see or hear watch whatever Musk tweets out
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: or retweets.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: That's a powerful entity. And then that.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Would at least give Doge a chance, because Doge has
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: no actual, real power. But and this is Lawrence o'
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: donald's conclusion, but what we're seeing very early on is
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: nobody's taking Musk very seriously, and eventually that's gonna be
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a problem. Eventually Musk is gonna figure this out. Eventually,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Musk is gonna get tired of taking losses, especially if
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: he perceives that somehow Trump is not fully on his
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: side or vice versa, or they're not working in tandem
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and maybe even double crossing each other or Trump to Musk.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, this is a combustible situation. And
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: while the right wing media is completely ignoring this, and
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the right wing media, Trump and Musk are buddy buddy.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Everything's going awesome. The public loves the transition. We're riding high.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: You know, Doge is gonna cut all this in a
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: out of government all the waste, It's gonna be awesome.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: There are storm clouds now, maybe the storm will pass.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe Musk is more adult that I'm giving him credit for,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: because I'm presuming, you know, massive egos and a situation
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: where Musk is not used to being told no, He's
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: not used to losing, he's not used to not being
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in complete control of a situation. He's used to when
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: he tells people to do something, they do it immediately. Well,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: he's gonna find out based upon the early returns, it's
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: not gonna work out that way in this situation because
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: he has no real power, and unless he and Trump
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: are in total lockstep, eventually, I think there's gonna be
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a massive problem here. There's gonna be a big issue
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that will eventually cause a hemorrhage, a crack the foundation
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: of the relationship, and you know, and then you know,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: an earthquake may ensue. That I think that is, in fact,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the only thing that makes me hesitant to go down
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: this path is that it's so damn obvious and it's
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: becoming embedded within the conventional wisdom, which is almost always wrong.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So that's probably the number one reason why I'm not
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure, but all the signs are there
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that this is going to be a massive problem. In fact,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I would put it right at the top of the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: potential issues in Trump two point zero is what happens
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: even when Trump and Musk have a.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Hemorrhaging of the relationship.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Now we're not seeing any public signs of it yet,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: but we already know that Musk has taken three big
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: losses and eventually, I think that's going to take a toll.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Now as far as.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: These other administration picks and cabinet picks, now that we've
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: gotten rid of Matt Gates, the liberal media has moved
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: on to attacking Defense Secretary selection Pete Hegsath, mostly over
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: similar although very different allegations against Hegstad as had dominated
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the news regarding Matt Gates, specifically allegations of sexual improprieties or,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: in Hexseth's case, a twenty seventeen rape allegation. Now, I'm
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: going to once again bring up the conservative commentator about
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: whom I am most conflicted and frustrated, and that is
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly. I seem to talk about her almost every
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: other podcast, where when she's right, she's right, when she's
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: good she's great. When she's bad, she's really bad and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: really wrong. And I think, really, what I have learned
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: about Megan Kelly is the number one thing you have
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to understand regarding her position on any issue is what
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: is her self interest?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Her self interest is properly aligned.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: She's fantastic if it gets a skew, lookout because she's
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be wrong.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Well, when it comes.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: To Pete Hegseeth, she has a pretty good self interest
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to tell what I perceive to be the truth. Because one,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: she's a Trumpster now, so she has an incentive to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: support Hegsteath. Her audience wants someone to support her defend Hegstad,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and she knows him from her days at Fox News Channel.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: They appear to be friends.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: So she did a very extensive commentary breaking down the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: allegation against Pete Hegstath from this twenty seventeen rape allegation.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: If you have not seen it, I actually urge you
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to check it out. It's very long, it's very detailed,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: but I think she did a fantastic job of breaking
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: down this allegation and explaining why it's not legitimate. First
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: of all, it did not result in any sort of
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: chart against Petex's death. And you know, so the authorities
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: decided this was not a case that was either worth
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: pursuing or could be pursued legally. Now that doesn't mean
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: he's innocent. It's important to point that out. I mean, obviously,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: there are many situations where authorities make a decision not
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to charge, where someone may still be guilty of some
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: pretty horrible things. But in this case, I think there
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: is a completely different alternative explanation that Megan Kelly has
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: embraced in which I one hundred percent, based upon what
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I currently know of the situation, agree with. And this
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: goes to an issue that I talk all the time about,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: especially when it came to the whole Penn State Joe
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Paterno Jerrysindusky case, and that is that the news media
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is really really terrible, really terrible at understanding the incentive
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: structure for people in any particular situation, especially when it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: comes to alleged victims of sexual assault or rape or
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: what have you, in that realm.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: They're just terrible at this. And this is a classic example.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: This Hextad case is a classic example of this because
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: there is an obvious, an obvious incentive for the woman
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: involved in this situation to lie, and it could not
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: be more clear unless you remember of the mainstream news media,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: in which case you think, well, first of all, victims
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of sexual assault or abuse never lie, and it would
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: never even occur to us that this incentive structure might
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: play a role in whether or not somebody is telling
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the truth. And the number one fact you need to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: know about this allegation against Peter Hexstath is that the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: woman who made the allegation, who was his handler for
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: an event at which Hexstath was a speaker her in Monterey, California,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, was there in the hotel where
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: this episode allegedly occurred, with her husband and child staying
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in the same hotel. So let's just do the math
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: on this. So late at night, in the middle of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the night, at like two am, she goes to Hecseth's
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: hotel room and that that's where there's allegedly some sort
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of a sexual assault or rape. She's hazy about the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: details because allegedly she was drugged or might have been drugged,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: not a direct allegation of being drugged, just to I
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: might have been drugged, even though there's zero evidence of that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: There's video evidence.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Showing there's no indication that she's groggy or drugged or
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you know, not in full control of her faculty. She's
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: holding heccess hand, so there's no evidence to back that up.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: And then she goes back to her hotel room with
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: her husband and her.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Child at four am. Now you do the math on this, folks.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: If you just had a sexual encounter with extremely good
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: looking and semi famous guy who you're there to be
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the handler for, so he's essentially a celebrity at this event,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and then you go back to your hotel room where
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: your husband and your child are, is it likely that
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: you might decide, boy, that was a really bad decision,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and are you not going to be forced to come
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: up with an explanation for where the hell you were?
