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Episode Two Hundred Forty Six: MAGA Meltdown · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and forty six of the
0:02
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host in today's show. Neither No King's Day or
0:08
Speaker 1: Trump's Army parade on his birthday match the hype surrounding
0:12
Speaker 1: them are the Ice Raids being vastly overrated, war breaks
0:18
Speaker 1: out between Israel and Iran, and Maga world is having
0:21
Speaker 1: a meltdown. Caitlin Clark finally gets a much needed enforcer
0:27
Speaker 1: and she's hot. The US Open golf tournament turns out
0:31
Speaker 1: amazingly well despite Rory McElroy's ongoing temper tantrum with the media,
0:36
Speaker 1: and I'll try to provide some new insight on maybe
0:39
Speaker 1: the craziest update in the Jerry Sandusky case ever. We
0:46
Speaker 1: begin this episode of the podcast with what was supposed
0:49
Speaker 1: to be a very big news day this past weekend
0:53
Speaker 1: on Saturday, where there was a confluence of events that
0:57
Speaker 1: was expected to produce a lot of I guess news,
1:02
Speaker 1: but really didn't. These were two different events that were
1:05
Speaker 1: at least somewhat related. First was the two hundred and
1:09
Speaker 1: fiftyth anniversary of the US Army, which Donald Trump decided
1:13
Speaker 1: needed a parade in Washington, d C. Which just happened
1:16
Speaker 1: to coincide with his birthday. Now, as a no Kings
1:21
Speaker 1: guy in general myself, I was not a fan of
1:24
Speaker 1: this idea, and I realized It's not Trump's fault that
1:29
Speaker 1: his birthday happened to land on this day. But given
1:32
Speaker 1: Trump's persona, and given that it's his birthday, and given
1:36
Speaker 1: that we don't generally do military parades in Washington d C.
1:40
Speaker 1: In this country, although historically there have been some that
1:43
Speaker 1: were easily described that way. I was not in favor
1:48
Speaker 1: of this. There were Republican senators who were not in
1:51
Speaker 1: favor of this idea. But when we actually saw it,
1:55
Speaker 1: it really wasn't all that bad. In fact, the worst
1:58
Speaker 1: part of it was nobody really showed up. Now why
2:03
Speaker 1: no one really showed up is not really known. I've
2:06
Speaker 1: always felt like it's very, very difficult for there to
2:10
Speaker 1: be a pro Trump audience in a place like Washington,
2:15
Speaker 1: d C. I mean, that's just basic logic. This is
2:18
Speaker 1: not where there are a lot of Trump fans, And
2:21
Speaker 1: while there are some in Virginia, they're generally in the
2:25
Speaker 1: southern portion of the state. Maryland obviously is a very
2:29
Speaker 1: democratic state. Washington d c is extremely democratic state, and
2:34
Speaker 1: so it's always going to be difficult to draw a crowd.
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Speaker 1: This is I believe why Donald Trump ended up canceling
2:42
Speaker 1: his inaugural address outside claiming it was going to be
2:45
Speaker 1: too cold out. He just didn't want to have an
2:48
Speaker 1: event where the crowd size was not up to his
2:51
Speaker 1: standards and where he would be exposed is not having
2:54
Speaker 1: this massive, historically large crowd for his inauguration. So I
3:00
Speaker 1: frankly think geography plays a large part in this. I
3:03
Speaker 1: also just don't think that this is something that fits
3:06
Speaker 1: the American mindset. We're not used to this. But the
3:09
Speaker 1: event itself was really not that offensive. In fact, I
3:13
Speaker 1: found it pretty hilarious that the liberal reaction to this.
3:18
Speaker 1: And it's always dangerous to take tidbits or cherry pick
3:22
Speaker 1: examples on Twitter, but I did a pretty good investigation
3:27
Speaker 1: of what liberals were saying about the army parade, and
3:31
Speaker 1: generally their reaction was that it was not get this
3:35
Speaker 1: militaristic enough, that the marching was substandard, and that it
3:40
Speaker 1: was not impressive enough. And I found this to be
3:43
Speaker 1: hilarious because before the event, the criticism was all about
3:47
Speaker 1: this is going to be something out of the Soviet Union,
3:50
Speaker 1: and this was going to make us look like a dictatorship.
3:53
Speaker 1: And then once the event actually happened, it went from
3:57
Speaker 1: being too militaristic too not being militaristic enough, which I
4:02
Speaker 1: think was very telling about the left's opposition to this.
4:05
Speaker 1: So in the end, I really wasn't that offended by
4:09
Speaker 1: the army parade. Obviously, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary
4:12
Speaker 1: is a legitimate reason to have some sort of event
4:16
Speaker 1: like that, but there's no question that the crowd was very,
4:22
Speaker 1: very small in comparison to expectations and probably didn't warrant
4:26
Speaker 1: the cost that the parade in vote, and obviously it
4:32
Speaker 1: was a very expensive endeavor. Now, sometimes these numbers with
4:36
Speaker 1: regard to the expense are greatly exaggerated because it's not
4:39
Speaker 1: like the money just got burned into thin air. There
4:42
Speaker 1: are residual impacts that are positive to the money being spent,
4:45
Speaker 1: although there's also the damage potential damage to the roads,
4:50
Speaker 1: So there is a legitimate expense in these kind of events.
4:53
Speaker 1: It probably wasn't worth it, especially given the small crowd,
4:57
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as offensive from the standpoint of is
5:01
Speaker 1: this a situation where Trump is really a king or
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Speaker 1: a dictator or a leader out of the Soviet Union,
5:10
Speaker 1: So that to me was much more of a nothing
5:13
Speaker 1: burger than was anticipated. Similarly, and obviously related was the
5:17
Speaker 1: fact that across the country there were a series of
5:20
Speaker 1: so called no Kings protests. Now, this was obviously a
5:26
Speaker 1: very anti Trump protest. It was fueled in large part
5:30
Speaker 1: because of the so called immigration raids that are going on,
5:35
Speaker 1: especially here in California, at least allegedly going on here
5:38
Speaker 1: in California. Have some thoughts on that in just a second,
5:41
Speaker 1: and that's really a large part of what was fueling
5:44
Speaker 1: people showing up for this. And you know, philosophically, I'm
5:48
Speaker 1: definitely in the no Kings camp. I'm somebody who believes
5:53
Speaker 1: that that's one of our basic tenants in this country
5:55
Speaker 1: is we don't do kings in the United States of America.
5:59
Speaker 1: And I believe that there is a rational concern about
6:04
Speaker 1: some of the things that Trump has done which are
6:07
Speaker 1: leading us in that direction. Trump obviously which strongly disagree
6:11
Speaker 1: with that, but I think that there's a rational argument
6:14
Speaker 1: to be made there. However, the people who were promoting
6:19
Speaker 1: this and participating in this, in large part of not
6:22
Speaker 1: in the vastly in the vast majority of those participating
6:27
Speaker 1: have no credibility on this issue whatsoever. I would love, love, love,
6:33
Speaker 1: love for there to have somehow been a way to
6:35
Speaker 1: determine what percentage of those who showed up across the
6:39
Speaker 1: country for the No King's protest were actually more than
6:44
Speaker 1: willing to not just wear a mask during COVID but
6:47
Speaker 1: force other people to wear a useless mask during COVID.
6:51
Speaker 1: And that's just one of many examples. But I am
6:54
Speaker 1: very confident that if somehow you could come up with
6:57
Speaker 1: that stat it would be overwhelming that the overwhelming percentage
7:02
Speaker 1: of people who showed up for the No King's protests
7:05
Speaker 1: were mask wearers, which of course, is in my view,
7:09
Speaker 1: very hypocritical. And the mask wearing is just symbolic of
7:12
Speaker 1: everything that happened during the COVID panic and all of
7:16
Speaker 1: the tyranny that occurred, and especially here in California, because
7:19
Speaker 1: there were several No Kings protests here in California that
7:22
Speaker 1: were very well attended, and here in California, I guarantee
7:27
Speaker 1: nobody who attended these protests were at all upset with
7:31
Speaker 1: the fact that Gavin Newsom effectively made himself a king
7:34
Speaker 1: in this state, and that's not an exaggeration. He declared
7:37
Speaker 1: an emergency where he had full and total power over
7:40
Speaker 1: every aspect of our lives, not just over government, over
7:44
Speaker 1: every single aspect of our lives, and he abused that
7:47
Speaker 1: power in a way that made absolutely no sense, that
7:50
Speaker 1: caused no benefit, that curtailed no deaths, that created vast
7:57
Speaker 1: amounts of harm, especially to children, especially when it came
8:00
Speaker 1: to schools and sports and graduations and funerals, every aspect
8:08
Speaker 1: of our lives. And nobody on the left protested against
8:12
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom. So the hypocrisy here is massive, it's obvious,
8:18
Speaker 1: and so it's hard for me to take them seriously.
8:20
Speaker 1: But I will say that for the most part. Now
8:22
Speaker 1: there were some exceptions to this, but in the liberal
8:25
Speaker 1: cities these protests were very well attended. Now they also
8:30
Speaker 1: were in reality actually mostly peaceful, unlike the immigration protests
8:37
Speaker 1: which have turned into riots. So I will give them
8:40
Speaker 1: credit for that. I mean, I'm philosophically sympathetic to the
8:45
Speaker 1: whole no King's concept, and I'm also you want to protest, great,
8:52
Speaker 1: just don't cause any damage, don't hurt anybody, and keep
8:56
Speaker 1: it peaceful. And for the vast majority of situation. That's
9:00
Speaker 1: exactly what happened with the no Kings protests. Now, I
9:04
Speaker 1: mentioned that in large part this is being fueled by
9:07
Speaker 1: the news surrounding the so called ice rays, and I
9:12
Speaker 1: am starting to wonder whether or not the majority, maybe
9:17
Speaker 1: even the vast majority of all that has supposedly transpired
9:22
Speaker 1: over the last couple of weeks that has sparked protests,
9:25
Speaker 1: especially here in California and Ray. Not just not raids
9:30
Speaker 1: that's actually the problem. But I'm not sure there actually
9:32
Speaker 1: have been raids, but the riots that have been provoked
9:36
Speaker 1: due to these protests getting out of hands hand, which
9:39
Speaker 1: has caused so much publicity and so much consternation, I'm
9:44
Speaker 1: beginning to think that there really wasn't much there there
9:48
Speaker 1: to begin with, that a lot of this may in
9:51
Speaker 1: fact be a whisper down the lane social contagion situation. Now,
9:57
Speaker 1: to be clear, something has happened, and Donald Trump himself
10:02
Speaker 1: has even shifted the focus of these so called ice
10:05
Speaker 1: raids to sanctuary cities, which logistically and politically is probably
10:12
Speaker 1: a good move. But I will believe that when I
10:14
Speaker 1: see it, because I have not seen, to my satisfaction,
10:19
Speaker 1: really strong evidence that these ice rays were ever really
10:23
Speaker 1: happening to a large degree to begin with, And I'm
10:28
Speaker 1: basing that on a couple of different things. The first
10:32
Speaker 1: thing I'm basing this on is what the video evidence
10:35
Speaker 1: is of massive ice raids. And as you know, I
10:40
Speaker 1: live in southern California, just live just north of Los Angeles.
10:44
Speaker 1: I live in Ventura County, and Ventura County became a
10:49
Speaker 1: major focus of this entire issue because this is really
10:54
Speaker 1: some of the best farmland in all of California. This
10:57
Speaker 1: is where you get a lot of your strawberries from
11:00
Speaker 1: and a lot of other vegetation. And because of that,
11:03
Speaker 1: there are a lot of farm workers, migrant farm workers
11:06
Speaker 1: who tend to be illegal immigrants, undocumented workers as they're
11:11
Speaker 1: referred to on the left. And because I am particularly
11:16
Speaker 1: interested in this topic, not just from a political standpoint,
11:19
Speaker 1: but because I live in this area. For instance, on TikTok,
11:23
Speaker 1: my algorithm quickly picked up where I live, and then
11:27
Speaker 1: I'm interested in what's going on here, specifically with regard
11:31
Speaker 1: to these so called immigration raids, these ice raids, and
11:35
Speaker 1: every single video that popped up was incredibly ambiguous. Now
11:41
Speaker 1: we're living in a world where everybody has a cell phone, obviously,
11:45
Speaker 1: and yet I kept seeing the same video of three
11:49
Speaker 1: people from a distance running through which looked like a
11:55
Speaker 1: strawberry field. You couldn't even tell, you know, are two
12:00
Speaker 1: of them? Ice? Is one of them a migrant worker?
12:03
Speaker 1: By the way, There's all sorts of plausible explanations for
12:06
Speaker 1: why somebody would be tracked down one person. It just
12:10
Speaker 1: didn't feel like what you would see if there was
12:13
Speaker 1: massive immigration raids being led by ice. It frankly felt
12:18
Speaker 1: more like a Bigfoot video, because I'm like, where's Bigfoot?
