Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Forty One: Costas Returns

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Forty One: Costas Returns · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and forty one of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host on today's show, Abemos Popham. We have a pope,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and shockingly, he's American. We'll have our weekly Trump News roundup,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: plus a stunning MAGA admission about the death of Jeffrey Epstein,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: an awful appearance on the View by Joe Biden, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: an interview with a very special guest, sportscasting legend Bob Costas.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with the biggest
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: news not just internationally but nationally over the last week,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: which was the selection of the Pope, which I anticipated
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: was going to happen almost immediately after the release of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast, and that's pretty much
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: what happened, because it only took three or four ballots
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: before the Cardinals chose Robert Prevost, now known as Leo
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the Fourteenth. Now that would not have been big news
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: in my world ten days ago because I did not
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: know who Robert Privos was. But now the entire world
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and most of the United States seemingly knows who he
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: is because he's the first American pope and let me
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: begin my analysis of the situation by admitting that I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: was totally wrong about the media coverage of the selection process.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You may recall a couple of episodes ago I questioned
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: whether or not this conclave was going to get the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: same kind of wall to wall media coverage as others
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: have in the past, and I said that I was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that because a lot has changed since the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: last conclave in twenty thirteen, both from the perspective of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the news media and their willingness to spend money on
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a story like this and spend time on a story
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: like this, and also sception of the Catholic Church. The
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church scandal, the child's sex abuse scandal clearly has
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: had an impact. The popularity of the religion, especially in
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the United States, is waning, the number of priests, the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: number of people going to Catholic school, and I just figured,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you know what, this might not be the same all
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: points bulletin, all hands on deck kind of coverage that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we've seen previously with past conclaves. By the way, this
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: is such a rare event. I was going through the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: history of it. This was only the fifth papal conclave
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: in my lifetime, and I'm fifty eight years old. Grew
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: up as a very Catholic kid in the Philadelphia area,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: coming from two set of parents that are very Catholic,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: two sets of grandparents that are very very Catholic. So
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this is a huge deal in my world, and I
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: was incorrect about how I thought the medium might handle
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: this situation. Now, part of the reason why I was
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: incorrect was because an American ended up being selected. Had
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: an American not been the selection, my guess is that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this would have been a story that would have faded
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: away very, very quickly. But as far as the coverage
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: of the process itself, they were pretty much all in.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe not quite as intense prior to the selection of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: an American as they had been previously, but there was
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a ton of coverage. Most of the major anchor people
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: were in Rome for this, and it was kind of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: funny and I thought, you know, humorous. Amusing to see
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the mainstream, elite legacy media be so enamored with the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: whole process. I mean, my god, they love the Conclave.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And I think it's partially because there was a hit
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: movie or an Academy Award nominated movie named Conclave last year.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So that might have revived intriguing and interest in the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: whole process. But they love the secrecy. They loved them
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: some smoke. Man, Oh my god, whoever came up with
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the idea of the black smoke and the white smoke
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was a fricking genius because that plays to the modern
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: media so incredibly well. They love the mystique, They love
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the magic, the secrecy. I mean in a world where
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they the media likes to pretend that they know everything
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: before it actually happens, and usually you know, there's at
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: least an inkling of what's going to happen because of
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: leaks and what have you. They love being completely boxed
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: out of this process. And boy were they boxed out
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: from immediate perspective, I thought the most astonishing part of
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the selection and the announcement of Robert Privo's Leo, the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: fourteenth first American Pope, was for well over an hour.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: For well over an hour from the time that he
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: was chosen pope and accepted to the time that he
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: walked down on the balcony after it was declared to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: they most popham. You would think that in this day
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and age, that somebody would leak out that kind of information,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: because that was a huge, massive story, massive story to
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: somehow keep under wraps. Now. I get they didn't have
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: their cell phones and their laptops or whatever, but I'm sorry,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: there's god, there's a way if somebody wanted to leak this.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: They had gold. They had gold for well over an hour,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and nobody had a clue, and the media was completely
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: taken off guard. They didn't know even when the announcement
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: was going to be made. NBC actually botched the coverage
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: of the announcement, and they had no clue that it
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was going to be an American even though in retrospect
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: there were lots of people who were suggesting that Prevosts
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: could have been the guy, that he was certainly within
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the top two, three or four favorites to be the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: next pope. So from a media perspective, it's possible that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the American media kind of blew this story, although I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: can understand why because I think that they felt like, well,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: this is one of those things that happens every time
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: there's a conclave. Could we ever have an American pope?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows that's impossible because America is the world's superpower,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and they're not going to want to make an American
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the pope, and so I actually kind of give the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: American news media some slack on this. That's a rational
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: conclusion to come to, and almost a hesitancy to want
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: to speculate, not that the media is usually hesitant about
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: doing these types of things, but to speculate about something
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that really has very little chance of happening. Well, weirdly,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: they you know, they basically had a situation where they
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: were playing possum the cardinals were. I mean, because this
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: was always a very strong possibility, and obviously it turned
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: out to be the most likely scenario because that's actually
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: what happened. Now, I need to provide a little bit
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of context here, and I have to be careful about
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: what I'm able to say, so I'm going to be
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: very vague, more vague than I need to be. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: before the conclave began, I was given some very credible
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: information that kind of shocked me about how deeply involved
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the American government either is or tries to be when
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it comes to lobbying for who the next Pope's can
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it be? And I was really stunned. I had no
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: idea that we were this interested into this involved and
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: so when it turned out that there was an American pope,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I immediately thought back to this conversation I had with
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: this very trusted source, and I thought, my gosh, is
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it possible that we made this happen, like the American
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: government behind the scenes, either directly or indirectly, caused there
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: to be an American pope. That was my first reaction.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: And then there was immediately a lot of talk about
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: some of the past social media posts, specifically on Twitter
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that Robert Prevost, who's originally from Chicago and had lived
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: has lived like twenty or thirty years of his life
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in Peru, had made specifically regarding JD. Vance, who was
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: kind of the Forest Gump of this whole story since
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: he was basically the last person to meet with Pope
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Francis before he died, and he was the last person
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that Prevost was tweeting about before he became pope. But
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it was very negative towards JD. Vance, and there was
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: at least one tweet that was negative towards Trump. So
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: then I started to go in the other direction. I'm like,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe this was actually an fu to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump that this was going to be an American
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: who was going to be very anti Trump, and that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: kind of was a narrative that made some sense to me.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: For a while, I'm like, oh wow, this was really
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: crafty on the part of the cardinals. So you're going
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to create an American superstar who is anti Trump and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: now has an incredible platform because the American media is
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: going to be slobbering all over him. If he really
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: is anti Trump, at least done some key issues that
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: could be very powerful, and that would make sense as
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to why you would suddenly go with the first American pope,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: especially when in their eyes. I think there were even
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: some cardinals who said this that he was the least
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: American of all the American cardinals. By the way, he's
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: not a cardinal from Chicago. He was a cardinal in Rome,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: basically part of the executive branch, if you will, under
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Pope Francis, and he had spent an enormous amount of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: his adulthood in Peru. So then I thought, well, is
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: he even really American? And then there was another level
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of revelation, and that was interviews, extensive interviews, multiple interviews
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: with both of his brothers, and when I watched the interviews,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: one of them from a brother from Chicago. Another a
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: guy from Florida who is clearly a Trumpster. Even before
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it became obvious when it became public that he had
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: shared some social media posts that were very, very negative
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: towards Nancy Pelosi and negative towards people with Trump arrangement syndrome.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Even before that revelation, I told my wife, I'm feeling
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: this guy as a Trumper. First of all, he's living
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: in Florida and he looks like a Trumper. But it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: clear to me this guy ain't no liberal. Now that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything about what Robert Prevost is now the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: of the fourteenth. It does seem as if his other
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: brother from Chicago is a bit more liberal. But it
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: didn't matter to me because it was obvious that from
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the things that his brothers were saying. Number one, this
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: guy really is American. It's not a fake American. He
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: is of America. The best example of this, obviously is
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the absolutely bonkers video that somehow surfaced almost immediately after
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: his selection of Pope, where he was in attendance and
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: on the Fox broadcast of the two thousand and five
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: World Series involving the Chicago White Sox, which was there
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: is his favorite baseball team. By the way, that two
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: thousand and five, I think game one of that World
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Series had a future pope in attendance, and somehow, at
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a very prominent moment was was full on the Fox broadcast,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: not like in the background, almost like as if he
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: was a celebrity, which was a remarkable coincidence. But also
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: attending that game was future President of the United States,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama, which is just amazing. But these interviews with
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the brothers I found to be fascinating one that they
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: were even doing them. I mean, I was stunned that
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: they both seemingly felt very free in expressing all sorts
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of things about their brother and even their own personal
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: opinions about you know, even the one who's from Florida.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: The Trumper even seemingly made some statements that made me
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: think that Prevost himself may not be a liberal, at
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: least not in terms of politics. He might be a
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: liberal in terms well, actually, let me take that back.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: He's clearly not a liberal when it comes to doctrine,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Catholic doctrine. He is a liberal clearly when it comes
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to illegal immigration, and it appears as if he's a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: liberal when it comes to climate change, but he's clearly
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: pro life and he is not down with LBGTQ. And
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: so I got a lot of confidence from his brothers. Again,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean he's that way, but it made it clear.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: One he's a real American. Two, his brothers seemed like
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: good people. Three, he seems very transparent because he didn't
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: put the kabash on them doing interviews, and the fact
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that they felt comfortable doing all the interviews that they
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: did and being as expansive as they were in their
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: descriptions of him and their childhood. And as I said,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: all these opinions, I felt very good about that. In fact,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I almost thought they went too far, because when you're
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the pope, you want to keep some of the mistique, right.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: The mystique is really what is at the key to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: this whole process. That's why having video of him at
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the World Series is just so amazing. You gotta be careful,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you know, less is more, less is often more, And
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: so I do think that maybe the brothers ought to
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: put the kabash on it, and you know, maybe you know,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: not do so many interviews from here on out. But
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the most important point here is I got a good
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: feeling about the person the person, so I don't think
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this was necessarily an f you to Donald Trump. I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: don't think that it was a pro Trump move either.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I think they just felt like this was the right
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: guy at the right time, And frankly, I think it
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: was a good move from their standpoint because having an
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: American is going to be a boon for the Catholic Church,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: at least in this country, and this country traditionally has
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: been where the Catholic Church gets most of its money,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and that was not happening during the reign of Pope Francis.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So they're going to open up the pocketbooks of a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: lot of very wealthy Catholics. They're gonna energize interest in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Catholicism in this country. I guarantee you there's gonna be
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the percentage is gonna be, but
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be more people becoming priests. There's gonna be
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: more people probably going to Catholic school. The energy that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: this is creating in Catholic schools across the country is palpable.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: He's a Villanova graduate, which as a Georgetown guy, I
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: found to be particularly interesting and was definitely chiding some
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of my friends that went to Notre Dame because how
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: does Notre Dame fumble that? Right? A guy from Chicago
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: becomes the first pope, but he's not a Notre Dame grad.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: That is a recruiter or recruiting fail right there. There's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a massive recruiting fumble by Notre Dame to allow the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: first American pope to go to Villanova. Although some of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: my Notre Dame friends said, well, he must have. He
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: must have gotten into Notre Dame. Villanova must have been
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the safety school as possible. That's not an uncommon scenario,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: especially back in the seventies when privos went to college.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But you know, this is going to be a huge
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: deal with regard to the American Catholic Church, and it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: going to be a big deal when it comes to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the American media because there's a new superstar. And that's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: part of why the American media loves this process so much. Obviously,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: it was exponentially greater because the pope turned out to
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: be American. So now you have an American idol. I mean,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: this is really a lot like American Idol, where it
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: used to be the way the American idol used to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: be back in the glory days, back in the early days.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You know, when you got Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: what have you. When out of the blue, someone who
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was unheard of suddenly becomes a superstar. And it is
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: we talk about this all the time on the podcast.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: It is increasingly almost impossible for someone to become a
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: true superstar in today's day and age, and for someone
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: to come from complete anonymity to being a massive global
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: superstar overnight less than overnight, in an instant is an
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: incredibly rare thing, and this is one of the very
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: few situations where that can still happen. I think that's
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: partially why the newsvidea loves the entire entire process of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: selecting the Pope. But it's exaggerated because this guy is
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: American and if, especially if he goes after Trump on
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: immigration or climate or what have you, the American media
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: is gonna be salivating all over him. They're gonna be
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: slobbering all over him to get a brand new star.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And it's gonna be fascinating to me to see how
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Trump handles this. So far, Trump has been very gracious
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and applauding of the whole thing. You know, obviously, I'm
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: sure Trump's gonna want to meet him. You know, that
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: will be very interesting if I'm Trump, even though his
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: ego is gonna have a difficult time with this because now,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, from an in national perspective, who knows,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: he may not even be the most famous American in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of years, and it'll be close. But you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it's possible that Provosts or Leo the fourteenth will be
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a threat in that way as far as being the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: most famous American in the world, and that's important to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But if I'm Trump, I try to keep
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Leo the fourteenth as close as I can.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: You know, apparently he was registered as a Republican, but
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: it's clear to me he never voted for Ronald Reagan.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: He may have voted for Ronald Reagan, probably did. I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: don't think he ever voted for Donald Trump. Based upon
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the data that we currently have, it feels very much
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: like he's basically a never Trump Republican who feels most
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: passionately about the issue of immigration, which of course is
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: always very strange and ironic and hypocritical when you're the Vatican,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and you're a country that literally is surrounded by a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: massive wall, probably the most difficult country because it technically
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is a country to get into in the world, and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you're the one, you know, basically saying that illegal immigration
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is just all fine and dandy. So obviously I disagree
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: with Leo the fourteenth on that, but this is a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: big deal in the Catholic Church. And I thought a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: lot about my relatives, and my grandparents and my mother
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and some of my aunts and uncles, all very Catholic
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: from the Philadelphia area of my God, they would have
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: been if they were still alive today, they would have
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: been over the moon on this, even you know, obviously
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: with the Philadelphia connection with Villanova, but even without that,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, that would have just been such an incredible
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: thing for so many people that I know in my
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: family who have been very ardent Catholics their whole life
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and never dreamed that there could possibly ever be an
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: American pope, and now there is. And it certainly doesn't
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: mean quite as much generally today as it would have
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty years ago, because I think religion in general,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and Catholicism in particular, that the influence that it has
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: over American culture has waned quite significantly, not just because
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of the child sex abuse scandal, but that's probably the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: most prominent reason among them. And so, but it's still
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: gonna be a big deal. This is still going to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: be a very very big deal, and it'll be fascinating
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to see how it all shakes out. The media has
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a star, They're going to be looking for him to
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: be attacking Trump, and I will be very interested to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: see how Trump handles this and how the right wing
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: media handles this, because the right wing media is very
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: kind of ANTSI hesitant, not quite sure what to make
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of Leo the fourteenth. Do we embrace him, you know, USA, USA, USA,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: or are we concerned that going to be too anti Trump?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So the left wing media is all in, but the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: right wing media seems to still be not quite certain
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: as to where to go when it comes to Lee
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of the Fourteenth. By the way, since this is a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: topic that comes up from time to time and I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: get a lot of questions about my own Catholicism and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: why it is, I now refer to myself as a
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: recovering Catholic, in other words, recovering from being Catholic This
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: is probably a topic for a completely different podcast, but
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: just because of the fact that this is a huge
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: deal and obviously the biggest story that's happened in American
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Catholicism maybe in my lifetime, other than maybe the Catholic
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Church scandal, I figured I'm just going to take a
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: minute or two here to bullet point the five things
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: that have happened in history that really turned me from
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: someone who grew up in the Catholic Church. Went to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Catholic grade school, went to Holy Ghost Prep in Bensalem, Pennsylvania,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: went to Georgetown University allegedly a Catholic university. I mean,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: virtually every aspect of my young life was steeped in Catholicism,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: but I no longer consider myself to be a Catholic.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I think there are basically five events. They're probably more
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: than this, but the top five events that really turned
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: me off towards Catholicism were as follows, and they're somewhat
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in chronological order, but not totally. To me, the biggest
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: problem I have historically with Catholicism is the issue of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whether or not the Earth was the center of the universe.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I know this sounds kind of silly if you're not
