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Episode Two Hundred Twenty Four: King Trump · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and twenty four, The Death
0:03
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zickler. I'm your
0:06
Speaker 1: host on today's show. TikTok gets temporarily banned, but Trump
0:11
Speaker 1: ends up being seen as a hero. CNN loses a
0:15
Speaker 1: troubling defamation case, Joe Biden goes out about as pathetically
0:19
Speaker 1: as possible. Trump's inauguration gets moved indoors what we can
0:25
Speaker 1: expect from this highly anticipated second term, and has the
0:29
Speaker 1: preferential treatment given by NFL referees to the Kansas City
0:33
Speaker 1: chiefs finally reached critical mass. We begin this special bonus
0:40
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, devoted mostly to Donald Trump's inauguration,
0:46
Speaker 1: with a story that certainly is related to Donald Trump
0:49
Speaker 1: and was probably the biggest media story of the last
0:53
Speaker 1: several days. I'll get to the inauguration itself a little
0:56
Speaker 1: bit later on for production related reason, but I want
1:01
Speaker 1: to begin with what happened with regard to the so
1:05
Speaker 1: called TikTok band. Now. In the last episode of the podcast,
1:09
Speaker 1: I expressed confusion over how this was a situation that
1:13
Speaker 1: couldn't be figured out, at least in the short run,
1:17
Speaker 1: and I expressed skepticism that TikTok would actually be banned.
1:22
Speaker 1: But there was one element that had me hesitant to
1:27
Speaker 1: say for certain that there's no way this is going
1:29
Speaker 1: to happen. There were so many political elements of this
1:33
Speaker 1: that indicated that there's got to be some sort of
1:35
Speaker 1: solution that is found because there are just so many people,
1:39
Speaker 1: well over one hundred million Americans who use TikTok on
1:43
Speaker 1: a regular basis, many of whom rely on TikTok not
1:47
Speaker 1: just for entertainment and information, but actually they're livelihoods, and
1:53
Speaker 1: that many of these people are young people, a political people,
1:57
Speaker 1: and that therefore Donald Trump, the incoming president, would see
2:01
Speaker 1: the value in trying to salvage TikTok. He's already switched
2:06
Speaker 1: his position rather dramatically on it. That's part of the
2:09
Speaker 1: great irony of this whole situation, that of all the
2:12
Speaker 1: people that could end up being the hero in TikTok's salvation,
2:16
Speaker 1: for it to be Donald Trump is just so hilarious
2:19
Speaker 1: and so telling about our times. But because Donald Trump
2:23
Speaker 1: has a major benefactor who is an owner, a major
2:28
Speaker 1: owner of TikTok, that's certainly part of this equation. And
2:31
Speaker 1: because Trump perceives probably correctly that TikTok played a significant
2:37
Speaker 1: role in his election win in twenty twenty four, and
2:40
Speaker 1: that's the way Trump views the world. If it's good
2:43
Speaker 1: to him or good for him, or if it likes
2:46
Speaker 1: him in his view, then it's inherently a good thing.
2:49
Speaker 1: And so therefore it was hard for me to believe
2:52
Speaker 1: that Trump wasn't going to figure out a way to
2:55
Speaker 1: salvage this situation and come out like a hero. The
2:58
Speaker 1: one part of this that made me hesitant was, Okay,
3:01
Speaker 1: in order for there to be some sort of a deal,
3:04
Speaker 1: you have to have both parties interested in there being
3:07
Speaker 1: a deal, and we're the Chinese willing and open to
3:12
Speaker 1: and incentivized to make any sort of a deal. They
3:15
Speaker 1: don't have the same incentive structure as we have here
3:18
Speaker 1: in the United States. And I was uncertain about that.
3:22
Speaker 1: But then I heard that the CEO of TikTok was
3:26
Speaker 1: going to be attending the inauguration and the Vice President
3:29
Speaker 1: of China was going to be attending the inauguration, and
3:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, there's just no way. There's no way
3:35
Speaker 1: that there's there's not going to be some sort of
3:38
Speaker 1: a solution, at least temporarily found here. And there was
3:41
Speaker 1: so much hype about the ban or the idea that
3:46
Speaker 1: TikTok was going to go dark, and you know, as
3:50
Speaker 1: it happened, in fact, it actually happened a little bit
3:52
Speaker 1: sooner than had been promised or predicted, this happening over
3:57
Speaker 1: the weekend. I was now one hundred percent certain that
4:01
Speaker 1: this was all a setup, because when TikTok finally did
4:05
Speaker 1: go dark, after much hype and concerned by TikTok users,
4:10
Speaker 1: they put up a message that might as well have
4:12
Speaker 1: been a Valentine's Take card, specifically to Donald Trump, and
4:17
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, this is this is too rich. I mean,
4:21
Speaker 1: in my opinion, they didn't need to go dark. The
4:24
Speaker 1: Biden administration had made a promise that they were not
4:28
Speaker 1: going to enforce the ban, and therefore, you know, the
4:31
Speaker 1: companies that supported TikTok would not be subject to absolutely
4:35
Speaker 1: completely insane fines. But TikTok said that wasn't good enough,
4:41
Speaker 1: but that they were hopeful that Donald Trump I'm paraphrasing here,
4:44
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump would come up with a better solution.
4:48
Speaker 1: And I thought at that time, Okay, what we're going
4:51
Speaker 1: to see here is going to be almost like an
4:54
Speaker 1: a Iranian hostage repeat of what happened in nineteen eighty
4:59
Speaker 1: one when Ronald Reagan took over for Jimmy Carter and
5:03
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the Iranian hostages were released. I'm
5:06
Speaker 1: not suggesting that those two things are equal as far
5:09
Speaker 1: as human significance, just from a political perspective, that the
5:13
Speaker 1: moment that Trump took office, we would see that. You know,
5:18
Speaker 1: Trump's great power is such that TikTok decided to go
5:22
Speaker 1: back online as soon as he took the oath of office.
5:26
Speaker 1: But it didn't even last that long. The ban if
5:30
Speaker 1: you will only lasted about twelve hours. I was surprised
5:33
Speaker 1: by that. I'm not sure that was the most effective
5:37
Speaker 1: way to do this. If this really was a setup,
5:40
Speaker 1: which it does appear to have at least partially been,
5:44
Speaker 1: in a way that was always known that TikTok was
5:47
Speaker 1: not going to be dark for long, I don't know
5:49
Speaker 1: why you wouldn't wait another day to give the full bang,
5:54
Speaker 1: and also, by the way, to give people a little
5:56
Speaker 1: bit more time to realize what their lives would be
6:00
Speaker 1: like without TikTok. So I don't really understand why the
6:05
Speaker 1: banning of TikTok if you will was so short. I
6:09
Speaker 1: think if you were looking for maximum benefit from both
6:12
Speaker 1: TikTok's perspective as well as Trump's standpoint, you probably should
6:16
Speaker 1: have waited until after Trump took the oath of office.
6:20
Speaker 1: But for some reason that didn't happen. TikTok announced that
6:23
Speaker 1: Trump's promises, I guess we're better than Biden's, and that
6:27
Speaker 1: they were no longer concerned about the enforcement of the
6:30
Speaker 1: band with regard to the fines. And so you know,
6:34
Speaker 1: as we tape this, TikTok is back to normal and
6:38
Speaker 1: Trump is getting a lot of credit for that, which
6:41
Speaker 1: is pretty freaking hilarious considering the fact that Trump tried
6:44
Speaker 1: to ban TikTok when he was president and supported the
6:47
Speaker 1: ban that got passed by Congress and signed by President
6:52
Speaker 1: Biden when he was no longer in office, and then
6:54
Speaker 1: dramatically switched his position for reasons that I've already referred to. Now,
6:59
Speaker 1: what happens from here, I'm not sure. You know. This
7:03
Speaker 1: appears to be a temporary situation to try to find
7:06
Speaker 1: a deal. It does appear as if both sides are
7:11
Speaker 1: highly motivated. Trump has now created an expectation among TikTok
7:16
Speaker 1: users that TikTok has been saved, and so therefore, in
7:21
Speaker 1: a weird way, I think Trump's leverage may have been
7:23
Speaker 1: somewhat diminished because now all of a sudden, TikTok goes
7:27
Speaker 1: away again. It's kind of Trump's fault. So I don't
7:32
Speaker 1: know if that's going to impact what kind of a
7:34
Speaker 1: deal ends up getting made, but I do think the
7:37
Speaker 1: most likely scenario here is that some sort of a
7:40
Speaker 1: deal is made, TikTok is saved. Whether or not it
7:43
Speaker 1: has the magic algorithm or not, I don't know, because frankly,
7:47
Speaker 1: TikTok without the magic algorithm really isn't all that interesting.
7:51
Speaker 1: The algorithm is everything. But it does seem as if
7:56
Speaker 1: Trump has won his first political battle, even before or
8:00
Speaker 1: technically he took office, because he is getting a lot
8:04
Speaker 1: of credit for this among TikTok users. Now he's not
8:07
Speaker 1: getting full and universal credit. He might not be getting
8:11
Speaker 1: as much credit as he would if this had gone
8:14
Speaker 1: the way that I suggested that it might have, with it,
8:16
Speaker 1: you know, being more correlated with him taking the oath
8:19
Speaker 1: of office. I also think some people think this is
8:21
Speaker 1: a little bit too cute, that this is too contrived,
8:25
Speaker 1: that it's too obvious, and so therefore you know, maybe
8:29
Speaker 1: Trump isn't going to get quite as much banged from
8:31
Speaker 1: this as he might otherwise have done. So as far
8:36
Speaker 1: as whether or not this is the right thing, I
8:37
Speaker 1: am the first to acknowledge. I don't know. I know
8:42
Speaker 1: my own biases very very well. I also know when
8:45
Speaker 1: I don't have all the information, and so when I
8:48
Speaker 1: have a bias, and when I don't have all the information,
8:52
Speaker 1: I am inherently hesitant in my opinions. And that's the
8:57
Speaker 1: case here because I like Tiko. I think TikTok is
9:01
Speaker 1: very dumb in some ways, it's garbage in a lot
9:04
Speaker 1: of ways. I can totally understand the national security concerns.
9:10
Speaker 1: I don't know whether not TikTok has been a net
9:13
Speaker 1: positive or negative on our society. I think there's some
9:17
Speaker 1: negative elements. I do think it further diminishes our attention spans,
9:23
Speaker 1: so there's definitely negatives. However, in my own personal life,
9:26
Speaker 1: I use it quite a bit, partially to prepare for
9:29
Speaker 1: this podcast, partially because I do get some entertainment out
9:32
Speaker 1: of it. I do get information out of it. There's
9:34
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things things I've learned about the
9:38
Speaker 1: history and real life that I didn't know before I
9:42
Speaker 1: started using TikTok, So I find it to be an
9:44
Speaker 1: interesting experience. Nowhere near perfect, but it's an interesting experience.
9:48
Speaker 1: I've also referenced that my twelve year old daughter, Grace
9:52
Speaker 1: and I bond a little bit over TikTok videos, and
9:55
Speaker 1: so I was sad from a personal perspective to see
9:58
Speaker 1: it go away, but also acknowledged that there's got to
10:01
Speaker 1: be a reason why so many Democrats and Republicans voted
10:06
Speaker 1: to force a ban if the Chinese element of the
10:11
Speaker 1: ownership did not divest to us owners and for that
10:16
Speaker 1: to happen, there's got to be a reason. I realized
10:20
Speaker 1: that we've lost a lot of trust in our institutions,
10:23
Speaker 1: especially our politicians, but to me that still matters in
10:26
Speaker 1: this day and age. To get a bipartisan vote that
10:29
Speaker 1: was that overwhelming, there's got to be at least some
10:33
Speaker 1: semblance of a legitimate reason. So I am very hesitant
10:39
Speaker 1: about whether or not this is a good development or
10:41
Speaker 1: a bad development. However, politically I am confident in saying
10:47
Speaker 1: that this is a win for Donald Trump. The way
10:49
Speaker 1: that this is currently going and Joe Biden effectively handed
10:54
Speaker 1: Donald Trump a gift by not being more definitive about
10:59
Speaker 1: the idea that there was no reason for TikTok to
11:02
Speaker 1: go dark, even for the very short period of time
11:05
Speaker 1: that it did. Whether Trump can actually follow through on this,
11:09
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do believe he is incentivized.
11:12
Speaker 1: He is now as much on the record as he
11:14
Speaker 1: possibly can be in favor of somehow salvaging TikTok. He
11:18
Speaker 1: believes TikTok is good for him, and as I've said,
11:22
Speaker 1: he's got a very big donor who is a large
11:27
Speaker 1: shareholder in the company that owns TikTok, and that is
11:31
Speaker 1: always very influential with someone like Donald Trump. So from
11:34
Speaker 1: a media perspective, this is a huge story, and it
11:39
Speaker 1: appears appears at least as of right now, that TikTok
11:44
Speaker 1: has been saved, at least temporarily. It'll be very interesting
11:48
Speaker 1: to see what happens with regard to a final deal,
11:51
Speaker 1: because to me, there's still going to be hurdles here,
11:54
Speaker 1: there's still going to be challenges, and it's still possible
11:57
Speaker 1: that we go through this again almost like a gu
12:00
Speaker 1: shutdown situation. But my guess is my guess is that
12:05
Speaker 1: Trump is incentivized enough, and it appears as if the
12:08
Speaker 1: Chinese are at least somewhat incentivized enough for there to
12:12
Speaker 1: be a deal where TikTok is saved. And that's a
12:15
Speaker 1: pretty good way for Donald Trump's presidency to begin, because
12:19
Speaker 1: you're dealing with a very large and very passionate, mostly
12:25
Speaker 1: younger demographic that really really relies on TikTok. This impacts
12:31
Speaker 1: their lives in a very significant way. And for Trump
12:35
Speaker 1: to be associated with the salvaging of TikTok, I think
12:40
Speaker 1: is a huge win. How big a win, I don't know,
12:42
Speaker 1: but it's a definite, definitive win for Donald Trump right
12:46
Speaker 1: before he takes the oath of office. Other issues surrounding
12:50
Speaker 1: the beginning of the second Trump administration. I want to
12:53
Speaker 1: go through a few other news stories because there was
12:55
Speaker 1: no other good place to put these, and so I'm
12:58
Speaker 1: going to do it right off the top. The passing
13:01
Speaker 1: of Bob Yuker is something that I want to reference
13:04
Speaker 1: on this podcast for a couple of reasons that I
13:08
Speaker 1: really have not heard anybody else express. And for those
13:11
Speaker 1: of you who somehow don't know who Bob Yuker is,
13:14
Speaker 1: he is a baseball legend. Although he was not a
13:17
Speaker 1: particularly good player, mostly known as a broadcaster, but he
13:22
Speaker 1: went way beyond broadcasting, doing commercials and TV shows and movies.