12:22
Speaker 1: And it's the same video over and over again. Now
12:25
Speaker 1: that doesn't prove anything, But I kept waiting for, Okay,
12:29
Speaker 1: where's the evidence. If we're actually having massive ice raids,
12:33
Speaker 1: there would be massive amounts of evidence of that. There
12:36
Speaker 1: would be video, there would be interviews with people directly impacted. Instead,
12:42
Speaker 1: it's all vague and it's the evidence is extremely weak,
12:48
Speaker 1: the news reporting is extremely weak, and I I just
12:53
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe that it's even really happening. Now something
12:56
Speaker 1: has happened. You know, there was a meat factory in Omaha,
13:00
Speaker 1: Nebraska where the evidence seems to be pretty clear that
13:04
Speaker 1: some illegal immigrants were apprehended and detained. But here in
13:09
Speaker 1: southern California, which is the epicenter of this whole alleged operation,
13:14
Speaker 1: I have not seen very much evidence that anything very
13:18
Speaker 1: significant has actually happened, and in a large to a
13:22
Speaker 1: large degree, this feels like a social contagion. Let me
13:26
Speaker 1: give you two examples. The first comes from our little
13:29
Speaker 1: local newspaper called The Acorn. And again it's important to
13:34
Speaker 1: point out that my area where I live in Venture County,
13:38
Speaker 1: was really the epicenter for this whole situation and the
13:41
Speaker 1: backlash because this was seen as proof that this isn't
13:46
Speaker 1: about apprehending criminal illegal aliens or immigrants. This is about
13:51
Speaker 1: getting migrant workers. And nobody wants to get migrant workers.
13:55
Speaker 1: And even Trump immediately seemingly caved on this issue because
14:00
Speaker 1: of the backlash regarding what we need for farmers. And
14:03
Speaker 1: it's been hilarious to see liberals being very upset about
14:07
Speaker 1: where they're going to get their gardeners or the people
14:10
Speaker 1: to do their menial labor in Los Angeles, and no
14:12
Speaker 1: one wants to show up for work, which is very,
14:15
Speaker 1: very very telling. But the reason why I'm going to
14:19
Speaker 1: share this article on the front page of our local paper,
14:22
Speaker 1: which is actually read because it's handed out free. That's
14:26
Speaker 1: about the only way people read newspapers these days is
14:29
Speaker 1: if it's one of these free newspapers that you get
14:32
Speaker 1: dropped on your doorstep, like in the olden days, only
14:35
Speaker 1: this time you don't have to pay for it, so
14:37
Speaker 1: everyone gets it and most people seem to read it.
14:40
Speaker 2: Well.
14:40
Speaker 1: This to me was very telling about the lack of
14:44
Speaker 1: evidence that anything is actually transpired. Front page story headline,
14:50
Speaker 1: local officials bristle at ice enforcement. And here's the article,
14:55
Speaker 1: the immigration raids that began in Los Angeles on June six.
15:00
Speaker 1: By the way, we don't really have to me evidence
15:03
Speaker 1: that that was extremely widespread, but okay, this is the
15:07
Speaker 1: premise of the entire article, sowing fear among Latinos and
15:12
Speaker 1: setting off demonstrations downtown that led to violent confrontations between
15:16
Speaker 1: police and protesters have now extended into Ventura County, and
15:22
Speaker 1: local US representatives are responding with outrage. Immigration and customs
15:28
Speaker 1: enforcement has recently been active in cities including Oxnard, Portwanimi,
15:34
Speaker 1: and Camio, which is where I live. According to a
15:38
Speaker 1: statement by two Democratic congress people, Now it's important to
15:43
Speaker 1: point out, obviously a Democratic congress person has a huge
15:48
Speaker 1: conflict of interest here, a huge political agenda in the
15:52
Speaker 1: narrative that they're trying to set. So here was the
15:55
Speaker 1: statement from the two Democratic congress people who represent area. Quote,
16:02
Speaker 1: agents have reportedly stopped vehicles, loitered near schools, and attempted
16:12
Speaker 1: to enter agricultural properties and facilities in the Oxnard plane.
16:19
Speaker 1: The representatives said, now I want you to consider if
16:23
Speaker 1: this was really happening, and these are Democratic Congress people
16:28
Speaker 1: who have no hesitation whatsoever to think the worst of
16:33
Speaker 1: what is going on, if there was real evidence that
16:36
Speaker 1: this was widespread and that you know, thousands and thousands
16:39
Speaker 1: of illegal immigrants were being apprehended, detained and deported. And
16:44
Speaker 1: then close to that, do you really think that the
16:47
Speaker 1: headline here would be agents have reportedly so, we don't
16:51
Speaker 1: even know for sure, because once this social contagion starts,
16:56
Speaker 1: anybody that sees anything that even looks like ice or
17:00
Speaker 1: even law enforcement at all, that looks suspicious is automatically
17:04
Speaker 1: going to be seen as, oh my god, here are
17:06
Speaker 1: the raids. And then you get the whisper down the
17:09
Speaker 1: lane phenomenon, and the truth gets lost, but reportedly is
17:14
Speaker 1: carrying a lot of weight there. Reportedly from where but
17:18
Speaker 1: the allegation is incredibly benign. Stopped vehicles, loitered near schools,
17:25
Speaker 1: and attempted to enter agricultural properties. Nothing about detaining and
17:32
Speaker 1: deporting anybody. Now that doesn't mean that that hasn't happened
17:36
Speaker 1: at all. But to me, I'm a big believer that
17:39
Speaker 1: the absence of evidence is oftentimes evidence of absence. And
17:44
Speaker 1: here's a situation where there would be massive amounts of
17:47
Speaker 1: evidence that this was really happening, to the degree that
17:51
Speaker 1: liberals and the media, and frankly even some conservatives, because
17:55
Speaker 1: they want this to happen, are claiming that it is,
17:59
Speaker 1: and I'm just not seeing I'm not seeing any real
18:01
Speaker 1: evidence of it. And given where I live, and given
18:04
Speaker 1: how much I've looked into this, I think I would
18:06
Speaker 1: have found it by now. Now here's another example. This
18:10
Speaker 1: is Governor Gavin Newsom. Where as my daughter's have referred
18:13
Speaker 1: to him ever since COVID Governor Poussum, Governor Newsom put
18:18
Speaker 1: out a video statement which was very similar with regard
18:22
Speaker 1: to the relying on vague reports without anybody's name and
18:29
Speaker 1: without any numbers, without any real hard evidence of what
18:33
Speaker 1: is going on. He instead shares these anecdotal stories of
18:38
Speaker 1: the horrors that are being committed by ice and how
18:42
Speaker 1: much human suffering is occurring among illegal immigrants or migrants
18:48
Speaker 1: or undocumented workers, whatever he's going to call them. Being
18:52
Speaker 1: a liberal, he's not gonna call them ilegal immigrants, because
18:54
Speaker 1: that's banned in the liberal religion in these days. But
18:59
Speaker 1: listen very carefully to Newsome here, and especially in the
19:03
Speaker 1: context of the COVID panic that I've already alluded to.
19:07
Speaker 1: This is the guy that didn't give a damn about
19:09
Speaker 1: all the suffering he was creating among children. When it
19:13
Speaker 1: came to all of the tyrannical enforcement of his nonsensical
19:18
Speaker 1: COVID policies, he didn't care at all. So that was
19:22
Speaker 1: my number one reaction to this video of Okay, where
19:26
Speaker 1: was this during COVID and what a goddamn hypocrite you are.
19:30
Speaker 1: But two is the lack of specificity, the lack of
19:35
Speaker 1: real evidence, and it's all seemingly consistent with this idea
19:39
Speaker 1: of exaggeration whispered down the lane social contagion, and that
19:45
Speaker 1: really it's quite possible that all of this that has
19:48
Speaker 1: transpired over the last two weeks is much ado about
19:52
Speaker 1: very little. But here was California Governor Gavin Newsom in
19:57
Speaker 1: that statement to which I've been referring.
20:00
Speaker 3: Once and for all, just dispense with this notion that
20:02
Speaker 3: this is all about going after dangerous criminals. Two days
20:05
Speaker 3: ago in Oxnard, California, there were ice agents running through
20:08
Speaker 3: strawberry fields, people that are working those fields for over
20:11
Speaker 3: twenty years. I met with a twelve year old boy
20:14
Speaker 3: whose mom and dad were detained. He was left with nobody,
20:19
Speaker 3: sitting there weeping and crying, tears pouring down his face.
20:23
Speaker 3: Now today, just today, in Los Angeles, reports are coming
20:28
Speaker 3: back that caregivers, babysitters entrusted with children and toddlers in
20:36
Speaker 3: parks in Los Angeles had Ice agents rush on them
20:39
Speaker 3: in unmarked cars and take these children from the caregivers,
20:44
Speaker 3: detaining these babysitters. Imagine being a parent of one of
20:49
Speaker 3: those children and getting a call about what just happened.
20:52
Speaker 3: Any parent should be outraged, but all of us should
20:55
Speaker 3: be outraged by that cruelty, by that conduct by the
20:58
Speaker 3: Trump administer.
21:01
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, he is going to have a.
21:03
Speaker 3: Birthday, a vulgar display of weakness, and millions of people,
21:09
Speaker 3: I imagine millions of people are going to get out in protest,
21:12
Speaker 3: I ask you, if you're filled with rage as I
21:15
Speaker 3: am by what is going on in the militarization of
21:18
Speaker 3: great American cities, that when you're out protesting, you do
21:22
Speaker 3: it peacefully. Do not play in to Donald Trump. What
21:27
Speaker 3: he wants is chaos. That's the reaction that he hopes
21:32
Speaker 3: to get from us from this cruelty. Let's not give
21:36
Speaker 3: him what he wants. Let's exercise our constitutionally protected rights,
21:41
Speaker 3: but let's do it peacefully.
21:43
Speaker 1: So when you take Newsom's rather vague, and I believe hypocritical,
21:48
Speaker 1: given the COVID panic statement and the news reports that
21:52
Speaker 1: I've already referred to, and the videos that I've seen
21:56
Speaker 1: in social media and in the news, and the lack
21:59
Speaker 1: of substantive data that we should have if this was
22:04
Speaker 1: really happening in a widespread fashion, I am very, very
22:08
Speaker 1: skeptical that this has actually transpired in a way that
22:13
Speaker 1: has justified any of this. I mean, the fear that
22:16
Speaker 1: this is created in southern California and the protests and
22:20
Speaker 1: the riots that it provoked is way way out of
22:24
Speaker 1: proportion with what is actually seemingly transpired. And the fact
22:30
Speaker 1: that Trump has already effectively caved on this without it
22:33
Speaker 1: ever really happening. I think is very very telling about
22:36
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. That's the whole Taco phenomena. Trump always chickens out,
22:42
Speaker 1: and that's why I've never felt that Donald Trump was
22:45
Speaker 1: really going to fix our illegal immigration problem. We still
22:49
Speaker 1: don't have a wall. Yes, people are coming across the
22:53
Speaker 1: border at a much smaller clip, but there's been no
22:56
Speaker 1: mass deportations that were promised. Look, it's a very difficult endeavor.
23:01
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend that it's not. I've said
23:03
Speaker 1: many many times that, especially here in California, it's almost
23:07
Speaker 1: impossible because you even hint about enforcement of against illegal
23:12
Speaker 1: immigration and people go bananas. The entire infrastructure of the
23:17
Speaker 1: state is on the side of the illegal immigrants and
23:21
Speaker 1: against the federal government's attempt to enforce the law. And
23:26
Speaker 1: we've seen that in many ways in the last couple
23:29
Speaker 1: of weeks. There's a couple of examples I'm going to
23:31
Speaker 1: share with you right now. You're probably aware that California
23:35
Speaker 1: US Senator Alex Paedia pulled off a stunt at a
23:40
Speaker 1: press event being held by DHS Secretary of Christinome, where
23:46
Speaker 1: it was very very obvious that Padella wanted to provoke
23:50
Speaker 1: his own detention. He wanted to provoke some sort of
23:55
Speaker 1: media event, and he crashed the press conference, and he
24:00
Speaker 1: was taken away by security, and then he resisted being
24:03
Speaker 1: taken away, and he got exactly what he wanted. In fact,
24:06
Speaker 1: he actually probably got too much of what he wanted,
24:09
Speaker 1: because even some liberal commentators I saw on CNN were
24:13
Speaker 1: rather skeptical about what was really going on here. It
24:16
Speaker 1: was so obvious that this was a contrived stunt, and
24:20
Speaker 1: I don't think it was really all that effect of
24:23
Speaker 1: except among the ardent liberal base, where of course Padilla
24:27
Speaker 1: was a hero and got interviewed all over the place
24:29
Speaker 1: on liberal media outlets. He got exactly what he wanted,
24:34
Speaker 1: by the way, I know, there were a lot of
24:35
Speaker 1: people in my sphere who were comparing what happened to
24:39
Speaker 1: Padilla with what has happened to me a couple of
24:41
Speaker 1: times in my career, specifically in the infamous Matt Sandusky event,
24:46
Speaker 1: where I was arrested, detained, handcuffed, beaten, charged with a
24:52
Speaker 1: whole bunch of BS allegations that could have landed me
24:56
Speaker 1: in prison for a very long time before they were
24:58
Speaker 1: all dropped in a very very long story, And you know,
25:02
Speaker 1: there's one very very important, at least one very very
25:05
Speaker 1: important distinction between that situation and what happened with Alex Padia.