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: really interested or knowledgeable about this debate. But at one
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: point this was the biggest debate in the world, literally
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in the world, and the Catholic Church made it very
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: very clear that they thought that the Earth was the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: center of the universe. And Copernicus and Galileo be damned,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: literally be damned, they were damned. The Catholic Church put
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: everything down on this, They put all their chips down
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: on this, and they were wrong. So I'm sorry. You know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you make you bad people, but you
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: cannot be speaking on behalf of God. If you put
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: all your chips down on whether or not the Earth
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: is the center of the universe, you condemn people and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: punish people who say otherwise, and you turn out to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: be wrong, dead wrong where the sun is the center
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of the universe. How the Catholic Church ever survived that
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: with any credibility, I have no idea. Somewhat Similarly, I'll
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: bet you don't know why it is that priests cannot
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: be married in the Catholic Church. It has nothing to
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: do historically with any sort of religious tenant. It is
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a purely economic situation because it wasn't always the case
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that priests couldn't be married. The problem was that when
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you became a priest, you got land. Sus in the
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Middle Ages, you got land, and if you had offspring,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: if you had descendants, you had heirs. They got the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: land when you died. So the church was losing land.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: So they put a stop to it by claiming that somehow,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if they really claimed this, but
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: this is how it somehow got spun and perceived into
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: perpetuity that somehow it's holier for a man to be
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: a priest and not be married and he's not distracted
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: by a wife and kids. Well, no, the real reason
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is can't give them their land. So that was the reason,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and frankly, you can make a very i think strong
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: correct connection, almost a direct line between that mistake of
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: preventing priests from being married and one of the other
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: five reasons that I've turned against the Catholic Church was,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: which was the child sex abuse scandal. The child sex
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: abuse scandal occurred largely, not in totality, but largely because
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: priests can't be married, and because of that, the pool
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: of people from which you can choose your priests is
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: fundamentally altered and for a very significant portion in history.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: That meant you had a much higher percentage of gay
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: men becoming priests. That's a fact. I know that's never
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: talked about, but that's a fact that's not just anecdotal,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: but I mean it's been in my own experience. Everybody
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I know in Catholicism, Catholics schools, everybody knows this. This
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: is just one of those things you just never talk about,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: but it's one hundred percent true. And you know, we
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: talked a lot about this in With the Benefit of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Hindsight podcast, because that is I think one of the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: many things that led to the perfect storm against Jerry
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Sandusky is that people thought this was a repeat of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church scandal. It was not, and one of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the many reasons it was not was because Jerry Sandusky
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: was not dealing with any sort of homosexuality or perceived
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: homosexuality among the accusers. Most of the accusers in the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church scandal were homosexual boys or boys that were
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: perceived to be homosexual because the men that were perpetrating
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the acts of sex abuse, not entirely, but in large part,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: we're gay again. No one ever wants to talk about this,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: but this is the reality of the situation and that
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: all stems from. You might call it the original sin
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: if you will. Down Any Catholics will call it that
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: of priests not being allowed to be married. And I've
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: gone through in the past the whole transubstantiation thing that
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Catholics believe that the body and blood of Jesus Christ
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: is at Mass through the process of transubstantiation actually becomes
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: not just bread, wine, but the actual real body and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: blood of Jesus Christ. Of course, they didn't know about
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: DNA testing at that time when they made that declaration,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm very positive that that does not actually happen.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So that was a big problem for me as a kid.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: And then the final nail. I guess this was maybe
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: not the final nail because it happened before the child
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: sex abuse scandal became very prominent. But I am the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: first of four children who were born in a five
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: or six year period to two very Catholic parents met
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: at Georgetown University. Well, my parents were married for twenty years,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: had four kids, but the Catholic Church allowed or facilitated
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that marriage to be annulled. In other words, it never
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: happened in the eyes of the Catholic Church because my
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: father was well off and was able to pay the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: right people. That effectively, that's what happened. The marriage between
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: my parents never happened. It was annulled, even after twenty
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: years and four kids. Yet somehow I'm not a bastard child.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. If you're gonna do that kind of
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: stuff and you're a business, fine, But if you can't
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: then claim to be the you know, speaking on behalf
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of God, you can't be a religion that should be
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: taken seriously when you do that kind of stuff. So
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I realized that that's very controversial. I'm sure that pisses
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of people off, but I get the question
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: a lot. You know what happened between you and Catholicism,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And that's the reader's digest version of it. There's other
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: reasons as well. But I will say even with all that,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I did find myself being kind of excited that there
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: was an American pope and feeling a little emotional thinking about,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: as I said, my grandparents and my mother and aunts
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and uncles, and how they would have been feeling if
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: they were alive today, knowing that there was an American
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: pope with direct eies to Philadelphia. That would have been
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: a very, very big deal for them. So I guess
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's still somewhere in my DNA, even though and I
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: totally respect people that are still Catholic, and I've said
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: many many times I wish more people were Christian or
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: at least acted like they were Christians, because the world
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: would be a heck of a lot better place. So
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I realize I have a a controversial and probably unique
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: view of religion in general and Catholicism in particular, but
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I figured I would share that because of obviously this
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: being a massive news story involved in Catholicism. Now, the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: other massive news story here domestically over the last week
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: has been another shift when it comes to Donald Trump
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and the issue of tariffs, specifically those against China, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: this is something that we have talked about many, many
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: times on this podcast. I have been almost despondent about
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: where things stood with regard to China and how the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: only way out of this really was for Trump to
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: cry uncle and make a deal that he could declare
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: victory on and that hopefully China would let us off
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the hook. That's the short version of where I thought
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: we were on this.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I've always said that it is in Donald Trump's DNA
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for him to cave. He's a paper tiger on almost everything,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and I was actually hoping that he would cave when
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it comes to the tariffs in general, and with regard
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to China in particular, because the Chinese terrort situation is
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: by far the most impactful. It's not the only impactful
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: of the tariffs, but it's by far the most impactful.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And it was announced that there was going to be
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: a ninety day pause and that in the ninety day
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: period the tariffs in both directions would be dramatically lowered,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and that there was optimism for a deal to be
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: made in this ninety day pause period. Now, I have
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: no idea, you know, whether or not that's actually going
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to happen, that it does. I've always said that Trump's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: superpower here is that he can sell anything to his
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: base and to the right wing media, and they will pretend,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you know, it can be complete bullshit, and to them
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: it will be Filet mignon. And so therefore he doesn't
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: have to really worry about losing face, at least not
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: with his base. I mean, he can sign almost any
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: deal he wants, and his media and his base, his
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: MAGA supporters will believe that it's a great deal and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that we're in a much better position than we were
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: when this whole thing began. And so that has always
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: been by fervent and really only hope for getting out
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: of this potentially very bad situation. Now, while I'm in
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: favor of the fact that it looks like we're in
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the process of caving, I am a bit confused by
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. The first thing I'm confus is
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: by and I've mentioned this previously, and this is one
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of those things where I just don't know how in
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the world MAGA supporters can can you know, square this circle?
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: But the whole point of these tariffs, especially against China,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: was to basically revive American manufacturing. We were told that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: terriffs were going to be great for servicing the debt.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: We were told that all sorts of great things were
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: going to happen because of tariffs. Well, if that's the case,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: then why aren't we doing it anymore? And if we
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: really do do a deal to eliminate them completely, then
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: then what happened? I thought this was going to be,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you know, bring back American made products. I thought this
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: was going to be, you know, make America great again.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: To me, you just can't have it both ways. It's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: either just a bargaining maneuver or it's a great policy. Well,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it's obviously not a great policy because you've stopped it
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: without even a deal. You just paused it hoping for
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: a final deal. And then as far as the getting
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a final deal is concerned, I am really baffled by this.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: I've never under and this is not isolated this situation,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: but I think it's more clear cut in this circumstance.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to negotiation leverage, I've never quite
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: understood the value of a pause like this, And in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: this particular set of circumstances, how does our bargaining position,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: which I've always felt was very much overrated, especially by Trump,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and it was in a much shakier position than Trump
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: wants to admit to, at least publicly. I've never understood
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: how our bargaining position is enhanced by the pause. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: here's what I mean by that, because at least on
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: two different levels, we got a bigger problem than we
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: had before the pause. When it comes to negotiating leverage.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Number one is inherently by pausing, you have made it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: clear one you don't really believe in the policy, and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: two you're willing to get out of this, very seemingly
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: eager to get out of this. So the bluff has
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: been called. So the bluff has been called. You've shown
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the world in China you don't really believe in the policy.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: That was all a charade, that was a fraud. But
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: then there's another element that I don't think enhances leverage
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: and probably diminishes it, and that is so this pause
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: is announced, and the stock market goes bananas, just like
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: everybody thought it would, in the positive direction. Now Jones
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: go's up well over a thousand points the first day
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: after this pause was announced on Monday. Okay, so we're
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: now almost, not quite, we're almost back with regard to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the stock market to where we were before Liberation Day
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and Trump announced that this was the greatest thing that's
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: ever happened to America when the stock market took multiple craps.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: But here's the problem with that. The market and Americans,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: many Americans are now literally invested in a final deal
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: being made. Right, So the market is higher than it
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: was when we were negotiating, which means that let's say
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: at the end of the ninety days there's no deal
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: or China really plays hardball, Now there's more for the
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: market to lose. Do you see where I'm going with us?
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: So that actually not dramatically, but I think significantly lessens
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: your leverage. Let's pretend that the Dow was at thirty
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: seven thousand instead of forty two thousand. Right, Let's pretend
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: that the market had completely crapped out, and you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: is that almost rock bottom based upon what most experts
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: would think would be the likely scenario. And if you're
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: if you're at rock bottom in your market, then you
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: actually gain leverage because you don't have much to lose.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It's already built in, it's baked into the cake. Well,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: now this cake is basically presuming that there's going to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: be a deal within this ninety day period. And what
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: if there's not. What if the Chinese decide to play hardball,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Now we have even more to lose. So we've exposed
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: our position as not being based in any sort of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: fervent belief in the power, and we now are literally invested.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Our markets are in there being a deal. The market
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: is making it very obvious they want out of this,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and that they're anticipating they're going to get out of this.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying there's not going to be a deal.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I just don't know how the pause helps anything. And
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I'm my great hope here is that China has decided
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to let us off the hook and not play hardball,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and that hopefully, you know, maybe in four or five months,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: this will be seem like ancient history and Trump can
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: claim his great victory and his supporters can cheer, when
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: in reality, nothing good will have come of it, really,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and you know, who knows, the market at best will
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: probably be at or near where it was before all
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: this happened, and we will have lost several months and
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: making America great again. Of course, you know, Trump fans
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: will say no, no, the deals are going to make
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: because all part of the process, well, you know, the
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: devil is in the details. And I have no faith
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in that reality being nearly as great as Trump claims,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: at least unless there's some sort of proof of that. Now,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: on the economic front, Trump made another dramatic announcement which
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I had issues with, and this deals with prescription drug prices. Now,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: this is something I'm going to save in detail for
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: another episode of the podcast, because you really get drowning
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: in the details here, and I don't have time to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: do that right now. But I have a couple of
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: problems with this, just in general. Number one, the idea
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: that one man with no law is going to seemingly
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: arbitrarily decide that, through the manipulation of government subsidies, certain
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: drugs are going to be thirty to eighty percent less
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: expensive than they previously were. That's troubling. I do not
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: like the king aspect of this at all. I talk
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: about this constantly with regard to my disdain for executive
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: orders and how Trump is just basically building sand castles
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that can get washed away when the tide comes in.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why we're not passing laws. I understand
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: why we're not because Trump can't get everything he wants
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: with only fifty three US senators. I understand that a
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: very small majority in the House. But you know, if
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: you're a truly great president, if you know how to govern,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: if you know how to persuade people, you get this done.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan did that. Donald Trump doesn't even try to
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: do that, and I think that's probably the biggest mistake
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: in Trump two point zero, at least so far. But
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: my biggest concern about the prescription drug price thing, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I realize this is a lot like the MPR and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: PBS argument. No conservative is, you know, all interested in
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: somebody coming to defense of the pharmaceutical companies. I have
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: as many problems with the pharmaceutical companies as most people do.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: All right, I'm no way shape or formed defending the
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: drug companies. The prices are by and large ridiculous. They
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: are obviously, you know, cash cows. They make tons of money.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: We see that because of all the commercial time that
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they buy on usually mainstream legacy media outlets. I get it.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I understand why most conservatives are cheering wildly over this.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: My greatest concern, other than the King aspect of this,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: is what's going to happen in the long run with
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: regard to research and development. Yes, it sucks that we
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: pay way more, especially more than other countries do forty
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and slip with companies, but we pay way more in
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: most situations than other countries do. Unfortunately, I view this
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: as part of the price we pay for doing a
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: lot of great things for the world and for ourselves,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: because if we don't do it, who will. And if
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the incentive structure, which I always talk about the incentive structure,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: and this is a big yet because we don't know
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the details on this yet, but if the incentive structure
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: for these pharmaceutical companies is dramatically altered to where there's
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: no longer this massive pot of gold at the end
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: of the rainbow, if they come up with a great
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: new drug, then what's going to happen to research and development?
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: In the short run? There won't be any cost, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: as far as the type of drugs that we have
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: access to. Hopefully the actual physical costs will go down.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And this is classic Trump, by the way, in the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: you know, it'll be years before we see the damage
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: done by this, and he'll be gone, so he doesn't
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: give a shit. But years from now, are we not
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: going to be in a situation where that great new
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: drug that used to come from America because we had
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: so much money for research and development because the financial
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: structure allowed for it and called for it and incentivized
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: these companies to do this. I think that's a very
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: important and legitimate question. I don't have an answer to that.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: But that concerns me, and it concerns me that it
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to bother Trump at all, it doesn't bother
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: as fans at all. Look, you know, you get what
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you pay for, and yes, we pay a ridiculous amount
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: of money in many cases for pharmaceutical drugs, but we
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: also have an incredible system here. Now. So many people
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: think that pharmaceutical drugs are inherently bad. I don't. I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: don't think it's fair to do that. I think in
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: some ways pharmaceutical drugs have been a tremendous boost to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: the human race. Obviously there's always exceptions to that. But
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: I am very concerned that if you're gonna do this,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna basically do price fixing, which Republicans used
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: to be against, and one man's gonna decide this, and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you're gonna fundamentally alter the incentive structures so that research
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: and development suddenly gets dramatically curtailed, there's gonna be a
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: downside to that. There's gonna be a downside to that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: It may not be tomorrow or the next week, or
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: even the next year, but eventually that's gonna be a problem.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: And you know the idea that people Republicans say, well,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: why can't we be more like Europe? Well, okay, if
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: you want to be more like Europe, you're not gonna
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: have innovation like we have in America, just so you know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: just just be prepared for that, which I don't think
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: people are fully th thinking through. Now when it comes
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to this issue of Trump unilaterally, on his own, somehow
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: finding a way legally or not legally, to lower the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: price of prescription drugs, I have to play this clip
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of because this is so classically Trump. This is so
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: classically Trump that I wasn't one hundred percent sure this
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't artificial intelligence the first time I heard it, because
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: this is like right out of the Trump playbook in
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: every possible way. He's talking about a friend of his
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: who he will not name. But the friend is very
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: very famous, and very very rich, and apparently very very fat,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: and apparently is not happy with the price of the
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: ozempic that he's having to buy, or whatever weight loss
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: drug that he's on. But here was Donald Trump. This
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: is unbelievable. And you know, if we weren't so desensitized,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I think you probably would have gotten a lot more publicity.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: But this is Donald Trump talking about an alleged unnamed,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: super rich, very famous, very fat friend complaining to him
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: about the price of drugs.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'll tell you a story. Friend of mine
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: who's a business man, very very very top guy. Most
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: of you would have heard of him, a highly neurotic,
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: He takes the fat, the fat shot drug.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: And he called me up and he said, President.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: He used to call me Donald.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Now he calls me president. So that's nice.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: Respect.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: But it's a rough guy, smart guy, very successful, very rich.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't even know how we would know this, but
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: because he's got comments the president.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Could I ask you a question.