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: And is it not likely that the husband may not
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: fully accept your initial alibi that you slept in for
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a couple of hours in a friend's room for no
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: apparent reason, because I guess you were what you're drinking,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you were both not drinking, and you were so drunk
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that you needed to stay for a couple hours in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a in a friend's hotel room. My guess is that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that story didn't really check out, or that that the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: woman involved was afraid that it might not check out,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: so a few days later the story changes, and look,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I get and you know, it's certainly reasonable to come
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: up with some explanation for why a victim might wait
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a few days to make a criminal allegation a criminal complaint,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: But in this particular situation, it dovetails perfectly with the
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: alternative scenario here, which was this was an encounter the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: woman regretted was in trouble for, and the only cards
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: she had to play was I didn't intend to do this,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't consent to this. I was raped, and I
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was maybe even drugg because I need an explanation for
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: how I got into Pete Heexstat's hotel room. I mean
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to me, this has all the markings all the markets.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Doesn't prove that this is the case now, but it
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: has all the markings of a classic situation, one that
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: happens far more than the news media would ever acknowledge
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: or admit to, where a lot of these allegations of
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse are actually circumstances where a woman regrets what
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: she took part in consensually and so therefore she ends
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: up lying about it to get out of having made
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a really bad choice. And you couldn't conceive of a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: set of circumstances that are more consistent with that alternative
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: scenario than this one. But the news media has not
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: accepted this. In fact, they haven't even contemplate it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: The worst example of.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: This that I've seen came on CBS Evening News, hosted
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: by Nora O'Donnell, a woman who I've had encounters with before,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: not sexual, even though we actually both went to Georgetown
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: University at different times. We had encounters on MSNBC back
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: when she was a more overt liberal hack. And now
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: somehow she's been cleaned up to be the news anchor
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: at CBS, although she's leaving that position shortly. But she's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: definitely a liberal, so she has an extraordinary bias here.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: And she is introducing this bombshell story of this twenty
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: seventeen allegation against Pete Hextead.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: She introduces a story from.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: A female reporter by the name of Nicole Killian, who
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: happens to be a black female, and Killian's story doesn't
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: even contemplate, doesn't even mention this is the most amazing
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: part of this quote unquote news report. There's an even
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: mention that the woman was staying in the same hotel
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: with her husband and child in the real world. That's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: probably the most important fact you need to know. I mean,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: there's others that are consistent with Hexsa's innocence, but to me,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that's number one, because that provides an obvious incentive to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: anybody with a rational brain that, oh, so, she might
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: have been regretful, she might have lied about this in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: retrospect to get out of a really bad situation. But
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: CBS doesn't even provide their audience with that factual piece
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of information.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: And here's what it sounded like. On the CBS Evening News.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: We turned out to this newly revealed police report that
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: offers graphic details into a sexual assault claim against Donald
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Tripp's pick to run the Department of Defense. The police
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: report is now published for anyone to read. Pete Heggsa's
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: lawyer maintains it was a consensual encounter. CBS Nicole Kellen
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: was asking tough questions today on Capitol Hill.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Vice President elect jd Vance played host to Defense Secretary
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: picked Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill today, just as the
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: news broke of a graphic newly released police report that
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: detailed Hegseth's involvement in an alleged sexual assault in twenty seventeen.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: Did she sexually assault a woman in Monterey, California?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I have, as far as the media is concerned, optic
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the very simple.
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: The matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Than A's roman leader.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: According to the report, a woman referred to as Jane
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Doe met Hegseth during a conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Both were drinking with a group at the hotel bar
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: when Doe said things got fuzzy. A nurse who treated
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: her later said Doe believed something may have been slipped
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: into her drink. She then recalled me in a hotel
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: room when Hegseth took her phone from her hand. When
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: she got up to leave, Hegseth blocked the door with
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: his body. Her next memory was when she was on
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: a bed or a couch and Hegseth was over her.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: His dog tags were hovering over her face.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know the young lady who.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen said Hegseeth addressed the allegation
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: in their meeting.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way in the world you're
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: going to say that this is a sexual assault.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: Aid Well makes you so confident about that?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Have you heard the report?