25:10
Speaker 1: I didn't provoke anything. I was just there, sitting in
25:14
Speaker 1: my own seat with a ticket in my name, and
25:17
Speaker 1: I got dragged away by police because Matt Sandusky was
25:21
Speaker 1: so afraid of having me sit there. Alex Padilla specifically
25:26
Speaker 1: went there to try to provoke a media happening. He
25:31
Speaker 1: wanted exactly what he ended up getting. You've got exactly
25:35
Speaker 1: what he wanted, which was the pictures of him being
25:39
Speaker 1: a US senator, a Hispanic man, being dragged away as
25:43
Speaker 1: he's just trying to ask a question. Well, that's not
25:46
Speaker 1: the appropriate way to do these things. If it was,
25:49
Speaker 1: no one could ever hold a press conference. So if
25:54
Speaker 1: you're a US senator, you have plenty of opportunity to
25:56
Speaker 1: ask questions. That's not what Padia wanted. He wanted to
26:00
Speaker 1: create a media event. It was a stunt, and by
26:04
Speaker 1: and large, I don't think people bought it, even within
26:07
Speaker 1: the mainstream news media. Now, I do think it's representative
26:12
Speaker 1: of a much larger issue, one that I've discussed many times,
26:15
Speaker 1: including in the last episode of the podcast, which is
26:19
Speaker 1: that here in California, one of the most exhausting things,
26:23
Speaker 1: at least for me in living here for the last
26:27
Speaker 1: twenty two years or so, is that it is very
26:31
Speaker 1: obvious that this is headed on a path to some
26:36
Speaker 1: level of secession. Now, I want to make this clear.
26:40
Speaker 1: There may not be a technical secession, because it's very,
26:43
Speaker 1: very difficult to actually technically secede from the United States,
26:48
Speaker 1: but a philosophical secession is clearly already happening, and we
26:54
Speaker 1: have seen massive amounts of evidence of it in just
26:57
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. The Padia in I think
27:00
Speaker 1: is certainly indicative of that. But something else happened at
27:05
Speaker 1: La City Council by a woman who's an La City
27:08
Speaker 1: council person by the name of Amelda Padia. No apparent
27:12
Speaker 1: as far as I'm aware, relation to Senator Alex Padia,
27:16
Speaker 1: but obviously she's Hispanic, and she was interviewing or questioning
27:22
Speaker 1: in an open panel. This was, like, I guess, a
27:25
Speaker 1: testimony by the LAPD chief, a guy by the name
27:29
Speaker 1: of Jim McDonald, Jim McDonald, who is a white guy.
27:34
Speaker 1: I don't even know how he has his job. I
27:36
Speaker 1: have no idea how a white guy with apparently at
27:39
Speaker 1: least half a testicle is still the LAPD chief. It
27:43
Speaker 1: must have been some sort of oversight. I know, he
27:45
Speaker 1: just took over from somebody who left the position. And
27:50
Speaker 1: obviously the mayor of Los Angeles is a black female,
27:52
Speaker 1: so maybe she felt like she needed a white male.
27:55
Speaker 1: But regardless, Jim McDonald was testifying and questioned by LA
28:01
Speaker 1: City councilperson Amelda Padilla, and this, to me, while you
28:06
Speaker 1: have to listen carefully, was an incredibly dramatic exchange because
28:13
Speaker 1: it could not be more obvious that councilwoman Padia is
28:19
Speaker 1: trying to get the head of the LAPD to be
28:22
Speaker 1: on record saying that his loyalty, she uses that word,
28:27
Speaker 1: his loyalty should be to Los Angeles and the people
28:34
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles and not to the United States of America. Now,
28:39
Speaker 1: to his credit, he pushes back, which I was stunned by.
28:44
Speaker 1: But this is an LA City councilwoman making it very
28:48
Speaker 1: clear that at least in her mindset, she does not
28:53
Speaker 1: see Los Angeles as part of the United States of America.
29:00
Speaker 1: And I don't think I'm exaggerating here. You can decide
29:03
Speaker 1: that for yourself. Here's the clip where she questions LAPD
29:07
Speaker 1: Chief Jim McDonald.
29:10
Speaker 2: Can we use technology like AI technology to create a
29:16
Speaker 2: situation where your department can identify, Hey, there's agents non
29:24
Speaker 2: City of LA in a neighboring town. Everyone go on
29:29
Speaker 2: alert in a way where you can support our business
29:32
Speaker 2: community and our immigrant community to know that it's time.
29:36
Speaker 2: That's something related to the lack of due process, the
29:39
Speaker 2: lack of warrants is about to hit our town. I'm
29:47
Speaker 2: asking a creativity question here. What can your department do
29:51
Speaker 2: to do more to warn us, to warn the business
29:54
Speaker 2: community got outside of our LA borders coming in from Englewood,
29:59
Speaker 2: coming in. I don't know, Valley, I don't know. You
30:02
Speaker 2: can warn us so that we can warn our folks
30:05
Speaker 2: in the spirit of your loyalty to the City of
30:09
Speaker 2: Los Angeles.
30:11
Speaker 3: So you're asking me to warn you about an enforcement
30:14
Speaker 3: action being taken by another agency.
30:16
Speaker 1: Before it happens. Yeah, yeah, we can't do that. Why not?
30:19
Speaker 1: That would be obstruction of justice.
30:21
Speaker 3: You may want to talk to the city attorney about that.
30:24
Speaker 1: Now. I found that to be incredibly telling and not surprising,
30:30
Speaker 1: but a little bit you know, it's a little bit
30:33
Speaker 1: crazy that she's so willing to talk about this openly.
30:37
Speaker 1: It didn't make nearly as much news here in Los Angeles.
30:40
Speaker 1: Of course, the Los Angeles news channels, they just try
30:44
Speaker 1: to pretend and ignore this entire issue that as we
30:47
Speaker 1: head towards some level of secession, whether it's technical or
30:51
Speaker 1: philosophical or somewhere in between. But that is as clear
30:56
Speaker 1: as it gets, and it's not an aberration. That is
30:59
Speaker 1: one of those situations where they said the quiet part
31:02
Speaker 1: out loud. This is not something that was a fluke.
31:07
Speaker 1: This was just one of those very rare situations where
31:10
Speaker 1: they made it obviously clear in a very public form.
31:14
Speaker 1: By the way, Similarly this week here in Los Angeles,
31:18
Speaker 1: in the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles Dodgers were
31:23
Speaker 1: playing a home game on Sunday on Father's Day, and
31:28
Speaker 1: the female Hispanic singer was told that she was going
31:32
Speaker 1: to be doing the national anthem in English, and she
31:37
Speaker 1: did it in Spanish anyway, and oh, by the way,
31:42
Speaker 1: the crowd reaction was mostly positive. My guess is partially
31:47
Speaker 1: because you have a lot of Spanish speaking Hispanics in
31:50
Speaker 1: the crowd, and the whatever crowd was not sympathetic to
31:55
Speaker 1: that was way too afraid to express any displeasure or
32:00
Speaker 1: because then they would be seen as racist. So you're
32:02
Speaker 1: never gonna get anybody who even philosophically was against this
32:06
Speaker 1: to express that publicly, especially in a PC city, liberal
32:10
Speaker 1: city like Los Angeles. But that's where we are here.
32:15
Speaker 1: The national anthem is being sung against the Dodgers' wishes,
32:19
Speaker 1: although they know they didn't stop her and they didn't
32:22
Speaker 1: condemn her afterwards because they're terrified of their Hispanic fan
32:27
Speaker 1: base and of the local news media. So here we
32:31
Speaker 1: have the national anthem of the United States being sung
32:34
Speaker 1: in Spanish in an La Dodgers game, and the crowd
32:38
Speaker 1: mostly approved of it and there was no significant disapproval.
32:43
Speaker 1: That's where we are here in California. I'm sorry. Whether
32:47
Speaker 1: that's technical secession, philosophical secession, whatever it is, that's a
32:53
Speaker 1: form of secession, and that's where we're headed, and it's
32:56
Speaker 1: only going to get worse as the demographics continue to
32:59
Speaker 1: change here in California. Now, I want to shift to
33:03
Speaker 1: what's going on with regard to what appears to be
33:07
Speaker 1: essentially an all out war between Israel and Iran. This began,
33:13
Speaker 1: at least in its most recent incarnation, with Israel conducting
33:19
Speaker 1: a brazen and apparently very successful surprise attack. This was
33:25
Speaker 1: attack that took out many of the members of the
33:28
Speaker 1: Iranian leadership related to their nuclear program, and was apparently
33:34
Speaker 1: extremely successful. At first, it appeared as if the United
33:38
Speaker 1: States was saying we had nothing to do with this.
33:42
Speaker 1: That then kind of changed as time went on. I
33:46
Speaker 1: do wish that Donald Trump's interview with Dana Bash of
33:51
Speaker 1: CNN had actually been recorded. It apparently was not. Apparently
33:59
Speaker 1: it was a phone comet conversation that Dana Bash from
34:03
Speaker 1: CNN had with Donald Trump and trying to get his
34:06
Speaker 1: initial reactions to Israel's attack on Iran and the Iranian
34:11
Speaker 1: leadership related to their nuclear program, because this would have
34:15
Speaker 1: been one of the all time Trump moments. I mean,
34:17
Speaker 1: obviously I'm a Trump critic, but occasionally there are times
34:21
Speaker 1: when Trump is both hilarious and awesome, and it appears
34:26
Speaker 1: as if this was one of them. Because Bash was
34:30
Speaker 1: trying to get Trump on the record about how it
34:33
Speaker 1: was that the Iranian nuclear leadership was taken out, how
34:38
Speaker 1: did they die, and according to Bash, Trump told her, well,
34:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't due to COVID. They didn't die of COVID. Oh,
34:48
Speaker 1: I would have loved to see Trump say that, but
34:52
Speaker 1: that's what data Bash reported on seeing and they didn't
34:56
Speaker 1: die of COVID, apparently, according to President Donald Trump. And
35:00
Speaker 1: as far as Israel's attack, I have to say, I
35:04
Speaker 1: am someone who I'm a defender of Israel. I think
35:07
Speaker 1: you probably know that already. I generally side with Israel
35:11
Speaker 1: and any of these controversies and conflicts. But I'm a
35:15
Speaker 1: bit confused by the nature of the vaunted Israeli intelligence agencies.
35:23
Speaker 1: I mean, because they have pulled off to at least
35:27
Speaker 1: two remarkable operations in you know, the last year, that
35:33
Speaker 1: pager situation, which took years and years to plan, where
35:37
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the pagers went off and killed
35:40
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of leaders within the Hamas operation, and
35:45
Speaker 1: then they pulled this off within Iran. And that's all
35:49
Speaker 1: very very impressive. And yet how is it that the
35:54
Speaker 1: same operation was completely caught off guard by the initial
36:00
Speaker 1: Hamas attacks a couple of years ago that were horrific
36:03
Speaker 1: and that were essentially the equivalent to nine to eleven
36:07
Speaker 1: for Israel. I just do not understand how that could happen. Now,
36:12
Speaker 1: I've done a little bit of research into it. Apparently
36:14
Speaker 1: there's a documentary about this that theorizes that the core
36:19
Speaker 1: problem was that those within Israeli intelligence who were warning
36:24
Speaker 1: about this potential Hamas attack happened to be female, and
36:28
Speaker 1: that therefore they may not have been taken as seriously.
36:31
Speaker 1: I have no way of knowing how truthful that is,
36:34
Speaker 1: but I know that that allegation is out there. But
36:37
Speaker 1: it seems incongruitous that somehow the same operation that is
36:44
Speaker 1: able to pull these kinds of attacks off were so
36:49
Speaker 1: taken off guard by what happened with the original Hamas
36:53
Speaker 1: attacks in October of a couple of years ago. So anyway, regardless,
36:58
Speaker 1: it seems as if this attack on Iran was remarkably successful.
37:04
Speaker 1: It was so successful that apparently this is a large
37:09
Speaker 1: part of why Donald Trump's opinion on US involvement here
37:14
Speaker 1: has evolved. And this is not an exaggeration, at least
37:18
Speaker 1: according to The New York Times. I realize that Trump
37:23
Speaker 1: fans don't take anything in the New York Times seriously
37:26
Speaker 1: that they don't want to believe. But the New York
37:28
Speaker 1: Times sometimes has very good sources in Trump world, and
37:32
Speaker 1: in this particular case, that appears to be at play. Here.
37:37
Speaker 1: Here is a summary of the New York Times article
37:40
Speaker 1: about a major moment in Trump's evolution when it comes
37:46
Speaker 1: to how supportive of Israel we are going to be
37:49
Speaker 1: when it comes to trying to take out the Iranian leadership.
37:54
Speaker 1: This is a summary by Mediaite, my old outlet that
37:58
Speaker 1: I used to be a senior columnist for several years.