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: What I'm in London and I just paid for this
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: damn fat drug I take.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: I said, it's not working, he said, He said, I.
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: Just paid eighty eight dollars and in New York thirteen
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: hundred dollars.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: What the hell is going on? Folks? You just can't
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: make that kind of stuff up. Now, you know, a
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: lot of people love it. My wife loves it. She
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: thought it was entertaining as hell, very very funny. Of course,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering the whole time, does Trump realize that he
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: himself is fat. Some people wondered whether he was actually
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: talking about himself. It's quite possible that he was talking
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: about himself, especially what he said that the drug wasn't working.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: But I have no idea who he's talking about. I
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: don't even know for sure if he's talking about a
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: really human being. But here we have a guy who
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: is clearly very overweight, lacking any self awareness whatsoever. To
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: tell this story, to try to make the case that,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you know, even super rich people are tired of paying
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: as much as we have to in this country for
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: certain drugs. But yeah, that's where we are with Trump's America.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Now I have to at least reference this controversy involving
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the four high hundred million dollar plane that the Trump
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Foundation has been gifted on behalf of the country of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: katar And I think that the left wing media is
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: overblowing this to a certain degree. They're making this sound
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: as if it's a bribe. I am troubled by this.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I'm actually more concerned by the way that Trump is
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: portraying this. I would put this story in the category
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: of both sides are right and both sides are wrong.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: The truth is actually much more in the middle here
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: than what Trump is telling you, and what the left
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: wing media is telling you is they go bananas over
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: this story, which I can understand. In their view, the
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: left wing media's view, this is a bribe. This is
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: a violation of the Emolument's clause of the Constitution. Trump
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: is effectively getting a four hundred million dollar plane to
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: replace Air Force one. It was approved by Pam Bondi,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: who is his own attorney general, who, by the way,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: has been a paid employee of Qatar in the past,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: so not exactly an objective person to be able to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: determine whether or not this particular situation is kosher or not.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: And you know, they believe that this is obviously an enormous,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: unprecedented gift and that Katar must be seeking or expecting
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: something in return. I get all that, I get all that. However,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I can also understand that in from Trump's perspective, he
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: thinks that we're getting a freebie. And you know, Air
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Force one needs to be refurbished, and you know, why
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you accept this gift? Now, I think it's naive
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: on Trump's part to not think that there's some strings
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: attached to this particular gift, and I'm particularly concerned about
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you know, the nature of Middle Eastern countries in general,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: and guitar is not the worst, but you know, these
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: are people that want something in return for what they're
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: giving you. But the biggest problem I have with the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Trump response to this, and boy is he you know,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: his fans are super excited and cheering him on for
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: how strongly he has condemned the legacy media for their
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: criticisms of this deal with quitar I'm going to play
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: for you in a second. Here a clip of Trump
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: going after an ABC News reporter who dared to question
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: him about this and whether or not it was bribery,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: whether or not it's a conflict of interest what they're
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: you know, whether or not this is something where a
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: foreign country is expecting something in return. And here's the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: fundamental problem with Trump's portrayal of this. Trump is portraying
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: this situation as if we don't already have an air
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Force one. Yes, we have a situation where a one
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: it needs to be you know, refurbished. You know, the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: new ones aren't coming in yet. Boeing for some reason
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: hasn't produced them. And so I get that that's a inconvenience,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: especially for someone like Donald Trump. The Air Force one
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: is not up to snuff. But he's pretending is if
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: we don't have any air Force one, that air Force
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: one does not exist. If somehow we didn't have an
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: air Force one at all and Qatar was offering this,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: then I would say, oh, okay, as long as it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: very clear that there's no strings attached and it's all transparent,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I'm somewhat okay with that, not one hundred percent. I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: still't think that there's an appearance of impropriety, which used
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: to matter, but it doesn't matter in Trump's world. But
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: you know, fundamentally I wouldn't have a huge problem with that.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: But Trump is playing games here because we do have
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: air Force one. And it should be pointed out that
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: this plane, even though it's four hundred million dollars or
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: whatever it is from are, is gonna cost a significant
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: amount of money to be able to make it compatible
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: to fly around a United States president. So it's not
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: as if this is a freebie. This is not freebee.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: This is not a free situation. This is gonna cost
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have many millions, but it's gonna cost millions
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: of dollars to make it compatible with flying around a
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: US president, a job that Air Force one already does.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: It may not do it to Trump's liking or to
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: his standards, but it does do the job. So that's
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: an important part of this equation that Trump, I think
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: somewhat masterfully has gotten his base to pretend that this
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: is a situation like, well, we don't have Air Force one,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: and that this is free, there's no costs in bob
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: with us. That's not accurate. But the strangest part and
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the most Trumpian part of this exchange, and probably why
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: I feel obligated to play it, is it somehow Donald
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Trump evokes golfing legend Sam Snead to try and make
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: his argument by making it very strange and I think
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: perverted and inaccurate and not helpful, analogy between guitar giving
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: us quote unquote this plane and a golfer giving another
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: golfer a what's called a gimmy putt a gimmey pot,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: like you know, usually when it's within two or three feet,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to bother putting it. Pick it up.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: That's good. It's called a gimmey I have no idea,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: whether that's saying I don't have any recollection whatsoever, if
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Sam Snead has been dead for several decades now ever,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: having made a big deal about this, but I'm willing to,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you know, suspend my disbelief in my skepticism of Donald
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: try Rum's view of golf history. That's not the important
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: part here. The important part is that the gimme analogy
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: is inherently flawed. I'll explain that after you listen to
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: this typically bonkers clip from Donald Trump quoting Sam Snead
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: to try to justify the acceptance of a four hundred
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: million dollar playing from guitars.
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: Why you're saying, people who view got luxury jet as
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: of course it'll get to you.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Why not leave this?
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: You're ABC fake news? Rightly, only ABC? Well a few
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: of you would, let me tell you, you should be
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: embarrassed to ask him that question. They're giving us a
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: free gent. I could say, no, no, no, don't give us.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: I want to pay you a billion or four hundred
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: million or whatever it is. Or I could say thank
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: you very much. You know there was an old golfer
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: named Sam Snead. Did you ever hear me in one
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: ADQ tournament who was a great golfer, and he had
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: a motto. When they give you a putt, say thank
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: you very much. You pick up your ball and you
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: walk to the next hole. A lot of people are stupid.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: They say no, no, I had just started putting it,
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: and then they put it and they miss it and
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: their partner gets angry at them. You know what, remember
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: that Sam Snead. When they give you a putt, you
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: pick it up, and you walk to the next hole,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: and you say thank you very much.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: This man sorry, if you may look at this and say,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: have you ever been given a gift worth millions of
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: dollars and an oxyason?
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: Not a gift to me, It's a gift to the
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Department of Defense. And you should know better because you've
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: been embarrassed enough, and so has your network. Your network
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: is a disaster. ABC is a disaster.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Here is the now of all the problems I see
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: in that statement. Again, he's pretending that we don't have
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Air Force one. He's pretending that this is all free
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and clear and that you can just you know, they're interchangeable.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: They're not interchangeable when it comes to flying around the
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: President of the United States. But this gimme Sam Snead
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: analogy is frankly, hilariously bad because, first of all, a
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: gimmey is not part of the rules of stroke play.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: In professional golf, you're not allowed to give a gimmy,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: So he's citing something that's against the rules. Right if
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you're playing in the big leagues, which Trump clearly is,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: a gimme is against the rules unless you're playing match play,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: which they never play really, so in every major tournament,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: a gimmey is literally illegal. So Trump is analogizing the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: situation tim doing something that's not legal. The other part
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: of this analogy that breaks down is that inherent within
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: a gimme is a quit pro quo. It's an inherently
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: quit pro quo situation because if you give somebody a
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: two or three foot pot, there's going to be an
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: ex that the next time you have a two or
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: three foot pot that they're gonna do the same thing
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: for you. So if you give a gimme, they're gonna
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: be expected to give you a gimme the next time
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: that situation occurs. That is inherent within the entire gimme system,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and frankly, that's the problem with this because Katar is
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: going to expect something in return. They're not doing this
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: completely out of the generosity of spirit. And you know,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: whether they're thankful for past kind acts by the United
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: States protecting them, I'm sure that's part of it. But
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: these people are not giving away a four hundred million
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: dollar plane and not expecting something from Donald Trump in return.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: So that's a problem, at least it used to be.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've talked all the time about what is
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: it that Saudi Arabia is expecting from Donald Trump when
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: they may pay him probably millions and millions of dollars
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: with no transparency for the use of his golf courses
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: on the Live Golf Tour which they own. It's unbelievable
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: to me that this has never become a major political issue.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: But I mean, we have the President of the United
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: States has been paid I am positive, millions and millions
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of dollars, maybe tens of millions of dollars to rent
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: out his golf course. Is it way above market prices
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: by the royal family of Saudi Arabia on behalf of
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Live Golf, and no one seems to care. And so
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: when no one cares about that Trump doesn't see any
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: problem with this situation. And there's another element of this
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: that concerns me, and this goes to how you view
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. If you view Donald Trump as a truth
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: teller and a good man, then you're not concerned with
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: the fact that this plane, once he leaves office, is
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: going to go to his presidential library and it's going
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: to be like the version of Air Force One that's
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: at the Reagan Library, not very far at all from
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: where I do this podcast, and the Reagan Library uses
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the old Air Force One spectacularly well. And so that's
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: the vision for this that Trump clearly is articulating, and
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: that would not be a big problem. However, it's Donald Trump,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: and does anybody really think that it would be a
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: shocking development if after Trump left office he started flying
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: around in that plane on his own, well before it
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: ever went into moth balls and became part of his
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: museum or his library. That would not be a stretch
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: for me at all, even though he says that's not
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: the plan, and that would be really difficult for me
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: to believe that Donald Trump would have within his control
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: a four hundred million dollar plane and that he wouldn't
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: take advantage of that after he's out of office and
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: there's nothing that anyone can do to him. Maybe I'm wrong,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm not even really predicting that. I guess I'm
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: kind of predicting that. Let me just say I would
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: not be surprised. I don't think anybody should be surprised
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: because of the nature of who he is, and so
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: to me, this does have elements of a bribe to it.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: It may not be technically illegal, but this is certainly
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: against the spirit of the emolument's clause. And I do think,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: much like the Saudi Arabians and Live Golf, that there's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: concerns and questions that ought to be asked here. But
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you Magaworld thinks that he is that Trump
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: has completely dominated this issue, that he is getting a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: freebie for America, and he's kicking the ass of the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: left wing media who have their panties all in a
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: bunch because of this issue. I get it, the left
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: wing media has no credibility on this or any other issue,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: and they are overplaying their hand on this. But this
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: is not a clear cut situation. This is not a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: situation where people that actually care about ethics and principles
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and precedents, shouldn't have concerns about what's going on here.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And of course all this is coming about at the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: same time where Trump is on this big Middle East trip.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: He announced this seemingly great, but you never know what
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the details are. Dia with Saudi Arabia, where the Saudis
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: have pledged to invest six hundred billion dollars in the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: American economy. Again, I don't know what that means. Seemingly
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the reaction almost every Trump good news story is I
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: don't know what that means. It sounds great. In fact,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: you know, apparently the Saudis are claiming they're hoping to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: get it to a trillion dollars, So that sounds great.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: By the way, if I'm the PGA Tour, I'm not
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: particularly comfortable with this situation. I told you the PGA
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Tour was really acting very naively when they thought that
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Trump was on their side, and the negotiations between the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Saudis and themselves when it comes to trying to figure
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: out a way to fix the broken world of professional golf.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: But Trump over there having his ass kissed in an
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: unprecedented way, basically as if he is a member of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: a royal family himself acting and being treated like a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: king by the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and then
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the pledging of six hundred billion dollars of investment into
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: the American economy. If I'm the PGA tour, I hope
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: they now realize Trump ain't on their side. The people
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: with all of the chips and all of the favors
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the cash in are the Saudis. Even if Tiger Woods
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: is dating your favorite son's ex wife, I'm not sure
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: that that is going to rate with what the Saudis
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: have been able to do for Trump over the last
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: several days. Now, I have to at least mention, even
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: though this is not directly related to the Trump, it's,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: you know, somewhat related to Trump. There's been a development
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: in one of my Pet Peeves stories. You're probably well
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: aware that I am one of the few conservatives on
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: social media who is adamant that Jeffrey Epstein did in
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: fact kill himself in a federal prison and he was
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: not murdered. And I have been incredibly frustrated by how
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: it is that the vast, vast majority of Republicans on
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: social media not only disagree with that but think that
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: I'm insane to think that I'm completely naive, think I'm
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: an idiot. There's no possible way that Epstein killed himself.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: And I always say, well, how do you explain Donald
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Trump telling Tucker Carlson that he thinks that Epstein did,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: in fact kill himself in a situation where he had
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: all the incentives in the world to not say that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: because he's talking to Tucker Carlson. So I never get
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: anywhere with that. There's never any rationality or consistency when
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: it comes to Trumpsters and their views of Epstein, especially
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: considering the fact that Epstein and Trump were very close
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: for many years. So the whole Trump Epstein connection thing
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: is just so strange to me. And this obsession, I mean,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: it is an obsession that so many people have with
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: the idea that Epstein was and the Epstein was murdered thing.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: It really is a domino effect because if you believe
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Epstein was murdered, the reasoning he was murder is because
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: he was you know, you have to protect all these
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: powerful people that were also engaging in child sex abuse
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: on Epstein Island. And so that's why we need to
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: get the Epstein files. But Wait a minute, there aren't
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: seemingly any Epstein files, and if they are are Epstein files,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: they don't seem to be providing any bombshell information that
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: we were promised because we knew, We knew, mag world
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: knew that there had to be lots of famous, rich, powerful,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: hopefully liberals who were being protected, and that's why Epstein
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: was murdered in a federal prison that was being run
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr. The whole theory,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: it's just fucking crazy, especially when you don't even have
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: a suspect. And as I've said many many times, this
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: would be the easiest crime to solve in the world
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: because at least you would know who was in the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: building at the time because it's a fucking high security
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: federal prison. Well, anyway, the reason I'm mentioning all this
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: is not only do we have Donald Trump on the
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: record saying that he believes Epstein did in fact kill himself,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: we now have the head of the FBI super MAGA
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: man himself, Cash Patel, of course appointed by Donald Trump.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: Cash Mattel, with impeccable MAGA credentials, was testifying in the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: US Senate or to the US Senate John Kennedy, Senator
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: for Louisiana, one of them most popular senators in MAGA world.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: He and Patel had this conversation under oath about the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: issue of whether Epstein was murdered or whether he killed himself.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: And you would think that this would put an end
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: to this whole thing, but of course it will not.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: But I still have to play it because I just
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: so much joy hearing this exchange between Senator Kennedy and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: FBI Director of Cash Hotel.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: Did Jeffrey Epstein hang him shell or did somebody kill him?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: Senator?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 8: I believe he hung himself in a cell in the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 8: Metropolitan Tention Center.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Are you going to release all the information about that?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Senator?