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: I actually haven't got it.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I read the report too. It's pretty it's pretty clear
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that that the of what took place, there's pretty clear
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that it was she definitely even drug to her.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: It was two people part well. It also said she
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: couldn't get as well, that's one person here.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Hegseeth's attorney. He told CBS News police found the allegations
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: to be false and claimed it was Hegseth who was
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: intoxicated and the woman who was the aggressor. He also
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: confirmed the Fox News host paid the woman an unknown
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: sum of money after she threatened to sue, fearing it
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: could cost him his job. The district attorney in Mona
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Ray said tonight that her office declined to file charges
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: against hech Seth because it determined that they could not
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: Naura, right, Nicole killing with those tough questions tonight, Thank
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: you now.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: That report was about as biased as it gets. It
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: highlighted things that are not proven and obviously make Hexseth
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: look as bad as possible, and it omits incredibly important
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: data points that would have allowed the average person to go,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's an.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Alternative scenario here.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: There's another story to this whole situation, which would be
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: consistent with the authorities not pursuing any criminal charges.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Now, on the other side.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You know what's clearly a situation that's not good for
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Hexstath is that he paid this woman. Now we don't
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: know how much, doesn't appear to have been a lot
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of money, but he paid her as part of an NDA. Now,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: this is interesting on a couple of time different levels,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: especially given my experience in these types of stories, But
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I can understand. You have to under you have to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: recognize the context of where we are in twenty seventeen.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Now I don't know when he got her to sign
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: an NDA, but obviously twenty seventeen is when the Me
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Too movement explodes. So you're in the midst of the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Me too movement and your Pete Heckstath, and you've got
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a gig on Fox News channel, and you have a
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: woman who's making an allegation of sexual assault against you,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and you know the world is in a panic.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I can totally see.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I can totally see where Hextath or his his legal
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: counsel would have advised him to just pay this woman
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: off so that we don't hear about this publicly.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I doubt, based upon my understanding of the fact pattern,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: that this woman would have wanted to come forward publicly,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: but I can certainly understand why Hextath would have theoretically
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to make sure this thing went away, even if
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he was totally innocent. However, what's ironic and rather hypocritical,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and also typical of almost every time I talk about
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly is that Megan Kelly seemingly has no problem
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: with Hextat having paid for the woman to sign an NDA.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Which is almost.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Mind blowing to be given the fact that this is
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: the same Megan Kelly who made a huge deal over
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: this idea that NBC was covering up sexual assault allegations
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: against Matt Lauer by having women sign all of these NDAs,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and that NDAs are inherently suspicious and proof of guilt
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: on the part of the man, and she and others
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: called for NBC to release all the women from their NDAs,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: and NBC said sure, fine, because NBC knew there were
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: no women who had signed in the NDAs regarding Matt Lauer.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: And then when there were.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Crickets, literal crickets, because no one came forward, because no one,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: just as I had said publicly, had signed an NDA
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: evolving Matt lower, Megan Kelly never admitted she was wrong
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: not to mention the obvious hypocrisy of oh wait a minute,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: so so petexs your friend, it's okay for him to
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: have gotten a woman to sign an NDA. That's not
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: a sign of guilt, but fictitious and NDAs that didn't
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: even happen, that were just theorized about regarding Matt Lauer.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: So when you didn't like because you got kids at
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: NBC and needed an excuse for why you crapped out,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, NDAs that didn't even happen
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: are terrible and signs of guilt, and when it turns
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: they never even existed, you don't even acknowledge that. So
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: this is a whole classic case of my frustration with
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Megan Kelly.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: She does a great job.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: With the FEDI pete hexsteth, but in doing so, she's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: actually further exposed herself as a complete hypocrite. The bottom
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: line of this is that I think x Seth is innocent.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think it should torpedo his nomination. However, it
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: is important to note how much things have changed in
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: a fairly short period of time, because there is zero doubt,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: zero doubt that this story, even if he is innocent
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: of the rape allegation, which I believe he is, this
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: story would have easily ended his bid to be defense
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: secretary in the past, and it wouldn't even have been close.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Would not even have been close, And we have proof
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: of this.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: People who are old like me will remember that Bush
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: forty one, George Herbert Walker Bush nominated a guy by
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the name of John Tower to be his defense secretary
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty nine, and John Tower did not
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: get confirmed by.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: The US Senate.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Why because of concerns regarding his use of alcohol and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: his womanizing. Well, the entire essence of the story against
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Hegstad is he was drunk and here he was having,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: under his telling of events, which I agree with, having
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: an affair or having a sexual encounter with the woman
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: that was tasked to be his handler at a public event. Oh,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: by the way, at the same time his girlfriend or
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: his fiancee was pregnant or had just given birth. He's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: been married multiple times, so there's I mean, my gosh,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the smoke in hexass world when it comes to womanizing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: an alcohol use is at least as bad and not
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: worse than it was for John Tower. And by the way,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: John Tower was probably more qualified, at least from a
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: resume perspective than hexstath is. And oh, by the way,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: John Tower had served in the US Senate, which usually
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: gives you some extra capital when it comes to Senate confirmation.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: The US Senate traditionally, especially back then, was far less
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: likely to kill the nomination of a former US senator's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: kind of the you know, the old Boys' club or network. Well,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Tower did not get confirmed, and it's just amazing that,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: you know, a generation and a half later, here we
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: have barely a generation and a half.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: About a generation and a half later.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Politically, at least you have Pete Hegstath in a are
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: more precarious situation. But right as of now it looks
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: like he'll probably be okay because Republican senators are going to.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Stick by him. Now. A large part of that has