38:01
Speaker 1: So media reported that The New York Times dropped a
38:04
Speaker 1: bombshell report detailing President Donald Trump's shifting attitude on the
38:10
Speaker 1: Israel Iran conflict, noting that Fox News coverage helped to
38:15
Speaker 1: sway him. The report explains Trump's quote rapid shift imposture
38:22
Speaker 1: from wanting to negotiate with the Iranians a new nuclear
38:26
Speaker 1: deal to now quote seriously consider sending American aircraft in
38:31
Speaker 1: to help refuel Israeli combat jets and to try to
38:34
Speaker 1: take out Iran's deep underground nuclear site at Ford, oh
38:39
Speaker 1: with thirty thousand pound bombs unquote. The New York Times
38:43
Speaker 1: article had several writers, including Maggie Haberman. Now that's a
38:48
Speaker 1: key name. Maggie Haberman is famously or infamously, according to
38:53
Speaker 1: some people, extremely well connected to Trump and to Trump World.
38:58
Speaker 1: And according to the New York Times article, which four
39:03
Speaker 1: of these reporters contributed to it. It lays out the
39:06
Speaker 1: timeline of Trump's thinking for the last several weeks. As
39:11
Speaker 1: the report wraps up, The Times explains how Trump went
39:14
Speaker 1: from being hesitant about the Israeli bombings of Iranian nuclear
39:18
Speaker 1: facilities late last week to wanting to share in the credit.
39:25
Speaker 1: According to The New York Times, when Trump woke up
39:28
Speaker 1: on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was
39:33
Speaker 1: broadcasting wall to wall imagery of what it portrays as
39:37
Speaker 1: Israel's military genius, and mister Trump could not resist claiming
39:43
Speaker 1: some credit for himself, according to the report. Here's more
39:48
Speaker 1: from the New York Times story. In phone calls with reporters,
39:51
Speaker 1: mister Trump began hinting that he had played a bigger
39:55
Speaker 1: behind the scenes role in the war than people realized.
39:59
Speaker 1: Private he told some confidence confidants that he was now
40:03
Speaker 1: leaning toward a more serious escalation, going along with Israel's
40:09
Speaker 1: earlier request that the United States deliver powerful bunker busting
40:13
Speaker 1: bombs to destroy Iran's nuclear facility at fordoh As recently
40:19
Speaker 1: as Monday, mister Trump held out the possibility that there
40:24
Speaker 1: could be meetings with Iranian officials to seek a negotiated deal,
40:29
Speaker 1: But as mister Trump abruptly left the Group of Seven
40:32
Speaker 1: summit in Canada to rush back to Washington, there was
40:36
Speaker 1: little indication that the conflict would be brought to a
40:39
Speaker 1: quick end through diplomacy. Okay, so the bottom line here
40:43
Speaker 1: is we have the New York Times, where they have
40:47
Speaker 1: in the past had pretty darn good sources in Trump world,
40:50
Speaker 1: telling a story that frankly makes a lot of sense
40:54
Speaker 1: if you understand who Donald Trump is now. Sometimes stories
40:58
Speaker 1: are created because they're believable based upon what we know
41:02
Speaker 1: about Trump. So I'm not going to buy into this
41:04
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, but this does check out. This does
41:10
Speaker 1: fit with what we know of Donald Trump. At first,
41:13
Speaker 1: he was very hesitant. Then he sees Israel being praised
41:18
Speaker 1: for this incredibly brazen and successful strike on the leadership
41:23
Speaker 1: within Iran related to their nuclear capabilities, and he wants
41:28
Speaker 1: some of the credit. He wants to be a hero.
41:32
Speaker 1: His ego is obviously a huge driving force within the
41:37
Speaker 1: psychology of Donald Trump. We all know that, and Fox
41:41
Speaker 1: News Channel has a massive, almost ridiculous influence over Donald
41:47
Speaker 1: Trump's thinking. So when Fox News Channel is praising Benjamin Netanyahu,
41:51
Speaker 1: with whom Trump has had a sometimes close and sometimes
41:55
Speaker 1: frosty relationship, and frankly, recently it's been more frosty than
41:59
Speaker 1: it has been close. Trump's going to have his mind changed,
42:04
Speaker 1: and that appears to have played a very significant role
42:08
Speaker 1: in how we got to where we are, which has
42:10
Speaker 1: then facilitated a very interesting, and if it wasn't so serious,
42:16
Speaker 1: frankly hilarious meltdown within magaworld regarding Trump and the issue
42:24
Speaker 1: of war and potential World War III. And Trump, of
42:28
Speaker 1: course had promised to keep us out of conflicts and
42:31
Speaker 1: to end the war, for instance, in Ukraine between Ukraine
42:35
Speaker 1: and Russia. That hasn't happened, and now we have this
42:38
Speaker 1: new situation that threatens all sorts of possible ramifications, including
42:45
Speaker 1: the theoretical notion of nuclear war at least preventing nuclear war.
42:49
Speaker 1: Of for I, Ron's capabilities are completely wiped out, and
42:53
Speaker 1: so this is creating a lot of consternation within magaworld.
42:58
Speaker 1: Before I get to the specifics of the MAGA world
43:01
Speaker 1: meltdown and the battle between Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson
43:05
Speaker 1: and Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, I do want to
43:08
Speaker 1: at least mention that there's another really fascinating from a
43:13
Speaker 1: psychological and a political perspective. Episode that has occurred related
43:18
Speaker 1: to Trump's very quick evolution on this issue of how
43:23
Speaker 1: much to support Israel and how publicly to support Israel,
43:27
Speaker 1: and it deals with Mike Huckabee, the ambassador who sent
43:33
Speaker 1: Trump a text that Trump then shared on social media,
43:40
Speaker 1: and the essence of Huckabee's text not going to read
43:43
Speaker 1: the whole thing, but Huckabee is obviously a devout Christian,
43:47
Speaker 1: and it is overtly religious in its tone and its
43:54
Speaker 1: context and its content. I mean, is making an overt
43:59
Speaker 1: religious place, even beginning with the idea that God saved
44:04
Speaker 1: Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. That's how it begins, which Huckaby
44:10
Speaker 1: knows Trump. You want to get to Trump, that's a
44:13
Speaker 1: darn good way to do it. You reference that God
44:17
Speaker 1: saved Trump in Butler. Trump loves that narrative, even though
44:22
Speaker 1: to me it's a very confusing narrative because another man
44:25
Speaker 1: died that day and two others were very badly injured,
44:28
Speaker 1: So why didn't God give a damn about them? Trump's
44:31
Speaker 1: never really addressed that, and in fact, you know, to me,
44:35
Speaker 1: the whole idea is utterly ridiculous. But Trump pretends and
44:39
Speaker 1: maybe even really does believe this, because he didn't just
44:44
Speaker 1: have a warm response to Huckabee's religious plea to support Israel. Here,
44:51
Speaker 1: because it goes from Butler to this unique moment in
44:55
Speaker 1: history and that God has I'm paraphrasing, God has basically
44:58
Speaker 1: chosen Donald Trump to make these incredibly important and difficult decisions.
45:03
Speaker 1: So Huckabee is really playing Trump like a maestro. I mean,
45:08
Speaker 1: he is pushing all the right buttons. And apparently Trump
45:13
Speaker 1: bought into it so much that he shared the text
45:16
Speaker 1: on social media. So you have Fox News Channel showing
45:21
Speaker 1: Israel to be brave and heroic and clever and successful
45:27
Speaker 1: in their military strike. So Trump wants to jump on
45:31
Speaker 1: board that to get credit. And then you have Mike
45:33
Speaker 1: Huckabee who is making this overtly religious argument, even invoking God,
45:41
Speaker 1: invoking God and God saving Trump and Butler, and that
45:47
Speaker 1: Trump has to do God's work, doesn't have to, but
45:49
Speaker 1: he's urging Trump to do God's work when it comes
45:54
Speaker 1: to defending Israel. And so you have really a remarkable
46:00
Speaker 1: set of circumstances that explains where we are now. Where
46:05
Speaker 1: Trump appears at least right now, could change at any
46:08
Speaker 1: moment to be much more supportive of Israel, much more
46:13
Speaker 1: against the Iranian regime than he at least publicly than
46:17
Speaker 1: he was previously, although there are also reports that Trump
46:21
Speaker 1: vetoed an Israeli effort to get the leader I titled Colemany.
46:29
Speaker 1: But there's no question that Trump is publicly much more
46:34
Speaker 1: supportive of Israel and much more willing to support attacks
46:39
Speaker 1: against Iran, even warning the people of Tehran to get
46:43
Speaker 1: the heck out of town because bad things are going
46:46
Speaker 1: to happen. Now. All of this, as I've already alluded to,
46:49
Speaker 1: has created an enormous amount of consternation within magaworld, especially
46:55
Speaker 1: among people like Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson's not alone, but
46:59
Speaker 1: Tocker Carlson is probably the most prominent person among those
47:03
Speaker 1: who has basically become a pacifist. He is very much
47:07
Speaker 1: against military intervention by the United States in almost any situation,
47:14
Speaker 1: if I take Tucker at his word, which is very
47:16
Speaker 1: difficult for me to do. Even though I once very
47:18
Speaker 1: much respected Tucker Carlson and considered him, I guess to
47:22
Speaker 1: be an acquaintance. I used to work for him briefly.
47:24
Speaker 1: We had somewhat of a decent relationship, but I lost
47:28
Speaker 1: all respect for him in the moments that occurred at
47:33
Speaker 1: the end of his term at Fox News Channel and
47:35
Speaker 1: then after he left Fox News Channel, and I think
47:37
Speaker 1: he played a very significant role in Trump being the
47:41
Speaker 1: winner of the Republican primary in twenty twenty four. I've
47:45
Speaker 1: even referred to him many times as Trump's MVP of
47:49
Speaker 1: the primary campaign, and I stand by that. Well, Carlson
47:54
Speaker 1: is now against all military intervention, I think because he
47:58
Speaker 1: feels burned by the Iraq War, which I don't think
48:02
Speaker 1: is a really fair assessment of what happened with regard
48:05
Speaker 1: to the Iraq War. But Carlson used to be essentially
48:09
Speaker 1: a hawk, and now he's essentially a pacifist, and he
48:14
Speaker 1: has been very openly critical of what Trump is doing here.
48:19
Speaker 1: He has even said or implied that it could be
48:21
Speaker 1: the end of Trump's presidency. He has been backed by
48:25
Speaker 1: a lot of the MAGA influencer class, and Trump has
48:30
Speaker 1: pushed back both in public statements and online. Here is
48:37
Speaker 1: the public statement that Trump made regarding Tucker Carlson, where
48:43
Speaker 1: he means Tucker Carlson in a classic Trump fashion, basically
48:48
Speaker 1: alluding to the fact that he's no longer employed at
48:50
Speaker 1: Fox News Channel and therefore is irrelevant, which of course
48:53
Speaker 1: is extremely weird given Trump's love of the independent media
48:58
Speaker 1: and the independent media's role in his election in twenty
49:01
Speaker 1: twenty four. I know a lot of MAGA people were
49:03
Speaker 1: very upset with the tone of this attack on Tucker Carlson.
49:08
Speaker 1: But here was Trump outside the White House taking a
49:13
Speaker 1: shot at Tucker Carlson because of his criticism of his
49:16
Speaker 1: stance on Israel and Iran.
49:19
Speaker 2: Carlson criticized, and you're saying that you're complicit.
49:22
Speaker 1: In the war. I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying.
49:25
Speaker 3: Let him go get a television network and say it
49:27
Speaker 3: so that people listen.
49:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of them Japan, a lot of them. Now,
49:38
Speaker 1: that was very interesting to me. Again, I think it's
49:42
Speaker 1: classic Trump. Trump always tries to go for the what
49:45
Speaker 1: he perceives to be the greatest vulnerability of the person
49:48
Speaker 1: he's attacking, and so therefore, basically claiming that Tucker Carlson
49:53
Speaker 1: is unemployed is a classic Trump attack mode. But it
50:01
Speaker 1: doesn't really fit, as I've already said, doesn't really fit
50:04
Speaker 1: with Trump's entire philosophy of the news media. Now, he
50:07
Speaker 1: loves Fox News Channel, but he's very much been in
50:11
Speaker 1: favor of and has facilitated this whole idea that the
50:14
Speaker 1: independent media is now much more powerful than the so
50:18
Speaker 1: called mainstream media. I guess maybe Fox News Channel in
50:22
Speaker 1: his world is an aberration to that reality. But I
50:27
Speaker 1: didn't think that was the best attack against Tucker Carlson.
50:31
Speaker 1: Maybe Trump himself realized that wasn't the best attack on
50:34
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson because he then later went on social media
50:39
Speaker 1: and posted, somebody please explain to Kookie Tucker Carlson. I
50:44
Speaker 1: love that, considering the fact that I do believe that
50:46
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson has lost his mind in many ways. Please
50:49
Speaker 1: explain to Koukie Tucker Carlson that quote Iran cannot have
50:54
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon exclamation point in all capital letters. Now,
51:00
Speaker 1: as far as whether or not Iran is close to
51:02
Speaker 1: getting a nuclear weapon, I have no idea how close
51:06
Speaker 1: they were. I have no idea. I suspect that they're
51:10
Speaker 1: a lot further away than they were a week ago
51:13
Speaker 1: after the Israeli attack. But this is something that for instance,
51:17
Speaker 1: Benjamin Netan Yahoo has been warning about for many many years.