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 8: We are working through that right now with the Department
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 8: of Justice.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: When you think you'll have it done, Cash.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 8: Uh, I think in the in the near future, sir,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 8: Like before I die, Center, we are we are, We've
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 8: we've been working on that, and we're doing it in
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 8: a way that protects victims and also doesn't put out
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 8: into the ether, uh, information that is irrelevant for production
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 8: of the public such as seasam.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Now, in a rational world, that would be the end
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: of this controversy. Millions of MAGA supporters would go, oh
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: oh wow, Okay, boy, that's embarrassing. I guess we were wrong.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: And otherwise, why would cash Ptel be saying under oath
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: that he believed Epstein killed himself? And boy, that dovetails
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: with what Trump told Tucker Carlson. Maybe we've got this
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: whole thing wrong. I'm laughing because we clearly don't live
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: in that rational world anymore. We don't even live anything
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: close to that. Nothing of the sort occurred. I did
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: not see one person, not one person on social media,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: say you know what, I think we may have gotten
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: as wrong. Instead, it was just ignored crickets because it
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't fit with what we already want to believe in
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the first place, or what they already want to believe
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: in the first place. It's pathetic, but it's the reason
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: I keep talking about this is it's so indicative of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: how totally broken everything is on both the left and
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the right. I mean, it makes no sense in any direction,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: whether from the truth perspective or even from the political
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: advantage standboyd, I've never understood why obsesseding about Epstein when
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Trump was president at the time would have to be
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: part of the cover up, or be a complete imbecile
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: not to mention their personal relationship. How is this helpful
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: to your side? I don't get it. And to be clear,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: it didn't happen. Just like I told you many many times,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: it didn't happen. Epstein was not murdered. Of course you
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: could claim. Boy, this conspiracy goes even deeper than I thought. Wow,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, how'd they get to Trump? How'd they
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: get to bar How'd they get to cash? But tell
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: even John Kennedy's in on this. Now, Wow, this thing
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: goes so deep. I guess that's the that's the joy
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: of being a conspiracy there is, because you never have
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to give up. The facts and logic mean nothing in
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: this day and age. Now another subject where factsio logic
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: and truth mean very very little was talked about quite
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: a bit this week when Joe Biden, along with his
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: wife Jill Biden, made a rather ill conceived appearance on
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: ABC's The View. Now, I'm not going to play a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: bunch of clips. There's about four or five of them
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that win at least semi viral. This was a disastrous
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: appearance by Joe Biden. It was clearly an attempt to
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: try to combat this growing narrative in even the left
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: wing media that Joe Biden should never have run for
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: president to begin with in twenty twenty four, that he
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: never would have been fit to serve a second term,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: and that he is to blame for Donald Trump winning
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: all because of his decline in his cognitive abilities and
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: his mental acuity, which was very obvious to anyone that
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: was paying any attention starting in at least twenty twenty two.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: It's very clear that in somewhere in the realm of
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, he started to go downhill, very very fast.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, CNN's Jake Tapper unbelievably has a book
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: coming out which is just totally bizarre, considering in fact
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: he was part of the cover up and now he's
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: condemning the cover up without any taking any accountability for
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the cover up. His book comes out in a couple
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: of days. He and his co author have an article
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: in The New Yorker entitled how Joe Biden handed the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Presidency to Donald Trump. I mean, you almost had to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: give Tapper some credit for the audacity, the Trump like
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: audacity to just stare in the face of reality and go,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: you know what reality reality, I don't need any reality.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna make up my own reality. I'm going
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: to pretend that I wasn't and a news anchor at
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: CNN when this happened and literally mock Repo blickings for claiming,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: which Tapper did on multiple occasions, for claiming that Joe
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Biden was experiencing a mental decline. And so it was
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: in this atmosphere that the Biden people thought it was
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: a good idea, one to put Joe out there, and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: two to have him out there with his wife, Jill.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Nothing says you are right on the top of your
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: game more than having to have your wife step in
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: whenever you're not able to answer a question in full,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: which happened on multiple occasions. And I mean, this was
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: a really bad appearance from all sorts of different levels. Substantively,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: the way he was speaking, he seemed as out of
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: it as he's ever seemed, despite the fact that he's
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: obviously had plenty of time to rest and recover. He's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: beyond the rest and recover phase now. I mean, he's
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: in the downhill slide. And even when you know he's
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: got all the advantages, including a very friendly crowd of
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: female supporters in the crowd, as well as basically supporters
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: on the panel of the view asking him fairly soft questions.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: He blew it. I mean, he claimed that Harris lost
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: because of sexism and racism, which is ridiculous. He still
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: has no explanation for why he got out of the race,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: even though he is still laughably claiming that he was
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: physically fine. I mean, just pick a goddamn lane, all right,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: So you can't say that you are physically fine and
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: could have served a second term and would have won
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: a second term without at least explaining why the hell
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: you got out of the race. But there's no way
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: to make that work. You can't make two plus three
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: equal four. I mean, it's just not mathematically possible. So
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: he doesn't even try, and the whole thing was even
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: liberals were going, this is really bad. There's only one
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: clip I want to play because to me, this actually
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: encapsulates the whole situation. It goes to the question. This
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: was a question asked by the so called Republican, although
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: she's a never Trump Republican on the view panel. But
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: she's smart and she's hot, so I put up with her.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: She's by far the least defense of any of the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: other view panelists. But she asked Joe Biden whether or
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: not he thought he would win. And I want you
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: to listen carefully because and I listened to this like
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: three or four times just to make sure I heard
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: it correctly. But he will claim he will claim that he,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: meaning Trump, seemingly got seven million fewer votes in twenty
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: twenty four than he did in twenty twenty and that
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: therefore that was an explanation or a reason or proof
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: that he would have won, that Biden would have won
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: had he been the candidate instead of Harris. Of course,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: they don't address the issue of aren't you saying that
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Harris was a terrible candidate? Later in the interview, will
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: laughably try to claim that this was about sexism and racism,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: and therefore I guess he wouldn't have been subject to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: sexism and racism. No, he's really basically saying Harris, by
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: the way this is correct, was a lousy, lousy candidate.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: But here was Biden fumbling badly and making what I
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: believe to be a catastrophic and I think telling factual
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: error in trying to answer the question here's what that
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: sounded like on ABC's The View.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 7: Well, mister President, you had previously said that you thought
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 7: that you would have won. Since then, Donald Trump won
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 7: all the battleground states and made in roads with almost
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 7: every major demographic, from working class voters to Hispanic men
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 7: to black men. Knowing what you know, now, do you
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 7: think you would have beat him?
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 9: Tell you got seven million fewer votes? Yes, Okay, a
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 9: lot of people didn't show up. Number one, number one,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 9: number two, the they're very close in those those toss
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 9: up states. It was. It wasn't a slam dunk. And
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 9: so look, I you know, every time I've been on
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 9: the show, which you've been forced, I've been fortunately beyond
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 9: more than once. Thanks for having me. Is that we talk.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 9: You guys don't focus on as much. And I think
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 9: it's good polling numbers, but uh think for this way,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 9: he's had the worst hundred days any prisidents ever had.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: I would not say, uh, honesty has been a strong point.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Now. The reason I prefaced that clip the way that
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: I did and asked you to listen is because Biden
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: made a factual inaccuracy. There stated the factual inaccuracy which,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, some of the women on the viewer
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: agreeing with Donald Trump did not get seven million fewer
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: votes in twenty twenty four. He got three million more
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: votes in twenty twenty four than he did in twenty twenty.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: And it was Harris who got seven million fewer votes
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, then Biden got in twenty twenty. Now,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: you could argue that this was a slip of the tongue,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: but I've listened to it many times and it doesn't
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: appear to be because he's trying to use this as
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: the basis of his argument that the win was there
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: for the taking and that if you know, he had
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: been the candidate and hadn't been the victim of sexism
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: and racism, he would have won. Well, he doesn't even
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: have the facts right. And that's a pretty important fact. Right.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: If you you're before president the United States and you're
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: considering whether or not you could have won again in
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, don't you think the number of votes
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: that Trump got in each of those campaigns would be
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: a fact that if your brain wasn't mush, you would
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: be able to hold on to. And again, I'm trying
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: to giving him. I've tried to give him and a
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: done so in the past where I've said that this
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: is a slip of the tongue or misunderstanding, this is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: not He really seems to believe this. He got it wrong.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: It was Harris that got seven million fewer votes, not
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: a He, So not a not a Biden or a
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: Trump Harris. Isn't he clearly so, he's totally wrong about this,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and he seems to truly believe this, and that to
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: me is maybe the strongest and most subtle indication his
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: brain is mush. And it's absolutely astonishing that the news media,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: and it's not just Jake Tapper. The New York Times
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: has a story out this week that tries to do similarly,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: where now all of a sudden, all these liberal media
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: outlets are pretending that they were not part of the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: cover up, that somehow this was shocking information. When the
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: debate happened between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and Joe
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: Biden was not up to doing this job of president
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: for another four and a half years. Everybody knew this.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: The news media just didn't want to admit it until
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: it was in their self interest to admit it, and
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: our very special guest on this episode of the podcast
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: has a special perspective on this particular topic. It is
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: indeed appropriate that we discussed the cognitive decline of our
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: former president Joe Biden and his very telling appearance on
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: the view because our special guest on this episode was
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: one of the very few members of the elite media
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: who was outspoken about the issue way before it became
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: too late or popular. He also happens to be one
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: of the most talented sportscasters in history and clearly the
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: most versatile. He is Bob Costas Bob Welcome to the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: Hey, John, it's a gloomy a gloomy title, but I
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: can't say as I disagree. It may overstate it slightly.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: But the patient, the patient is in critical condition, if
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: not yet dead.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to talk about that vis A v.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden in just a second. But our interview was
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: delayed a couple of times, but once because of a
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: major breaking story that you were needed as an expert
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: on by the major media, and that was the decision
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: by the Commissioner of Baseball to allow, among others, Pete
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Rose to be theoretically eligible for the Hall of Fame,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: and I have a couple of questions that are slightly
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: different than maybe you've been asked about this.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: My first is, do you believe, because you and I
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: have talked about this off air, do you believe that
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: baseball embracing and sports in general embracing gambling made the
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: position of keeping pet Rose out essentially untenable in the
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: long run? Was that a major factor here?
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: I don't think I can't read Rob Manfred's mind, but
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: based on what he's told me and what I've heard
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: him say in the past, the advent of leagues not
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: only tolerating gambling, but embracing and promoting it never changed
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: Baseball's position on Pete Rose. Now, it'd be interesting to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: know exactly what Manford and Trump talked about recently when
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: the Commissioner went to the Oval office. One can speculate
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: baseball has an antitrust exemption. It was extremely helpful to
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: the owners until Marvin Miller, Flood and others broke through
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: and the reserve clause right away, and players gained a
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: large measure of freedom, which changed the entire landscape of
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: baseball's economics. But they still have some advantages from having
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: this anti trust exemption, and the Trump administration and Trump
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 5: himself has shown a willingness to be very adventurous about
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 5: the use of presidential power. Is it possible that something
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: like that was discussed, that something that would be difficult
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: for baseball to deal with might come from the Trump
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: administration if they didn't follow up on Trump's stated desire
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: to see peep Brows in the Hall of Fame. A
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 5: large number of baseball players are from outside the United States.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 5: Could any of them be affected by Trump immigration policies?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: And would Trump personally directed in such a way as
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 5: to effectuate some other outcome that he wants regarding Pete
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 5: Rose or other baseball policy. This is I have no
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 5: reason to say that's the case, but I think these
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: are reasonable questions to ask. What was it that Trump
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: said to Manfred? What did Manford want clarified from Trump?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: And what did Trump want from Manfred other than you know,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: there's no reason to go to the Oval office. If
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: all Trump wants to say is I'm a baseball fan
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: and I'd like to see Pete Rose in the Hall
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 5: of Fame. Any president could say that maybe it was
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 5: transactional to some extent, But now I've gone down a
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: different alley here. But to your question about baseball embracing
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: gambling and promoting it, I think it's had an effect,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: as it has across all sports in the relationship between
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: fans and the games they watch and root for. It's
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: made it much more transactional. It has a harder edge
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 5: for some because of that. But when it comes to
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 5: Pete Rose or anybody else, Baseball's rule remained the same.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: Rule twenty one remained exactly the same. If you bet
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: on a game in which you're not involved, automatic one
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: year suspension. If you bet on a game in which
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: you are involved, player, manager, coach, umpire, automatic permanent lifetime ban,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 5: and that rule remains unchanged. Pete Rose knew it. Everyone
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: in baseball knew it for years and years. Every time
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: you walk into a clubhouse, they knew what the consequences were.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: He did it. The evidence that he did it is overwhelming.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: That he lied about it for a long time, and
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: there were also, unfortunately some unsavory aspects to Pete's life
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 5: beyond or besides betting on baseball. And now the fact
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: that Rose has passed away, I guess allowed Manfred and
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 5: Baseball on Avenue to say that lifetime boun means your lifetime,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: and to say, as Manford did in his statement yesterday,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 5: that now that Pete Rose is no longer with us,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 5: there's no way that he can in any way negatively
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: impact the integrity of baseball. But then in one fell swoop,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: they also lifted the ban in terms of lifetime ineligibility
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 5: on Joe Jackson and others involved in the Black Sox scandal,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 5: all of whom have been dead forever. Right, Joe Jackson's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 5: been dead since nineteen fifty one, So the logic of
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: including him just because Pete Rose recently passed away eludes me.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: But in fairness to Manfred, I haven't a chance to
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 5: interview him and speak to him about this, and maybe
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 5: he has a logical answer.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned Joe Jackson. One of the weirder aspects
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: about this to me, I'm sure you'll appreciate this is
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: you well know Excoos Joe Jackson was accused credibly of
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: something very different than what Pete Rose admitted eventually admitted to,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: which was effectively taking part in a world series scam
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: to take a dive. That's a very different allegation than
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: what was up against Pete Rose. So isn't that a
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: weird situation?
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, here's for clarity's sake. There's credible evidence that while
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 5: Jackson knew of the conspiracy and accepted some money, that
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 5: he did nothing overt to throw any of the games.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 5: He hit three seventy five in the World Series, hit
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 5: three doubles and a homer, and didn't commit an error
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 5: in the series. But Commissioner Landis who was brought in specifically,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: there was no commissioner until this scandal happened. Then he
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 5: was brought in to supposedly clean up baseball, and he
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 5: had unilateral power. There was no players association to establish
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: players rights or to defend them. All eight of the
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 5: players who were suspended for life or thrown out of baseball,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 5: however you want to term it, were tried in the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: Chicago court and they were all acquitted of.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: The technicalitychnicality because the evidence was suddenly lost.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 5: Well whatever was the case. From a legal standpoint, they
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 5: were acquitted, but from a baseball standpoint, they got, in
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 5: effect the death penalty. And Joe Jackson was unquestionably one
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 5: of the greatest players of his time. Lifetime batting average
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: three point fifty six. So I guess it'll be a
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 5: different consideration if you're on one of the committees that
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 5: will consider Pete Rose and Joe Jackson, and they can't
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 5: be considered until December of twenty twenty seven, and if
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 5: they get in, they'd be inducted posthumously in the summer
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 5: of twenty twenty eight. I don't think they should be
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 5: considered in the same light. They might both get in
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 5: or they might both be rejected, but as you as
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 5: you point out, they are separate cases. There's also this question.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: Joe Jackson was on the writer's ballots in both nineteen
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 5: thirty six when the Hall of Fame was first being established,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 5: and then a decade later, and he got minimal to
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: no support, but he was briefly on the writer's ballots.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: Pete Rose never appeared on the writer's ballots because the
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 5: Hall of Fame put in what effect was an ex
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 5: post facto rule. It was aimed only at Pete Rose,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 5: who was just about to become eligible for the Hall
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: of Fame as a player five years removed from the
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 5: last time he had played, and certainly on his baseball merits,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 5: he would have been a sure thing. But they said
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 5: no one on the permanently ineligible list can appear on
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 5: the Hall of Fame ballot. Well, now that has changed
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 5: because Manford's removed Pete from the list, But the Hall
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 5: of Fame immediately says he has to be considered by
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: a classic era veterans committee. There are cycles, they break
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 5: it up into the here as a baseball that cycle
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: doesn't come up for another two and a half years.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: But you could also say, logically, wait a minute, the
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: clock never started on Pete Rose. He's never been on
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 5: the ballot. Why have sixteen members of a veterans committee?