13:28
Speaker 1: But he was most well known as the play by
13:32
Speaker 1: play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers for over fifty years.
13:39
Speaker 1: And he passed away at the age of ninety a
13:42
Speaker 1: couple days ago. And what made his death particularly noteworthy
13:47
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One is, he worked till the
13:50
Speaker 1: day he died. He was still broadcasting the Brewers games
13:55
Speaker 1: last season and Boyle Boy when the Brewers lost the
14:00
Speaker 1: Mets in the playoffs after having had a very promising season,
14:05
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe this was going to be the
14:07
Speaker 1: year that they went all the way, and they lost
14:10
Speaker 1: in the first portion of the playoffs. When Yuker was
14:15
Speaker 1: closing that broadcast, it certainly seemed even at the time,
14:20
Speaker 1: this was a guy who knew this was the end
14:22
Speaker 1: for him. And I mean, it was obviously a difficult
14:25
Speaker 1: situation simply because the Brewers had lost, but also when
14:29
Speaker 1: you're ninety years old, and you know, it's difficult to
14:32
Speaker 1: get through those winters at the age of ninety. And
14:36
Speaker 1: it turned out that Bob Buker finally did pass away,
14:40
Speaker 1: and so it was a poignant end for him broadcasting wise,
14:45
Speaker 1: But what a life. What a life to be able
14:47
Speaker 1: to continue to be active and be the play by
14:50
Speaker 1: play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers and the Playoffs at
14:54
Speaker 1: the age of ninety and so that would make it
14:56
Speaker 1: a noteworthy event under any circumstance. But to me, the
15:02
Speaker 1: death of Bob Buker is more significant than that, and
15:06
Speaker 1: it mainly goes into the category of situations where and
15:10
Speaker 1: I've seen this constantly in this day and age, where
15:14
Speaker 1: someone passes away and the mainstream news media, the sports media,
15:20
Speaker 1: what have you, will praise the heck out of them
15:23
Speaker 1: and talk about how they were a unique character and
15:27
Speaker 1: there's never going to be anybody else like them ever again.
15:31
Speaker 1: And it drives me crazy because it's the very same
15:35
Speaker 1: people that are praising the fact that there was a
15:39
Speaker 1: Bob Buker who make it impossible for there ever to
15:43
Speaker 1: be a Bob Buker again in the future. And we
15:47
Speaker 1: see this in all areas of life. We see this
15:49
Speaker 1: in comedy all the time. I remember when Norm MacDonald died,
15:53
Speaker 1: it was the same kind of feeling. Interestingly, Norm McDonald
15:56
Speaker 1: and Bob Youuker were very good friends, but Norm McDonald
15:59
Speaker 1: is the community comedian who could never exist today, and
16:03
Speaker 1: yet when he passed away, everybody universally praised him. Well,
16:08
Speaker 1: do you morons not understand that you've created rules for
16:13
Speaker 1: society and political correctness and cancelation that make it absolutely
16:19
Speaker 1: impossible for there ever to be another Norm MacDonald. It's
16:23
Speaker 1: not that there's not people of that talent level, it's
16:25
Speaker 1: just they can't possibly get to the level of Norm MacDonald,
16:29
Speaker 1: and partially because of the fragmentation of the news media,
16:32
Speaker 1: but mostly because of political correctness and rules that never
16:37
Speaker 1: existed before, and how it makes comedy in particular basically impossible. Well,
16:42
Speaker 1: Bob Uker is very much in the same boat. He
16:45
Speaker 1: was very politically incorrect, some might even say say that
16:48
Speaker 1: he was misogynistic, and he certainly famously cursed up a
16:53
Speaker 1: storm off the air while doing the Brewers' games. But
16:58
Speaker 1: even part of what made Yukers could not possibly literally
17:02
Speaker 1: could not possibly happen today. He is well known for
17:06
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, but one of the things
17:09
Speaker 1: he's very well known for is being a star of
17:11
Speaker 1: the Major League Movies. And the Major League Movies are
17:14
Speaker 1: all about the Cleveland Indian baseball team, which doesn't even
17:20
Speaker 1: exist anymore because the Indians were deemed to be politically
17:25
Speaker 1: incorrect and now it's the Cleveland Guardians. Well, it wasn't
17:28
Speaker 1: just that the Cleveland Indians were a major obviously the
17:33
Speaker 1: major part of the Major League movies. That's what the
17:36
Speaker 1: team was the focus of those movies. But it was
17:39
Speaker 1: the fact that they were the Indians is why they
17:41
Speaker 1: were chosen. The Indians nickname played a huge role in
17:45
Speaker 1: the comedy of the movie. Well, it's amazing to be
17:49
Speaker 1: You're still even allowed to show the Major League movie
17:53
Speaker 1: and it drives me crazy that occasionally the Cleveland Guardians
17:56
Speaker 1: will try to claim ownership of the Major League Baseball
18:00
Speaker 1: the Major League movie franchise and over Bob Yucker. Sorry, no,
18:05
Speaker 1: you don't get to do that. You threw the Indian
18:08
Speaker 1: nickname under the boss. You were cowardly, you caved, So
18:12
Speaker 1: now you don't get to do that. You can't have
18:15
Speaker 1: it both ways. Seeing similar situations with regard to the
18:20
Speaker 1: Washington Commanders, who are now one game away from the
18:24
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, who I will always think of as the
18:26
Speaker 1: Washington Redskins. A slightly different situation because there's no Major
18:31
Speaker 1: League movie franchise involving the Washington Redskins. There's just an
18:36
Speaker 1: amazing history there that just somehow gets forgotten and pretended
18:40
Speaker 1: as if it never existed in the first place. So
18:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to that later on in this episode
18:45
Speaker 1: of the podcast, because that's absolutely what happened on the
18:48
Speaker 1: Fox broadcast of their playoff game with the Detroit Lions.
18:52
Speaker 1: But anyway, the point here is Bob Buker is a
18:55
Speaker 1: classic example of somebody who could never exist today for
18:59
Speaker 1: a whole period of reasons, the Major League movies being
19:03
Speaker 1: maybe the most obvious. But there's another aspect of the
19:07
Speaker 1: death of Bob Yuker and the fact that there's never
19:09
Speaker 1: going to be another one like him that I find
19:11
Speaker 1: to be significant, and that deals with the death of localism.
19:15
Speaker 1: And this is something that I probably don't talk enough
19:18
Speaker 1: about on the Death of Journalism podcast. I've referenced it
19:23
Speaker 1: from time to time. But one of the things that
19:26
Speaker 1: is really awesome about the Bob Youuker legacy is that
19:32
Speaker 1: if you live in Milwaukee or even in Wisconsin, you
19:37
Speaker 1: don't even have to be a baseball fan and you
19:40
Speaker 1: know who Bob Uker was. You know who the voice
19:45
Speaker 1: of the Milwaukee Brewers was That's what happens when you're
19:48
Speaker 1: there for over fifty years and you're as iconic as
19:52
Speaker 1: Bob Uker is. And this is not something that used
19:57
Speaker 1: to be unusual. This used to be almost the norm
20:02
Speaker 1: that every major city, especially when it came to baseball,
20:06
Speaker 1: had someone on the level of a Bob Buker, whose
20:10
Speaker 1: name you knew, whose voice you knew, who was a
20:14
Speaker 1: character that was associated with your city, with your town,
20:22
Speaker 1: that gave that town a sense of identity. I mean,
20:27
Speaker 1: I listed them on Twitter. And whenever you do a
20:29
Speaker 1: list like this, you're always gonna get in trouble because
20:31
Speaker 1: people are going to think that you left people off
20:33
Speaker 1: the list. But if you think about to me, was
20:37
Speaker 1: the last golden era of baseball the nineteen seventies, the eighties,
20:42
Speaker 1: maybe the early nineties, there were many voices on radio
20:48
Speaker 1: and television that were associated with local teams, with local
20:53
Speaker 1: cities that are iconic. Bob Buker is obviously the forefront
20:59
Speaker 1: of our minds now because he just passed away. But
21:02
Speaker 1: Ben Scully in Los Angeles, and Jack Buck and Saint
21:05
Speaker 1: Louis and Phil Rizzuto in New York, and Harry Callus
21:09
Speaker 1: and Richie Ashburn were people that I listened to for
21:13
Speaker 1: hundreds of hours, literally hundreds of hours growing up as
21:17
Speaker 1: a kid in Philadelphia, listening to the Phillies Games, Lindsey
21:21
Speaker 1: Nelson and Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner of the New
21:24
Speaker 1: York Mets, Ernie Harwell of the Detroit Tigers, Dick Enburg
21:29
Speaker 1: of the San Diego Padres. Harry Carey moved around but
21:32
Speaker 1: was most associated with the Chicago Cubs. And Jack Brickhouse
21:37
Speaker 1: certainly belongs on this list. And every single one of
21:40
Speaker 1: those names that I just listed is no longer with us.
21:44
Speaker 1: Bob Bucker was the last of the Mohicans, never to
21:47
Speaker 1: be replaced again, and something has been lost in that, because,
21:54
Speaker 1: to me, a lot of what makes America great is
21:59
Speaker 1: our differences and the different identities that each state has,
22:04
Speaker 1: each city has. I really don't like how much we
22:08
Speaker 1: have become homogenized. It's ironic that we are seen as
22:13
Speaker 1: being incredibly politically divided, and in many ways we really are.
22:17
Speaker 1: We are very politically divided, yet we are becoming homogenized nationally.
22:23
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, the Internet has
22:26
Speaker 1: made everything national. Streaming services has made everything national. The
22:33
Speaker 1: death of local radio and to the similar extent, local
22:37
Speaker 1: television is starting to take away the flavor that each
22:42
Speaker 1: portion of America used to have. I frankly think we
22:46
Speaker 1: saw it a little bit with regard to the swing
22:49
Speaker 1: states in the twenty twenty four election. You know, I
22:53
Speaker 1: talked all the time about how geography still matters, but
22:56
Speaker 1: not nearly as much as it used to. And the
22:58
Speaker 1: idea that Georgia and Wisconsin could vote almost exactly the
23:04
Speaker 1: same way is bizarre to me because culturally, demographically, you know,
23:11
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Georgia shouldn't be that similar. Now, there's a
23:15
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why you can vote similarly that maybe
23:18
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do with your culture or your identity.
23:21
Speaker 1: But I really think that we could end up heading
23:25
Speaker 1: in a situation where we have, for better or for worse,
23:28
Speaker 1: more and more swing states into the future, depending on,
23:32
Speaker 1: obviously how our politics goes and the brand of the
23:35
Speaker 1: Republican Party and the brand of the Democratic Party. It's unknowable,
23:38
Speaker 1: but my point is we're losing all sorts of identity points.
23:43
Speaker 1: I've talked before about how the Southern accent is fading away,
23:47
Speaker 1: is certainly when it comes to television and popular culture,
23:52
Speaker 1: it was far more significant in the seventies, the eighties
23:56
Speaker 1: and the nineties. I think part of that was political
23:58
Speaker 1: and Hollywood's view of the South from a political perspective
24:02
Speaker 1: and the erasing of the Confederate flag and Southern heritage.
24:07
Speaker 1: But I think Bob Yuker is symbolic of something that
24:11
Speaker 1: is being lost here. What is it that makes your city,
24:14
Speaker 1: your town, of your state unique, what gives it identity?
24:19
Speaker 1: And when you have a character like Bob Yuker, that's
24:22
Speaker 1: a big part of the equation. Well, there can't be
24:25
Speaker 1: a Bob Uker in the future for a whole host
24:28
Speaker 1: of reasons. There's no Johnny Carson to make him super
24:31
Speaker 1: famous there. He can't get away with being as politically
24:35
Speaker 1: incorrect as he was. Radio is dying, localism is dying,
24:41
Speaker 1: and so I just wanted to mention that in relationship
24:45
Speaker 1: to Bob Yucker, because I don't think anyone else has
24:49
Speaker 1: referenced this, and I think this is an important part
24:53
Speaker 1: of what has made America great, And frankly, I think
24:56
Speaker 1: the FCC it'll be interesting to see now in this
24:59
Speaker 1: new trumpetdministration, the FCC needs to take some responsibility for
25:03
Speaker 1: this because part of the job of the FCC, the
25:08
Speaker 1: Federal Communications Commission, is to maintain and strengthen local broadcasting outlets.
25:14
Speaker 1: Well in this era, mostly because of technological reasons, but
25:18
Speaker 1: also because of media fragmentation elements and situations which are
25:24
Speaker 1: certainly related. Localism is in big, big, big trouble. Local
25:30
Speaker 1: news and you want to talk about local characters, It
25:33
Speaker 1: used to be every city had a legendary local news anchor.