51:21
Speaker 1: In fact, John Stewart on The Daily Show mocked not
51:26
Speaker 1: in Yahoo with a mashup of all the times that
51:30
Speaker 1: Netanyahu has claimed that Iran is very close to getting
51:33
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, and of course that has never happened
51:36
Speaker 1: as if yet. Of course, when I saw that, I thought, okay,
51:39
Speaker 1: that's fair game. But can we please get a mashup
51:42
Speaker 1: of all of the climate alarmists claiming that global warming
51:46
Speaker 1: was going to have all sorts of extraordinarily horrendous impacts
51:50
Speaker 1: in the near future that never turned out to be true.
51:53
Speaker 1: It's a similar dynamic, only I think that the threat
51:57
Speaker 1: of Iran getting a nuclear weapon a lot, a lot
52:01
Speaker 1: greater than that of alleged climate change in or global warming.
52:06
Speaker 1: But that's, you know, another story for another day. The
52:09
Speaker 1: point of this is I acknowledge that this is something
52:12
Speaker 1: that who has been claiming for a long time, and
52:15
Speaker 1: so therefore his credibility may not be that great. And
52:19
Speaker 1: of course Tulci Gabbard here in the United States has
52:23
Speaker 1: been saying that Iran is not that close. Now, some
52:26
Speaker 1: of her statements have been a bit misinterpreted, but that's
52:29
Speaker 1: generally been the gist that it's been the view of
52:33
Speaker 1: American intelligence that Iran is not that close. Apparently Trump
52:38
Speaker 1: has changed his tune on that. Now, has he changed
52:40
Speaker 1: his tune on that because he sees that as a
52:43
Speaker 1: as a good argument to substantiate his shift into a
52:48
Speaker 1: more pro Israel direction. Yeah, it's an ironic statement to make.
52:55
Speaker 1: It's an ironic stand to make by Trump because he
52:58
Speaker 1: was one of those that mocked the Iraq War over
53:01
Speaker 1: the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Of course, after
53:05
Speaker 1: it was perceived as a failure. Trump was not against
53:09
Speaker 1: the Iraq War. There's no evidence he was against the
53:11
Speaker 1: Iraq War before it was perceived as a failure. So
53:14
Speaker 1: Trump is very much somebody who's going to be on
53:17
Speaker 1: the side that he thinks is going to end up
53:19
Speaker 1: being victorious, and he wants the credit for it. So
53:22
Speaker 1: it is rather telling an ironic And now all of
53:25
Speaker 1: a sudden he seems to making the WMD argument when
53:29
Speaker 1: it comes to Iran, and I just I have no
53:31
Speaker 1: way of knowing how close Iran is. I agree that
53:36
Speaker 1: Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon period period. Interestingly,
53:42
Speaker 1: you know, John Fetterman, the only rational senator on the
53:46
Speaker 1: Democratic side in the US Senate, went on Bill Maher's
53:49
Speaker 1: HBO show and admitted that Democrats have lost the argument
53:54
Speaker 1: here on Iran and that once again he agrees that
53:58
Speaker 1: Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and
54:02
Speaker 1: that this I think the other really important point Fetterman
54:05
Speaker 1: made on Bill Maher is that this is a potentially
54:09
Speaker 1: unique opportunity for a generation to take out Iran's nuclear
54:16
Speaker 1: capability for a lot of different reasons, Trump being president
54:20
Speaker 1: and Yahoo being the Prime Minister of Israel. I also
54:23
Speaker 1: think one of the things that Trump brings to the
54:25
Speaker 1: table here is that it's obvious that the other Arab countries,
54:30
Speaker 1: places like Saudi Arabia, Cutter, the United Arab Emirates, places
54:38
Speaker 1: like that, are very pro Trump. There's a lot of
54:42
Speaker 1: lack of better term trust there between them and Trump
54:46
Speaker 1: and Uh, and so they kind of provide a bit
54:49
Speaker 1: of cover here. They're probably actually quite happy with what's
54:53
Speaker 1: going on here, you though, even though they don't like Israel,
54:56
Speaker 1: you know, they don't like Iran either by and large,
54:59
Speaker 1: and so they I think that that creates a unique
55:03
Speaker 1: set of circumstances where this could be a problem that
55:07
Speaker 1: is taken care of for the foreseeable future. I think
55:11
Speaker 1: that that's a logical way of looking at this. And
55:13
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that John Fetterman has put forward
55:17
Speaker 1: that argument with Bill Maher on HBO, but Tucker Carlson
55:22
Speaker 1: is not buying it. So we have this very very
55:24
Speaker 1: strange situation where John Fetterman is a Democrat who was
55:30
Speaker 1: seen as super liberal and woke when he was elected
55:34
Speaker 1: at Pennsylvania twenty twenty two, is now to what used
55:38
Speaker 1: to be considered the right of where Tucker Carlson is
55:42
Speaker 1: when it comes to military intervention, keeping around for getting
55:45
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, and support of Israel. That's the crazy
55:48
Speaker 1: world that we're now living in. But with regard to Tucker,
55:53
Speaker 1: I do have to give him a little bit of credit,
55:55
Speaker 1: even though I don't trust him anymore. I think he's
55:57
Speaker 1: lost his mind. I think he's wrong on the issue
56:00
Speaker 1: of military intervention at least to a certain degree. But
56:05
Speaker 1: he had on his I guess his video podcast Ted Cruz,
56:12
Speaker 1: Senator from Texas, obviously Republican, and he really made Cruz
56:17
Speaker 1: look like an idiot, not on the issue itself, but
56:21
Speaker 1: on Cruz's lack of knowledge of Iran. Now, I will
56:26
Speaker 1: first of all say that what you're about to hear
56:28
Speaker 1: is a bit of a gotcha game, which I'm not
56:31
Speaker 1: a big fan of. But in this particular case, I
56:35
Speaker 1: think Tucker has a point. I mean, Ted Cruz is
56:37
Speaker 1: a US Senator who has a very strong opinion about this,
56:41
Speaker 1: and it's clear that Cruz does not have even a
56:44
Speaker 1: basic rudimentary knowledge of Iran, and so this has gone
56:50
Speaker 1: viral and Ted Cruz looks like an ass which I'm
56:54
Speaker 1: fine with because Ted Cruz has done this in the past,
57:00
Speaker 1: talked about this where Ted Cruz grandstanded and attacked a
57:05
Speaker 1: judge during the Biden administration because in his mind, they
57:11
Speaker 1: had supported the Penn State administrator, specifically former Penn State
57:16
Speaker 1: President Graham Spaniard, by in my view very strong view,
57:21
Speaker 1: making the only correct judicial ruling in the entire saga,
57:25
Speaker 1: where the conviction of Grand Spaniard, which was totally bogus,
57:29
Speaker 1: was thrown out. Well, Cruz, having no knowledge of the
57:32
Speaker 1: situation at all, certainly not knowing that Jerry Sedusky was
57:36
Speaker 1: innocent and that therefore there was no cover up, simply
57:39
Speaker 1: used his lack of knowledge and the conventional wisdom of
57:43
Speaker 1: the Penn State case to brutally attack this judge for
57:47
Speaker 1: actually having done the right thing. And so it was
57:50
Speaker 1: at that moment when I realized, Okay, Ted Cruz is
57:53
Speaker 1: a fraud. He doesn't really know the details of anything.
57:56
Speaker 1: Because this is the case, obviously, I know the details
57:58
Speaker 1: of better than anybody else in the world. He doesn't
58:00
Speaker 1: have a clue. So it didn't really surprise me that
58:03
Speaker 1: he was exposed as clueless when it came to Iran,
58:08
Speaker 1: even though I wasn't particularly thrilled that it made Tucker
58:11
Speaker 1: Carlson look like the smart one in the room. But
58:13
Speaker 1: here is the viral exchange between Tucker Carlson and Ted
58:17
Speaker 1: Cruz on Iran.
58:19
Speaker 4: How many people living around? By the way, I don't
58:22
Speaker 4: know the population at all. No, I don't know the population.
58:26
Speaker 4: You don't know the population of the country. You seek
58:28
Speaker 4: to topple? How many people living around? Ninety two million?
58:32
Speaker 1: Okay?
58:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, how could you not know that? I don't sit
58:37
Speaker 4: around memorizing population tables. Well, it's kind of relevant because
58:41
Speaker 4: you're calling for the overthrow of the government. Why is
58:43
Speaker 4: it relevant whether it's well, because ninety million or eighty
58:45
Speaker 4: million or a hundred million. Well, because if you don't
58:47
Speaker 4: know anything about the country. He didn't say, I don't
58:49
Speaker 4: know anything about Okay, what's the ethnic mix of I wrong?
58:53
Speaker 4: They are Persians and well, presuminantly Shia. Okay, you don't
58:57
Speaker 4: know anything about Iran. So okay, I'm not the Tucker
59:01
Speaker 4: Carlson bird On I Ram. You're a center who's calling
59:04
Speaker 4: the one government.
59:07
Speaker 1: At the country. Eight.
59:08
Speaker 4: No, you don't know anything about the country. You're the
59:09
Speaker 4: one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.
59:12
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that.
59:13
Speaker 4: Who can't figure out, say, General Solani, you don't believe
59:17
Speaker 4: they're trying to murder Trump? Yes, because you're not calling
59:20
Speaker 4: for military strikes against them in retaliation and if they
59:22
Speaker 4: really believe that carrying out military strikes today? Who said
59:25
Speaker 4: Israel was right with our help? I've said we Israel
59:29
Speaker 4: is leading them, but we're supporting them. Well, this you're
59:31
Speaker 4: breaking news here because the US government last night denied
59:34
Speaker 4: the National Security Council spokesman Alex Feiffer denied on behalf
59:38
Speaker 4: of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in
59:41
Speaker 4: any offensive capacity. We're not bombing, then Israel's bombing.
59:43
Speaker 1: Then you just said we were.
59:46
Speaker 4: We are supporting as you're a senator. If you're saying
59:49
Speaker 4: the United States government is now we're worth a run.
59:51
Speaker 1: Right now. People are listening, so obviously Tucker Carlson won
59:55
Speaker 1: that exchange, Ted Cruz looked like an idiot. I don't
59:59
Speaker 1: know that really moves the needle very much when it
1:00:02
Speaker 1: comes to support or lack thereof, for US intervention on
1:00:07
Speaker 1: behalf of Israel. I will say though, that it probably
1:00:11
Speaker 1: has fueled more of this conflict within MAGA world. Steve
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Vannon and Tucker Carlson and Candae Owens people like that.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: The independent MAGA media are very very very much against
1:00:26
Speaker 1: any sort of US intervention or escalation because they have
1:00:30
Speaker 1: become effectively pacifists. They are very anti military conflict at
1:00:35
Speaker 1: almost any cost. And this is really a fascinating element
1:00:40
Speaker 1: of the MAGA movement and shows you just how much
1:00:44
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has altered the DNA of what used to
1:00:48
Speaker 1: be the Republican Party. I've already alluded to that with
1:00:52
Speaker 1: regard to the weirdness of John Fetterman being what would
1:00:56
Speaker 1: have been perceived as the right philosophically to the right
1:01:01
Speaker 1: of far to the right of Tucker Carlson, which is,
1:01:05
Speaker 1: you know, unfathomable. But a large portion of the MAGA
1:01:10
Speaker 1: base has essentially become pacifist. And you know, there have
1:01:15
Speaker 1: been many times in the past where people wondered, could
1:01:19
Speaker 1: this be an issue that actually hurts Trump with his base?