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: And again I don't want to sound conspiratorial here, but
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: you could stack those committees. You could say, hey, there's
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: only a small number of people, we're going to stack
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 5: it with pro Pete Rose people or anti Pete Rose people.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 5: Why not put it in front of the four hundred
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 5: plus baseball writers and have the more legitimate tests, and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 5: if he gets in, it's a more legitimate affirmation that
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: he belongs in. That's a head scratcher to me.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. I want to circle back to
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: baseball if we have enough time a little bit later on,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: But you've already expressed some intrigue about the name of
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: this podcast, the death of journalism, At the risk of
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: asking you a question, the response to which may take
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: up our alloted time, What.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 5: Is your based on what I just said about? He rose,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 5: it might be.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: Right, what is your analysis of the state of both
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: sports and news journalism and how we got to this
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: sorry state?
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 5: Well, in sports, you have a situation where in many
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 5: cases the entities that broadcast sports are partners with the leagues,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 5: and they're loathed generally to bring bad news to the viewers,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: or they think, well, even if this is a legitimate
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: subject to cover, our audience wants to see the game
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 5: and see feel good stories. But that doesn't explain the disappearance,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 5: at least doesn't fully explain the disappearance or the diminishment
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: of programs like Outside the Lines, HBO's Real Sports. Those
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 5: things are either fading or gone at this point, and
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 5: that doesn't seem to be as much of an appetite
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 5: for that kind of journalism as there once was now
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 5: the leagues, the league certainly can exercise some pressure there.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 5: What was the name of the of the program that
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: was on ESPN. It was a football related program, Playmakers
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 5: was that call right, and the League leaned on ESPN
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 5: not to carry it, and they didn't because the relationship
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 5: with the NFL is too important to all of those networks. Now,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 5: when it comes to news, the Trump administration has overtly Now,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 5: there were other reasons before I get to that. There
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 5: were other reasons why some of what we used to
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 5: think of as news had veered more in the direction
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 5: of soft reporting or entertainment. But there was still some
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 5: hard journalism going on, and there still is, and the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: best newspapers, the best websites, the best magazines, the best
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 5: television and radio programs. That was still legitimate journalism going on,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 5: and there still is, but it's under siege. And it's
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: very clear that the Trump administration and Trump himself have
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: disparaged Anything that is displeasing to Trump is automatically fake news.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 5: That was an ongoing assault on the First Amendment, just
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 5: in terms of the verbiage that Trump put out there
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 5: from day one, fake news, fake news, definition of fake news,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: anything unfavorable to me. And then when they begin to
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 5: bring into the White House Press corps. It's perfectly fine
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 5: to have right wing or conservative publications and outlets, but
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 5: these were Trump's sycophant sites, and now the Voice of
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 5: America is going to be oam One of America News,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 5: which makes Fox News look like it's straight down the middle.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 5: It's so far to the right it falls off the table.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 5: And then you have this kind of pressure. The pressure
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 5: brought to bear on the Washington Post and the LA Times,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 5: not because of their journalists or editors, but because Jeff
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 5: Bezos wants to do business with Donald Trump. And so
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 5: for the first time ever, he tells the Washington Post,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 5: We're not going to endorse a presidential candidate because they
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 5: know they wouldn't have endorsed Trump. And Sherry Redstone, who
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 5: owns CBS, wants to affect a merger with another company,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 5: and heeds the approval of the now Trump run FCC,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 5: and she leans on sixty Minutes and other CBS news
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 5: entities to go easier on Trump or is willing to
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 5: settle a completely bogus lawsuit. You can dislike CBS, you
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 5: can dislike sixty Minutes. It's completely bogus and against any
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 5: definition or interpretation of the First Amendment to say that.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 5: The way a Kamala Harris interview with sixty Minutes was
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 5: edited with some sort of violation worthy of legal action.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 5: But Trump files lawsuits as often as he breathes, and
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 5: he often files them just for effect, for public relations effect.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 5: And Sharry Redstone, rather than standing up for the crown
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 5: jewel of broadcast journalism in its entire history, the connection
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 5: to Edward R. Murrow and the history of CBS is
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 5: sixty minutes. She threw them under the bus. These are
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 5: troubling trends.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: I agree with just about everything you said there my
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: very quick synopsis of this situation. And the big picture
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: is that through fragmentation, especially on the television side, but
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: also the Internet on the print side, the business model
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: broke and the coin of the realm was no longer true.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: It was popularity among your target demographic. What do you
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: make of that amount?
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 5: You have concisely hit the nail on the head while
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 5: I was just swatting at the nail and coming close
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 5: to it. Perhaps, Yeah, that's a big part of it,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 5: a very big part of it. When the business model
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 5: is to reaffirm and amplify the preferences and prejudices of
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 5: your audience rather than telling them hard truths and trying
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 5: to be as down the middle as you can and
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 5: down the middle. Does not mean splitting the difference between
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 5: someone who says two plus two is five and those
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 5: who say two plus two is four. But it does
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: mean acknowledging truths wherever you find them and trying to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 5: give the most truthful picture of a situation that you can.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 5: You know, I think a lot of times people say, well,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 5: in order to be fair, they liken it to referees
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 5: or umpliers call the same number of fouls on each side. Well,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 5: the definition of a good referee is whether he calls
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 5: the same foul on each sides. But in a given game,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 5: one team can commit many more fouls than another, and
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 5: you know, so that's the the definition of objectivity is
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 5: not we criticize the Republicans ten times and the Democrats
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 5: ten times. Sometimes it's going to go one way or
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 5: the other, right, But when when your objective is clickbait,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 5: then that automatically means that there's going to be distortion.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 5: It automatically means that you are you are not you
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 5: in You're you are aiming to incite rather than to inform, right,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 5: And that's that's a bad model. Something else that grows
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 5: out of that is comment sections, which are not different
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 5: by degree, but different in kind than letters to the
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 5: editor because the keyword there is editor. So you know,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 5: Twitter or X whatever you want to call it exists. Okay,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 5: So any boso can say anything, and the smartest guy
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 5: in the room can say anything. It's there. It's their
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: X handle. But what I don't understand is why a
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 5: newspaper which has a digital platform, and we hope that
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 5: they take their standards and practices to the digital realm,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 5: but then at the conclusion of a story or column
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 5: that may have been written by a Pulletzer Prize winner,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 5: they then invite utterly moderated everybody to step in and
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 5: say anything they want. And then somewhere along the line
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 5: it says see additional comments, some of which may be offensive,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 5: but the preceding ones are all he sucks, screw him,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 5: and one hundred verifiable lies. What constitutes offensive in this environment.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 5: And it's bad enough if somebody just says John Ziegler sucks,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 5: I disagree with him and I hate him. That's a
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 5: stupid comment. But if the next comment is John Ziegler
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 5: said such and such or I ran into John Ziegler
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 5: in Laramie, Wyoming ten years ago, and the thing is
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 5: a complete fabrication. It lives there alongside not some bozo's
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: Twitter or x account. It lives there in some way attached,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 5: even if someone doesn't scroll all the way through the comments,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 5: in some way attached to something that should carry greater credibility.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 5: I think that's a real abdication of journalistic responsibility to
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: allow that to happen.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: You should definitely take a look at my Twitter feed sometime, Bob.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: It's way worse than you're even described it. All right, now,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: let's take this theoret out of the theoretical and be
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit more specific. In my intro, I alluded
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: to your stance on Joe Biden during the twenty twenty
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: four campaign, and that you were way out in front,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: especially among elite media members and liberal media members. You
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: acknowledge you are a liberal. I think of you as
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: a thinking man's liberal. I think you've referred to yourself
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: as a Bill Maher liberal to me personally. But you
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: were way out in front on that. And now we're
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: seeing something I think absolutely remarkable happen in the mainstream media.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: We've got the New York Times and Jake Tapper's got
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: a book out, and we've got all sorts of liberal
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: media outlets suddenly, in my view, revising history about what
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: really transpired here and pretending that they didn't ignore at
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: best and enable at worst this narrative that Joe Biden
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: was okay, a narrative that you had the courage to
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: stand up against what has been your reaction to seeing
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: all this transpire when you were way ahead of the curve.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: And now there does seem to be this revisionist history
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: going on.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you might say better late than never, but it
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 5: should have been noted because it was impossible to ignore.
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 5: It should have been noted in real time. My friends
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 5: will tell you that from the time that Biden became
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 5: the nominee in twenty twenty, I saw it as a
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 5: unique set of circumstances. COVID. There were a dozen or
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 5: more initially democratic aspirants all on a stage, debating one
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 5: another and in many cases trying to outwoke one another.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 5: And James Cliburn recognized, wait a minute, this is a
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 5: formula for failure here and re electing Donald Trump and
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 5: Biden might be the best answer to that. And COVID
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 5: circumstances allowed Biden to run a different kind of campaign,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 5: essentially from his house and his energies. Even then flagging
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 5: were not as exposed as they otherwise would be. But
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 5: from the moment he became president, I was saying privately
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 5: to friends, look, he should say at the very latest
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 5: after the midterms, he should make it absolutely clear that
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 5: he's done one term and done. That was what was implied.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 5: Anyway he said I'm going to be a transitional president.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 5: He should have said, my job is to write the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 5: Ship of State. Blah blah blah. That's what it should
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 5: have been. Then as time went on, it became obvious
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 5: to anyone paying attention that he was both physically frail
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 5: and failing mentally. And for those who said, and they've
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 5: said this about me forever, I don't venture into politics
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 5: really all that often, but sometimes I get the Olympics
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 5: or whatever politics inevitably intersects, and I felt it was
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 5: the job of the host, not the job of someone
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: calling pole vault or figure skating, but the job of
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 5: the host to acknowledge some of those realities that inevitably
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 5: are part of the Olympics. And at halftime of Sunday
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 5: Night football, no matter what anybody says, two Out of
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 5: more than one hundred halftime essays, most of which were
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 5: just about football or some little quirky observation, only two
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 5: had a political slant to them. But whenever I've talked
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 5: about politics, no matter the context, depending upon whose ox
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 5: is being gored, it's sticked to sports. You're a sportscaster.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 5: As if it's not possible being a man in your seventies,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 5: it's not possible that you might have read something other
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 5: than a box score. It's not possible that you might
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 5: have some powers of observation. And besides, as Bob Dylan
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 5: one saying, you don't have to be a weatherman to
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 5: know what the weather is or whatever. I may be
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 5: misquoting the great Dylan, but you do not have to
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 5: be a meteorologist to know that it's raining. And you
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 5: don't have to be Doris Kernin's Goodwin or have a
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 5: PhD in political science to observe Joe Biden and know
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 5: that he was unfit in different ways than Trump is unfit.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 5: Unfit to hold the presidency. He was barely fit in
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 5: the first term. He was failing badly as that term unfolded,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 5: and it was completely plain to see, and as I
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 5: said to Abby Philip on CNN in twenty twenty three,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 5: and then to Bill Maher in February of twenty twenty four,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 5: which was the one that got the greater circulation. This
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 5: is emperor's new clothes stuff. Most people know the fairy tale.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 5: The Empress claims that he has new clothes and a
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 5: beautiful new robe and a crown and a scepter and
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 5: the whole thing, and everybody just nods their head approvingly,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 5: and a little kid says, wait a minute, the Emperor's naked.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 5: The Emperor has no clothes. This was in that category.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 5: You don't have to be a genius. This is not
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 5: an astute observation, just a willingness to acknowledge the obvious.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 5: And no matter what he has done in terms of
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 5: public service over the course of his life, and you
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 5: empathize with anyone own who's had the heartache that he's
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 5: had in his life, the death of his first wife
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 5: and a child, and then the death of his beloved
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 5: son bo. I'm not castigating Joe Biden overall as a
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 5: human being, but history has to treat him very harshly
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 5: for what he did and didn't do in his one
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 5: term and the bind that he put his party in,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 5: and the disservice he did to his country by hanging
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 5: on as long as he did. And you wonder if
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 5: the if the debate had not been as disastrous as
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 5: it was. But even if it was, you know, look,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 5: he was going to he wasn't. He was never going
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 5: to ace the debate. But if it hadn't been that disastrous,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 5: is it possible he would have limped literally to the
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 5: finish line and would have been the candidate. And if
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 5: somehow he had been the candidate, let's say that it
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 5: was assured, somehow yet a crystal ball was assured, Joe
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 5: Biden will be the candidate and he will defeat Donald Trump.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 5: That is still an unpatriotic and disgraceful thing to do,
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 5: to think that Joe Biden should have been president for
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 5: another four days, let alone another four years. No matter
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 5: how you frame it, it's very difficult to excuse what
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 5: went on there and to excuse those who should have
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 5: known better and likely did in many cases no better
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 5: and didn't call it out.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: Now, Bob, obviously we are both associated in very different
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: ways with the Penn State Jerry Sandowsky case, which, in
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: my view, is not all that different than the media
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: treatment of the Joe Biden declined, by the way, but
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: I'll hold that for a second. I promised you that
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: I would only briefly ask you about that story, but
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: from a different perspective, rather than getting any of the details,
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: which all these years later wouldn't really be very fair
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: to you, since I've been studying it for thirteen years.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: But here in the big picture is what I'd really
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: liked to know from you, Bob. I think you would agree.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: You've already implied it that our trust in the sports
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: and news media is generally much much lower now than
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: it was in November of twenty eleven when that story exploded.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: Since then, we've seen many widely accepted sports and news
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: media narratives blow up. I've got a list of them
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: here to The Joe Biden story is certainly on that list.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: Can you see any more clearly now, all these years later,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: the scenario that I have been claiming happened here, that
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: a perfect storm of unique circumstances and the massive distraction
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: of Joe Paterno caused the sports in the news media
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: to badly blow a story, the details of which made
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: the modern media very vulnerable to rushing the judgment and
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: then not being able to reverse itself. In other words,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: knowing what we know now about the sad state of journalism,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: was the modern media apable. I'm not saying they did.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: Were they schapable of blowing this in the manner that
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: I and many others have alleged.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 5: Well, I guess any story theoretically can be misinterpreted or
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 5: lazily presented, or have aspects of it overlooked in theory. Now,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 5: as you said as a preface to this, from a
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 5: certain angle, you have examined this for a very long
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 5: period of time. I was briefly at the center of
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 5: it because I did the interview on Rock Center with
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 5: Sandusky where he all but buried himself. I think every
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 5: question I asked was appropriate, and I think the audience
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 5: concluded overwhelmingly that this is a guilty man based on
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 5: his responses. At the very very least, what he did,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 5: if you wanted to give him the extreme benefit of
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 5: the doubt, what he himself acknowledges doing was completely unacceptable
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 5: in the twenty first century, and probably unacceptable when you
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 5: really think about it. In nineteen fifty five, you know,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 5: I heard people say, well, he's a Mayberry guy, lived
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 5: in a bubble. He doesn't know the modern world. He
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 5: has a nineteen fifties sensibility. Well, I went to high
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 5: school in the nineteen sixties and after gym class, the
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 5: gym teacher didn't shower with the boys of the gym class.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 5: You know, the baseball and basketball coach didn't touch our legs.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 5: What the hell is that you know?