25:37
Speaker 1: Well that's basically gone, the same way as having a
25:41
Speaker 1: legend local baseball play by play person. And something has
25:46
Speaker 1: been lost there and I don't know whether or not
25:48
Speaker 1: it's salvageable, but I think it at least ought to
25:51
Speaker 1: be referenced, and I haven't heard anyone else do so,
25:54
Speaker 1: so that's why I just did here on the podcast.
25:57
Speaker 1: By the way, speaking of local here in southern California,
26:02
Speaker 1: we're still recovering or even just starting to recover from
26:06
Speaker 1: the massive wildfires that decimated much of Los Angeles. I
26:10
Speaker 1: want to at least reference that Bill Maher on HBO's
26:14
Speaker 1: Real Time really really really went off on the Los
26:19
Speaker 1: Angeles fire response, specifically targeting Karen Bass, the mayor of
26:24
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, even having the person that lost to Karen Bass.
26:28
Speaker 1: Rick Caruso, who I've referenced on this podcast many times before,
26:32
Speaker 1: on as a guest, he eviscerated the response in general
26:36
Speaker 1: and specifically Karen Bass. And here's a guy who is
26:40
Speaker 1: known mostly as a liberal, though much less so over
26:43
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. But to me it was
26:47
Speaker 1: emblematic of the fact that Karen Bass is just done. Now.
26:51
Speaker 1: How it's all going to work out, I don't know,
26:53
Speaker 1: but I I just don't see how in the world
26:55
Speaker 1: she survives this and gets re elected as the mayor
26:58
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. And I would love for Rick Caruso
27:01
Speaker 1: to replace her, but for Rick Cruso to be a
27:04
Speaker 1: guest on Bill Maher's HBO show and basically be treated
27:08
Speaker 1: as if he is a you know, a guy who's
27:12
Speaker 1: been vindicated and is now a hero after having lost
27:15
Speaker 1: to Bass. I thought was rather significant from a political
27:19
Speaker 1: and media perspective. I want to turn now to several
27:24
Speaker 1: legal situations involving the media, and specifically the news media,
27:29
Speaker 1: but also the entertainment media. CNN has lost a defamation
27:35
Speaker 1: case where they're going to be forced to pay several
27:38
Speaker 1: million dollars to the plaintiff. Now we don't know exactly
27:42
Speaker 1: how much. The jury when they decided against CNN, awarded
27:48
Speaker 1: the plaintiff five million dollars or maybe a little bit
27:52
Speaker 1: more than that. But then there was punitive damages that
27:54
Speaker 1: were settled between the parties. I'm sure there was also
27:58
Speaker 1: several million dollars. This was a case. It could have
28:03
Speaker 1: gone worse monetarily, I guess for CNN, but they were
28:07
Speaker 1: found to be libel and I really have a problem
28:11
Speaker 1: with what happened here. Look, it appears as if CNN
28:15
Speaker 1: screwed up in this original report when it comes to
28:19
Speaker 1: this navy veteran getting people out of Afghanistan and they
28:23
Speaker 1: it really all comes down to one phrase, which is
28:29
Speaker 1: black market. I mean, it is really amazing considering all
28:32
Speaker 1: the totally false and damaging reports that the mainstream news
28:36
Speaker 1: media has made over the years, and for this one
28:40
Speaker 1: to get to the point where CNN is forced to
28:44
Speaker 1: pay millions of dollars to a plaintiff is really quite extraordinary.
28:48
Speaker 1: The part of the reason why CNN was vulnerable legally
28:53
Speaker 1: here is that the plaintiff was not a public figure.
28:57
Speaker 1: But I'm also not convinced it's CNN knowingly lied or
29:02
Speaker 1: had a reckless disregard for the truth when they referenced
29:07
Speaker 1: that this particular person was engaging in a black market
29:11
Speaker 1: to get people out of Afghanistan. When I look at
29:15
Speaker 1: the report, I think there's nothing really extraordinary about it,
29:21
Speaker 1: and it's certainly logical or plausible to have concluded that
29:27
Speaker 1: this guy was running a black market. Now black market
29:31
Speaker 1: as a whole not only just a negative connotation, but
29:34
Speaker 1: the connotation of being illegal. And I you know, look,
29:37
Speaker 1: it's obvious that the phrase black market should not have
29:40
Speaker 1: been used. But CNN apologized for doing that almost immediately,
29:47
Speaker 1: and frankly, I think the apology ended up making them
29:51
Speaker 1: far more vulnerable to this defamation case. I think in
29:56
Speaker 1: retrospect it may have been a mistake for CNN to apologize.
30:01
Speaker 1: In a rational world, the mistake was made, the apology
30:06
Speaker 1: was made. This was only reported one time that I'm
30:10
Speaker 1: aware of on CNN, so there really was no legitimate
30:15
Speaker 1: damage done to the plaintiff. That should have been the
30:19
Speaker 1: end of it. Okay, we use the phrase black market,
30:23
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have done that. We apologize there's no evidence
30:26
Speaker 1: of that, and be done with it. In irrational world,
30:30
Speaker 1: that's the way this would work out. But we've become
30:32
Speaker 1: such a letigious society now, and especially when it comes
30:37
Speaker 1: to defamation cases, the floodgates have opened in what I
30:41
Speaker 1: think is a very dangerous fashion. And of course, when
30:45
Speaker 1: you're dealing with a CNN and you've got deep pockets,
30:48
Speaker 1: and you get discovery, and it really seems to me
30:52
Speaker 1: that what happened here is that the discovery was very
30:55
Speaker 1: bad for CNN. There were a lot of messages that
30:59
Speaker 1: did not make CNN look good. They still decided to
31:02
Speaker 1: fight this all the way to trial. And I will
31:05
Speaker 1: acknowledge having been through this myself, having won a defamation
31:09
Speaker 1: case almost exactly twenty years ago when I was sued
31:12
Speaker 1: for defamation as a radio talk show host in Louisville, Kentucky,
31:17
Speaker 1: and having won against all odds on all counts, and
31:20
Speaker 1: having a major corporation backing me and funding my defense
31:27
Speaker 1: and really really being in charge of the whole thing
31:29
Speaker 1: indemnifying me. I am now convinced by the way that
31:34
Speaker 1: we never would win that case today, even though the
31:37
Speaker 1: facts and the law are exactly the same. But I
31:41
Speaker 1: think we have a situation where the discovery was so
31:47
Speaker 1: bad for CNN, and now there is such a desire
31:53
Speaker 1: on the part of some jurors to punish a CNN
31:59
Speaker 1: and you have a rural Florida jury. I mean, I
32:03
Speaker 1: think that's a key part of this. How in the
32:06
Speaker 1: world CNN got themselves into having to go to trial
32:10
Speaker 1: in a rural Florida jurisdiction is amazing to me. But
32:14
Speaker 1: one of the things I kind of slipped my mind
32:16
Speaker 1: in referencing there is I do, having gone through this,
32:20
Speaker 1: have some trust in the corporate lawyers, having been through
32:24
Speaker 1: this process, the idea that CNN went all the way
32:27
Speaker 1: to trial on this and did not settle. That indicates
32:31
Speaker 1: to me that they thought, on the law they had
32:33
Speaker 1: a very strong case, because it would have been a
32:35
Speaker 1: lot easier for them to just settle this whole thing,
32:39
Speaker 1: and maybe even been less expensive if they had done so.
32:42
Speaker 1: And I think based upon the law, even though the
32:45
Speaker 1: planet was not a public figure, which is a huge deal.
32:49
Speaker 1: I mean, the standard for a non public figure versus
32:53
Speaker 1: a public figure is very significant, and so it's a
32:57
Speaker 1: lot easier to prove defamation if you're a plaintiff and
33:01
Speaker 1: you're a non public figure, as this person was for
33:05
Speaker 1: the purpose of this case. But I am very troubled
33:10
Speaker 1: by what transpired here. I really think that what bottom
33:14
Speaker 1: line happened is CNN screwed up. They tried to fix
33:19
Speaker 1: it publicly. They were probably pissed off about the apology,
33:23
Speaker 1: didn't even think the apology was warranted. That facilitated a
33:27
Speaker 1: whole series of private or at least temporarily private communications
33:32
Speaker 1: that came to light during the discovery, which made CNN
33:36
Speaker 1: look bad. They got put into a rather conservative jurisdiction
33:41
Speaker 1: in rural Florida for the purposes of this trial. The
33:45
Speaker 1: judge and I had this happen in my own case.
33:48
Speaker 1: The judge, and this is consistent all too often in
33:53
Speaker 1: this day and age, judges used to when it came
33:56
Speaker 1: to defamation cases. They used to routinely dismiss them because
34:01
Speaker 1: they understood that the threshold was extremely high. Well, now,
34:05
Speaker 1: if you have a high profile case, as this obviously
34:09
Speaker 1: was very similar to my situation twenty years ago in Louisville, Kentucky,
34:14
Speaker 1: my case should have been dismissed immediately. I mean, it
34:18
Speaker 1: shouldn't even have been remotely close to getting the trial
34:21
Speaker 1: because we had under oath the plaintiff admitting that everything
34:26
Speaker 1: that I had said was true. Well, that's game set match.
34:30
Speaker 1: If what you said is true, then you can't even
34:33
Speaker 1: get out of the batter's box when it comes to
34:35
Speaker 1: a defamation case. But the judge in that case just
34:40
Speaker 1: could not possibly resist all of the attention that that
34:44
Speaker 1: case was going to get. And I don't think it's
34:48
Speaker 1: a stretch that the judge in this case did a
34:50
Speaker 1: similar thing. And they always fall back on, well, let's
34:53
Speaker 1: let a jury decide. Well, no, this is the exact
34:57
Speaker 1: type of case where you don't want to have a
35:00
Speaker 1: jury decide, because as soon as a jury is deciding this,
35:03
Speaker 1: they're going to be deciding it much more on emotions
35:07
Speaker 1: and political perspectives and maybe agendas and biases than they
35:12
Speaker 1: are on the law. And they don't give a rat's
35:15
Speaker 1: ass about what the threshold for defamation is or the
35:19
Speaker 1: slippery slope of the impact of a particular verdict when
35:24
Speaker 1: it comes to a major media outlet being found liable
35:28
Speaker 1: for defamation. They don't care. The people are emotional. This
35:33
Speaker 1: was so the system has completely collapsed. Judges were supposed
35:38
Speaker 1: to throw these things out. And I'm not defending CNN's journalism.
35:41
Speaker 1: It seems as if they made a mistake, But the
35:45
Speaker 1: idea that they get found libel in a verdict in
35:50
Speaker 1: a trial for defamation and then now have to seemingly
35:54
Speaker 1: although I'm presuming there'll be some sort of an appeal,
35:57
Speaker 1: but maybe there won't be. Since there was a settlement,
36:00
Speaker 1: they're gonna end up paying this plaint of several million
36:03
Speaker 1: dollars over a report that, again I don't think reached
36:09
Speaker 1: the level of defamation. But more importantly, I don't see
36:13
Speaker 1: what the damage was. I really don't. I mean, this
36:16
Speaker 1: was a one shot deal. There was an apology almost immediately.
36:22
Speaker 1: That used to kill a lot of defamation cases. The
36:26
Speaker 1: threshold for proving damages used to be exceedingly high, and
36:31
Speaker 1: now it's basically Katie bar the door. The floodgates have opened.
36:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has certainly helped facilitate this. And I saw
36:41
Speaker 1: a lot of people online when I expressed my opinion
36:45
Speaker 1: regarding my concern about this verdict against CNN, I had
36:50
Speaker 1: a lot of Trump supporters say they don't give a shit.
36:53
Speaker 1: They went after Trump. Now it's okay for conservatives to
36:55
Speaker 1: fight back if this was really a conservative jury and
36:58
Speaker 1: the Panhandle of Florida, well that's that's ridiculous. That is
37:02
Speaker 1: an extremely dangerous spiral cycle of basically injustice that can
37:09
Speaker 1: never be stopped. That's not the way. You know, two
37:12
Speaker 1: wrongs don't make a right. I've defended Trump when he
37:16
Speaker 1: has been sued for defamation. The e Gen Carroll situation
37:20
Speaker 1: was a complete joke, for instance. But I don't like
37:24
Speaker 1: the fact that Donald Trump is going after media outlets.
37:27
Speaker 1: But you know what, when ABC donates fifteen million dollars
37:31
Speaker 1: to his presidential library to settle the George Stephanopolis situation
37:37
Speaker 1: and then Trump goes after CBS, and now CBS just
37:42
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago, is indicated that they're willing
37:45
Speaker 1: to settle the case with Donald Trump. So it wouldn't
37:48
Speaker 1: surprise me at all if we had a very similar
37:51
Speaker 1: situation with regard to CBS. And this is the whole
37:54
Speaker 1: situation involving the sixty minutes editing of the Kamala Harris interview,
37:58
Speaker 1: and this is supposedly election interference as opposed to defamation.
38:03
Speaker 1: To me, this is also very trouble and has an
38:07
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous precedent. I mean, what is not election interference?