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: to do with Trump.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, in the world of Trump, especially when
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it comes to allegations of sexual abuse, they don't have
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the same power that they used to have. And to
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: a large extent, I think that's a good thing, because
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I think we went too far in the other direction,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: as we always do. I mean, you know, did the
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: pendulum need to swing from the way things were in
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the in the nineteen sixties and seventies and maybe into
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: the eighties when it came to sexual abuse and male
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: men using their power over women in the professional world
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: for sexual favors.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, Did it go too far in the.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Other direction, especially after the Me Too panic of twenty seventeen.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Is it now seemingly going back in the other direction. Yes,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: And I think that's probably a good thing. And it's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: interesting that right in the midst of all this, purely
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: by coincidence, Ronan Pharaoh, who really birthed the me Too
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: movement when he did his report on Harvey Weinstein, which
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: originally he was working on for NBC, and an NBC
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: didn't think that he had all his eyes dotted and
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: his t's crossed the decision which I think, based upon
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: my extensive conversations with Matt Lauer, who was involved in
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that at the time, was.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: The right decision.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think Ronan Farroh had the story nailed in retrospect.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: In hindsight, everyone said, oh my god, NBC was covering
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: up for Harvey Weinstein. Well, no, could that have been
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: possibly part of the equation that there were connections between
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Weinstein and corporate connections and reasons why NBC might be
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: less hesitant to go after Harvey Weinstein. Yes, but there
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: were also very sound journalistic reasons as to why the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: story did not meet the standard, and so then Pharaoh
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: took it elsewhere. It got published, it went viral, the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: whole world exploded.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Weinstein was charged.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: He was convicted in two situations, and one in New
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: York one in Los Angeles, although one of those convictions.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Has been tossed out. Another is in jeopardy.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: People don't realize it, but a lot of what Ronan
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Farrell originally reported about Harvey Weinstein turned out either to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: not be accurate or not be legally relevant. They were
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: not art of the criminal cases against Weinstein. So, frankly,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think that Ronan Pharaoh's Weinstein reporting, for which
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: he is widely still hailed to this day.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Especially in the news media.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Was even all that good. A lot of it, just
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: as NBC was concerned about it at the very beginning,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: was not sound and it was not vindicated. And I'm
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: not defending Harvey Weinstein. A couple more thoughts about him
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: in a second. I think a lot of what Weinstein
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: did was obviously wrong and may have been criminal, So
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not defending him. But I'm also not defending Ronan Pharaoh.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting that Ronan Pharaoh is a new documentary
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: out that has nothing to do with the realm of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse. It's about spywear, and I don't think anyone's
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: going to give a damn about it. But because he's
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Ronan Pharaoh and because he's immedia darling and a celebrity,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the View had him on to talk about this, but
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of course no one cares about his spyware documentary, so
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: they did ask him about the issue of the me
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: too movement and whether or not what we're seeing at
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the time with Matt Gates and Pete Hegg's death and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: just a general societal changes that we're seeing is the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: me too movement dead, which I think is a legitimate
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: question think the.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Me Too movement.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think it should have been killed, but I
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: do think that it needed dramatic readjustment because it went way, way,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: way too far and had all sorts of ramifications that people,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: especially in the news media, have never publicly acknowledged that
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: were mostly if not totally negative.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: But here on the View late last week was Ronan.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Faroh being asked about whether or not the Me too
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: movement is dead, and his response really drove me crazy
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: because it's full of total lies, complete and total lies.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Based upon Ronan Pharaoh's on reporting the stories that he did,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: specifically Weinstein Matt Lower, who was the focus of his
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: book Catch and Kill, which I've done extensive work on
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: with Matt and his response to the total lies against him.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Also the at Kavanaugh situation where Ronan Faroh piled on
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: in that's that controversy with an allegation and involving Kavanaugh
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: at Yale University that was, in my view, nothing more
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: than an urban legend that did not involve any direct
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: section abuse, and I doubt Kavanaugh was even involved in
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: it that I think that his name got attached to
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: it many years later because a bunch of liberals were
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out who was the person that was
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: involved in that, and they theorized or fantasized that it
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: was probably the most famous conservative from their.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Class, Brett Kavanaugh.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And then once that started to gain fire and Kavanaugh
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: becomes a US Supreme Court nominee and is embroiled in
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the Christine Blasi Ford controversy, they all get on their
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: their group texts and they're like, oh, my God, wasn't
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: that Brett Kavanaugh that was involved in that many many
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: decades ago? And then Ronan Pharaoh buys into it, and
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: because it's Ronan Pharaoh, the story is given credibility. What
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I believe that story was totally false, and it's one
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: of several totally false stories that Ronan Pharaoh has bought
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: into in the realm of sexual abuse, which is not
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that surprising when his entire existence, I cannot say this enough,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Ronan Pharaoh's entire existence, literally his name Pharaoh is chosen
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: because his family was torn apart by an allegation of
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse against his own father, Woody Allen by his
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: mother Mia Pharaoh that I don't think was ever proven.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Not to mention that Ronan Pharaoh is a homosexual who
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: has never engaged in a male female relationship and so
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: therefore cannot possibly have the full understanding and context of
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the complicated nature at times of sexual relationships between a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: man and a woman. Doesn't mean rape doesn't exist, doesn't happen,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you know what, some of the people that
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh reported on, like Harvey Weinstein, didn't do things that
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: were really bad. But he's just like the worst person
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: in the world to be the arbiter of truth in
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: this entire realm, literally because of the wood he allen
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: me of pharaoh situation, in the fact that he's gay,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: not to mention he's not a good reporter. It's like
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: a perfect storm of bullshit involving Ronan Pharaoh. Well, anyway,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: here he was on the view, being asked a very
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: legitimate question and lying his ass off in response.