1:01:23
Speaker 1: And I've always been of the belief no, nothing will
1:01:25
Speaker 1: ever hurt Trump with his base, because as soon as
1:01:28
Speaker 1: Trump changes his position, that's the new position of the base.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: Because it's a cult. I will say that from at
1:01:37
Speaker 1: least what I'm seeing online, that is not one hundred
1:01:40
Speaker 1: percent the case, at least so far on this issue,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: there is the potential for a fracture here. Now how
1:01:48
Speaker 1: big of a fracture I don't know, but there is
1:01:52
Speaker 1: the potential for a significant fracture depending on how this
1:01:55
Speaker 1: all turns out. If it somehow turns out badly, I
1:02:00
Speaker 1: think that there will be a fracture within magaworld. If
1:02:04
Speaker 1: it fades away or if it's seen as very successful
1:02:07
Speaker 1: what Trump is doing, then probably not. But I'm definitely
1:02:11
Speaker 1: seeing a fundamental difference in the reaction not just of
1:02:16
Speaker 1: these independent MAGA influencers, but also of the base itself
1:02:22
Speaker 1: that there is a lot of consternation with what Trump
1:02:25
Speaker 1: is doing here, which of course has no impact on
1:02:29
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm supporting generally what is his current
1:02:33
Speaker 1: position is because I'm pro Israel and anti Iron, and
1:02:38
Speaker 1: I think this could be a unique opportunity to make
1:02:40
Speaker 1: the world safer into the foreseeable future. But from a
1:02:44
Speaker 1: political perspective, this is definitely something to watch here. How
1:02:48
Speaker 1: is MAGA world going to react to this? Because this
1:02:52
Speaker 1: really is one of those issues where they thought Trump
1:02:56
Speaker 1: was different. They thought Trump was not going to be
1:03:00
Speaker 1: a neo con for instance, that he was somebody that
1:03:04
Speaker 1: they could trust in not getting US into any sort
1:03:07
Speaker 1: of major military conflicts. And this clearly was a huge
1:03:11
Speaker 1: part of his twenty twenty four campaign and appeal, and
1:03:15
Speaker 1: now a lot of people are feeling betrayed. Of course,
1:03:18
Speaker 1: if it's a success, I don't think this is going
1:03:21
Speaker 1: to be a big deal going forward, but it's definitely
1:03:23
Speaker 1: something to watch. I want to at least mention although
1:03:27
Speaker 1: I don't have any super great insights on the horrific
1:03:32
Speaker 1: series of events that occurred in Minnesota over the last week,
1:03:36
Speaker 1: where this former appointee of Governor Tim Waltz went on
1:03:43
Speaker 1: a rampage overnight against Minnesota legislators, killing at least two
1:03:50
Speaker 1: of them as well as shooting their spouses. He apparently
1:03:55
Speaker 1: attempted to kill at least four Minnesota legislators. And this
1:04:01
Speaker 1: is just horrendous. I mean, this is just the worst
1:04:05
Speaker 1: thing you can possibly imagine from a political perspective. I mean,
1:04:09
Speaker 1: the horrific nature of the attacks and being targeted simply
1:04:13
Speaker 1: because you are in a leadership position within the Minnesota government.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a horrible story. There's a lot
1:04:20
Speaker 1: of questions about how in the world this person was
1:04:23
Speaker 1: able to get away with this. I mean, they were
1:04:26
Speaker 1: so brazen about it. I mean, there's a lot of
1:04:29
Speaker 1: this story that I don't understand and I still think
1:04:32
Speaker 1: needs to be gotten to the bottom of. There's the element,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: of course, whenever something like this happens, whether it's a
1:04:40
Speaker 1: school shooting or anything that's remotely political, both sides are
1:04:44
Speaker 1: immediately hoping that the other side will be responsible. And
1:04:49
Speaker 1: it appeared at first as if Democrats were going to
1:04:53
Speaker 1: be the ones that were left holding the bag here,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: because of course, you know, they were Democratic officials that
1:04:59
Speaker 1: were attacked, so they were hoping, as absurd and as
1:05:02
Speaker 1: sad as this is, that the person who did this
1:05:05
Speaker 1: was a Republican. But then it was learned that they
1:05:08
Speaker 1: were an appointee on a panel or a board multiple
1:05:12
Speaker 1: times by Tim Waltz. So therefore the presumption was that
1:05:15
Speaker 1: they couldn't be a Republican, at least not a very
1:05:19
Speaker 1: strong Republican. But then there was a series of interviews
1:05:23
Speaker 1: with a very bizarre element of this case, which is
1:05:27
Speaker 1: that there is this older, almost morbidly obese, unkempt guy
1:05:36
Speaker 1: who was apparently a close friend of the perpetrator of
1:05:40
Speaker 1: the killer and hit one of his roommates. Now, there's
1:05:45
Speaker 1: so much about the story that is very strange because
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the perpetrator, the killer has a family, there's conflicting reports
1:05:54
Speaker 1: over whether or not they had a legitimate job, but
1:05:57
Speaker 1: they also had male roommates. And this guy, this obese dude,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: who simultaneously clearly loved being interviewed and did not seem
1:06:09
Speaker 1: to have the temperament of a guy who was one
1:06:14
Speaker 1: reliable or two talking about the mass murder committed by
1:06:19
Speaker 1: a friend of his, claimed that he was actually a
1:06:23
Speaker 1: Republican and that he was a Trump supporter. I'm not
1:06:28
Speaker 1: buying anything on face value that that guy is selling,
1:06:32
Speaker 1: but at least it certainly led to further confusion about
1:06:36
Speaker 1: the narrative. So I don't know. This is a big
1:06:40
Speaker 1: story of I don't know. I don't think anybody knows.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: There's a lot of conflicting information, stuff that doesn't make
1:06:46
Speaker 1: sense how in the world he pulled this off. He
1:06:50
Speaker 1: didn't seem to be caring at all about being apprehended.
1:06:53
Speaker 1: There's a couple of moments where it's clear he probably
1:06:56
Speaker 1: should have been apprehended, and you know, innocent people died
1:07:00
Speaker 1: because of this and were also injured, and so it's
1:07:03
Speaker 1: just a terrible, terrible story. And it's also a sad
1:07:07
Speaker 1: statement about the state of American politics, where the first
1:07:11
Speaker 1: and probably the only thing that people really care about is, Okay,
1:07:17
Speaker 1: what was the politics that provoked the attack? And you know,
1:07:21
Speaker 1: there was an argument that, yes, these were Democrats, but
1:07:25
Speaker 1: they were at least two people who died were moderate
1:07:29
Speaker 1: Democrats who may have pissed this person off with recent votes.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: That's possible, I guess. But I'm always of the belief
1:07:38
Speaker 1: that if you're willing to do this, then you've got
1:07:43
Speaker 1: a screw loose, and so therefore it's almost impossible to
1:07:49
Speaker 1: make a rational analysis of why you did it. It's
1:07:53
Speaker 1: an inherently insane thing to do, to go around indiscriminately
1:07:58
Speaker 1: killing people because they're in the state legislature. I mean,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: that's insane, So therefore, inherently it's in irrational act. So
1:08:08
Speaker 1: I don't understand. I guess it's natural, it's human nature
1:08:11
Speaker 1: to want to try to come up with a rational
1:08:13
Speaker 1: explanation for what the heck is going on, But I
1:08:16
Speaker 1: just don't think you can reliably do that. And I
1:08:19
Speaker 1: certainly haven't seen any information in any direction that is
1:08:22
Speaker 1: reliable when it comes to figuring out what actually transpired there,
1:08:26
Speaker 1: except for the fact that it's a horrendous tragedy and
1:08:29
Speaker 1: it's a very sad statement about where we are in
1:08:33
Speaker 1: our culture and in our politics. I want to shift
1:08:37
Speaker 1: now to a story involving a woman who's become a
1:08:42
Speaker 1: star in podcasting who's gotten a lot of attention over
1:08:46
Speaker 1: the last week. I'm referring to Alex Cooper, and Alex
1:08:50
Speaker 1: Cooper is someone I've referred to on the podcast previously
1:08:53
Speaker 1: during the twenty twenty four election, because she did a
1:08:56
Speaker 1: very high profile interview as the host of the Call
1:08:58
Speaker 1: Her Daddy podcast with Kamala Harris. You may recall that
1:09:03
Speaker 1: this interview is probably most well known because the Harris
1:09:06
Speaker 1: campaign ended up spending well over one hundred thousand dollars
1:09:10
Speaker 1: building a fake set and they could have gone to
1:09:13
Speaker 1: the real Call Her Daddy set, so they made a
1:09:16
Speaker 1: facsimile of the Call Her Daddy set at great expense.
1:09:20
Speaker 1: The interview itself was basically a nothing burger and obviously
1:09:24
Speaker 1: didn't do anything for Harris when it came to winning
1:09:26
Speaker 1: over an enormous number of female voters. But Alex Cooper
1:09:31
Speaker 1: is the subject of a new documentary on Hulu that's
1:09:35
Speaker 1: getting a lot of attention because of an allegation that
1:09:39
Speaker 1: Cooper makes in the documentary that she was sexually harassed
1:09:45
Speaker 1: by her female soccer coach while she was at Boston
1:09:49
Speaker 1: University many years ago. Now, just for some more context here,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: I think Alex Cooper is a talented broadcaster. She's beautiful,
1:09:59
Speaker 1: which is a huge part of her appeal. If she
1:10:02
Speaker 1: was not beautiful, I don't think we would be hearing
1:10:05
Speaker 1: the name Alex Cooper. But she is a good interviewer.
1:10:08
Speaker 1: She's got a good voice, she's pleasant, she's beautiful. The
1:10:13
Speaker 1: content of her show is largely and that's why it
1:10:17
Speaker 1: was so hilarious that she was interviewing Kamala Harris, who
1:10:20
Speaker 1: some people would consider to maybe given her history, be
1:10:23
Speaker 1: an expert in this subject. But the show Call Her
1:10:26
Speaker 1: Daddy is largely about oral sex. That's not an exaggeration,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: and it's a lot about female empowerment through through sexual conversations.
1:10:40
Speaker 1: And I can understand why some people would find that
1:10:43
Speaker 1: to be entertaining and interesting. And it's very, very successful,
1:10:47
Speaker 1: there's no question, and it's very, very successful. But I
1:10:51
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of admiration for Cooper herself. While
1:10:55
Speaker 1: I do think she has talent, again, it's her physical
1:10:58
Speaker 1: attractiveness that allows that talent to be successful, but she
1:11:03
Speaker 1: also is incredibly narcissistic, even by the standards of talk
1:11:08
Speaker 1: show hosts. She's almost delusional about In fact, I think
1:11:12
Speaker 1: she probably is delusional about her own importance. I think
1:11:16
Speaker 1: it's getting worse on almost a daily basis. She originated
1:11:21
Speaker 1: from Barstool, the sports operation run by Dave Portnoy, and
1:11:27
Speaker 1: she was a success there and then she screwed over
1:11:30
Speaker 1: her partner, at least that's my perception of what happened,
1:11:33
Speaker 1: and then she went on to individual success on her
1:11:36
Speaker 1: own with Call Her Daddy. And that's why Hulu did
1:11:41
Speaker 1: this documentary. Well, the reason why I'm mentioning this now,
1:11:46
Speaker 1: other than the fact that I think that she's a
1:11:48
Speaker 1: somewhat significant figure within the new media. Is this allegation
1:11:53
Speaker 1: of sexual harassment. And I want to play a clip
1:11:57
Speaker 1: here just to give you some context. This is how
1:11:59
Speaker 1: much news this has created, so this will actually kill
1:12:03
Speaker 1: a couple birds with one stone. This is from ABC
1:12:07
Speaker 1: Good Morning America. They did a rather extensive story on
1:12:10
Speaker 1: the allegation in this Hulu documentary, and it also will
1:12:18
Speaker 1: give you some sense of what the allegation is and
1:12:21
Speaker 1: who Alex Cooper is. And then I'm gonna have some
1:12:23
Speaker 1: comments on the allegation after you hear this clip from
1:12:27
Speaker 1: ABC's Good Morning America.
1:12:29
Speaker 5: Welcome to Call Her Daddy.
1:12:31
Speaker 6: She's the voice millions of women tune into every week,
1:12:34
Speaker 6: known for interviews with some of the biggest stars of
1:12:36
Speaker 6: our time.
1:12:37
Speaker 5: Ed Sharon, Welcome to call her Doddie.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: Hey, I've been at this for sixty years. You're one
1:12:43
Speaker 1: of the best interviewers I've ever had.
1:12:45
Speaker 6: Now Call Her Daddy. Podcast host Alex Cooper making her
1:12:49
Speaker 6: own very personal allegations in the new Hulu docuseries Call
1:12:53
Speaker 6: Her Alex.
1:12:54
Speaker 5: I experienced something extremely painful, it.
1:12:58
Speaker 6: Was all taken away from it, alleging she was sexually
1:13:01
Speaker 6: harassed by her soccer coach while she played at Boston
1:13:04
Speaker 6: University from twenty thirteen to twenty fifteen.
1:13:08
Speaker 5: I was determined to make a name for myself on
1:13:10
Speaker 5: that field, so when my coach started to pay extra
1:13:14
Speaker 5: attention to me, I figured it was probably because I
1:13:18
Speaker 5: was playing well.
1:13:19
Speaker 6: Cooper says everything changed her sophomore year.
1:13:22
Speaker 5: I started to notice her really starting to fixate on
1:13:27
Speaker 5: me way more than any other teammate of mine. And
1:13:32
Speaker 5: it was confusing because the focus wasn't like, you're doing
1:13:37
Speaker 5: so well, let's get you on the field, You're going
1:13:38
Speaker 5: to be a starter. It was all based in her
1:13:43
Speaker 5: wanting to know who I was dating, her making comments
1:13:49
Speaker 5: about my body, and her always wanting to be alone
1:13:56
Speaker 5: with me.
1:13:57
Speaker 6: In the docuseries, Cooper alleges her coach, Nancy Veeldman, would
1:14:00
Speaker 6: put her hand on Cooper's thigh and ask personal questions
1:14:04
Speaker 6: about her romantic life.
1:14:06
Speaker 5: I didn't know what to do, and every time I
1:14:08
Speaker 5: tried to resist her, she would say there could be consequences,
1:14:12
Speaker 5: and there were. It was this psychotic game of you
1:14:16
Speaker 5: want to play, tell me about your sex life.
1:14:18
Speaker 6: Cooper and her parents say in the docuseries they went
1:14:21
Speaker 6: to a university Dean with Alex's allegations, but their claims
1:14:25
Speaker 6: were dismissed.
1:14:26
Speaker 4: I said, you have no right to do this to
1:14:30
Speaker 4: my daughter, that this program is out of control.
1:14:35
Speaker 5: I felt a lot of anger, anger at my coach,
1:14:40
Speaker 5: anger at my school, and anger at the system that
1:14:44
Speaker 5: allowed this to happen.