38:13
Speaker 1: I mean, if what is? And I am not defending CBS,
38:16
Speaker 1: they completely screwed up there. But if that's deemed to
38:20
Speaker 1: be election interference. And this may be why CBS is settling,
38:23
Speaker 1: because they don't want it to go to a trial
38:26
Speaker 1: and actually create a real legal precedent. But if the
38:29
Speaker 1: president of the United States or the incoming president of
38:32
Speaker 1: the United States can sue anything he doesn't like in
38:36
Speaker 1: a major media outlet for election interference, my god, where
38:41
Speaker 1: does that end? Where does that end? I mean, this
38:43
Speaker 1: is out of control now, and this is all going
38:46
Speaker 1: to have a very chilling effect on the news media
38:50
Speaker 1: moving forward. And you may say, well, Zig, I'm fine
38:53
Speaker 1: with that. There needs to be a chilling effect on
38:55
Speaker 1: some of this out of control media coverage, and I
38:58
Speaker 1: get it, but this is not the right way to
39:00
Speaker 1: do it. This is very concerning from a precedent and
39:05
Speaker 1: a slippery slope perspective. And again, I have no sympathy
39:10
Speaker 1: for CNN. You know, they're a very liberal media outlet,
39:14
Speaker 1: CBS very similarly. Both have screwed up many many times,
39:19
Speaker 1: so I'm not defending them or their journalism. But one
39:24
Speaker 1: of the elements of this defamation case that I found
39:26
Speaker 1: to be maybe most interesting is that CNN is basically
39:31
Speaker 1: getting hosed in both directions. Now, the part of why
39:35
Speaker 1: I think the jury, if you read what the lawyer's
39:39
Speaker 1: arguments were, part of what the jury may have decided
39:43
Speaker 1: here as well, we need to hold CNN to a
39:45
Speaker 1: different standard because they're the most trusted name in news,
39:48
Speaker 1: and it's a legitimate news outlet, and it's very well respected,
39:53
Speaker 1: and so therefore everything that is said on CNN has
39:57
Speaker 1: more weight and therefore could cause more damage. I'm interpreting
40:01
Speaker 1: what the jury did based upon what I saw the arguments,
40:05
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's an illogical conclusion to come to. Well.
40:10
Speaker 1: In a weird way, that's putting CNN in a situation
40:14
Speaker 1: where they get hoes in both directions because in the
40:18
Speaker 1: vast majority of the public's minds, especially on the conservative side,
40:22
Speaker 1: they get no credit anymore for having credibility because they've
40:26
Speaker 1: lost that credibility. They've lost all of their moral high ground.
40:31
Speaker 1: They've lost all respect and trust from anybody who certainly
40:37
Speaker 1: right of the political spectrum, and even among left wing
40:44
Speaker 1: leaning viewers. They've lost a lot of trust and credibility
40:47
Speaker 1: and respect. So they're getting, you know, screwed because the
40:53
Speaker 1: jury sees them as at a needing to be at
40:57
Speaker 1: a higher level, and therefore more responsibility when they screw up,
41:02
Speaker 1: but they're not getting any of the benefit from that anymore.
41:06
Speaker 1: I mean, what CNN said, if it had been said
41:10
Speaker 1: by someone on Twitter, no one would have even noticed,
41:16
Speaker 1: no matter how many views that tweet would have gotten,
41:19
Speaker 1: because it wouldn't have been seen as credible or significant
41:23
Speaker 1: or important, and there wouldn't have been deep pockets there.
41:26
Speaker 1: So CNN gets Again it's very weird for me to
41:30
Speaker 1: be sympathetic to CNN, but CNN is getting the worst
41:34
Speaker 1: of all worlds. Now they legally they're treated as what
41:38
Speaker 1: they say has great significance, but it doesn't have great
41:42
Speaker 1: significance anymore. The ratings show that time and time again,
41:46
Speaker 1: and the lack of trust that people have in the
41:50
Speaker 1: media in general and CNN in particular, prove it. And
41:54
Speaker 1: you know, their bottom line financially is going to be harmed,
41:58
Speaker 1: not just by this settlement, but as part of the settlement,
42:03
Speaker 1: their financial records were open and there's been catastrophic damage
42:07
Speaker 1: done to the value of CNN and going forward. I mean,
42:13
Speaker 1: it costs a lot of money to check and double
42:18
Speaker 1: check and dot every I and cross every T and
42:21
Speaker 1: time is money. And the idea that because they use
42:25
Speaker 1: the phrase black market that they have to pay multiple
42:29
Speaker 1: millions of dollars is I just don't think it's right.
42:34
Speaker 1: I don't think this is the way. I realize people
42:37
Speaker 1: want media accountability and this is the death of journalism
42:40
Speaker 1: podcasts and I'm all for media accountability, but this is
42:43
Speaker 1: not the path because this does not end well in
42:48
Speaker 1: a lot of different directions, especially when you got the
42:50
Speaker 1: President of the United States who now sees this as
42:53
Speaker 1: a new weapon, and he has been vindicated in using
42:58
Speaker 1: that weapon already by ABC and could very well, very
43:03
Speaker 1: soon get a similar situation when it comes to CBS.
43:07
Speaker 1: Where does this end. I have no idea, but it's
43:10
Speaker 1: not going to end in a good place, that's for sure.
43:13
Speaker 1: Since I'm talking about lawsuits, I want to at least
43:15
Speaker 1: briefly mention the latest in the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni situation.
43:22
Speaker 1: I talked about this previously on the podcast where I
43:25
Speaker 1: predicted that there was going to be a left right
43:30
Speaker 1: media divide because of the fact that Justin Baldoni's lawyer,
43:34
Speaker 1: Brian Friedman, a guy I know a little bit from
43:36
Speaker 1: the Michael Jackson case, has a lot of connections in
43:40
Speaker 1: the right wing media and he's using them. And now
43:44
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Justin Baldoni, who was the director
43:46
Speaker 1: and co star of a movie, The End of Us
43:50
Speaker 1: that also had Blake Lively in it, that has provoked
43:54
Speaker 1: numerous lawsuits, Baldoni suing The New York Times for two
43:57
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars, now suing Black Lively and
44:00
Speaker 1: her husband Ryan Reynolds for four one hundred million dollars.
44:05
Speaker 1: I think that so far I've been vindicated in my
44:08
Speaker 1: view of how this is all going to go down.
44:11
Speaker 1: I've also said that I think more people are going
44:13
Speaker 1: to side with Baldoni once they find out all the facts,
44:16
Speaker 1: and now that all the text messages have been released.
44:19
Speaker 1: But one of the other things I mentioned that I
44:21
Speaker 1: want to revisit very briefly here, and I may go
44:25
Speaker 1: back to it later on when we talk about the
44:27
Speaker 1: Kansas City Chiefs playoff game because it deals with Taylor Swift,
44:31
Speaker 1: I referenced that I really do believe this was a
44:34
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago when I first talked about this case,
44:36
Speaker 1: I really do believe that Blake Lively, being very close
44:39
Speaker 1: friends with Taylor Swift, played a significant role in how
44:43
Speaker 1: this all went down. I think it may have influenced
44:46
Speaker 1: the willingness of The New York Times to jump on
44:49
Speaker 1: Blake Lively's view or her perspective of what happened here,
44:54
Speaker 1: maybe not consciously, but at least subconsciously that the fact
44:58
Speaker 1: that she is so attached to Taylor Swift and her
45:01
Speaker 1: husband Ryan Reynolds gives her great credibility in that world,
45:05
Speaker 1: and there is a desire to Playcate a Blake Lively
45:09
Speaker 1: because if you look at this from a mafia perspective,
45:13
Speaker 1: I really do think there's a lot of mob elements
45:16
Speaker 1: to this. You know, Taylor Swift is the head of
45:20
Speaker 1: the entertainment mafia right now. She is the coolest of
45:24
Speaker 1: the coolest. She's the top of the food chain. And
45:29
Speaker 1: you know, if she is very closely tied to Blake Lively,
45:33
Speaker 1: then there's an incentive to help Blake Lively or to
45:38
Speaker 1: believe Blake Lively and to do Blake Lively's bidding. And
45:42
Speaker 1: I think to a certain degree that's what the New
45:44
Speaker 1: York Times did. Now, did they actually break the laws?
45:48
Speaker 1: Are they vulnerable to a defamation claim? I am skeptical
45:52
Speaker 1: of that, but that's how Waldoni started his counter attack.
45:57
Speaker 1: But in reference to Taylor's In the most recent legal filing,
46:03
Speaker 1: the lawsuit against Lively and Ryan Reynolds, there was an
46:06
Speaker 1: extraordinary text exchange where Lake Lively refers to herself as
46:14
Speaker 1: the queen from Game of Thrones and that she has
46:19
Speaker 1: two dragons, one of whom is Ryan Reynolds, her husband,
46:25
Speaker 1: and the other she refers to is clearly Taylor Swift.
46:30
Speaker 1: And so when you're referring to yourself as the queen
46:34
Speaker 1: from Game of Thrones, that you have two dragons, and
46:38
Speaker 1: this is in reference to communications that she sent to
46:42
Speaker 1: her boss, the director Justin Baldoni, in what it certainly
46:45
Speaker 1: appears to have been a threat. I mean, again, I'm
46:49
Speaker 1: using the mob boss metaphor here. I mean she is
46:54
Speaker 1: threatening Baldoni with the fact that she's got two dragons,
47:00
Speaker 1: Ryan Reynolds and Taylor's Swift, and so don't mess with
47:03
Speaker 1: me because I've got these dragons. Now, that doesn't prove
47:08
Speaker 1: everything that Baldoni is claiming is true and that he
47:11
Speaker 1: was in the right and she was in the wrong,
47:13
Speaker 1: But I do think it vindicates my view that Taylor
47:17
Speaker 1: Swift played a much more significant role in all this
47:21
Speaker 1: than people were giving it credit for. It at the beginning,
47:24
Speaker 1: and part of that is in the entitlement that Blake
47:28
Speaker 1: Lively was feeling in all this. I mean, it must
47:31
Speaker 1: be quite a mind screw to be famous yourself and
47:35
Speaker 1: to be married to a very famous person in Ryan Reynolds,
47:39
Speaker 1: and have your best friend be the most famous woman
47:41
Speaker 1: in the world. It creates an enormous sense of entitlement.
47:47
Speaker 1: And when you read the lawsuits in this case, every
47:53
Speaker 1: element of this it just pours out of every word
47:58
Speaker 1: is the level of entitlement and that it appears as
48:01
Speaker 1: if Blake Lively had and that's really what facilitated everything
48:05
Speaker 1: that transpired here. And I will say that as of
48:08
Speaker 1: right now, well, I'm certainly not a huge fan of
48:11
Speaker 1: Justin Baldoni. It's bizarre that he's become a conservative media
48:14
Speaker 1: hero considering his some of the statements that he's made,
48:18
Speaker 1: because he viewed himself as a very woke character before
48:22
Speaker 1: all this. But I'm definitely on team Baldoni as opposed
48:26
Speaker 1: to team Lively. I'm still fighting with my wife over
48:30
Speaker 1: whether or not I can convince her that I was
48:32
Speaker 1: right about this, because she's on team Lively. But I
48:35
Speaker 1: think the facts are definitely moving in my direction, but
48:38
Speaker 1: will continue to update you as we learn more. But
48:42
Speaker 1: as far as the issue of entitlement goes, I have
48:45
Speaker 1: referenced in the past that there may be no more
48:49
Speaker 1: entitled group of celebrities or well known people or powerful
48:56
Speaker 1: people than when it comes to certain black women who
49:01
Speaker 1: have achieved a certain level of success, especially seemingly in
49:07
Speaker 1: the realm of politics. And my theory behind that is
49:11
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with their race. It has to
49:13
Speaker 1: do with the fact that they've had rose pedals placed
49:17
Speaker 1: in their path their entire life, and they think that
49:22
Speaker 1: they are actually overcoming extraordinary odds to get to where
49:27
Speaker 1: they are, and they don't realize that it's exactly the
49:30
Speaker 1: opposite in most cases, that they are actually where they
49:33
Speaker 1: are because of their race and gender and the fact
49:36
Speaker 1: that there is an enormous desire, especially on the left,
49:41
Speaker 1: for people who are black and are female, and if
49:45
Speaker 1: they have other characteristics that make liberals feel good about themselves,
49:49
Speaker 1: that even further enhances this desire to make sure that
49:54
Speaker 1: these type of people succeed. And so you have this
49:57
Speaker 1: perfect storm where people who really haven't achieved very much,
50:02
Speaker 1: have been given what they have achieved, are under the
50:06
Speaker 1: delusion that they got there in spite of their gender
50:11
Speaker 1: and their race, and this creates a huge disconnect and
50:16
Speaker 1: a massive level of entitlement. Well, the reason why I'm
50:20
Speaker 1: referencing this is there may have been the most blatant
50:24
Speaker 1: and obvious example or proof of my theory that I
50:29
Speaker 1: could possibly ever have conceived of on the last day
50:34
Speaker 1: of White House Press Secretary Kareem Jean Pierre's tenure at
50:39
Speaker 1: the White House. This is really remarkable and did not
50:43
Speaker 1: get nearly enough attention, especially considering the fact that she's
50:47
Speaker 1: the Press secretary, and obviously the White House Press Corps
50:52
Speaker 1: witnessed this firsthand. But there is obviously a hesitancy to
50:57
Speaker 1: attack a black female who also happens to be lesbian.
51:02
Speaker 1: That's the case with Kareem Jean Pierre, and that's why
51:06
Speaker 1: she obviously has her job. But what she pulled off
51:09
Speaker 1: on her last day on the job was really telling
51:13
Speaker 1: and quite extraordinary, And if a conservative had ever done
51:17
Speaker 1: this in a similar situation, they would have been crucified.
51:22
Speaker 1: But basically here's the situation. So on the day where
51:26
Speaker 1: her last press briefing was scheduled, there was an announcement
51:31
Speaker 1: of a deal between Hamas and Israel regarding an hostage
51:35
Speaker 1: exchange and a cease fire. Now that's potentially big news.
51:40
Speaker 1: There's arguments over who deserves credit. Biden says he deserves
51:44
Speaker 1: credit and it is ridiculous to give Trump any credit.
51:46
Speaker 1: But there have been actually some people even within the
51:48
Speaker 1: Biden administration that indicated that the incoming Trump team deserves
51:53
Speaker 1: some credit for that. I don't know. I don't know
51:55
Speaker 1: whether or it's a good deal a bad deal. I
51:57
Speaker 1: don't know who deserves credit, but I do know well
52:00
Speaker 1: that it was a big story and that should have
52:03
Speaker 1: been a significant part of the press briefing that day
52:07
Speaker 1: at the White House. But apparently Karen Jean Pierre went
52:12
Speaker 1: out of her way to prevent any mention of that
52:17
Speaker 1: story and to prevent the State Department spokesperson from being
52:21
Speaker 1: part of the briefing, all because they didn't want to
52:26
Speaker 1: have any of the attention displaced from them on their
52:32
Speaker 1: last day on the job, which is just so far
52:37
Speaker 1: beyond delusional and the definition of entitlement and the type
52:41
Speaker 1: of thing that can only happen if you think you're
52:44
Speaker 1: really that special, and the reason why you think you're
52:48
Speaker 1: that special, you've done a horrible job by the way.