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: Are some people who are saying now that mitchu is
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: dead with the Harvey Weinstein mistrial, Donald Trump and his allegations,
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: as well as now having cabinet picks with sexual assault
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: allegations themselves, how do you respond to those takes?
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: Well, there's an important distinction here. I'm a journalist, I
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: am an investigator, So the stories you're talking about I did.
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: I was very honored to work with sources who are
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: blowing the whistle about really extreme cases of sexual violence.
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: Right We're talking about violent rapes and companies that were
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: covering up violent rapes. So I'm proud of what I
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: did in terms of disclosing facts. But I was never
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: an activist on this issue. So it's such an unsatisfying
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: answer to the question. I am not dialed into the
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: activism around it. I think that there will always be
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: important space for factual, investigative reporting, and then criminal prosecutions
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: were appropriate of serious violent crimes. There's of course, an
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: important conversation also happening about grayer areas and how people
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: are treated in the workplace and the subtleties, and I,
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: like all of us, see the pendulum swinging on that,
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: and I just have to hope that the discourse levels
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: out and we have an appropriate level of forgiveness, mercy
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: and accountability. I don't know when we'll land there.
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I will acknowledge that I have extreme bias against Ronan Farah,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: but I think my bias is based in reality and
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: knowledge because of my extremely intensive investigation of his book
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Catch and Kill and My Relationship with Matt Lower, who
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Roonan Pharaoh targeted, I believe overtly as an attempt to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: get a headline for a book that needed one, because
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: by the time that book came out, everyone knew about
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the Harvey Weinstein story and he needed a new celebrity
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: to go after.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And I believe he created. I believe he contrived.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I believe he manipulated a woman with whom Matt Lower
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: had an obviously consensual affair which cost him his job
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and his career, into claiming that their sexual relationship was
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: somehow an act of rape. And it's my very strong
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: opinion that Ronan Pharaoh has changed the definition of rape,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: changed the definition of rape in order to be able
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: to get a person like the accuser and the Matt
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Lower case, to be able to claim that this was
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: a crime. What he has done is he has convinced
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: people like this woman. And I don't think she needed
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: much convincing, because I think she had her own issues
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: and probably liked the attention.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: But I'm not even going to get into that right now.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: The bottom line here is, here's the new definition of
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: rape in Ronan Pharaoh's world, if the power disparity between
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the man not even by the real by the way,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the real power disparity, because Matt Lower had no power
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: over the woman involved in this situation. She didn't work
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: at the Today Show, she didn't even work at NBC News.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Matt Lower was not her boss. Matt Lawer had absolutely
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: no power over her. But it doesn't matter in Ronan
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh's world. In Ronan Pharaoh's world, it's the perceived power.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And if there's too much of a disparity between the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: perceived power of the man and the perceived lack of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: power when.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: The count comes to the woman, then.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Inherently, inherently, you have a rape situation.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: At any time a man.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Uses his perceived power to have sex with a woman,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: even if she says yes the whole time or never
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: says no, that is a form of rape. And I'm
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: not exaggerating. If you read catch and kill, that's the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: way he views it. That's the prism through which he's
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: able to get people to perceive a lot of these
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: situations that were actually completely consensual are somehow in retrospect rape.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: And that's what he did to Matt Lauer and that's
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: what he did to Matt Lauer's accuser. There was nothing
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: close to sexual assault or rape or anything. This happened
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: multiple times over extended period of time in multiple countries,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and there was nothing that was non consensual about this
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: except that Ronan Pharaoh has concocted this new definition that
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: if the perceive power disparity is too great, well that's
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: inherently raped because women, I guess are children. I guess
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: women are children and unable to defend for themselves. They
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: can't say no if a man is just too powerful.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: It's just actually an incredibly insulting view of women to
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: be able to get to this place. It's also I
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: think a result of Ronan Farrell being gay and not
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: understanding the nature, the fundamental nature of a male female
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: sexual relationship, which is that guess what, this is a shocker.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: This has only been the truth since the beginning of time.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: But a lot of women feel very sexually attracted to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: men who are perceived as being powerful. I know that's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a shocker, isn't it.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: That's a stutter. Imagine that being the case.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And by the way, it's possible, like in the Pete
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Hextas situation, that later on they might regret it. I'd
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: even be shocked by what they themselves have done. I
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: can't believe I lost my mind over that guy because
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: he's a celebrity, or he's powerful, or he's rich, or