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: So, Bob, I've never defended how stupid Sandusky was, although
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: I do think that that was greatly exaggerated based upon
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: what we know now. And look, I understand you're in
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: a uniquely awkward position here because your interview with Sandusky
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: was fantastic from a journalistic standpoint. I have told you
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: that publicly and privately many times. That is not an
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: issue here. But my frustration is I have an enormous
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: amount of respect for your intellect and fairness, and I
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: am positive, Bob, that if you knew everything that I know,
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: you would have at very least grave, grave concerns about
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: this overall case. And it's it would, it would. It's
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: frustrating to me that it appears as if you don't
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: even see the path that I'm I'm painting here where
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: the paternal aspect of this story was so distracting, you,
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: I think would acknowledge that right that this was a
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: unique set of circumstances, that Joe paternal is where all
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: the focus went. And after your interview, after your interview,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: everyone just presumed we knew the Sandusky element of the
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: story because he screwed up, and because you did a
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: great interview, and because he's a weird dude in my opinion.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: But to me, I am positive, Bob, and I don't
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: you know you will probably never have the time to
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: do this. I am open to any and all questions
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: from you, on or off the air. I am positive
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: that if you, who knew all the circumstances here, you
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: would have a very least a very concerned view about
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: what really transpired here.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 5: Who is the guy I think the name of the
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 5: book was the most hated man in America Pentegrams. I
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 5: knew it was Mark Pendergraphs. Yeah, this goes back a
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 5: long ways. I read that book and I saw Pendagraphs
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 5: interviewed a few times. But unlike you, I haven't followed
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 5: this as closely as you have and dug into it
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 5: the way you have, so it would be irresponsible for
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 5: me to say I agree with you. I disagree with you,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 5: but here is where I do agree with you, and
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 5: I said this at the time, not in the interview
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 5: with Sandusky, but when people talk to me about it. Subsequently,
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 5: Let's say that these allegations came at a different university,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 5: same allegations, just as troubling if true. But the coach
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 5: is not a paragon of virtue. The coach is not
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 5: Saint Joe Paterno, and the university is not the win
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 5: with honor Penn State, where it was widely assumed that
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 5: this was as close to a model of the proper
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 5: marriage between academics and athletics, big time athletics as you'd
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 5: ever find, that was really the area of fascination. The
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 5: focus quickly switched to Paterno, and there became a narrative
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 5: largely not completely, but largely unquestioned. Well, here was Joe
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 5: Paterno's motive. He knew either all this or the basic
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 5: outlines of it, and in order not to bring any
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 5: negative publicity toward him and his football program, he helped
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 5: to cover it up. He was aware, at least in
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 5: general terms, and he helped to cover it up. Think
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 5: about this, Joe Paterno, even if you wanted to say
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 5: the image was not correct, he was at best at
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 5: a moral man. I'm not saying I believe that, but
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 5: let's say, for the sake of argument, that was the position.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 5: Joe Paterna was not stupid. What would be the motivation
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 5: when these charges began to come to light. There were
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 5: dribs and drabs over time, but when they were reaching
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 5: critical mass in the early two thousands, what would be
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 5: the motivation to say, you know what, I am going
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 5: to risk everything by being involved in, if true, some
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 5: sort of conspiracy to cover up horrific crimes against children.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 5: Whereas if some version of this story came out right now,
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 5: Jerry Sandusky no longer on my coaching staff by many accounts,
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 5: never a close friend, even though he was a very
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 5: good defensive coordinator. Maybe it's a week of publicity, most
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 5: of it in State College, not because coming a national story.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 5: Let's say he's a completely gay, moral man. Right, does
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 5: that calculus make sense? Right? That calculus doesn't make sense?
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 5: And then what was also widely reported, And again I'm
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 5: not as close to it anymore as I used to
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 5: be so. I'm I'm speaking in generalities. I may not
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 5: be precise here, but there was there was some exchange
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 5: involving Curly and Spaniard, and it included the line, after
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 5: speaking with Joe, we have decided thus and so as
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 5: if Joe was involved in creating this strategy, you know,
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 5: you could say after speaking with John Ziegler, I then
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 5: boom boom boom. That doesn't automatically imply that John Ziegler
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 5: has now approved of everything that follows in the next
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 5: several paragraphs. And we know that Joe Paterno didn't even
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 5: have email, didn't know how to email. Who's an old
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 5: school guy. What makes sense to me is that Paterno
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 5: was negligent to some extent by not being curious enough
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 5: to find out what the depth or extent of this was.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 5: He's in his eighties, he wants to concentrate on football.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 5: But I just don't see him as someone who had
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 5: such malignant character that presented with a clear picture. Children
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 5: are being victimized here and have been victimized for years
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 5: and could be victimized again. What is your response, Joe,
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 5: you the most beloved and powerful person in State College.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 5: What is your response?
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 5: My response is I want to concentrate on the Notre
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 5: Dame game on Saturday. I find that impossible to believe.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 5: And I think that that in the in the rush
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 5: to be on the side of what was perceived, then
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 5: as virtue A, they fire the guy, B they take
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 5: down the statue, right. I mean, you know as if
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 5: he is a par ryot that I'm that part of it,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 5: the paternal part of it. I can't say with authority
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 5: exactly what all the particulars are. But do I believe
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 5: that Joe Paterno was a villain in this? No? Do
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 5: I believe he could have handled it better? Yes? Do
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 5: I believe his motives were malignant and immoral? No? I
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 5: do not.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: And your instincts are correct. And what you're seemingly missing,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: which is very frustrating, is that this is one of
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: those very rare cases where the alleged cover up was
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: used to prove the crime, and there was there and
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: so therefore if the cover up falls apart, which you've
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: just done a very good job of tearing down part
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: of the cover up theory, then to me, you have
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: to look at the alleged crimes that were allegedly being
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: covered up and and I'm positive I'm not going to
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: belabor it, Joe, but Bob pretty slip there. I am
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: not gonna believe it, Bob, But I'm just positive that
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: if you had the opportunity to see everything that I
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: have seen, you would be taking a different tact on this.
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: But I fully appreciate you and your unique situation on
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: this particular story.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 5: Let me ask you. Let me ask you this, John,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 5: and as when you spoke to me a week or
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 5: so ago and we arranged to do this, we stipulated
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 5: that I have not followed the story as closely over
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 5: the last many years. I did my part. I hope
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 5: I did it capably and honestly and fairly at the time,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 5: and I read the Free Report and I offered Louis
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 5: Free a chance to come on in NBC with me.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 5: He declined. But I did did have Wich Salers and
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 5: Dan McGinn and who was the former Pennsylvania governor who Thornburg, Yeah,
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 5: Dick Thornberg, who's since passed away, had them because he
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 5: wrote counter report to the Free Report. The response I
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 5: had them on for an hour. Now this was concerning
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 5: paternal rather than very good.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: It was very good.
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 5: I was doing my best to give them their say.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 5: So regarding Sandusky.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: What's your question of mine? Here's anything like.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 5: Here's my question to you. How do you explain the
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 5: phone call which I with the mother of one of
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 5: the alleged victims, in which Sandusky said I wish I
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 5: could change things, or I wish I were dead, something
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 5: to that effect. I'm going off the top of my
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 5: head here. You know what I'm referring to.
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, Bob, you ask a very rational and common question.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: What you're referring to, by the way, is not a reporting.
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: It should be pointed out it's been mistaken as a recording.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: It's not. It is a recollection of a police officer
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: who you know, Witnes this conversation. But I'm acknowledge that
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: the wire. Yes, I'm abilling to acknowledge. I'm willing to
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: acknowledge this happened. Okay, just for the record, but I
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: just but there is no recording of this. But here's
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: what I believe happened there. You're referring to the mom
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: of victim number six, who got trial. Bob, once this
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: finally got the trial, did not even allege any actual
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: sexual abuse. The jury actually asked the judge whether or
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: not we can still convict on the case of victim
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: number six if we don't believe that there was any
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: actual sexual abuse. And the judge, this was during deliberations,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: said yes. And Joe Ammondola, who you know, knew back
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: when this story happened. You've interviewed him. He knew at
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: that moment that Jerry was getting convicted. He didn't have
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: the gumption of the courage to tell Jerry and Dottie
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: that he was getting convicted, but he knew that if
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: the jury was asking such a question. If you understand
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: the full context of the Victim number six story. By
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: the way, Bob he got almost no money from Penn
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: State because he wasn't willing to exaggerate or in my opinion,
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: lie about his story because his allegation was that he
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: was he took a shower as a young boy in
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: a Penn State semi private, semi public facility and his
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: mom got upset about it. But if you understand the
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: later context, the mom literally flagged Jerry down on his
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: way to his last home football game against Michigan, begging
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: him to allow her son. This is now after this
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: whole episode happened begging him to allow her son into
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: the game, and Jerry was able to get him on
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: the sideline. This is the guy who had a relationship
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: with Jerry for decades after this event happened, despite his mom,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: you know, not really being a fan of Jerry, regardless
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: of whether she was flagging him down. Going to his
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: last home football game, Jerry said, in my opinion, I
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: wish I were dead because he felt so badly that
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: he had put this family through the consternation of this
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: allegation by doing something that they were perceiving its inappropriate.
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: That he's too stupid given his background growing up in
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: a ret comb and being extremely naive, and by in
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: my opinion, being a completely asexual person, that he just
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: had no idea that what he was doing was inappropriate,
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: and he felt badly about it. So he said, I
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: wish I were dead, And that would actually fit one
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: hundred percent with what I know to be of Jerry
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: Sandusky and Bob. I totally get why that story and
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: others like it. If you are presuming that there is
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: fire underneath this massive wall of smoke, you go, well,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: there you go, that's proof, But it's not proof when
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: you understand the actual context of that relationship, who Jerry is,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: the lack of evidence, the testimony that that then adult
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: male victim number six gave it trial and he is
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: the most remarkable part about the whole thing, Bob, and
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: I don't want to belabor this because you and I
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: agreed that we wouldn't make this interview about this, but
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your question. The irony of the story
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: that you're referring to is I believe that that victim
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: accuser was the most honest of all of them that
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: went to trial, and ironically, he got hosed when it
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: came to the Penn State settlements because he didn't tell
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: a story that Enn State liked. Penn State liked story
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: of massive horrendous sexual abuse that occurred on Penn State's campus,
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: and Victim number six didn't have one. Victim number six
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: is a very religious man, he didn't want to lie,
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: and he got paid almost no money in this whole situation.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: By the way, it should also be pointed out you
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: referenced the mom a victim number six. The mom of
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: victim number six sent not one but two of her
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: other children through Penn State University well after this happened. Now,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: that doesn't prove that none of this was real, but
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: I would ask a rational person to consider that maybe
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: just maybe her view of what really transpired here was
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: not as portrayed, and that when the story exploded and
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: she was one of those quoted as attacking Joe Paterno,
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: that maybe, just maybe there was a financial motivation involved
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: in why she took that tack and so, and I'm
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: just talking about the tip the iceberg here, Bob. Every
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: single one of these stores, every single one of them.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: And by the way, you actually hit the probably the
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: most credible story in the entire chase, and that one
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: didn't even have sexual abuse involved in it. So, I mean, look,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: this is an awkward deal for you. I'm not trying
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: to put you in a bad position. I just as
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel very passionately about it, and I
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: respect your opinion so much and your intellect so much
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: that I just I really know that if you knew
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: everything I know about this case, you would feel differently
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 5: You would let's stipulate a couple of things here, as
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 5: we discussed, there are other things besides this that are
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 5: part of this podcast. But I'm perfectly okay with everything
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 5: you just laid out. Going back to twenty eleven, I
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 5: was prepared to interview Jerry Sandusky, and I think a
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 5: professional and as thorough as the short notice would permit fashion.
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 5: I read and re read the grand jury presentment. I
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 5: spoke with experts on child sexual abuse and how predators operated,
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera. A Mondola was right there next
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 5: to me, as you know, and chose not to interject
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 5: at any point. I did post some questions directly to him,
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 5: which were part of what aired on NBC, but he
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 5: didn't jump in and say I would advise my client
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 5: not to answer that or try to reshape something that
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 5: Jerry might have in theory expressed in an awkward way
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 5: or a way that was detrimental to his cause. A
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 5: Mondola didn't do any of that. Subsequently, for a year
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 5: or two, I was close to, if not on top
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 5: of the ongoing developments and tried to add to them
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 5: as best I could. But to the way this podcast began,
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 5: a lot of broadcast news, especially in sports, is haphazard
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 5: in that, you know, there's an addition of The New
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 5: York Times, whether you like the Times or not, every
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 5: day and the Wall Street journal that the National Review
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 5: comes out on a regular basis. A lot of sports
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 5: journalism happens in fits and starts. So there was a
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 5: program called Costas Tonight that was on the new NBC
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 5: Sports Network right after I re upped with them when
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 5: Comcasts took over NBC, and I was poised to leave
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 5: when Dick Embersol left, and they said, oh no, no,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 5: we need you, and here's what we want you to
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 5: do on Big NBC. But we know you had to
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 5: leave HBOO in order to go to the Baseball Network,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 5: so we will replicate the HBO show once a month,
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 5: Costas Tonight, and that's where the follow up stuff about
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 5: Paterno happened. But then that show eventually went by the
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 5: wayside I ran out of places to continue to address this. Okay,
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 5: so that's the background here. So I don't come to
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 5: this with a level of preparation that would allow me.
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 5: I don't see us necessarily as having opposing views, but
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 5: that would allow me to hold up my end of
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 5: this conversation. I get it, I guess, but I do
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 5: have questions. And here is the second question, and then
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 5: we'll move on to something else. Sure, Sure, the same
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 5: question is this just as and this is not perhaps
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 5: perhaps a perfect analogy, but Trump supporters often say, all Russia, Russia, Russia,
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 5: and the Steele dossier. Let's say that that's true. How
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 5: does that sweep away all the other stuff about Trump? Okay,
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 5: so we can say victim six, this that the other thing.
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 5: But the and I'm gonna be I'm saying that the
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 5: average person will say, Okay, but there's a whole lot
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 5: of smoke here, and where there's that much smoke, there
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 5: must be fire. And just because al Capone was acquitted
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 5: on X number of indictments, that doesn't take away the
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 5: ones that he was guilty of. These are all rough analogies,
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 5: but you know where I'm going here, and even stating.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: This as a.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 5: Certified truth, I'm saying that this is what a reasonable
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 5: person might say in response to what you just laid
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 5: out about victim six.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: I totally get it. My big picture theory. Since we're
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: not going to get bogged down in this, but you've asked,
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: so I want to give you a substance of answer.
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: My big picture theory about what happened here is we
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: have a perfect storm. We have the Joe Paterno aspect,
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: of this distracting everybody away from the story involving Jerry Sandusky.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: You have a man who is very naive and very religious,
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: who believes he knows he's innocent, so innocent he doesn't
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: need a dream team. He hires a local buffoon named
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: joe Ammondola who gets enamored with the lights at thirty
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: Rockefeller Center and Bob Costas and hands over his client
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: like a sacrificial lamb. And, in my very strong opinion,
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: believe because they thought they had the Mike McQuary accuser
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: on their side, that was reported on your show that night,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: that should have been the headline. That should have been
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: the headline. Well, I mean the most idiotic part of
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: what Joey Mandola did was you have your headline, you
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: have Bob Costas talking about how you have the Mike
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: McQuary accuser on your side, that was lost completely because
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: he handed you Jerry Sandusky. When you have the distraction
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: of Paterno and Penn State being perceived as pleading guilty
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: by firing Paternal. How you fired Joe paternal if you
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: his last home football game, any rational person would go,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: that's pleading guilty. The Penn State is pleading guilty, and
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: so therefore why would Penn State do this? But you
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: need to understand, and I think you do actually understand
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: the unique set of circumstances surrounding the paternal aspect of this,
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: and how there were certain members that wanted to get
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: rid of him and were concerned that he was going
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: to last forever. They saw blood in the water and
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: they struck, and once he is fired, Jerry Sandusky cannot
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: get a fair trial. But Jerry Sandusky is so naive
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: he doesn't realize what he's in.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 5: He has no idea.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: And what has been transpiring underneath the surface here for
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: about two years during this investigation, is that lawyers and
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: therapists are seeing where this could go. They are seeing
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: deep pockets at Penn State University. And what happens is
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: they do a wide sweep of hundreds of former Second
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: Mile kids who are now all adults, many of whom
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: Bob were sexually and physically abused, from broken homes. They're unemployed,
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: they're in bad marriages. They do this, they're fishing in
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: a pond, and remarkably, in my opinion, they only find
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: six after hundreds of interviews, they find six adult men
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: four of whom were all friends, Bob, They were all friends.