52:51
Speaker 1: Your president lost, well, your vice president lost. Your president
52:59
Speaker 1: got knocked out of the your vice president ended up
53:02
Speaker 1: taking his place and then losing an election to a
53:05
Speaker 1: guy who's everyone thought his political career was over just
53:09
Speaker 1: a few years ago. So it's not like there's any
53:11
Speaker 1: evidence that you did a good job at all. You know,
53:15
Speaker 1: historically low approval ratings going out for your boss, Joe Biden,
53:21
Speaker 1: and you're the press secretary. And the only reason why
53:24
Speaker 1: you think that you're special is because you're black, you're female,
53:29
Speaker 1: and you're a lesbian. That's really what it comes down to.
53:33
Speaker 1: And so here was a quote from a long time
53:39
Speaker 1: Biden aide, as told to The New York Post. This
53:42
Speaker 1: is extraordinary. So the New York Post, a conservative newspaper,
53:47
Speaker 1: got a quote from a long time Biden aide about
53:52
Speaker 1: John Pierre and what she did on the last day
53:56
Speaker 1: on the job, her last briefing as the White House
53:59
Speaker 1: Press section. Here's the quote. Not allowing actual news to
54:04
Speaker 1: be delivered from the podium on such an important day
54:08
Speaker 1: for the president and the world for your own ego
54:13
Speaker 1: is disgraceful. I am not sure there is someone that
54:18
Speaker 1: did more damage to the president's reputation than her. It
54:23
Speaker 1: is really sad unquote. Again, that is a long time anonymous.
54:29
Speaker 1: I wish they would have gone on the record, Biden
54:31
Speaker 1: aid to The New York Post, excoriating Klaren Jean Pierre
54:37
Speaker 1: for having the audacity on her last day to make
54:42
Speaker 1: sure that no actual news was discussed at the press
54:47
Speaker 1: briefing because she did not want the spotlight taken off
54:50
Speaker 1: of her. That is the definition of entitlement. And that
54:56
Speaker 1: is part of the damage done by the entire realm
55:01
Speaker 1: of DEI diversity, equity and inclusion. We have created monsters,
55:07
Speaker 1: monsters and this has nothing to do with race, nothing
55:11
Speaker 1: to do with gender. It's not because of her race,
55:14
Speaker 1: her gender, or her sexuality that Jean Pierre had this
55:20
Speaker 1: perspective of herself. It's not inherently because of any of
55:24
Speaker 1: those things. It's because those characteristics have caused her to
55:29
Speaker 1: be treated in such a way where she now has
55:32
Speaker 1: a delusional view of herself and reality. And yet somehow
55:39
Speaker 1: she's the White House Press secretary and no one has
55:43
Speaker 1: the balls, at least on the record to criticize her
55:47
Speaker 1: for what she did because and by the way, this
55:51
Speaker 1: is one of those situations where you know, It's actually
55:56
Speaker 1: a vicious cycle, right, she has the delusion and the
55:59
Speaker 1: entitled because of her race or gender, intersexuality, and then
56:04
Speaker 1: she acts in a delusional way, and then no one
56:08
Speaker 1: on the left is willing to go on the record
56:10
Speaker 1: and criticize her because they're afraid of doing so because
56:13
Speaker 1: of why her race, her gender, and her sexuality. So
56:18
Speaker 1: this becomes a vicious cycle. Especially on the left. They
56:23
Speaker 1: have created monsters and green Jean Pierre is a classic
56:28
Speaker 1: example of that. But this is only a very small
56:31
Speaker 1: part of how President Biden has gone on out of
56:35
Speaker 1: office in about as pathetic a way as possible. His
56:39
Speaker 1: approval ratings are almost historically low. They're lower than Donald
56:44
Speaker 1: Trump's were even after January sixth and the impeachment that
56:50
Speaker 1: ensued after that, which is really quite amazing, and I'm
56:55
Speaker 1: in a weird way, I'm actually amazed they're not lower,
56:58
Speaker 1: because I think liberal and Democrats ought to be so
57:01
Speaker 1: pissed off at Joe Biden because he and his hubris,
57:07
Speaker 1: his entitlement, his ego did not allow him to not
57:13
Speaker 1: run for reelection in twenty twenty four. If there was
57:16
Speaker 1: a chance for Democrats to win the twenty twenty four election,
57:21
Speaker 1: it would have been in Joe Biden deciding not to run,
57:26
Speaker 1: and therefore there would have been a legitimate process. Kamala
57:30
Speaker 1: Harris probably would have won that process. She would have
57:33
Speaker 1: been in a much much stronger position had it gone
57:37
Speaker 1: even halfway decently to potentially win the twenty twenty four
57:41
Speaker 1: election than what transpired now. I was not always certain
57:45
Speaker 1: of that. I thought they might have been able to
57:47
Speaker 1: get away with the coup in the Switcheroo. But it's
57:51
Speaker 1: now obvious that the coup in the Switcheroo did not
57:55
Speaker 1: help Democrats. And while it's impossible to know what would
57:58
Speaker 1: have happened under an alternative scenario, I think it's quite
58:03
Speaker 1: logical that had Biden not run, and had he given
58:09
Speaker 1: other Democrats a chance to go through a real democratic process,
58:14
Speaker 1: and had Harris emerge victorious, which I think she probably
58:18
Speaker 1: would have, she would have been in a much stronger
58:21
Speaker 1: position against Trump when it came down to it. Whether
58:24
Speaker 1: that would have been the difference, no one's ever going
58:26
Speaker 1: to know. But everyone ought to be pissed at Joe Biden,
58:31
Speaker 1: Conservatives for obvious reasons, and liberals ought to be pissed
58:35
Speaker 1: off at Joe Biden as well, and Biden gave his
58:39
Speaker 1: farewell address. I want to play two clips from it.
58:43
Speaker 1: A lot of this was ridiculous and delusional. Some of
58:47
Speaker 1: it he made decent points, but he is a terrible
58:51
Speaker 1: person to me making these points, and that kind of
58:54
Speaker 1: encapsulates the two clips that I want to play. The
58:56
Speaker 1: first deals with the issue of the news media and
59:01
Speaker 1: journalism being in crisis, and the way I interpreted this
59:06
Speaker 1: was basically, we're in a situation where liberals no longer
59:10
Speaker 1: have a monopoly over the narrative. And what we saw
59:14
Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty four election is that even when
59:17
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the mainstream news media gets behind
59:21
Speaker 1: one candidate, Kamala Harris, it's not enough to defeat even
59:25
Speaker 1: a guy like Donald Trump with obvious vulnerabilities. And that
59:29
Speaker 1: this is something to be mourned if you're a liberal,
59:33
Speaker 1: because this is something we've been counting on for many,
59:36
Speaker 1: many decades in this country. Now he's a little more
59:38
Speaker 1: substantive than that. But I also think it's awfully rich
59:43
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden, a guy who actively tried to censor
59:48
Speaker 1: free speech when it came to specifically the COVID response
59:53
Speaker 1: and the COVID mandates and the vaccines and the mask
59:58
Speaker 1: mandates and other elements of the COVID panic. For him
1:00:02
Speaker 1: to be the champion of the news media and real
1:00:07
Speaker 1: journalism and truth and free speech is it's quite extraordinary.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: But here's what it sounded like during Joe Biden's farewell address.
1:00:16
Speaker 2: Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and
1:00:21
Speaker 2: disinformation enabling the abusive power. The free press is crumbling.
1:00:27
Speaker 2: It's a disappearance. Social media is giving up on fact checking.
1:00:33
Speaker 2: The truth is smothered by lies told for power and
1:00:37
Speaker 2: for profit. We must hold the social platform and accountable
1:00:42
Speaker 2: to protect our children, our families, and a very democracy
1:00:47
Speaker 2: from the abusive power.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: Now I agree with a lot of what Joe Biden
1:00:51
Speaker 1: said there, but he's the wrong guy to say it,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: And the reason why he's saying it is because he's
1:00:58
Speaker 1: lamenting the loss of power that the left has now
1:01:03
Speaker 1: been faced with in light of the fact that the
1:01:07
Speaker 1: normal media narratives and the normal way that the news
1:01:13
Speaker 1: media works has collapsed. The legacy media has collapsed, and
1:01:19
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to suffer because of that. More so
1:01:23
Speaker 1: than that I probably even realized was likely to occur. Now,
1:01:27
Speaker 1: a large part of that's because Elon Musk bought Twitter,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: and that's a large part of what is pissing democrats off,
1:01:35
Speaker 1: where you know, somehow they think that the only way
1:01:38
Speaker 1: that they lose is if there's misinformation and that people
1:01:42
Speaker 1: are allowed to speak freely. No, they're just pissed off
1:01:46
Speaker 1: that they don't completely control the narrative anymore. They've lost
1:01:50
Speaker 1: their monopoly. Now is their misinformation, Of course there is,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: but there's misinformation all over the place. That's part of
1:01:56
Speaker 1: the price of free speech. I mean, free speech comes
1:02:00
Speaker 1: at a price. And I am as trouble as anybody,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: maybe even as trouble as Joe Biden, maybe even more
1:02:07
Speaker 1: so over the fact that we are now in a
1:02:09
Speaker 1: situation where this genie is out of the bottle, and
1:02:13
Speaker 1: because no one has any credibility and because the newsmania
1:02:16
Speaker 1: blew all of their trust, largely in trying to bring
1:02:22
Speaker 1: down Donald Trump, that there's nobody anyone believes anymore. That's
1:02:27
Speaker 1: a huge problem, huge problem. But the answer to that
1:02:31
Speaker 1: is not censorship, and it's not cracking down on social
1:02:36
Speaker 1: media companies because you don't like the fact that people
1:02:39
Speaker 1: are allowed to say things that you disagree with, especially
1:02:43
Speaker 1: when you are a person who was promoting and Mark
1:02:48
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg has acknowledged this in very dramatic fashion, where you
1:02:53
Speaker 1: were promoting direct censorship in what seems like an obvious
1:02:58
Speaker 1: violation of the First Amendment. And then Biden's hypocrisy was
1:03:02
Speaker 1: on further display when he attacked the idea that we're
1:03:07
Speaker 1: heading towards an oligarchy in the United States under Donald Trump.
1:03:11
Speaker 1: By the way, I have used the word oligarchy in
1:03:15
Speaker 1: reference to Donald Trump. There is some validity, I think,
1:03:19
Speaker 1: to this argument in some very troubling ways. But again,
1:03:25
Speaker 1: Biden is the wrong guy to do it. He just
1:03:28
Speaker 1: gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom the George Freaking Sorrows
1:03:32
Speaker 1: for God's sake, and yet he had the audacity to
1:03:36
Speaker 1: say this in his farewell address.
1:03:39
Speaker 2: That's why my farewell addressed to I want to warrn
1:03:43
Speaker 2: a country some things that give me great concern. This
1:03:48
Speaker 2: is a dangerous content and that's the dangerous conversation of
1:03:50
Speaker 2: power in the hands of very few, ultrawealthy people, the
1:03:55
Speaker 2: dangerous consequences if their abusive power is left unchecked. Today,
1:04:02
Speaker 2: an oligarch is taking shape in America of extreme wealth,
1:04:05
Speaker 2: power and influence, that literally threads our entire democracy, our
1:04:10
Speaker 2: basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone
1:04:14
Speaker 2: to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America,
1:04:20
Speaker 2: and we've seen it before more than a century ago.
1:04:24
Speaker 2: But the American people stood up to the Robert Barons
1:04:27
Speaker 2: back then and busted the trust. They didn't punish the wealthy,
1:04:33
Speaker 2: just made the wealthy pay play by the rules everybody
1:04:36
Speaker 2: else had.
1:04:38
Speaker 1: So again, I understand what Biden is saying. I am
1:04:43
Speaker 1: troubled as well by some of the aspects of this,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: because we're dealing with a situation where Donald Trump believes
1:04:51
Speaker 1: that your value as a person can basically be summed
1:04:55
Speaker 1: up by what your net worth is. And we've never
1:04:59
Speaker 1: had a situation where this many billionaires are in this
1:05:04
Speaker 1: kind of position of power, both real and imagined and figurative.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: And you know, who knows what how you would describe
1:05:12
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. You know, obviously he's going to be a
1:05:15
Speaker 1: major player in this Trump administration, and he's the written
1:05:19
Speaker 1: by most accounts, the richest man in the world. That
1:05:22
Speaker 1: should be concerning to everybody. There are troubling aspects of this,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: especially given who Donald Trump is and the way he
1:05:32
Speaker 1: views the world. But Joe Biden has blown all credibility
1:05:37
Speaker 1: on this entire issue, and it's kind of symbolic of
1:05:40
Speaker 1: who Biden really is. He's a fraud. Joe Biden at
1:05:45
Speaker 1: his core was a fraud. I used to think of
1:05:48
Speaker 1: Joe Biden as being relatively harmless, not very bright, but
1:05:52
Speaker 1: now I see him as selfish, dumb, a jackass at times,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: and overall I believe him to be fraudulent. And I
1:06:03
Speaker 1: think these two clips we played from his farewell address
1:06:07
Speaker 1: are consistent with that, as was something absolutely bizarre that
1:06:12
Speaker 1: he and Kamala Harris did in their final weekend in office,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: where first Biden and then Harris put out tweets that
1:06:23
Speaker 1: essentially pretended that the er Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment,
1:06:30
Speaker 1: had been ratified as the twenty eighth Amendment to the
1:06:35
Speaker 1: Constitution of the United States. I'm not making this up.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: I mean, this is as bizarre as it gets. And
1:06:42
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump ever did anything like this, there would
1:06:45
Speaker 1: have been a complete and total meltdown by the mainstream
1:06:49
Speaker 1: news media. Instead, this was essentially ignored, like it was oh, well,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: that's just the old man being funny, or it's a lark,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: or he's just trying to make a point about equal
1:07:01
Speaker 1: rights for women. And let's not really take this all
1:07:05
Speaker 1: too seriously. I mean, this was written in an extremely
1:07:09
Speaker 1: troubling fashion, as if he had made law, as if
1:07:13
Speaker 1: he had as if he had added an amendment to
1:07:17
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the United States. And then Kamala Harris
1:07:21
Speaker 1: did almost exactly.