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: some combination of the three. Boy, I couldn't have done
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: that consensually. Thank goodness for Ronan Pharaoh giving me a
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: way to rationalize what actually transpired here.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: I was raped. I had no choice in the.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Matter because I just couldn't possibly waspan the power of
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: this man's celebrity or wealth or whatever it might be.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's absolute lunacy. But this is what
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Ronan Pharaoh has fostered. And for him to go on
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: the view and in what I perceive as an obvious
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: attempt to wash his hands of the very movement, the
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: me too movement, that he created. I'm not suggesting that
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: he purposely created it, but he was at the center
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: of it. I mean for him to now say, oh,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I didn't really take part in that. I
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't an activist. He's not an activist. He's absolutely an activist.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: He's the ultimate me too activist. The Brett Kavanaugh story
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: proved that when Christine Blasi Ford made her allegation. This
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: became the biggest news story in the world. So Pharaoh
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: because that was his brand, that's what he's known for.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: He's the leader of the Me Too movement. He jumped
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: in because he's a liberal. He jumped in to try
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: to find something to back Christine Blasi for it up,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: and the only thing he could come up with was
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: this bullshit story from Yale that didn't even involve sex, didn't.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Even come close. Again, I'm not suggesting that.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: What happened to Yale was a was a defensible situation
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: if true, but I don't think there's any evidence that,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: even if it happened, that Brett Kavanav was the person
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: involved for reasons I've already explained.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: But it's the act of an activist.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: He went into the fray because he's like, oh my gosh,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: we got a battle here. I'm an activist, I gotta
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: go help Christine Blasi Ford out. And he got duped
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: by an urban legend, in my opinion, because he's a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: bad reporter with bad incentives. He's a political activist. But
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: then for him to claim and of course the women
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: of the view don't have the gumption or the knowledge
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to be able to follow up on this, but they
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: just all nodded along.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: In fact, you might.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Even have heard some uh huh when Pharaoh claim that
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: his reporting was about violent rapes and corporate cover ups.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: That's just total bullshit.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: When it comes to Weinstein, Lauer, Kavanaugh, those are the
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: three most prominent cases that Pharaoh has reported on. There's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: not even an allegation of what you would consider to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: be quote unquote a violent rape. And again, no one
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: can say this because it sounds like you're defending rape,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: which is utterly ridiculous.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Nobody's defending rape.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: But I'm also well aware of the stories that Pharaoh
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: has reported on, and it's exactly the opposite of what
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: he's claiming. For Again, I've already gone through how he's
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: changed the definition of rape so that it doesn't have
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to be violent. There doesn't have to be a situation
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: where a woman says no at the time and a
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: man says screw that. I want what I want and
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get it regardless of whether I have consent,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: which would be completely and totally wrong and criminal. But
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: that's not what Pharaoh has been reporting on. It's just
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: a lie.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: And as far as the corporate cover ups, he's pretended.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: That there was a corporate cover up, for instance at
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: NBC for Weinstein and lower. But the Weinstein situation is
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: pure out of his own self interest because they rejected
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: his reporting and just because it became embraced later in
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: a you know, the me too panic and went viral,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and because he was then considered a hero, he could
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: go back and say, well, c NBC was wrong to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: have not embraced my work.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: There must have been part of a cover up.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: No, no, because we know from Weinstein's criminal cases that
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: your work was not even close to one hundred percent
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: vindicated NBC, although no one will say it, and they're
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: never gonna say it. See, they can't defend themselves because
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: it makes it look like it's still part of the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: cover up. They can't defend themselves and say, well, look
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: what Pharaoh provided to us didn't meet the threshold of
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: our our journalistic standards.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: They will get laughed at that.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: They have every incentive to throw themselves under the bus.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: It's a lot like Penn State and the Joe Paternal
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Jerrysondusky case. It's partially why Matt Lauer got fired. They
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: needed a scalp because they were being criticized for not
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: having embraced Ronan Pharaoh's work in the Harvey Weinstein case,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and Matt and I getting arguments all the time over
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: what was really in NBC's incentive structure there. I don't
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: even think Matt to this day fully understands what NBC's
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: incentive structure was there. But they got rid of a
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: massive contract and they got their scalp, and they completely
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: realtered the Today Show. It went super woke and dei
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: everywhere as the entire network has gone in that direction.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Now was this all part of a plan or do
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: they just see an opportunity?