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: They're all pictured together in Jerry Sandusky's book. By the way,
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: none of them had any concerns about being pictured in
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky's book with their names, even though they were
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: sexually abused.
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 5: By this guy.
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: And so what you have is the appearance of this
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: mountain of evidence that all hinges on Mike mcquery and
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: the Mike McQuary episode is full of massive holes. I
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: think you would agree, Bob, that without McQuary, the only
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: the only witness in this entire case who's not an accuser.
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: Without Mike McQuary, you lose the Joe paternal aspect of
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: the story. And you have no witnesses. You have no pornography,
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: you have no contemporaneous reports. By the way, the note
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: pornography is insane in this day and age, that's unheard
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 1: of for a serial pedophile of this type. You have
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: no confession, no plea bargain. To this day, Jerrea is
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: appealing every chance he gets. He's never been harmed in prison,
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: his wife's never divorced him. This is the most unique
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: case of a serial pedophile in history, Bob. There's never
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: even one like this, and you have the deep pockets
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: of Penn State that lawyers are. By the way, I'm
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: not even suggesting that they knew their clients were lying.
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: We have an undercover sting operation, Bob on one of
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: the major lawyers in the case, where we have the
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: lawyer on tape changing a fake accusers story to conform
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: to what Penn State would pay. This is the guy
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: who represented the mcquery accuser and many others.
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't want this to appear as if
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 5: we are adversaries in this. You know more about the
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 5: subsequent information that has come out. However, when you said
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 5: there was only one eye witness, wasn't there in the
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 5: grand jury presentment there was a janitor who said that
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 5: he witnessed something.
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, you want to hear about the janitor thing real quick.
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: And then well I just asked, I want to tell
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: you about the janitor thing because this is going to
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: blow your mind, Bob, Okay, okay. So the alleged janitor
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: who supposedly saw this never testified a trial. You know
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 1: why he didn't testify at trial because the prosecution said
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: he had dementia. You know why they claimed he had dementia?
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: Because they did an interview with him before the trial
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: in which he was asked several times, did you see
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky, and he emphatically said no each time. In
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: my very strong opinion, the prosecution, who wouldn't have been
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: interviewing him had they thought he had dementia, basically said, oh,
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: so you have dementia, because you clearly are not giving
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: us the answers we want. So then they now god
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: hearsaying witnesses into the trial, by the way, change their story.
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: And they promised promised to here say witnesses, they only
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: produced one. One of them disappeared. There's no date of
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: that event, the location of it changed, there's no accuser
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: of that event. And I cannot emphasize enough the alleged
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: witness is on the record saying he never saw Jerry Sandowski.
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 5: Here's here's I am. I am asking questions here, And
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 5: if someone comes in in the middle of this podcast,
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 5: they will misperceived, perhaps that I came here to advocate
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 5: one side, and you're making an advocate and actually the
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 5: most prominent advocate for the other side of it. But
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 5: there there are questions that come up based on what
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 5: you're saying, and these are the questions that that I'm
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 5: asking from the standpoint as you often do when when
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 5: you're on television and doing a good interview, I'm asking
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 5: something that the average person might want to ask.
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: What questions are amazing?
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 5: So here's what comes up? Right, based on what you
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 5: just said, Why wouldn't there be attorneys wind up to
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 5: say I want to represent you in an appeal. This
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 5: has happened, This will bring this will bring fame and
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 5: fortune to me, along with perhaps doing a good deed
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 5: and taking taking up an unpopular cause. But the truth
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 5: ultimately wins out. If in fact that's the truth, why
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 5: wouldn't there be a clamor for that to happen?
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, Jerry has a pellet attorneys, and
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: but I think Bob, you would understand the answer to that.
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: This case is so toxic, you know the Oh you,
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: you and I. You don't even know this, but you
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: and I both have a connection to the OJ Simpson case.
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: Yours is much more prominent than mine, but I'll save
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: that for another story for another day. I dated Kim Goldman,
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: and I'm actually given a lot of credit for why
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: OJ got arrested in Las Vegas because of my interaction
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: in that whole situation. But you know, the OJ case,
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: even though he killed two people, there was no toxicity
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: to representing him. So there were dream Team members who
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: wanted to be on television and wanted to be famous
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: and were willing to probably for you know, no real
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: fee or reduced fees represent OJ Simpson. This case was
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: so toxic at this point, everyone presumes he's guilty, he's
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: a serial pedophile. You get no media coverage. Jerry Sandusky's celebrity,
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: and I used the OJ thing often was the worst
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: type of celebrity. OJ's was the best because people knew him.
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: He was famous, he's good looking, he's charismatic. Jerry was known,
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: but he had no following, so the media pretended his
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: story was important. I suggest that if Vinny Testaberdi throws
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: five touchdown passes instead of five interceptions in that Fiesta
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: Ball game that you covered right you were there, you
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 1: can cover you were if there's if Vinnie Testaburti throws
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: five touchdown passes instead of five interceptions, Jerry Sandusky is
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 1: playing off right now. So the media doesn't have any
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: interest in Jerry Sandusky. There's no He's not a footnote
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: in sports history as the defensive coordinator who had five
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: interceptions against the Heisman Trophy winner in the highest rated
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: college football game of all time. And so Jerry Sandusky
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: gets the bad end of being somewhat famous without any
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: benefits that OJ Simpson got and and and so look,
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: I am thrilled that you asked me questions, Bob thrilled.
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: I was hoping that you would, and you didn't disappoint me.
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: And they're very good questions. And I would be happy
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: to at any time, off the air or whatever, answer
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: any further questions.
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 5: I would add this before we move on to something else.
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 5: OJ also had, in addition to the benefit of his
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 5: popularity and his wherewithal to hire a dream team of representatives,
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 5: there was also the racial angle, and it was closely
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 5: in the aftermath of the Rodney King beatings. And there
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 5: certainly was a history of malfeasans by the LAPD toward
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 5: African Americans, so that groundwork had been laid there and
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 5: OJ became facts be damned, an avatar of the criminal
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 5: justice system and the police being unfair or worse to
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 5: African Americans. The truth is that OJ Simpson could not
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 5: have been less the avatar of that than almost any
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 5: other randomly selected African American person charged with a crime.
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 5: And some people just want him to be not guilty,
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 5: even in the face of evidence that they couldn't deny,
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 5: because they rightly perceived that police officers, in the face
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 5: of evidence that should have been compelling, were acquitted, or
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 5: that the justice system was harsher toward African Americans were
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 5: charged with the same offense than they would have been
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 5: toward a white American charge of the same offense, all
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 5: of which was true. And oj Simpson got the benefit
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 5: of being an avatar for that, when in fact he
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 5: was so atypical of all of that as to be
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 5: almost absurd. But emotions prevailed, and so did you know
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 5: Joellen Demetrius, who was the advisor I forget what it's
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 5: called when it comes to jury selection. She was key
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 5: in that, just as Johnny cochrane was key in that,
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 5: and Barry Shack and others, because the jury was selected
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 5: with an eye toward would they be sympathetic to what
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 5: the likely defenses. And now, since you've laid some stuff
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 5: on me about which I might not have been aware,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 5: let me tell you this. I find myself on a
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 5: flight sometime or around nineteen ninety seven ninety eight, somewhere
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 5: in there, from Saint Louis, where I lived most of
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 5: my adult life, to LaGuardia in New York. And as
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 5: I sit down on the aisle and at the window
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 5: is Johnny Cochran, whom I'd never met, and this is
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 5: the one and only Timmy crosspaths. So he says hello, First,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 5: Hi Bob, how are you. John Nice to meet you.
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 5: We shake hands. So the flight's like two and a
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 5: half hours, during which time we're each reading our paper
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 5: or our book, but we make small talking. It's all
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 5: about sports. Now the plane is descending into LaGuardia, and
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 5: I say, Johnny, indulge me for just a moment here.
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 5: I know you must deal with this stuff on a
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 5: daily basis, and they don't want to bother you. So
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 5: I just have one question, why, especially in closing arguments,
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 5: do you think the prosecution never said the following the
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 5: defense has asked you to believe in a widespread conspiracy
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 5: to frame an innocent man. Let's assume, for the purposes
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 5: of this argument, for just a moment, that the most
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 5: malign intentions of the LAPD are at work here, how
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 5: do they know, since by definition here they're framing an
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 5: innocent man, how do they know that OJ Simpson doesn't
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 5: have an ironclad alibi? How do they know he's not
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 5: in Philadelphia, or he's not at dinner with ten people
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 5: who will vouch for his whereabouts at that time as
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 5: this conspiracy comes together, they don't know that he doesn't
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 5: have an ironclad alibi. And since by definition, this is
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 5: the scenario that's been out outlined here, these people didn't
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 5: kill themselves, how do they know that exculpatory evidence won't
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 5: immediately appear, or that someone shows up in a bus
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 5: depost some place with blood all over their shoes, or
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 5: if more than one person is involved, someone doesn't break
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 5: ranks and confess, or if this conspiracy among the police
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 5: involves more than two or three people, that somebody, some
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 5: link in that chain doesn't break, either out of a
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 5: pang of conscience or for money and fame. How do
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 5: they know, Let's assume that every one of them is
• 2:21:20
  Speaker 5: completely immoral, how do they know they're policemen, they work
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 5: in there. How do they know that any of those
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 5: things might not happen at any given time? And here's
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 5: what Johnny Cocker said, I was expecting them to say
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 5: that very thing, Bob, and I'm surprised but happy that
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 5: they didn't. And then I said, well, Johnny, given everything,
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 5: it might not have mattered. And then he said, verbatim, Bob,
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 5: I didn't create the facts of that case. I just
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 5: worked with them, and I said, and brilliantly, and we
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 5: shook hands and that was it and we parted company.
• 2:21:57
  Speaker 1: That is a great story. I wish you had been
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: on the process secution team, Bob. That would have been
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: an interesting chapter in this entire fiasco. I will leave
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: this particular topic with this. OJ Simpson hired Johnny Cochran
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: and the Dream Team because he knew he was guilty.
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: Jerry Sandusky hired Joey Mondola because he knew he was innocent.
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's something for you to think about,
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: and maybe we'll revisit this at another time in a
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: fair conversation. So the real reason why this interview actually
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: transpired was because you and I had what to me
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: was a fascinating phone call. I hope you felt the
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: same way after you did a different podcast interview discussing
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: your retirement from play by play from baseball, and I
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: realized that, you know, ego was always involved in these situations.
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're a very, very talented and famous guy.
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: There's going to be you wouldn't be successful if you
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: didn't have an ego. But I felt very strongly about
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 1: what happened in your situation because I feel as if,
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to suggest that you were forced
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: to retire, it was especially right. It was essentially you
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: were wy don't you go ahead and describe what happened.
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 5: Well, we're going into great length and background on everything here.
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 5: So part of it was that after forty years at NBC,
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 5: there was an unceremonious party. And as I've said everywhere
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 5: I've been asked, I didn't need a big parade and
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 5: a brass band and a Laurel Reef, but it would
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 5: have been nice to have some kind of closure, and
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 5: it didn't happen that way. I think we're on a
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 5: path of reconciliation. We'll leave that story for another day.
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 5: And so Jeff Zucker, whose first job out of Harvard
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 5: was as my researcher and Brian Gumble's researcher in the
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 5: eighty eight Olympics in Korea, he rose, he was a
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 5: wonder kind. He was producing the Today Show in his
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 5: mid twenties, and he was running all of NBC Universal
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 5: in his thirties. So now he's at CNN and he says,
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 5: would you like to come over as a contributor. I
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 5: say sure, because I'm working with my pal Jeff Zucker,
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 5: and I don't have a show on my own. I
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 5: just go on when sports crosses over into news, and
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 5: then under the Time Warner umbrella, HBO reaches back out
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 5: to me. Unfortunately, HBO Sports has completely disappeared. No one's
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 5: connected the dots and written a comprehensive story about this,
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 5: but it's all gone bit by bit, and then all
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 5: at once it collapsed. Inside the NFL went They're boxing
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 5: and tennis coverage went, and then eventually Real Sports goes
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 5: the gold standard of sports broadcast sports journalism, the sixty
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 5: minutes of that that goes, their documentary unit goes, Beaumani
• 2:24:48
  Speaker 5: Jones show goes, and my show, which was well received,
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 5: but for two years that goes because the whole thing
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 5: was shuttered. But what I'm getting to is, I saw
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 5: the last chapters of my career being maybe under that
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 5: umbrella and Jeff Zucker was involved in one way or another
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 5: with all of it, and for an eyeblink, they made
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 5: him the head of Turner Sports. Didn't last for very long,
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 5: but he wanted to make a big splash, so they
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 5: just acquired the NHL and he hires Wayne Gretzky and
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 5: he says, I want you to come over and do
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 5: the LCS. They don'thunt the World Series, but they did
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 5: have the LCS, and I say, Jeff, I can't do that.
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 5: Brian Anderson is a great young announcer in the prime
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 5: his career. I can't do that. He says, well, will
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 5: you host the LCS? Okay, Jeff, I'll host the LCS,
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 5: which I do in twenty twenty one, and then the
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 5: next season, as it's dawning, he says, would you at
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 5: least do the Division Series? Well, okay, I'll do the
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 5: Division Series. You're my pal. I understand it's important to you. Plus,
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking that this is kind of the closing chapter
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 5: of my career, all under this umbrella CNN, HBO and
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 5: little bit of baseball on TBS, and when Jeff wound
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 5: up leaving under some sort of cloud that seems dubious
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 5: to me. But when he wound up leaving, I should
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 5: have left after that one season. I should have said,
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 5: I'm doing this because of my relationship with Jeff, no
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 5: hard feelings. But instead I fulfilled the last two years,
• 2:26:18
  Speaker 5: and for whatever reasons, I'm perfectly fine talking to you.
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 5: I'm perfectly fine doing an interview. I can do everything
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 5: I used to do as well as I ever did it,
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 5: but there's a craft involved in play by play that
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 5: is not as easy as it's made to look when
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 5: you're real good at it, and I just couldn't do
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 5: it as consistently well as I once did. Could I
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 5: have moments and stretches and games and observations and individual
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 5: calls that were as good as they ever were. Yeah,
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 5: But I couldn't string together several games at a level
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 5: that I would be content with. And so I told
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 5: both the Major League Baseball Network and TBS a year
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 5: and a half ago, twenty twenty four will be my
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 5: last season, and my hope was only to end on
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 5: a grace note. You know, if you ever shot baskets,
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 5: you don't even have to be a great player. You
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 5: don't leave the gym on a miss, you leave on
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 5: a make.
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: You just want to.
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 5: Feel that way. You don't want any relationship to end
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 5: in a dismportant way. And my relationship with baseball meant
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 5: so much to me over the course of my life.
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 5: All the other things I've been lucky enough to do,
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 5: and I hope I did them well, base ball was
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 5: always the most important to me, and I really valued
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 5: the appreciation that I felt from fans and viewers and
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 5: people within the game over the years, and so I
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 5: wanted the last part just to be consistent with that.
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 5: You know, Derek Jeter hit like two point fifty eight
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 5: or something in his last year and wasn't a goal
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 5: globe shortstop anymore. But you know what, people remember the
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 5: base hit to right field that won a game in
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 5: his last that bad at Yankee State. You want to
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 5: end that way, and it didn't quite happen that way.