1:07:23
Speaker 3: The same thing, as if you can ratify an amendment
1:07:27
Speaker 3: to the Constitution via a presidential tweet, it's unbelievable.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: It's if it wasn't so serious, it would literally be laughable.
1:07:38
Speaker 1: And kudos to incoming Vice president and JD. Vance who
1:07:43
Speaker 1: did make this into a joke. He quote tweeted Biden's
1:07:47
Speaker 1: original post, which, by the way, the Twitter or ex
1:07:52
Speaker 1: community notes had to correct Joe Biden. Imagine that the
1:07:57
Speaker 1: outgoing president United States had who's again misinformation. That's a
1:08:02
Speaker 1: huge part of this is farewell address as President United
1:08:07
Speaker 1: States had to be corrected by community notes in one
1:08:11
Speaker 1: of his last major declarations as president because he doesn't
1:08:17
Speaker 1: have the authority or the power to do this, and
1:08:20
Speaker 1: there is no twenty eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1:08:24
Speaker 1: But JD. Vance actually asked Biden to put Pete Rose
1:08:28
Speaker 1: into the Baseball Hall of Fame via Twitter ex post,
1:08:35
Speaker 1: which I thought was rather humorous, but also made the
1:08:37
Speaker 1: larger point of just how ridiculous this is. This is
1:08:41
Speaker 1: a fantasy world that Joe Biden is living in. And
1:08:46
Speaker 1: you know, with Biden, we don't know anymore. We don't
1:08:49
Speaker 1: know what's real, what's fantasy, what's him, what's somebody else?
1:08:55
Speaker 1: Because for well over a year, probably two years now,
1:09:00
Speaker 1: anybody with half a brain and who's been paying attention
1:09:04
Speaker 1: has understood that Joe Biden is not physically mentally capable
1:09:10
Speaker 1: of doing this job. This is a very difficult job,
1:09:14
Speaker 1: maybe the toughest in the world to do it correctly,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: to be president of the United States, and Biden was
1:09:20
Speaker 1: not physically or mentally capable of it. And the evidence
1:09:24
Speaker 1: of that is becoming overwhelming. And Speaker of Asse Mike
1:09:29
Speaker 1: Johnson did a fascinating interview with Barry Weiss, former liberal
1:09:34
Speaker 1: turned independent media member, where he told a story, an
1:09:40
Speaker 1: extraordinary story that I don't think has gotten nearly enough attention.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: It's gone semi viral online, but the mainstream news media,
1:09:47
Speaker 1: to my view of this, has not really paid much
1:09:52
Speaker 1: attention to it at all. But in a very credible fashion.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: I believe this story one hundred percent. You can decide
1:10:00
Speaker 1: for yourself. Speaker Mike Johnson told the story of how
1:10:05
Speaker 1: he could not get a meeting. This would have been
1:10:08
Speaker 1: last year. He could not get a meeting with the president,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: and it was obvious to him that those around Biden
1:10:16
Speaker 1: were very afraid of Johnson meeting one on one with
1:10:21
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Now there's a lot of reasons why that
1:10:23
Speaker 1: could be, but one of them could be that you're
1:10:25
Speaker 1: not sure what the hell Biden's gonna say. Well, eventually
1:10:30
Speaker 1: Johnson got an audience, and according to him, Biden actually
1:10:35
Speaker 1: asked to speak with Johnson one on one in private, which,
1:10:40
Speaker 1: according to Johnson, scared the daylights out of all the
1:10:45
Speaker 1: Biden aides that were in attendance. But when he finally
1:10:49
Speaker 1: got Biden one on one, he asked him about an
1:10:53
Speaker 1: executive order did Biden had sign, which was negatively and
1:10:59
Speaker 1: dramatically impacting people in Louisiana, where Johnson is a congressman
1:11:06
Speaker 1: and now is Speaker of the House. And what Johnson
1:11:10
Speaker 1: says happened next is absolutely mind blowing. Even if you
1:11:17
Speaker 1: are one of those like myself who believes that Joe
1:11:21
Speaker 1: Biden was not really in charge over the last couple
1:11:24
Speaker 1: of years as President of the United States, because Johnson,
1:11:28
Speaker 1: in great detail talks about how Biden did not believe
1:11:35
Speaker 1: that he had done what Johnson knew that he had done.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: And it makes it very obvious at best at best,
1:11:44
Speaker 1: that somebody else was in charge at the White House
1:11:48
Speaker 1: in what was really happening and just put a piece
1:11:51
Speaker 1: of paper in front of Joe Biden and probably told
1:11:54
Speaker 1: him it was something different than what he was actually signing.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: And here's the way that Mike Johnson tells the story.
1:12:00
Speaker 4: Piquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies.
1:12:02
Speaker 4: Why would you do that? Because you understand we just
1:12:04
Speaker 4: talked about Ukraine. You understand your fuel in Vladimir Putin's
1:12:07
Speaker 4: war machine because they got to get their gas from him.
1:12:09
Speaker 1: You know.
1:12:10
Speaker 4: And he looks at me, stunned with this, and he said,
1:12:13
Speaker 4: I didn't I didn't do that. And I said, miss President,
1:12:16
Speaker 4: you yes, you did. It was an executive order, like
1:12:18
Speaker 4: you know, three weeks ago, and he goes, no, I
1:12:20
Speaker 4: didn't do that, and he's arguing with me. I said,
1:12:21
Speaker 4: miss President, respectfully, can I could I go out here
1:12:25
Speaker 4: and ask your secretary to print it out. We'll read
1:12:26
Speaker 4: it together. You definitely did that, and he goes, oh,
1:12:28
Speaker 4: you talk about natural gas. Yes, sir, he said, no, no,
1:12:33
Speaker 4: did you misunderstand?
1:12:34
Speaker 1: He said?
1:12:34
Speaker 4: What I did is I signed this thing to we're
1:12:36
Speaker 4: gonna conduct a study on the effects of energy. I said, no,
1:12:40
Speaker 4: you're not, sir. You paused it. I know I have
1:12:43
Speaker 4: the terminal, the export terminals in my state. I talked
1:12:45
Speaker 4: to those people this morning. This is doing massive damage
1:12:48
Speaker 4: to our economy.
1:12:49
Speaker 1: National security.
1:12:50
Speaker 4: It occurred to me, Barry, he was not lying to me.
1:12:53
Speaker 4: He genuinely did not know what he had signed. And
1:12:55
Speaker 4: I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing
1:12:57
Speaker 4: because I thought, we're in serious trouble. Who is running
1:13:00
Speaker 4: the country.
1:13:02
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just amazing and scary as hell. And
1:13:07
Speaker 1: I believe it, and I think Johnson believes and I
1:13:11
Speaker 1: agree with him that Biden did not know what he
1:13:17
Speaker 1: had done, not necessarily because of lack of mental acuity
1:13:21
Speaker 1: or memory, because it appears as if once Johnson jogged
1:13:25
Speaker 1: his memory, Biden was able to go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: we're going to do a study on that. No, no, no,
1:13:31
Speaker 1: no no, And the Okham's Raizor analysis of this is
1:13:36
Speaker 1: that's what they told Biden somebody else we don't even
1:13:40
Speaker 1: know who created this executive order that negatively impacted a
1:13:45
Speaker 1: whole lot of people that the President of the United
1:13:48
Speaker 1: States did not even realize that he was doing. He
1:13:53
Speaker 1: thought he was just signing for there to be a
1:13:56
Speaker 1: study on the issue. Johnson believes Biden on that, and
1:14:01
Speaker 1: I don't have any reason to disbelieve Johnson. And that's
1:14:04
Speaker 1: a scenario that makes most sense to me, because that's
1:14:08
Speaker 1: where the lack of mental acuity matters. If you're Joe
1:14:11
Speaker 1: Biden and you're sleepy Joe, and you're not really with it,
1:14:14
Speaker 1: it's incredibly easy for somebody to just slip him a
1:14:18
Speaker 1: piece of paper and tell him it's something different than
1:14:22
Speaker 1: what it actually is, and he signs it. Now, if
1:14:25
Speaker 1: this happened in this situation, this is I'm a big
1:14:28
Speaker 1: believer in this theory. Right if we by luck, by
1:14:33
Speaker 1: remarkable circumstances, I mean, this could have easily happened without
1:14:37
Speaker 1: Johnson ever getting this conversation one on one with the president.
1:14:41
Speaker 1: If this happened in this circumstance and we found out
1:14:44
Speaker 1: about it, how many other times did it happen and
1:14:49
Speaker 1: in what other significant situations did it occur? And I
1:14:53
Speaker 1: wish that I had faith that we would at least
1:14:55
Speaker 1: find that out, but because of the death of journalism,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: I do not. However, it is clear, and this is
1:15:04
Speaker 1: something I predicted previously. It is clear that now that
1:15:07
Speaker 1: the Biden administration has officially come to an end, that
1:15:11
Speaker 1: people are going to start to become far more transparent,
1:15:15
Speaker 1: far more open, and far more critical of Joe Biden.
1:15:19
Speaker 1: And we saw a rather humorous example of that involving
1:15:24
Speaker 1: Jill Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra Pelosi
1:15:31
Speaker 1: over just the last couple of days. And you know,
1:15:34
Speaker 1: this was obviously always going to be the case. We
1:15:37
Speaker 1: were going to learn more about the Biden coup once
1:15:40
Speaker 1: Biden left office. Joe Biden was quoted as as being
1:15:45
Speaker 1: critical of Nancy Pelosi, saying, we've been friends for I
1:15:48
Speaker 1: think she said fifty years. It was disappointing in reference
1:15:52
Speaker 1: to what I call the code read that Nancy Pelosi
1:15:55
Speaker 1: called on Joe Biden that facilitated the coup and forced
1:15:59
Speaker 1: him out of the presidential race. That was really the
1:16:02
Speaker 1: first time that publicly Joe Biden had criticized Nancy Pelosi. Well,
1:16:09
Speaker 1: Alexandra Pelosi, essentially her mom's spokesperson, a filmmaker on her own,
1:16:16
Speaker 1: fired back at Jill Biden in a rather humorous and
1:16:21
Speaker 1: very dramatic way. This is in an article that was
1:16:25
Speaker 1: just released yesterday. Quote. This is Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter. Quote.
1:16:33
Speaker 1: If I was Lady Mcbiden, Lady mcbiden as in Lady macbeth.
1:16:41
Speaker 1: If I was Lady Mcbiden, I'd put on my big
1:16:45
Speaker 1: girl pants, play the long game and think about my
1:16:48
Speaker 1: husband's legacy. There aren't that many people left in America
1:16:51
Speaker 1: who have something nice to say about Joe Biden, and
1:16:55
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is one of them. Unquote. Then there's this,
1:17:01
Speaker 1: which is really amazing. Apparently the Bidens did not reach
1:17:06
Speaker 1: out to Pelosi after her fall last month. This is
1:17:10
Speaker 1: Pelosi's daughter quote. Since breaking her hip in Europe last month,
1:17:16
Speaker 1: speaker America, Nancy Pelosi has been deluged with messages, flowers,
1:17:22
Speaker 1: and calls of concern from heads of state, colleagues and
1:17:26
Speaker 1: both parties, even royalty. Yet it's who she has not
1:17:31
Speaker 1: heard from that's most remarkable and that has infuriated Pelosi's
1:17:36
Speaker 1: friends and family, Joe and Jill Biden. So, if you
1:17:42
Speaker 1: believe Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Joe and Jill Biden have so
1:17:48
Speaker 1: much anger, so much resentment towards Nancy Pelosi calling for
1:17:54
Speaker 1: the code read and forcing Joe Biden out of the race,
1:17:58
Speaker 1: that they have not even reached out to Nancy when
1:18:03
Speaker 1: she broke her hip. That's amazing, And I believe that story.
1:18:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's Nancy Pelosi's daughter, it's on the record,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: it's a direct quote. I mean, she would know there
1:18:15
Speaker 1: would be an enormous repercussion if that was false, and
1:18:19
Speaker 1: it would be pretty easily proven if it was false.
1:18:23
Speaker 1: But I mean, that's just amazing. That's the level of
1:18:28
Speaker 1: anger that exists between Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Two
1:18:32
Speaker 1: people used to be very very close, have known each
1:18:35
Speaker 1: other for half a century, and you know, obviously Joe
1:18:41
Speaker 1: Biden thought of them as friends. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi
1:18:44
Speaker 1: did as well. But that's the level of delusion of
1:18:48
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. I mean, Joe Biden still thinks he would
1:18:51
Speaker 1: have won if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schuber hadn't forced
1:18:54
Speaker 1: him out of the race. Which is absurd and another
1:18:59
Speaker 1: indication he never should have been president at this time.