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I have no way of knowing.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: But the idea that somehow running Pharaoh has only been
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: reporting on violent rapes and corporate cover ups, well, that's
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: just fraudulent. That's not a lie. That is absolutely positively fraudulent.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: And swinging back from Pharaoh and Weinstein back to Pete
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Hegstad and I do think that if heggsta death survives this,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: that it is indication that things have changed, probably for
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: the better. But here's the part that no one's going
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: to tell you. Certainly not in the mainstream news media
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: when it comes to a case like a Harvey Weinstein
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: or a Pete Hegstad.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: And that's this.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: If Harvey Weinstein looked like Pete He's death, Harvey Weinstein
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: would never have gone to jail, he would never have
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: been convicted. And if Pete Hegstad looked like Harvey Weinstein,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: he would have no chance of being Secretary of Defense.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: That's a fact, one hundred percent of fact that no
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: one will tell you. Nobody in the main street news
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: media will acknowledge this reality. And my wife is a
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: classic example of this. My wife, I've already told you,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: thinks Petextat is hot. I don't blame her. She heard
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: this allegation that she scoffed at it, She's like, Oh,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that's total bullshit. Why, Well, because pd xtat is hot,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: and so therefore it changes the equation of what a
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: woman might do in a particular situation, and it almost
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: inherently invalidates any kind of ambiguous claim of sexual abuse.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: But with Weinstein, again, I'm not defending Weinstein, but when
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: you read the details of what he was accused of,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: here's a guy hideously ugly, obese, but extremely powerful. The
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: ability that certainly at that time to change a woman's
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: career in an either direction. And I'm sure he abused
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: that power in horrendous, immoral and maybe even criminal ways.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: But if he looked like Pete Hegstad or Brad Pitt
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: or George Clooney, there would have been no way to
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: convict none, because it's only seen as sexual abuse or
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: rape if the woman clearly would not have wanted to
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: engage in that activity or that behavior. Well, with Weinstein,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: everyone looks out and goes, well, no one would want
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: to do that voluntarily, And with Hextat, everyone goes, well,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: I can totally see wanting to do that voluntarily. Nobody
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: will ever acknowledge this. It's the most obvious point of
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: hypocrisy when it comes to this entire issue of sexual abuse.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of the classic one of the best
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: things Saturday Night Live has probably ever done in the
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: last couple of decades when they had Tom Brady on
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the show and they did a mock video about human
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: resources and how to avoid being accused of sexual abuse
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: or sexual harassment, and the bottom line was, be handsome,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: look like Tom Brady, and you will not get accused
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: of sexual harassment.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Don't be ugly, then you will probably get accused of
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: sexual harassment in the workplace.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: That's the reality of all this, and nobody will say it,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: which I find to be both hilarious and telling. Now,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: as far as Trump's general picks, when it comes to
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: his cabinet and his administration, as I have predicted many
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: times during the presidential campaign, this is essentially the D team.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are on the right,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: and Trumpers are very excited about a lot of it.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: I don't think most of these people are particularly qualified.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Some of them are okay, some of them are a
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: little bit better than I had feared. I'm glad that
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Gates has gone. Bondy seems at least a little bit
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: more tenable than Gates. I actually think that Hegseth is
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: an interesting idea, someone completely outside of the military bureaucracy
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: who wants to shake things up.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm still supportive of.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Hegstad Some of these minor positions, these are There are
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of the nut jobs and loyalists and sycophants
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: that I had feared was going to be the but
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of them are also remarkably liberal. You know, Axios,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: which is a liberal news outlet, had an interesting article
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: with the headline behind the Curtain, Trump's liberal Cabinet.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: This is where things get very, very confusing for Trumpsters.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: I'm sure a.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Liberal outlet is claiming that Trump's cabinet is actually rather liberal.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: They start this article by saying nothing captures the dramatic
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: ideological transformation of the Republican Party more vividly than President
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Elect Trump's proposed cabinet, and then they have.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: Several bullet points.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: A pro abortion rights aren't r RFK junior Robert Kennedy
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: running Health and Human Services, A pro union centrist running labor,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: A former congresswoman, A former elected Democrat as Director of
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: National Intelligence.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: That's Tulsei Gabbard.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: A former Jorge ord Soros advisor who now promises Trumpanomics
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: will turn around the economy running the Treasury.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: That's Scott Bescent.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: And is the new Treasury Secretary. As I've already mentioned,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: why it matters. Lost in the noise of Trump's most
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: controversial picks is the simple, undebatable fact that this might
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: be the most ideologically diverse cabinet of modern times. As Axios,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: as Zachary Boss told you, Trump's cabinet increasingly resembles a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: European style coalition government. So this is hardly anything close
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: to being conservative, really, not even all that Trumpian or maga,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: you know, depending on how you view this. And look,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump's a life long liberal, He's a lifelong Democrat.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: I've always said that one of the strangest things about
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Democrats hating Trump so much is that if they play
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: aid him correctly, if they just stroked his ego a bit,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: they could probably get a lot out of him. Now,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: the fact that Republicans are going to barely control the
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: House and control the Senate, and because Trump is a
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: lame duck, they might not be able to get quite
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: as much out of him in Trump two point zero.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: But the idea that somehow this is going to be
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: a conservative administration is frankly ridiculous, And a lot of
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: his picks are actually offensive. Not just I'm fine with
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: having a few liberals in there, but I am absolutely
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: offended by his choice for surgeon general. Trump's pick for
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: surgeon general is a woman by the name of doctor
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Jeannette Neshawot, and she is an attractive woman who has
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: been on television a lot. Fox News Channel a lot,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: which is all too common for a lot of Trump's picks.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing the correlation between the number of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: times that someone has appeared on Fox News Channel over
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the last several years and their chances of being part
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: of the Trump two point zero administration.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: But this particular situation.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Where it's the surgeon general, and let's be clear, surgeon
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: general is mostly a symbolic position, but that doesn't mean
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: it's not important, especially in this day and age where
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: you know, perception is reality and going on television is important,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: and you know, people perceive that the surgeon general has