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 5: And it happens in a social media environment where there
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 5: are no misdemeanors. There's only felonies. Everybody, but he's a
• 2:28:10
  Speaker 5: hanging judge. Everything is overstated in the extreme. And if
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 5: somebody said, you know what, he's not as good as
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 5: he used to be. On the play by play, he
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 5: had a really good run. He's lost a bit off
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 5: his fastball. I have no problem with that. But utter
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 5: ignorance is no bar to inclusion on social media. So
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 5: when people say idiotic things like, well, he's never been
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 5: a play by play guys a really good host, he's
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 5: good on the elvers, that's not true. That's just not true.
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 5: If you knew the history at all, if you got
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 5: a cursory understanding of the history, you would understand that
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 5: what I just told you was the true version.
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, well let me jump in there, because my view
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: and why I instigated a conversation on the phone between us,
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: is that I think you got taught in a generational divide.
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: They've already referenced social media. I think that you know,
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 1: they literally people under the age of thirty or twenty five.
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: They don't understand the history. They don't know you as
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: as the soul of baseball. They may know you as
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: an Olympic host. They also, Bob. And this is where
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: I really want to get your take. I think they
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: have been trained. Younger people have been trained to expect
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: that play by play announcers are now stenographers and statisticians
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: rather than storytellers and scene centers, and that you are
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: from a different era, an era that I very much
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: more appreciate, you know, the Vin Scully type style of
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: play by play that, for whatever reason, no longer exists today.
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: The play by play guys today, they have no gravitas,
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 1: and in my opinion, it's largely because there's no romance.
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: The romance has been killed. You are a baseball romance
• 2:30:00
  Speaker 1: anticy that is, that is clear when you do play
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: by play, and if you love baseball, to me, you
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 1: got to appreciate that. But younger people today, whatever howd
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: off you want to put on the age, they have
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: not had that same experience, and now somehow they're running
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: the show. What do you make of my analysis of
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: that situation involving you.
• 2:30:23
  Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of truth in that. But
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 5: if I had done it as I always had done it,
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 5: the approach and the intention was the same. If I
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 5: had done it in my own estimation as definitely as
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 5: I ever have, and if there was some negative reaction
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 5: based on the point of view of some younger people,
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 5: and younger people dominate social media, if there had been
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 5: a negative reaction coming in that direction, it wouldn't have
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 5: bothered me much. What bothered me was that my own estimation.
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 5: My approach and intention was the same, but I couldn't
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 5: consistently do it as well as I had in the past.
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 5: But to your earlier observation, Vin Scully the greatest of
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 5: all baseball announcers. We all have been inspired by him
• 2:31:08
  Speaker 5: and influenced by him in some way, at least most
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 5: of us have. If you took Vin Scully in his prime,
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 5: If you took a fifty year old Vin Scully and
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 5: you transplanted him to let's say twenty fifteen and had
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 5: him do the World Series, social media would destroy him.
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 5: That it would be idiotic, but they would destroy him.
• 2:31:31
  Speaker 5: And in memory Jim McKay, who I had great admiration for,
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 5: both professionally and personally. Jim McKay had a lot of
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 5: g whiz about him in addition to a very literate touch.
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 5: There isn't anybody who did it in the way that
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 5: you and I really appreciated for all those years, who
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 5: if you somehow magically transplanted them into the present day
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 5: and made them in their prime fifty years old, that
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 5: wouldn't get roughed up a bit on social media. And
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 5: I understand, I understand that, but none of that impacted
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 5: my decision. Do I wish it hadn't happened. Of course,
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 5: nobody likes that, But the decision was based on I
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 5: just didn't think that I could do it consistently as
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 5: well as I once did. But when you see things
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 5: like someone saying and I'm sure I only saw it
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 5: less than one percent of what was out there, But
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 5: sometimes things just pop up randomly, and some guy who
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 5: is a sports announcer, some young guys sports announcer somewhere
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 5: tweets or puts on X. Bob Costas and baseball don't mix. Now,
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 5: this is not a matter of opinion. I'm sure that
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 5: there were people who didn't like Vince Scully in his prime,
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 5: because nobody pleases everybody. So I'm just talking here about facts.
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 5: Bob Costas and baseball don't mix. Census on Costas Kubeck
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 5: on the Game of the Week was pretty damn strong.
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 5: Same thing about Costas, Yucker, and Morgan in the nineties.
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 5: Why would I have been the first hire when the
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 5: Baseball Network came into existence? Why did I get into
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 5: the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame the
• 2:33:16
  Speaker 5: first year my name appeared on the ballot? Why did
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 5: I write a book about the state of baseball that
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 5: came out in two thousand and spent a long time
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 5: on the New York Times bestseller list. Why was their
• 2:33:30
  Speaker 5: talk talk guy always dismissed but talked for a long
• 2:33:33
  Speaker 5: time about me being the commissioner of baseball and why
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 5: I hadn't even thought about this until the past year.
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 5: But I did as close a check as I could.
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 5: At least ten times, maybe more, but at least ten times.
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 5: I was nominated in the play by play category for
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 5: Sports Emmys. Now I didn't win that category as often
• 2:33:52
  Speaker 5: as I won in other categories, but you're in the
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 5: same category as Al Michaels and Doc Emrick and Jim Nansen, trantcetera.
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 5: I was nominated many, many times, and I won some
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 5: of those times. So it's ken Burns baseball. You know,
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 5: I was pretty prominent in ken Burns baseball. So here's
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 5: a guy guy. If he wants to say I don't
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 5: like Bob Costas, fine, Bob Costas and baseball don't mix.
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 5: The combination of disrespect and ignorance, and the ignorance is
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 5: worse than the disrespect is mind boggling. But this is
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 5: what this is what the terrain is. Now, no one's
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 5: gonna check that person on that. There's no bar, like,
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 5: let's let's see before you can post this, what's your
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 5: knowledge of the subject matter, what's your accountability? What's your credibility?
• 2:34:39
  Speaker 5: Zero zero zero, Welcome in? And that that goes to
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 5: where this conversation began, the landscape because media is much broadly,
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 5: much more broadly defined for better and mostly for worse
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 5: than it was when we first understood what media was
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 5: when we were younger.
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly right. And unfortunately we're down to our last minute,
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: and Bob, I just want to I want to. I mean,
• 2:35:02
  Speaker 1: i'd love, I'd love to continue this forever, but unfortunately
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: we're up against the zoom clock here. So thank you
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: so much for being generous with your time. And also
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: I have to say I was pleasantly surprised you engage
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: me more extensively on the Penn State Sandusky case than
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 1: I expected. I think a lot of our listeners are
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: going to really really appreciate that, and thank you for
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: everything you've done for sports media. I wish there were
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: more of you. I wish there were younger versions of you, Bob,
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: because I really think the sports media is losing something.
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: I've referred to you and al Michaels and Jim Nant's
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: is the last of the Mohicans. I even pitched you
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: an idea for a show around that, and thank you
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: so much for everything you've done, and thank you for
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: your time on this podcast.
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 5: Let's resume this because there's a few interesting topics that
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 5: we talked about all air we haven't gotten to, so
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 5: let's a little time go by and then return.
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 1: I'll have some more thoughts on the Costas interview in
• 2:35:57
  Speaker 1: the next episode of the podcast. To be fully transparent,
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 1: I can't provide any thoughts on the interview right now
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: because the interview hasn't happened as.
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 5: Of this taping yet.
• 2:36:08
  Speaker 1: We're taping most of this podcast because of a scheduling
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 1: change that had to do with the Pete Rose story
• 2:36:16
  Speaker 1: that had to force a delay in my interview with
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: Bob Costas, so we're doing this kind of out of order.
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: So I have a feeling I know how the Costas
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: interview went, but I'm not going to comment on it
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: when it hasn't actually occurred yet. By the way, with
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: regard to Pete Rose, I was having a conversation with
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: our executive producer Mike Gagavino about this whole issue of
• 2:36:39
  Speaker 1: Pete Rose now potentially getting into the Hall of Fame
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: after he has passed away because he's now eligible has
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: been ruled by the Commissioner of Baseball, and in a
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: situation that caused many many new news media outlets to
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: want to speak to Bob Costas enforce our interview to
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: be postponed for yet another day, both kind of organically
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: came to the conclusion, you know, the person that Pete Rose,
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: if he was still alive today, should be thanking most
• 2:37:11
  Speaker 1: for the rules changing is probably Donald Trump. I think
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different elements to this, but you know,
• 2:37:19
  Speaker 1: one of them is that Baseball completely sold out to
• 2:37:22
  Speaker 1: gambling and it was very, very hypocritical for them to
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: continue to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame,
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: assuming he now gets in now that this rule has
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: been changed by the current commissioner. But so that was
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: a big part of it. But the reason why Trump
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: is a significant player in this scenario is that Donald
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: Trump has busted up and shattered all of our norms,
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: all of our standards, all sense of playing by the
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: rules or you know, whether or not principles matter or
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: precedents matter, become desensitized everything, and as he doesn't done
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: and alone. I'm not blaming this all on Trump, but
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 1: Trump has both taken advantage of this change in our
• 2:38:10
  Speaker 1: society as well as exacerbated it in a very obvious
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 1: and I think dramatic way. And so now in twenty
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: twenty five, what Pete Rose did doesn't seem nearly as
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: horrendous as it did back when we found out about
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: it in the nineteen eighties and nineties. So, you know,
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: and Trump, again, I'm not blaming him completely for this,
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: but you could probably give him more credit than any
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: other American. That's for sure. That we just don't care
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: about this stuff anymore, and it's no longer shocking, especially
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: when baseball and all other professional sports have completely sold
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: out the gambling interest because they needed to try to
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 1: boost their broken business model. So that's one of the
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 1: more unique elements I think of the of the Pete
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 1: Rose story. I had to at least mention something that
• 2:39:06
  Speaker 1: happens speaking of sports that in the Bill Belichick Jordan
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: Hudson story. And I may save this for deeper analysis
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: in the next episode of the podcast, but at least
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: have to mention that there were a series of viral,
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: quote unquote reports that originated with this guy named Pablo Torre,
• 2:39:27
  Speaker 1: who was taken seriously by a lot of people. He's
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: got a connection to ESPN. I think he went to Harvard.
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: He's a younger guy, well spoken, he's good on camera,
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: but he's basically a podcaster, now, which I'm always very
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: suspicious of somebody who's a podcaster. Why would you trust
• 2:39:46
  Speaker 1: anyone who's a freaking podcaster? But I digress. He came
• 2:39:51
  Speaker 1: out with these stories that alleged that Jordan Hudson was
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: banned from the North Carolina facilities, and I immediately I thought, okay,
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: this sounds like BS and North Carolina instantaneously came out
• 2:40:05
  Speaker 1: with a statement saying no, She's totally welcome here. And
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: then there was a very strange situation where Bill Belichick
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: and Jordan Hudson's much younger than Bill belichick father, sat
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: next to each other watching the Miss Main competition for
• 2:40:22
  Speaker 1: the Miss Universe pageant, in which Jordan Hudson came in
• 2:40:26
  Speaker 1: the second runner up, and that went viral, but obviously
• 2:40:30
  Speaker 1: making it clear that Belichick and Hudson are still very
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: very very much an item. And the reason why the
• 2:40:36
  Speaker 1: Pablo Torre story pissed me off so much and I
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: posted about it several times on social media, is that
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 1: this is a classic example of what I call predictive journalism,
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: where someone makes up a story that they know will
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: go viral because they know there's a market for it.
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: And this guy figured out it wasn't difficul but he
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: figured out that he had enough credibility to start making
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: up salacious stuff about Bill Belichick and Jordan Nudson. It
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: would be taken seriously and it would fill avoid, it
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: would wet, you know, it would it would satiate an
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: appetite that people have for this story. And sure enough,
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: these alleged reports, which is just nothing more than him
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: talking about unnamed sources on a podcast, got picked up
• 2:41:29
  Speaker 1: by Sports Illustrated by Beach, Bleacher Report, by Sporting News,
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: by Yahoo Sports. And once it's given that you know,
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: appearance of credibility and people desperately want to believe it,
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: it's off to the races and it goes viral. And
• 2:41:47
  Speaker 1: then once it goes viral, everything else that he says
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: on the subject, even though the first report was proven false,
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: gets taken seriously because why Well, because we've a'sablished that
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: this sky can create viral content on this people will
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: taken seriously enough, so you can make up more bullshit
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 1: and you know, if possible, by the way, some of
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: this might end up being true, which is why I
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: call it predictive journalism. You don't know that something is
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 1: the case, you know that there's a market for it,
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: and you are predicting a scenario that one people will
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: lap up and two might even happen if you get
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: lucky or at the very least can't beat this proven.
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: My favorite part of this whole scenario was after North
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: Carolina put out a statement saying this is bullshit. He
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: basically used that as proof that his story was true,
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: because otherwise why would they respond, and that somehow his
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: report going viral had changed the reality on the ground.
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not making this up. This is how totally broken
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 1: the sports media is, and unfortunately it's not isolated to
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: the sports media. It happens in the news media very similarly.
• 2:42:58
  Speaker 1: But this one was a very obvious situation, and it's
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: mainly because he and others understandably, we're able to figure
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: out just how large the appetite is for negative Jordan
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: Hudson's stories that make Bill Belichick look like he's whipped,
• 2:43:18
  Speaker 1: which he probably is. He clearly is whipped. But people
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: are very, very invested now in this relationship failing and
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: with Bill Belichick failing at the University of North Carolina,
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: which is not going to be helpful to Belichick. Now,
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: Belichick is supposed to do an interview with Michael Strahan
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: of ABC's Good Morning America. We'll talk about that in
• 2:43:39
  Speaker 1: the next episode of the podcast. I don't have high
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: hopes for the journalism that will be involved in that,
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: particularly since straight Hand defeated Bill Belichick in one of
• 2:43:50
  Speaker 1: the most famous Super Bowls ever. But there's too many
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 1: conflicts of interest there for that ever to be a
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 1: legitimate interview, especially after the way straight Hand treated tomar
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 1: Hamlin and what should have been one of the more
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: significant interviews in the last several years and turned out
• 2:44:05
  Speaker 1: to be a complete fraud. But I digress. I'll wait
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 1: and see what happens and we'll talk about it in
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: the next episode of the podcast. Finally, this weekend is
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: the PGA Championship, second major golf championship of the year.
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 1: I have been outspoken that Rory McElroy, while he is
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: the favorite this week because he's done so well at
• 2:44:24
  Speaker 1: Quell Hollow, which is the host of this week's PGA
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina, is not going to win.
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's not going to contend. I think
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: I would be shocked if he didn't contend, But I
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: do not believe Rory McElroy will win. I do think, however,
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: that we're going to see a great leaderboard because unlike
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: the Masters, a lot of the top players suddenly are
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 1: at the top of their game, justin Thomas and Andrews
• 2:44:47
  Speaker 1: Shoffley's come back. Even Jordan Speed has a chance theoretically,
• 2:44:51
  Speaker 1: although it's never going to happen, of winning the career
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: Grand Slam if he wins this week. Scottie Scheffler won
• 2:44:57
  Speaker 1: for the first time a couple of weeks ago, so
• 2:45:01
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a lot of the players that
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: weren't at the top of their game at the Masters,
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: which I think is part of why Rory McElroy won,
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: are playing very very well. So I think the scores
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: are going to be very low. I think depending on
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: the weather, which right now has been wet and is
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: going to be warm, the conditions will be soft. My
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: guess is they're going to shoot sixteen eighteen hunder par
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 1: as a winning scorer. And I think the more likely
• 2:45:26
  Speaker 1: scenario here than Rory McElroy winning is Scotty Scheffler because
• 2:45:29
  Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler likes those kind of conditions. The course sets
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: up as well for him as it does for Rory McElroy,
• 2:45:36
  Speaker 1: and I think that it's time for Scotty to win
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: a major championship that's not the Masters. So that's my
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: very bold prediction that Scotty Scheffler is going to win
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: the PGA Championship. That'll do it for this episode number
• 2:45:50
  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty one of the Depth of Journalism podcasts.
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: As is always the case, thanks so much for listening,
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being a subscriber. Until next time, so long.
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: I'm John Ziggler.