1:19:02
Speaker 1: We really dodged a bullet in this country. For at
1:19:07
Speaker 1: least a couple of years, we had somebody as president
1:19:10
Speaker 1: of the United States who had no business being in office,
1:19:14
Speaker 1: and the news media to this day has not even
1:19:17
Speaker 1: come close to doing a full mia copa on their
1:19:21
Speaker 1: role in enabling that in happening. And we came so
1:19:26
Speaker 1: unbelievably close to this guy being re elected. If Donald
1:19:32
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't turn his head at that butler rally at
1:19:38
Speaker 1: exactly the right moment and he gets assassinated, there is,
1:19:45
Speaker 1: in my view, no scenario where Joe Biden isn't reelected,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: isn't about to take the oath of office, or just
1:19:52
Speaker 1: take having just taken the oath of office as you
1:19:55
Speaker 1: listen to this, for his second term. Now, he never
1:19:58
Speaker 1: would have finished that second term. He would have resigned
1:20:01
Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris would have taken over, and that would
1:20:03
Speaker 1: have caused a whole series of other problems. But that's
1:20:07
Speaker 1: how close we came to this. And the fact that
1:20:11
Speaker 1: you know obviously dodged a bullet is an appropriate metaphor
1:20:16
Speaker 1: here because it was literal when it came to Donald
1:20:19
Speaker 1: Trump effectively dodging a bullet and Butler, but figuratively as
1:20:24
Speaker 1: a country, we dodged a bullet here when it came
1:20:27
Speaker 1: to just the last couple of years. And I'm being
1:20:30
Speaker 1: generous saying it's been the last couple of years, but
1:20:34
Speaker 1: it is total. It is completely obvious that Joe Biden
1:20:38
Speaker 1: had absolutely no business being president, and yet most of
1:20:42
Speaker 1: the news media is never fully going to acknowledge. They
1:20:45
Speaker 1: may on the fringes say, well, you know, maybe we
1:20:48
Speaker 1: should have done a better job, but by and large,
1:20:52
Speaker 1: they are never going to fully acknowledge their role in
1:20:55
Speaker 1: enabling what could have been a very and what was
1:20:58
Speaker 1: a very dangerous situation, but which it appears as if,
1:21:02
Speaker 1: as of right now, we were able to escape without
1:21:07
Speaker 1: too much damage being done. Now, of course, who knows
1:21:10
Speaker 1: what's going to happen during the second Trump administration. That's
1:21:14
Speaker 1: a huge question, one that I have probably more so
1:21:18
Speaker 1: than any other conservative in the country. And as far
1:21:21
Speaker 1: as his inauguration goes, it's already happened as of you
1:21:25
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast. But the inauguration was moved indoors,
1:21:31
Speaker 1: which I think was a mistake. I have suspicions as
1:21:36
Speaker 1: to why it was moved indoors. There's a whole series
1:21:40
Speaker 1: of ironies regarding Trump's inauguration being moved indoors, apparently because
1:21:46
Speaker 1: of the cold. Yes, it was cold in Washington, d C.
1:21:50
Speaker 1: But it was not historically cold. There were several other
1:21:53
Speaker 1: inaugurations that were done during a similar period of cold
1:22:00
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. I hate cancelation nation. I think
1:22:04
Speaker 1: it's important to point out. I mean, my god, here
1:22:07
Speaker 1: we are just three weeks into twenty twenty five, and
1:22:12
Speaker 1: we have already had the Sugar Bowl postponed needlessly because
1:22:16
Speaker 1: of a terrorist attack during the early morning hours of
1:22:19
Speaker 1: January first. In New Orleans. We had an NFL playoff
1:22:23
Speaker 1: game moved from Los Angeles to Arizona, which I was
1:22:28
Speaker 1: somewhat okay with, but was not necessary. As it turns out,
1:22:32
Speaker 1: they could have easily played a playoff game in Los Angeles,
1:22:35
Speaker 1: but decided to move it to Arizona because of the wildfires.
1:22:39
Speaker 1: We've got the PGA Tour event at Riviera Country Club,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: which I predicted was not difficult to predict, has now
1:22:46
Speaker 1: been moved away from Riviera because of the fire in
1:22:51
Speaker 1: the neighboring Pacific Palisades community. No word yet on where
1:22:56
Speaker 1: that's actually going to happen. That probably, of all the postponements,
1:23:00
Speaker 1: cancellations and movements, makes the most sense because I just
1:23:04
Speaker 1: don't know how logistically they could have possibly done that.
1:23:07
Speaker 1: But that's a third major event moved because of circumstances
1:23:14
Speaker 1: around beyond people's control. And now we have the inauguration
1:23:19
Speaker 1: of the President United States having been moved indoors because
1:23:23
Speaker 1: temperatures were going to be in the load of mid twenties.
1:23:29
Speaker 1: I have a problem with that from a number of perspectives.
1:23:32
Speaker 1: The first is it is an enormous endeavor to get
1:23:37
Speaker 1: the capital ready for an inauguration one hundred thousand chairs
1:23:42
Speaker 1: and hundreds of poor bodies, and I mean the amount
1:23:47
Speaker 1: of work that it took to put that whole situation
1:23:50
Speaker 1: together and then to dismantle it and having those people
1:23:54
Speaker 1: by the way out in the cold. It's an incredible
1:23:58
Speaker 1: amount of manpower an expense to go through that. And
1:24:03
Speaker 1: so I think there's a cost right there. Literally there's
1:24:07
Speaker 1: a human cost, there's a financial cost. There's the cost
1:24:11
Speaker 1: of how many people have gone to DC and who
1:24:14
Speaker 1: will not be able to attend inside the event, we're
1:24:19
Speaker 1: not able to attend the inauguration inside the Capitol. So
1:24:25
Speaker 1: I don't agree with this. This is not a historically
1:24:29
Speaker 1: cold situation. There have been colder inaugurations that were outside.
1:24:34
Speaker 1: There are people who have speculated, and I cannot disagree
1:24:37
Speaker 1: with this speculation that this was a situation where Trump
1:24:41
Speaker 1: was afraid that his crowd size was not going to
1:24:44
Speaker 1: be large enough. And I'm sorry when you make as
1:24:48
Speaker 1: huge a deal about your crowd size as you did
1:24:51
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, as Donald Trump did, and you lie
1:24:56
Speaker 1: about your crowd size, and you have your Press Secretary
1:24:59
Speaker 1: John lie in his first press briefing about the crowd
1:25:04
Speaker 1: size that your inauguration, I'm sorry. The price you pay
1:25:08
Speaker 1: for that is when you move your inauguration, your second
1:25:12
Speaker 1: inauguration inside, when you move it inside under difficult but
1:25:18
Speaker 1: not impossible weather conditions. I'm sorry. It is logical to
1:25:23
Speaker 1: presume that fear of a crowd size not being large
1:25:28
Speaker 1: enough may have played a significant role in that decision.
1:25:31
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that that is not an indication of someone
1:25:35
Speaker 1: having Trump derangement syndrome. That is just being logical. There
1:25:40
Speaker 1: could have been other reasons. I love by the way
1:25:42
Speaker 1: the fact that, well, since we know Trump is a
1:25:45
Speaker 1: alpha male, a manly man, it could have been fear
1:25:48
Speaker 1: of the weather. There must have been some sort of
1:25:51
Speaker 1: secret service security concern. That must have been the case.
1:25:56
Speaker 1: There must be something they're not telling us about there
1:25:59
Speaker 1: being a security concern. And since he was already shot
1:26:03
Speaker 1: once and there was a second assassination attempt that failed
1:26:06
Speaker 1: during the campaign, that is a narrative that Trump fans
1:26:10
Speaker 1: are very willing to accept. There's no actual evidence for that.
1:26:15
Speaker 1: There's no real, in my view, logic for that. But
1:26:20
Speaker 1: you know, there is an enormous cost. A lot of
1:26:23
Speaker 1: people are going to be greatly inconvenienced and put out
1:26:28
Speaker 1: and disappointed because the inauguration was moved inside in a
1:26:35
Speaker 1: situation where it could have been at least weatherwise, it
1:26:38
Speaker 1: could have been done as scheduled. And the other part
1:26:41
Speaker 1: of this that I think is important for people to
1:26:44
Speaker 1: understand is it, you know, this spectacle. It is a
1:26:48
Speaker 1: remarkable spectacle, a normal inauguration outside with the capital in
1:26:54
Speaker 1: the background, and I mean, you know how many tens
1:26:58
Speaker 1: of thousands of people viewing in person. That is a
1:27:03
Speaker 1: remarkable American event, and it doesn't happen very often. Obviously
1:27:09
Speaker 1: in theory it happens every four years, but you know
1:27:13
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's a second inauguration. A second
1:27:17
Speaker 1: inauguration is nowhere near as big a deal as when
1:27:20
Speaker 1: you have a transfer of power. And I've been very
1:27:23
Speaker 1: critical of Donald Trump not attending the last inauguration in
1:27:27
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. I thought it was childish and Unamerican
1:27:30
Speaker 1: and wrong. I think it's wrong for Democrats to have
1:27:34
Speaker 1: not attended Trump's inauguration, whether it's indoors or outdoors. But
1:27:40
Speaker 1: we only get this spectacle at most once every four years,
1:27:45
Speaker 1: and often once every eight years, where you have a
1:27:49
Speaker 1: new president taking the oath of office with that level
1:27:54
Speaker 1: of spectacle, that huge a crowd, having it be outside,
1:27:59
Speaker 1: and to give that up simply because the temperature was
1:28:03
Speaker 1: in the twenties, I'm sorry. I have to conclude. I
1:28:10
Speaker 1: had to conclude that fear of a small crowd size
1:28:14
Speaker 1: had to play a role in that, And that's wrong,
1:28:16
Speaker 1: that's selfish, and it's so typical of Donald Trump. And
1:28:20
Speaker 1: it's ironic because of course Trump is supposed to be
1:28:23
Speaker 1: the manly, tough guy, and he's he's the one who
1:28:26
Speaker 1: moved his inauguration or approved of his inauguration being moved
1:28:30
Speaker 1: inside because of somewhat cold temperatures. I did also find
1:28:36
Speaker 1: it to be rather ironic that, just a few days
1:28:40
Speaker 1: after the outgoing President of the United States, Joe Biden,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: was scolding Donald Trump and his supporters for not accepting
1:28:48
Speaker 1: the global warming religion and mocking people like me who
1:28:53
Speaker 1: don't believe in the global warming religion, that the inauguration
1:28:58
Speaker 1: of the guy who's taking over for him was moved
1:29:01
Speaker 1: inside because it was too damn cold. I do find
1:29:05
Speaker 1: there be some irony there, and I do think that
1:29:09
Speaker 1: that's rather telling about the real issue here.
1:29:13
Speaker 3: Now.
1:29:14
Speaker 1: I realize that you're not allowed to say anything about
1:29:16
Speaker 1: one day being cold, that that somehow is a contradiction
1:29:20
Speaker 1: of the global warming narrative. But it's been a rather
1:29:22
Speaker 1: cold December and January throughout much of the country, and
1:29:27
Speaker 1: there's no sign of relief and sight there. And that's
1:29:31
Speaker 1: the way it's always been, and that's the way it's
1:29:33
Speaker 1: always going to be. Because I don't believe that the
1:29:36
Speaker 1: climate has dramatically shifted, and I certainly don't believe it's
1:29:39
Speaker 1: because of man, and I certainly don't believe that if
1:29:41
Speaker 1: it is because of man we can do anything to
1:29:43
Speaker 1: reverse it, or that it would be worth it to
1:29:46
Speaker 1: try to do anything to reverse it even if we could.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: But Joe Biden, to me, that's as wrong as he
1:29:53
Speaker 1: is on any issue. For him to be so certain
1:29:57
Speaker 1: that he's right about the global warming religion and to
1:30:00
Speaker 1: have just a few days after he makes multiple public
1:30:04
Speaker 1: statements very dramatically condemning Trump on this issue, to have
1:30:08
Speaker 1: the presidential inauguration moved indoors because it's allegedly too cold,
1:30:13
Speaker 1: I thought was rather telling and also hilarious. Now, as
1:30:18
Speaker 1: far as Trump's second term is concerned, I want to
1:30:22
Speaker 1: try to take a look at both sides of this issue.
1:30:25
Speaker 1: And this is something we'll obviously continually talk about on
1:30:30
Speaker 1: the podcast moving forward, but because this is a bonus
1:30:32
Speaker 1: episode because of the fact that Trump has been inaugurated,
1:30:37
Speaker 1: I want to at least address it in this particular episode.
1:30:41
Speaker 1: I have the positive view, the optimistic view of Trump's
1:30:46
Speaker 1: second term, as well as a more negative or pessimistic
1:30:50
Speaker 1: view of Trump's second term. I want to acknowledge that
1:30:55
Speaker 1: what has happened with Donald Trump now taking the office
1:30:57
Speaker 1: for a second time as president on states he is
1:31:00
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing It's the most remarkable political comeback, certainly of
1:31:05
Speaker 1: my lifetime, maybe in the history of the United States.