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: some authority or credibility, and their positions, especially post COVID,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: I think, have extraordinary symbolic power. And in this case,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: I think symbolism really matters, especially if there's going to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: be even the semblance of COVID accountability, which a lot
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: of Trumpsters have there would be in a second Trump administration.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: I've never believed that because how can you possibly have
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: COVID accountability when the guy who was in charge when
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: most of this went down is the president and he's
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: still embracing the vaccine and Operation warp Speed is one
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: of the greatest things he's ever done, and not the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: greatest thing he's ever done. Well, this particular pick for
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: surgeon general is really offensive. It's not just bad, it's offensive.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: This woman praised doctor fout she constantly. She is still
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: praising the vaccines unequivocally. She is a big proponent of masks,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: especially or even when it came.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: To kids in school.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: She believed in social distancing, She believed in hand washing
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: way beyond even just the first few months of panic,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: and look, I am the first to acknowledge. I am
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: extremely aware of the reality that there were a lot
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: of people, even good people, even Rhonda Santis, who eventually
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: figured this out a lot faster than almost anyone else did,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: who bought in at the very very beginning to a
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: lot of the bullshit narrative that the media and doctor
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Fauci were selling together in March April May of two thousand.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: So I am more than willing to provide some slack
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the timing of people's beliefs. However,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: there is an expiration date for that now. For DeSantis,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: it was basically late spring early summer of two thousand.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Same with the governor of Georgia and some others, and
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: so it's not as if this was a situation where
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: nobody had figured this out fairly quickly based upon the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: data and the reality on the ground. However, this woman
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: did not learn there's very little evidence that she has
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: ever learned about most of the bs that was sold
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: to us in the spring of twenty twenty. Let me
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: play two clips for you to prove my case. The
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: first is from March of twenty twenty one, so we're
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: a year into the COVID panic, and she put out
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: a video where she's virtue signaling with her cloth mask
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: on her useless face diaper, where she clearly is trying
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: to show people that she is down with the struggle,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: and she's wearing, ironically enough, her anti Trump virtue signal,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and so she takes the mask off. I think she's
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: in a taxi cab in New York. I'm not one
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: hundred percent sure, but she's putting out this video on
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: social media and talking about the importance of, among other things, masks.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: A year into this, when we knew for certain, we
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: knew one hundred percent because we had, for the first
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: time ever, real world data proving that masks did absolutely
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: positively nothing. And here is Trump's pick to be the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: next surgeon general. In March of twenty twenty one.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: Hey guys, please be careful. I just finished my shift
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 7: and had a lot of patients test positive for COVID today,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: more than I've had all week long. So be smart,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 7: be safe, to protect yourself, wear your mask, and be
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: careful with social distancing. Now headed to the Javit Center,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: going to vaccinate our fellow New Yorkers. Have you sign
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 7: up for your vaccine yet? If not, go do it.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: If you qualify, now that isn't bad enough, and that's
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. A few months later, in August of twenty
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: twenty one, again, now.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: We're a year and a half after the panet.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Began, she's on Fox News Channel talking about reopening schools,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: which is good, although she's sounding, you know, like, this
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: is still fall of twenty twenty. This is fall of
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. She's promoting the idea of children being
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: masked and we should still be washing hands, something that
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: they abandoned after being obsessed with in early of twenty twenty.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that was all we talked about
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: in March, April, May, June of twenty twenty and then they.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Just dropped it because they realized that was bullshit too.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: Here she is in August of twenty twenty one, still
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: embracing all of this utter crap on Fox News Channel
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: and what it is.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 8: Now COVID and this new Delta variant hits right before
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 8: school starts, and our top priority should be getting to
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: back into the costumes, but doing so safely. Here's the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: delta is different, and that's why the American Academy is
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 8: Pediatrics is recommending that if you're going to be in
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 8: a classroom, in a crowded classroom, then you want to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 8: protect yourself wear a mask because a lot of kids,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 8: for example, under the age of twelve, they can't be vaccinated.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 8: So some fots point out though masking is not the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 8: only solution. We also need to make sure that we
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: have good ventipulation, that people are washing their hands, that
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 8: they're getting tested, and that all the teachers are getting
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 8: vaccinated as well. But what's happening is this new Delta
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 8: variant is replicates more easily and it's more contagious. You
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 8: can have up to a thousand times more viral particles,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 8: so kids can pick it up even though they may
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 8: not have severe symptoms, they can spread it to another person.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 8: And when it spreads is when the virus mutates, and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 8: that's when we get more variants but delta and lambda
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 8: and the UK variant.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: So this Surgeon general pick is an abomination. Is it
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: is an affront to everyone who was a contrarian during
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: the COVID panic. Is affront to everyone who believes in
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: actual science and data and rationality, to everyone who believes
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: that we completely screwed up the response to COVID and
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: that that needs to be part of the public record
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: so that it does not happen again. And that's why
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: this pick matters, because for this person to be the
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Surgeon General, in perception, it is a validation of so
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: much that we did wrong during the COVID panic.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: And this is a selection being made by Donald Trump.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: One because she supports his vaccine and Operation Warp Speed
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and a lot of the response of the Trump administration
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: during the COVID panic, but also because she's a Fox
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: News favorite, she's a female, she's attractive, and that seemingly.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Is all that matters to Donald Trump.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: So of all of his selections so far, this one
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: probably pisses me off the most, even though it won't
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: have a lot of real world impact. But anybody who
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: believes somehow that RFK Junior is going to be allowed
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: to bring about some sort of COVID accountability when Donald
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: trumps president and he's picking this woman to be a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: surgeon general is delusional.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: You're fooling yourself. He never got it.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: He never understood what he did wrong because he's not
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: capable of understanding that he did something wrong. And this
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: selection proves it, and it's infuriating, it's insulting, and it's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: damaging to future responses potentially to similar situations. Thanks for
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If
• 1:11:45
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• 1:11:49
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• 1:12:00
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