1:14:46
Speaker 6: Boston University and Feldman did not respond to a request
1:14:49
Speaker 6: for comment call her. Alex premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival,
1:14:54
Speaker 6: where Cooper said she did the docuseries quote because I
1:14:57
Speaker 6: wanted to tell women to come forward, she says when
1:15:00
Speaker 6: she did, initially she wasn't believed, and then it took
1:15:02
Speaker 6: her a decade guys to come forward again.
1:15:05
Speaker 1: So now, of course, given my history with the Sandusky
1:15:11
Speaker 1: case and the Michael Jackson case and the Matt Lower
1:15:15
Speaker 1: case and some others, I'm usually very hesitant to get
1:15:19
Speaker 1: involved in these situations because they're just exhausting. And the
1:15:26
Speaker 1: Ohio State wrestling case is another one. Apparently that HBO
1:15:30
Speaker 1: documentary is out now. I haven't seen it yet, but
1:15:33
Speaker 1: I just it's exhausting because the media always gets it wrong.
1:15:39
Speaker 1: This is the topic on which they are the worst.
1:15:42
Speaker 1: I mean, probably worse than even global warming. Climate change,
1:15:46
Speaker 1: or even as bad as they were during the COVID panic,
1:15:49
Speaker 1: anything having to do with sexual abuse sexual harassment. They
1:15:54
Speaker 1: get it wrong every single time. And of course I've
1:15:58
Speaker 1: become more and more inclined to believing that allegations, especially
1:16:02
Speaker 1: allegations that are made many years after the fact, are
1:16:06
Speaker 1: not necessarily credible. I have a little bit of a
1:16:09
Speaker 1: nuanced view on this situation. I think something happened. And
1:16:14
Speaker 1: the reason I think something happened is not because you know,
1:16:17
Speaker 1: Cooper was particularly credible in the comments that I've seen
1:16:22
Speaker 1: her make about it, and I mean, frankly, I mean,
1:16:24
Speaker 1: it's absurd on its face. Can we just acknowledge how
1:16:28
Speaker 1: absurd on its face is that that ABC doesn't really
1:16:32
Speaker 1: even reference, and none of the news coverage I've seen
1:16:35
Speaker 1: references the idea that in this particular situation, it's overtly
1:16:41
Speaker 1: absurd that someone who became famous doing a podcast has
1:16:46
Speaker 1: never talked about the fact that they were sexually harassed
1:16:51
Speaker 1: by their coach in college until they just happen to
1:16:55
Speaker 1: need a news hook for a documentary about their rise
1:16:58
Speaker 1: to fame. I mean, that's an inherent problem. It's a
1:17:02
Speaker 1: huge problem. I mean, this is not a situation where
1:17:05
Speaker 1: this person didn't have a platform to talk about this,
1:17:09
Speaker 1: especially when she was at barstool. Barstool is a sports operation, obviously,
1:17:15
Speaker 1: you know, sexual harassment on sports teams, especially female sports teams,
1:17:20
Speaker 1: has always been a major issue, and so why did
1:17:24
Speaker 1: she never talk about this? Now? Of course there's always
1:17:26
Speaker 1: the claim, oh, you know, which is so redundant, and
1:17:31
Speaker 1: I've never really bought into this, especially in the modern era,
1:17:34
Speaker 1: where oh, I was afraid to talk, I was afraid
1:17:37
Speaker 1: to speak out. Well what you after you left Boston University?
1:17:40
Speaker 1: Why were you afraid? So I'm very skeptical of why now.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: I believe the why now is purely because they need
1:17:48
Speaker 1: a news hook, which has been very, very successful. I mean,
1:17:52
Speaker 1: this has created a ridiculous amount of news considering the
1:17:55
Speaker 1: nature of the allegation is rather benign. I'm not justifying it,
1:17:58
Speaker 1: I'm not defending it. If it's true, it's terrible, it's problematic,
1:18:03
Speaker 1: But there was no actual sexual abuse that's even being
1:18:08
Speaker 1: alleged here. This was sexual harassment. So for it, all
1:18:12
Speaker 1: these years later to be the newshook for a documentary
1:18:15
Speaker 1: is pretty ridiculous. But it's been very successful, and I
1:18:19
Speaker 1: believe it was done largely on purpose. Now that doesn't
1:18:22
Speaker 1: mean that the allegation isn't true. It might be a
1:18:26
Speaker 1: little exaggerated, but there appears to be, from what I
1:18:30
Speaker 1: can tell, some corroboration of this contemporaneously. And you know
1:18:34
Speaker 1: how big I am into contemporaneous corroboration, especially in this
1:18:39
Speaker 1: modern era, especially when you're in college. You're not a
1:18:42
Speaker 1: little child, you're in college, and apparently, especially via her
1:18:48
Speaker 1: parents documenting what was going on, there is corroboration. So
1:18:53
Speaker 1: I have no problem believing that there's at least some
1:18:56
Speaker 1: truth to the allegation that Alex Cooper was sexually harassed
1:19:02
Speaker 1: on her college team by her coach, who's no longer
1:19:06
Speaker 1: at Boston University. But I have a problem with the timing.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: But I also here's the part that I find to
1:19:13
Speaker 1: be most fascinating by this, and what I think is
1:19:17
Speaker 1: an interesting shift, or maybe it's an anomaly because the
1:19:21
Speaker 1: media loves the celebrity and the beauty of Alex Cooper
1:19:25
Speaker 1: and so therefore they're just willing to look the other way.
1:19:28
Speaker 1: But can we please also acknowledge that if the essence
1:19:33
Speaker 1: of Cooper's claim is the issue of homosexuality, or lesbianism,
1:19:41
Speaker 1: because the coach obviously is being portrayed as a lesbian.
1:19:47
Speaker 1: Here hardly a stretch for a female soccer coach to
1:19:51
Speaker 1: be a lesbian, And that it was the lesbianism that
1:19:55
Speaker 1: facilitated the sexual harassment of Alex Cooper, who's extremely beautiful
1:20:01
Speaker 1: and heterosexual. And the part of this that I find
1:20:04
Speaker 1: almost hilarious is that it wouldn't have been a stretch,
1:20:09
Speaker 1: especially a couple of years ago, for Alex Cooper. And
1:20:12
Speaker 1: by the way, this might have been wo house Cooper
1:20:14
Speaker 1: kept quiet about this. They wouldn't have been a stretch
1:20:17
Speaker 1: at all for this kind of an allegation to be
1:20:19
Speaker 1: seen as at least in the mainstream media, as homophobic.
1:20:24
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you're just seeing her actions through the
1:20:28
Speaker 1: prism of the fact that you're a homophobe, you're afraid
1:20:31
Speaker 1: of a lesbian coach, and she was just, you know,
1:20:35
Speaker 1: acting normally, and you perceived it as sexual harassment because
1:20:38
Speaker 1: you have a problem with homosexuals, you have a problem
1:20:42
Speaker 1: with lesbianism. I mean, they could have easily been portrayed
1:20:45
Speaker 1: that way, And I find it rather hilarious that, based
1:20:49
Speaker 1: upon the rules that the liberal media has created over
1:20:53
Speaker 1: the years. A lot of this coverage, including ABC's report,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: could be seen as facilitating homophobia. I don't think that's
1:21:02
Speaker 1: a scratch. Now, it should also be pointed out that
1:21:06
Speaker 1: one hundred former members of the Boston University soccer team
1:21:11
Speaker 1: that have played for the coach have put out a
1:21:13
Speaker 1: statement in support of her. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean
1:21:18
Speaker 1: that what Cooper said is false. I mean it's you know,
1:21:22
Speaker 1: it's a pretty strong indication that there's more to the
1:21:24
Speaker 1: story because the coach is no longer the coach. Former
1:21:29
Speaker 1: is an incredibly important word in the English dictionary. When
1:21:35
Speaker 1: you're a former coach, no one, you know, you can't
1:21:38
Speaker 1: do anything for anybody, no one's afraid of you. They're
1:21:41
Speaker 1: only coming forward because they think it's the right thing
1:21:44
Speaker 1: to do, and it's the truth. So I have faith
1:21:48
Speaker 1: that those one hundred people truly believe what they are saying,
1:21:52
Speaker 1: and that they have a very different view of this situation.
1:21:56
Speaker 1: My guess is, again, something probably happened. It may be
1:22:00
Speaker 1: being exaggerated for the purposes of giving a news hook
1:22:03
Speaker 1: to this Hulu documentary, and I do find it rather
1:22:09
Speaker 1: telling and hilarious that, you know, the media is not
1:22:12
Speaker 1: playing the homophobia card here when they easily could. There's
1:22:17
Speaker 1: another part of this, though, that I think goes to
1:22:21
Speaker 1: a much bigger issue, and that is the issue of
1:22:26
Speaker 1: how difficult it is to coach in this day and age.
1:22:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I've referenced this many times in the past,
1:22:32
Speaker 1: but I'm seeing a lot of videos, especially on TikTok,
1:22:37
Speaker 1: and it's almost always among female athletes. Now, again, this
1:22:43
Speaker 1: is anecdotal, so it's you know, it's dangerous to interpret
1:22:47
Speaker 1: too much out of it, but I'm a pretty good, uh,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: you know, gay, I have a pretty good gauge of
1:22:53
Speaker 1: of what's fake and what's not, and what's a real
1:22:56
Speaker 1: trend and what's not. And my set is that it
1:23:01
Speaker 1: is becoming almost impossible to coach in general, but especially
1:23:06
Speaker 1: among younger female athletes. And it's not just because of
1:23:11
Speaker 1: this issue of sexual harassment or sexual abuse, because I mean,
1:23:15
Speaker 1: obviously as a male and I have coached a girls
1:23:18
Speaker 1: high school golf team and it was basically impossible for
1:23:21
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. But I mean, the level of
1:23:24
Speaker 1: fear you have as a heterosexual male dealing with high
1:23:28
Speaker 1: school girls is off the charts. I mean, you have
1:23:30
Speaker 1: to be unbelievably careful for reasons I'm not going to
1:23:34
Speaker 1: get into now, but I think you'll understand where I'm
1:23:37
Speaker 1: coming from. But you know, if you happen to be
1:23:39
Speaker 1: a lesbian female and you're dealing with an Alex Cooper,
1:23:42
Speaker 1: now that's very difficult as well. But it goes way
1:23:46
Speaker 1: beyond the issue of sexual harassment or sexual abuse or
1:23:49
Speaker 1: any sort of perceptions in that area. I think it
1:23:52
Speaker 1: goes to what the definition of quote unquote ABUSEI of
1:23:56
Speaker 1: behavior is among this generation Z. I'm seeing so many
1:24:01
Speaker 1: videos from female athletes who are making unbelievably vague allegations
1:24:08
Speaker 1: against their coach where it almost goes through by the
1:24:12
Speaker 1: same exact playbook, where you know, this person made me
1:24:15
Speaker 1: lose my love of the sport and they were abusive
1:24:19
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm you know, I'm so glad they
1:24:22
Speaker 1: got fired or they're no longer there, or so glad
1:24:25
Speaker 1: I'm no longer on the team. I mean it is,
1:24:28
Speaker 1: this is a very pervasive narrative and there's never any
1:24:32
Speaker 1: specifics to what actually happened. It's all very very vague,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: and I'm very skeptical of it because to me, I
1:24:39
Speaker 1: think the Okham's razor explanation for this is this is
1:24:43
Speaker 1: a remarkably soft generation that has a definition of what
1:24:47
Speaker 1: abuse is that is completely ridiculous, and that virtually anybody
1:24:52
Speaker 1: who coached with any sort of what might be perceived
1:24:55
Speaker 1: as old school values would be quote unquote abuse. I mean,
1:25:00
Speaker 1: my god, I mean even in football, we've seen this
1:25:04
Speaker 1: happen dramatically, where coaches that would have been were perceived
1:25:09
Speaker 1: as gods previously would never be even allowed to coach today.
1:25:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a very good reason why
1:25:16
Speaker 1: Nick Saban got out of college football when he did,
1:25:19
Speaker 1: and there's a nil and instant transfers as part of it.
1:25:22
Speaker 1: But he basically said part of it was just how
1:25:26
Speaker 1: narcissistic and self absorbed and soft this generation is. Those
1:25:30
Speaker 1: are my words, but that's a pretty good paraphrase of
1:25:33
Speaker 1: what he said. And this is the most successful coach
1:25:36
Speaker 1: in the modern history of college football. So it's almost impossible.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: If Nick Saban can't do it, how can a high
1:25:44
Speaker 1: school coach or a non famous college coach, especially when
1:25:49
Speaker 1: there is a hair trigger on the allegation of quote
1:25:54
Speaker 1: unquote abuse, whatever that is, whether it's verbal abuse or
1:25:58
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, or sexual or harassment, or just being too
1:26:01
Speaker 1: tough on me, and so I think that this is
1:26:06
Speaker 1: a story that is much much larger than Alex Cooper
1:26:09
Speaker 1: and his female sports get more and more attention, especially
1:26:13
Speaker 1: in the Caitlin Clark era. I think this is going
1:26:16
Speaker 1: to be a bigger and bigger issue because I think
1:26:18
Speaker 1: that women are far more, especially post me too, far
1:26:22
Speaker 1: more likely to feel as if they are being treated
1:26:28
Speaker 1: unfairly or being the victim of abuse, and that men,
1:26:31
Speaker 1: at least some men, most men who play sports are
1:26:35
Speaker 1: still willing to some degree to be coached without perceiving
1:26:40
Speaker 1: that criticism is abuse. And we've seen this in public
1:26:45
Speaker 1: stories all the time. We talked a lot about that
1:26:47
Speaker 1: Whole by You Duke volleyball situation where the black female
1:26:53
Speaker 1: player from Duke Rachel Richardson perceived a crowd that was
1:26:58
Speaker 1: taunting her as some now being racist, that being abusive.