1:31:09
Speaker 1: He deserves an enormous amount of credit for just enduring
1:31:14
Speaker 1: the endless barrage of negative media coverage and obviously all
1:31:21
Speaker 1: the law fair and the criminal indictments, even the convictions,
1:31:26
Speaker 1: and for him to pull this off, and to do
1:31:29
Speaker 1: so in dramatic style, and to now get a second chance,
1:31:33
Speaker 1: I mean, a second chance like this is incredibly rare
1:31:36
Speaker 1: in life and probably even more rare in politics. Is
1:31:40
Speaker 1: absolutely remarkable, and he deserves an incredible amount of credit
1:31:46
Speaker 1: for what he did. And I have never personally liked
1:31:49
Speaker 1: the guy. There's elements of him that I like personally,
1:31:52
Speaker 1: but in general, I do not like Donald Trump. I
1:31:57
Speaker 1: do not think he was a good president the first
1:31:59
Speaker 1: time around. It wasn't quite as bad for three years
1:32:02
Speaker 1: as I had feared. I certainly supported him when it
1:32:04
Speaker 1: came to Supreme Court justices, and I think he deserves
1:32:07
Speaker 1: a lot of credit for that. But in my view,
1:32:10
Speaker 1: what happened when the COVID panic hit, other than that
1:32:13
Speaker 1: Missus Lincoln, how was the play? To me? Anything else
1:32:17
Speaker 1: he did in his first term was wiped out by
1:32:20
Speaker 1: the fact that he completely capitulated to doctor Fauci and
1:32:24
Speaker 1: to Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo, and he destroyed the
1:32:29
Speaker 1: country for well over a year because he shit the bed,
1:32:33
Speaker 1: he panicked, and he when it was most important that
1:32:37
Speaker 1: he rised at the occasion, he was not capable of
1:32:40
Speaker 1: doing that. So that is how I viewed Trump and
1:32:44
Speaker 1: his first term. But this second term, I will fully acknowledge,
1:32:49
Speaker 1: has enormous potential. Enormous potential. The fact that he's coming
1:32:55
Speaker 1: in with higher approval ratings than he's ever personally had,
1:33:00
Speaker 1: That he has control of the Senate, he has by
1:33:03
Speaker 1: a very small marching control of the House. He has
1:33:07
Speaker 1: a Democratic Party in disarray. He has a liberal media
1:33:11
Speaker 1: that now feels rightfully rather impotent that they don't even
1:33:17
Speaker 1: know what to do. Unlike his first term, it appears
1:33:20
Speaker 1: as if the resistance is not forming nearly as strongly
1:33:25
Speaker 1: as it did in twenty seventeen. And so he has
1:33:29
Speaker 1: an incredible opportunity here, an incredible opportunity, And frankly, the
1:33:35
Speaker 1: opportunity is so great that I think one of the
1:33:38
Speaker 1: things he has going against him is that he has very,
1:33:41
Speaker 1: very high expectations. I'm a big believer that expectations dictates
1:33:46
Speaker 1: almost everything in life, and you don't want expectations to
1:33:50
Speaker 1: be too high because that's going to dictate how people
1:33:54
Speaker 1: view what actually transpires. And if you don't reach very
1:33:57
Speaker 1: high expectations, there's disappointment, and so sometimes that can create
1:34:02
Speaker 1: very negative momentum. But I understand why they're high expectations
1:34:07
Speaker 1: because this is a remarkable opportunity. This is maybe a
1:34:11
Speaker 1: once and beyond a generation chance if Trump is really
1:34:16
Speaker 1: up to this challenge, if he's really learned from his
1:34:20
Speaker 1: past mistakes. I mean, I cannot emphasize enough how remarkable
1:34:24
Speaker 1: it is to get a second chance when you've made mistakes,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: you've learned what's really going on the ins and outs.
1:34:33
Speaker 1: I mean, my gosh, I know, in my own personal
1:34:35
Speaker 1: life and public life, I've made so many mistakes, but
1:34:39
Speaker 1: I generally would like to believe that I've learned from
1:34:42
Speaker 1: those mistakes. Now, unlike Donald Trump, there's no idea that
1:34:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to get a second chance to make everything right.
1:34:51
Speaker 1: Trump has that chance. I mean, this is unique in
1:34:54
Speaker 1: American politics, and I would love to believe that after
1:34:59
Speaker 1: having learn the lessons of his first term and now
1:35:02
Speaker 1: being you know, seventy eight years old and having survived
1:35:06
Speaker 1: a brush with death, that this was going to be
1:35:09
Speaker 1: a new man and that we were going to see
1:35:11
Speaker 1: a completely different president a second term. I would love
1:35:15
Speaker 1: to believe that that's actually going to be the case,
1:35:18
Speaker 1: and I think it's possible we may see some of that.
1:35:22
Speaker 1: It's possible. I mean, you know, if this thing with
1:35:26
Speaker 1: TikTok has worked out as I think it might, and
1:35:30
Speaker 1: other elements of the first days of his administration go well,
1:35:34
Speaker 1: he may get off to a really very solid start,
1:35:40
Speaker 1: might create momentum. You know, victories tend to beget more victories.
1:35:46
Speaker 1: I see that as a very plausible narrative, a very
1:35:49
Speaker 1: plausible narrative that could happen. Now how long that is
1:35:52
Speaker 1: going to exist for, I don't know. I do want
1:35:55
Speaker 1: to adjust something that I have said that I think
1:35:59
Speaker 1: would have been received as negative towards a second Trump
1:36:03
Speaker 1: term previously, because I kind of changed my mind on it.
1:36:07
Speaker 1: And that is the issue of Trump being an instant
1:36:10
Speaker 1: lame duck. One of the reasons I have been very
1:36:14
Speaker 1: downcast on a second Trump term is one I thought
1:36:17
Speaker 1: that he would basically be forced to hire the d
1:36:20
Speaker 1: list because no one on the A list was gonna
1:36:24
Speaker 1: be willing to work for him in a second term.
1:36:26
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would call what is being
1:36:29
Speaker 1: formed as the D list. It's probably more like the
1:36:32
Speaker 1: C list, maybe on a good day, the C plus list.
1:36:35
Speaker 1: So it's the people that he's gonna have around him
1:36:38
Speaker 1: are slightly better than I feared, and they might in
1:36:42
Speaker 1: some ways be better than the first term. I mean,
1:36:45
Speaker 1: the first term is going to be perceived by Trump
1:36:47
Speaker 1: fans as establishment cucks, and the second term is going
1:36:51
Speaker 1: to be, you know, people who are real maga. We're
1:36:54
Speaker 1: going to get to see how real Maga does when
1:36:56
Speaker 1: it comes to actually being in charge. And now that
1:37:01
Speaker 1: we've learned some things from the first term, I mean,
1:37:03
Speaker 1: that's what they want to believe, and that's possible. So
1:37:06
Speaker 1: I wi't fully acknowledge that the cabinet and his appointees,
1:37:12
Speaker 1: I would say, are slightly better than I had feared.
1:37:16
Speaker 1: But the other part of this equation that I had
1:37:19
Speaker 1: mentioned previously is he's an instant lame duck, which has
1:37:23
Speaker 1: never happened before in the modern history of American presidential politics,
1:37:27
Speaker 1: where you come into office and you instantaneously are a
1:37:32
Speaker 1: quote unquote lame duck. And while that is technically true,
1:37:37
Speaker 1: I now believe that Trump has changed the nature of
1:37:40
Speaker 1: our politics so much that the impact of him being
1:37:45
Speaker 1: a lame duck may no longer be very significant at all.
1:37:52
Speaker 1: In fact, if it really works well for him, he
1:37:56
Speaker 1: may not only not be a lame duck, he may
1:38:00
Speaker 1: effectively be like in a first term situation. What I
1:38:04
Speaker 1: mean by that is this, It was always conventional wisdom
1:38:09
Speaker 1: when it came to presidential politics that the way you
1:38:14
Speaker 1: governed was by appealing to the middle and at best
1:38:19
Speaker 1: appealing to the more moderate elements of the opposing party.
1:38:24
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan really lived by this model. George W. Bush
1:38:30
Speaker 1: tried to live by this model, and it worked post
1:38:32
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. But then in his second term, when
1:38:36
Speaker 1: everything went south with the Iraq War and Katrina, that
1:38:40
Speaker 1: completely collapsed because he was all of a sudden hated
1:38:46
Speaker 1: by anybody who wasn't a diehard Republican. And so that
1:38:51
Speaker 1: method of governing has its benefits, but in a second
1:38:57
Speaker 1: term that becomes very very difficult, especially if circumstances go
1:39:04
Speaker 1: against you like they did with George W. Bush. Well,
1:39:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has flipped that entire conventional wisdom on its head.
1:39:13
Speaker 1: Donald Trump believes that the only thing you have to
1:39:18
Speaker 1: do is to placate and focus on your base of support.
1:39:24
Speaker 1: And if you have such a strong hold on your base,
1:39:28
Speaker 1: as Trump obviously does, you can so control your own
1:39:33
Speaker 1: party that it doesn't matter what's happening with moderates or
1:39:38
Speaker 1: with the opposition party, especially when you have majorities in
1:39:43
Speaker 1: the House and the Senate, even though those majorities are
1:39:45
Speaker 1: exceedingly small. Now, this would change if Republicans lose control
1:39:51
Speaker 1: of the House in two years. So I'm only really
1:39:54
Speaker 1: talking about the next two years. But for the next
1:39:56
Speaker 1: two years, Trump will not have any negative impacts of
1:40:02
Speaker 1: being a lame duck because he will have the ability
1:40:05
Speaker 1: to end any Republican's career by simply just saying I
1:40:10
Speaker 1: will endorse someone who will run against you in a primary,
1:40:15
Speaker 1: and that will be enough to maintain discipline within your party.
1:40:20
Speaker 1: So Trump has completely shifted the dynamics there, and so
1:40:25
Speaker 1: I'm no longer convinced, at least for the first two years,
1:40:29
Speaker 1: that Trump will suffer from being a lame duck. Now
1:40:33
Speaker 1: he's going to have to keep control of the House
1:40:36
Speaker 1: to be able to get anything done in his last
1:40:39
Speaker 1: two years, and We'll see whether or not that can happen,
1:40:43
Speaker 1: but at least for the next two years, Trump is
1:40:47
Speaker 1: in great shape because of the way that his style
1:40:51
Speaker 1: of governance has completely changed everything. And the key to
1:40:55
Speaker 1: that is he's effectively a king, which makes me exceedingly
1:40:59
Speaker 1: unc comfortable. I am very very uncomfortable. I mean nothing
1:41:05
Speaker 1: to do with Democrat or Republican, you know. To me,
1:41:08
Speaker 1: you know, that's the essence of who we are as
1:41:10
Speaker 1: a country. We don't believe in kings. Well, Trump is
1:41:14
Speaker 1: is effectively a king, especially in the Republican party. He
1:41:19
Speaker 1: is a king. You know, that's where the oligarchy word
1:41:23
Speaker 1: came in with I don't necessarily disagree with Joe Biden
1:41:26
Speaker 1: about I do think there's something to be said for
1:41:30
Speaker 1: that being an apt description for the kind of government
1:41:33
Speaker 1: that Trump seems to be forming. And you know, look,
1:41:37
Speaker 1: a king can get some good things done if he's
1:41:40
Speaker 1: smart and lucky and proficient, but he's still a king,
1:41:45
Speaker 1: and there's still dangerous aspects of being a king in
1:41:49
Speaker 1: a country that was founded on the idea that we
1:41:51
Speaker 1: don't do kings. But you know, for two years, Trump
1:41:56
Speaker 1: is going to be able to do pretty much what
1:41:58
Speaker 1: he wants and Democrat runs aren't going to have any
1:42:01
Speaker 1: real say in it for at least those two years.
1:42:05
Speaker 1: And you know, there's the potential for a lot of
1:42:08
Speaker 1: good being done. But I have concerns not just the
1:42:11
Speaker 1: fact that Trump is effectively a king, but also because
1:42:15
Speaker 1: he's got so many different priorities. I don't know that
1:42:19
Speaker 1: he's going to be able to keep his focus. I
1:42:22
Speaker 1: think there's a timing issue on a lot of this stuff.
1:42:25
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the most underdiscussed concerns
1:42:28
Speaker 1: about a second Trump term, and that is a lot
1:42:32
Speaker 1: of the stuff that he wants to do is going
1:42:35
Speaker 1: to take some time before the positive outweighs the negative.
1:42:41
Speaker 1: Whether it's tariffs, whether it's deportations, all sorts of different
1:42:47
Speaker 1: things that Trump is going to be faced with a
1:42:51
Speaker 1: time problem in order to get the game. There's going
1:42:55
Speaker 1: to be some time and maybe even some suffering that
1:42:59
Speaker 1: has to occur in the short run. And does Trump
1:43:03
Speaker 1: have enough time, especially with midterms coming up in two years,
1:43:07
Speaker 1: Does Trump have enough time to get credit, assuming that
1:43:13
Speaker 1: his policies actually work, to get credit after the initial
1:43:18
Speaker 1: period of negativity. And I think the deportations are an
1:43:22
Speaker 1: interesting example of this. I mean, first of all, you know, well,
1:43:26
Speaker 1: MAGA will love the proposed deportations. In the short run,
1:43:31
Speaker 1: if these deportations are as dramatic as Trump has promised,
1:43:35
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of negative stories, a
1:43:38
Speaker 1: lot of very bad pictures of people being deported. There
1:43:43
Speaker 1: might even be depending on how deep these deportations go,
1:43:46
Speaker 1: there might even be issues with regard to, you know,
1:43:50
Speaker 1: not having people to do the supposed jobs that Americans
1:43:54
Speaker 1: don't want to do. There could be negative impacts to
1:43:57
Speaker 1: the economy. That's in the short run. And even though
1:44:01
Speaker 1: I favor I'm in favor and support deportations, depending on
1:44:05
Speaker 1: how and how you do them and how deeply they go.
1:44:08
Speaker 1: So I'm not against the deportations. I'm just saying that
1:44:11
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a downside in the short run before
1:44:15
Speaker 1: you can get to the long term benefits of them.
1:44:19
Speaker 1: And does Trump have enough time? I question that. I
1:44:24
Speaker 1: think the tariffs are a similar situation. So I think
1:44:29
Speaker 1: that does Trump keep his priorities in line? Does he
1:44:32
Speaker 1: have too many priorities? Can he keep his focus? He's
1:44:36
Speaker 1: famously unfocused and easily distracted. Does he have enough time
1:44:42
Speaker 1: to get through the bad to get to the good.
1:44:45
Speaker 1: I don't like the king element of this. I don't
1:44:48
Speaker 1: like how he handled the COVID crisis. So if there
1:44:51
Speaker 1: is a crisis in the second term, is he very
1:44:54
Speaker 1: poorly predisposed to handling it or did he learn from
1:44:59
Speaker 1: the COVID crime bis I'm certainly open to that possibility.
1:45:03
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