1:27:03
Speaker 1: We've seen that with Angel Reese in a remarkably similar
1:27:06
Speaker 1: situation recently. It's always immediately perceived as abusive or even
1:27:11
Speaker 1: racist if you happen to be a black person. So
1:27:15
Speaker 1: there is a series of circumstances that basically make it
1:27:20
Speaker 1: impossible to coach, whether it's men or women. I think
1:27:24
Speaker 1: women in particular that I think indirectly, this Alex Cooper
1:27:29
Speaker 1: story shines a light on but the news media, of course,
1:27:33
Speaker 1: is completely blowing it. They have one view of this
1:27:37
Speaker 1: story is that it must be true, and we've now
1:27:41
Speaker 1: lowered the bar to what is worthy of a newsmaking
1:27:46
Speaker 1: documentary is that and a very old allegation of sexual
1:27:51
Speaker 1: harassment at a minor college women's soccer program is somehow
1:27:58
Speaker 1: headline news and worthy of stories like, for instance, on
1:28:01
Speaker 1: Good Morning America because Alex Cooper is now a beautiful celebrity,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: and so this gives them the opportunity to talk about
1:28:09
Speaker 1: a beautiful celebrity, which of course is good for ratings
1:28:12
Speaker 1: and everything else. By the way, when it comes to
1:28:15
Speaker 1: this issue of homophobia and the media reporting on sex
1:28:19
Speaker 1: abuse allegations, I do want to at least mention that
1:28:22
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry has been sued for hundreds of millions of
1:28:26
Speaker 1: dollars by a male actor for claims of actual sexual abuse,
1:28:34
Speaker 1: for which there appear to be some rather damaging and
1:28:40
Speaker 1: very blatantly overt text messages. Now, to my knowledge, the
1:28:45
Speaker 1: text messages themselves have not been made public, but the
1:28:48
Speaker 1: content of them has been Perry of course is saying
1:28:53
Speaker 1: that this is a shakedown, or as lawyers are saying,
1:28:55
Speaker 1: this is a shakedown by an out of work actor.
1:28:58
Speaker 1: But this is a situation where you have an allegation
1:29:02
Speaker 1: of gay sexual abuse, man on man sexual abuse, and
1:29:08
Speaker 1: that makes it even more complicated for the media to
1:29:12
Speaker 1: report on. They normally love sexual abuse cases, and they
1:29:16
Speaker 1: report on all of them, even without as I always say,
1:29:19
Speaker 1: where's the criminal complaint, the charge, the arrest. As soon
1:29:24
Speaker 1: as you start a story with a civil allegation where
1:29:28
Speaker 1: there's in this case allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars
1:29:31
Speaker 1: at stake, I'm inherently suspicious. Even if you have horrible
1:29:35
Speaker 1: text messages, Why isn't this a criminal case. It should
1:29:38
Speaker 1: be a criminal case. And when you're going after a
1:29:40
Speaker 1: rich guy like Tyler Perry, you have to at least
1:29:43
Speaker 1: take into consideration the financial motive in this circumstance. Doesn't
1:29:49
Speaker 1: mean it's not true, but inherently there's a huge financial motive.
1:29:54
Speaker 1: So you've got all sorts of different circumstances and the
1:29:56
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry case that are going to confuse the hell
1:29:59
Speaker 1: out of the news meeting normally sexual abuse with some
1:30:02
Speaker 1: sort of evidence behind it. That's a huge story involving
1:30:05
Speaker 1: a celebrity. But wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not only is
1:30:08
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry an icon in the black community, but obviously
1:30:10
Speaker 1: he's black and therefore protected in some ways because of
1:30:14
Speaker 1: that reality in the minds of the mainstream news media,
1:30:17
Speaker 1: and that this is an allegation of gay sex, which
1:30:20
Speaker 1: further complicates and confuses the situation. So I'm not sure
1:30:24
Speaker 1: where that's going to go. But my guess is you're
1:30:26
Speaker 1: not going to see a whole lot of prolonged stories
1:30:29
Speaker 1: about the allegations against Tyler Perry, at least unless until
1:30:33
Speaker 1: there's some real significant evidence and a conclusion that proves
1:30:37
Speaker 1: that the allegations are true, which is pretty much the
1:30:39
Speaker 1: way this is supposed to work, but no longer does
1:30:42
Speaker 1: in this new media environment. I want to move now
1:30:45
Speaker 1: to Caitlin Clark because she is back from an injury
1:30:49
Speaker 1: and now playing again in the WNBA. Her short absence
1:30:54
Speaker 1: was really very telling when it came to the television ratings.
1:30:58
Speaker 1: WNBA television rates across the board, not just for Caitlin
1:31:03
Speaker 1: Clark games, but across the board fell by at least
1:31:07
Speaker 1: fifty percent, which is just astonishing, very very telling, and
1:31:13
Speaker 1: it furthers this narrative that the WNBA doesn't understand or
1:31:17
Speaker 1: doesn't even seem to appreciate or like this manna from
1:31:21
Speaker 1: heaven that they have gotten with this superstar Caitlin Clark, who,
1:31:25
Speaker 1: I have to tell you. While I think I was
1:31:28
Speaker 1: the head of the curve when it came to recognizing
1:31:30
Speaker 1: the Caitlin Clark phenomenon when she was a junior in Iowa,
1:31:34
Speaker 1: I have been wrong in how long lasting her appeal
1:31:40
Speaker 1: would be. I thought it would diminish when she went
1:31:43
Speaker 1: pro I thought it was fortuitous for her to go
1:31:46
Speaker 1: to Indiana, which culturally is very similar to Iowa, and
1:31:51
Speaker 1: I thought that would be a really perfect place for her.
1:31:54
Speaker 1: But I did not expect this level of popularity to
1:31:58
Speaker 1: maintain itself outside of the college realm. So in that way,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: I was wrong about Caitlin Clark. But there's no question
1:32:06
Speaker 1: that the WNBA has no idea how to handle her.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: There's an enormous amount of jealousy, envy, there's a racial
1:32:14
Speaker 1: component to the whole situation. I mean it is not
1:32:18
Speaker 1: an exaggeration to say that there has to be an
1:32:21
Speaker 1: enormous amount of pure hatred of Caitlyn Clark. And the
1:32:27
Speaker 1: way we know that is because these episodes continue to
1:32:31
Speaker 1: happen where she is being physically targeted. If it happens
1:32:35
Speaker 1: once or twice, you think, okay, that's a fluke, that's
1:32:37
Speaker 1: an anomaly. You know, you can't overinterpret that. Maybe that
1:32:42
Speaker 1: just one person with an animus towards Caitlin Clark. But
1:32:47
Speaker 1: this continually happens. And it happened again Tuesday night in
1:32:52
Speaker 1: very dramatic fashion where Clark was abused on camera in
1:32:58
Speaker 1: front of God and everybody on television arena pact of
1:33:02
Speaker 1: fans in a way that I'm telling you really could
1:33:07
Speaker 1: have been a criminal act. I don't want to exaggerate it.
1:33:10
Speaker 1: But she was hitting the eye and then she was
1:33:12
Speaker 1: pushed to the ground by another player on the opposing team,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: and the strike to the eye was not within the
1:33:19
Speaker 1: confines of a normal basketball situation. And maybe the defenders
1:33:24
Speaker 1: is that uncoordinated that they hit Clark in the eye
1:33:27
Speaker 1: by accident, but it didn't seem like that to me.
1:33:30
Speaker 1: And this was really bad. Now. Clark might have exaggerated
1:33:35
Speaker 1: it a little bit. There might have been a little
1:33:36
Speaker 1: bit of a flop, but I'm on Clark's side here,
1:33:39
Speaker 1: This was an attack. This was a physical attack on
1:33:43
Speaker 1: Caitlin Clark, the star of the WNBA, the meal ticket
1:33:47
Speaker 1: of the WNBA, whether it's out of jealousy or a
1:33:51
Speaker 1: racial animus. By the way, she'd be pointed out that
1:33:53
Speaker 1: the girl that hit her in the face appears to
1:33:56
Speaker 1: be a white girl, and then the girl pushed her down.
1:33:59
Speaker 1: The woman who pushed her was a black woman. But
1:34:03
Speaker 1: there's no question that this is now way beyond the
1:34:07
Speaker 1: realm of coincidence. She is being physically targeted and she
1:34:11
Speaker 1: when you just can you imagine, I mean, you just
1:34:14
Speaker 1: had your superstar out for a couple of weeks, the
1:34:17
Speaker 1: ratings for the entire league collapse, and then immediately you
1:34:22
Speaker 1: try to injure her again. It's just astonishing and incredibly
1:34:27
Speaker 1: telling about the nature of the WNBA, the nature of
1:34:31
Speaker 1: female politics, the nature of the racial circumstances that exist
1:34:37
Speaker 1: in this country in general, in the WNBA in particular.
1:34:40
Speaker 1: But something very interesting happened in response to Caitlin Clark.
1:34:44
Speaker 1: By the way, Clark herself got a technical foul, which
1:34:48
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how the hell that happened. You know,
1:34:51
Speaker 1: she got attacked and she ends up getting one of
1:34:54
Speaker 1: the technical fouls in the situation. But what happened in
1:34:58
Speaker 1: response has got and a lot of play online, and
1:35:02
Speaker 1: understandably so because one of Caitlyn Clark's teammates, Sophie Cunningham,
1:35:09
Speaker 1: who I've referred to before. Because the Indiana Fever have
1:35:14
Speaker 1: something that no other WNBA team has. They have three
1:35:19
Speaker 1: very prominent players who are white, straight, and at least
1:35:23
Speaker 1: somewhat attractive that does not exist on any other WNBA team,
1:35:29
Speaker 1: and Sophie Cunningham is in my opinion, by far the
1:35:33
Speaker 1: most attractive of the three. She's tall, hot, blonde, and
1:35:40
Speaker 1: in this particular case, she took the role of Caitlyn
1:35:44
Speaker 1: Clark's enforcer in a very clear and dramatic way. She
1:35:48
Speaker 1: stepped in when Clark got attacked, and then soon afterwards
1:35:52
Speaker 1: she basically tackled on a fast break the woman who
1:35:56
Speaker 1: hit Caitlyn Clark in the eye and then did not
1:35:59
Speaker 1: back down and a brawl basically broke out, and then
1:36:02
Speaker 1: she ended up getting kicked out of the game. But
1:36:05
Speaker 1: the support for Sophie Cunningham online has been off the
1:36:09
Speaker 1: charts because I think there is a great desire for
1:36:12
Speaker 1: someone to step in and try to protect Caitlin Clark. Now,
1:36:16
Speaker 1: of course, this is the type of thing you would
1:36:17
Speaker 1: normally talk about in hockey in the NHL, where you
1:36:21
Speaker 1: need an enforcer to keep Wayne Gretzky from getting knocked
1:36:25
Speaker 1: off his skates on a regular basis. But this is basketball,
1:36:30
Speaker 1: this is women's basketball, and it's turning into basically roller
1:36:34
Speaker 1: hockey here. But I don't think that's going to be
1:36:37
Speaker 1: bad for ratings because based upon the online reaction, this
1:36:41
Speaker 1: has definitely captured people's imaginations and they are swarming to
1:36:47
Speaker 1: Kaitlyn Clark's defense and also in support of Sophie Cunningham.
1:36:52
Speaker 1: And so I am more convinced than ever that the
1:36:55
Speaker 1: Kaitlin Clark ratings phenomenon, especially with regard to the Indiana
1:36:59
Speaker 1: FE and their quest to have this amazing turnaround and
1:37:03
Speaker 1: maybe win a championship this year, is going to continue
1:37:06
Speaker 1: to be a ratings winner. I mean, because even if
1:37:09
Speaker 1: I'm even interested in what's going on, and I'm not
1:37:11
Speaker 1: a WNBA fan at all, then you know I'm probably
1:37:15
Speaker 1: not alone. So look out for that narrative here as
1:37:19
Speaker 1: we continue to see this incredibly bizarre situation where the
1:37:24
Speaker 1: WNBA seems to hate the person that has put them
1:37:28
Speaker 1: on the map and taken a league that was in
1:37:32
Speaker 1: economic catastrophe and made them viable for the first time ever.
1:37:37
Speaker 1: And they are targeting her for physical attack, physical attack.
1:37:42
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable. One of the strangest sports stories of
1:37:46
Speaker 1: my lifetime. But it's definitely compelling drama and I'm sure
1:37:51
Speaker 1: is going to be a continual ratings winner as the
1:37:53
Speaker 1: summer goes along. Thanks for listening to today's free drop
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