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Episode Three Hundred Three: Bryson Rules · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcomed episode three hundred and three of the Death of
0:03
Speaker 1: Journalism Podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm your host
0:05
Speaker 1: on this week's show. President Trump claims to break big
0:09
Speaker 1: news on the twenty twenty election, but even most of
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Speaker 1: the magamedia doesn't really care. Conspiracy theories continue to dominate
0:17
Speaker 1: right wing media content. The Bryce and d Chambeau rules
0:21
Speaker 1: controversy overshadows the British open more WNBA woke insanity is
0:27
Speaker 1: permanent daylight saving time a good idea, and my review
0:32
Speaker 1: of the movie Odyssey, which just as I predicted, has
0:35
Speaker 1: been a big success at the box office. We beg
0:39
Speaker 1: in this week's episode of the podcast with a story that,
0:43
Speaker 1: at least in magaworld, was huge at the end of
0:46
Speaker 1: last week, but has already very tellingly largely, if not totally,
0:51
Speaker 1: been forgotten. That was when President Trump decided to give
0:55
Speaker 1: a prime time address to the nation, although almost you
1:00
Speaker 1: know major television networks carried the speech live to discuss
1:05
Speaker 1: what he described as absolutely bombshell information proving that the
1:11
Speaker 1: twenty twenty presidential election had, indeed, as he has been
1:15
Speaker 1: claiming for years, been stolen from him. Now, there's a
1:20
Speaker 1: lot of different aspects of this story. I'm not going
1:22
Speaker 1: to belabor it because frankly, it's already old news, and
1:26
Speaker 1: I think the lack of reaction to it kind of
1:28
Speaker 1: proves my side of the argument. But just for the record,
1:32
Speaker 1: since this is the death of journalism podcasts, there's a
1:35
Speaker 1: major media aspect to this, which is what I've already implied.
1:40
Speaker 1: The President the United States gave a prime time address
1:43
Speaker 1: and most of the television networks did not decide to
1:46
Speaker 1: carry it live. Now, almost every network had a different
1:49
Speaker 1: way of handling this situation. Fox News Channel carried it live.
1:54
Speaker 1: News Nation carried it live, others carried parts of it.
1:57
Speaker 1: Some treated it as a major story, but did not
2:01
Speaker 1: carry it live, basically previewing it and then commentating on
2:05
Speaker 1: it with actually without actually showing it, which was odd,
2:09
Speaker 1: and I fully understand why this was a very difficult
2:12
Speaker 1: decision for the news organizations. I get if we lived
2:17
Speaker 1: in a normal world where the Trump fans are upset
2:22
Speaker 1: that wait a minute, the President of States is giving
2:24
Speaker 1: a primetime address. Shouldn't all the major news networks, including
2:29
Speaker 1: the over the air quote unquote networks ABCNBC and CBS,
2:33
Speaker 1: shouldn't they carry it live? Well, yes and no. I
2:38
Speaker 1: would ask those who are on the side of Donald Trump,
2:41
Speaker 1: and I know there are some who are subscribers to
2:44
Speaker 1: this podcast who are Trump fans, to think about it
2:47
Speaker 1: this way. Let's pretend that Gavin Newsom wins the presidency
2:52
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, which I think there's a pretty
2:55
Speaker 1: darn good chance he's going to, but we don't know
2:57
Speaker 1: for sure. Let's hope not. Our current fear factor rating
3:00
Speaker 1: is seven point zero there and slightly rising. Let's pretend
3:04
Speaker 1: Newsome wins. Doesn't even have to be Newsome, but he
3:06
Speaker 1: would be the most likely to do this, and he
3:09
Speaker 1: decides to give a primetime address claiming that he has
3:16
Speaker 1: absolutely breathtaking proof evidence what have you that contrary to
3:23
Speaker 1: what has been debunked the twenty sixteen election, or maybe
3:27
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election, but let's say twenty to sixteen,
3:30
Speaker 1: since there's already been a lot of speculation about that,
3:33
Speaker 1: I think that probably is the better analogy here, that
3:36
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen he has proof that guess what, Russia
3:40
Speaker 1: really did collude with President Trump and was the reason
3:44
Speaker 1: why he won that distant election. And let's pretend, because
3:49
Speaker 1: it's Newsome it's all a bunch of bullshit. There's no
3:51
Speaker 1: new evidence. All he's doing is rehashing old stuff. And
3:56
Speaker 1: let's pretend that magaworld was reacting to the happening. Would
4:02
Speaker 1: they want all the major networks to be carrying that
4:06
Speaker 1: live or would they be screaming bloody murder if that happened,
4:11
Speaker 1: especially given the fact that there was no strong evidence.
4:15
Speaker 1: Provided there's no bombshell new information, then that we have
4:19
Speaker 1: to trust before we make this decision to air this
4:23
Speaker 1: speech that what Newsom is telling us is true and
4:27
Speaker 1: based upon his history, there's no reason to do that.
4:30
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty good analogy, and I think
4:33
Speaker 1: that any reasonable person would say, wait a minute, there's
4:36
Speaker 1: no reason for the major networks to blow out primetime
4:41
Speaker 1: coverage to give credibility to a speech that clearly is
4:46
Speaker 1: not based in facts or truth and is clearly extremely
4:49
Speaker 1: partisan and in this case not just partisan. But when
4:53
Speaker 1: it comes to Trump with the twenty twenty election, basically
4:57
Speaker 1: a personal obsession. That's really what we have here, a
5:01
Speaker 1: personal obsession based in ego, where Trump acting like a king.
5:07
Speaker 1: This has only been my biggest concern about Trump two
5:10
Speaker 1: point zero because there's not gonna be anyone around him
5:13
Speaker 1: that's gonna be willing to tell him. No, there's no
5:16
Speaker 1: one that's gonna be willing to stand up and die
5:19
Speaker 1: on this particular hill, or any hill, but this one
5:22
Speaker 1: in particular, because everyone around Trump knows this is the
5:25
Speaker 1: hill you do not stand on the twenty twenty election,
5:30
Speaker 1: because he's lost his goddamn mind on this. His ego
5:34
Speaker 1: is such that he cannot accept the fact that he
5:38
Speaker 1: lost the twenty twenty election. So in my mind, it
5:42
Speaker 1: was a very rational decision for major networks to not
5:46
Speaker 1: carry this live. Now, from an economic perspective, I totally
5:49
Speaker 1: get why Fox News Channel decided to air it live
5:53
Speaker 1: because their audience is in on this, which is ironic,
5:57
Speaker 1: very ironic, considering the fact that Fox News Channel I
6:01
Speaker 1: had to pay a boatload of money in a defamation
6:05
Speaker 1: lawsuit settlement because of claims that were debunked related to
6:10
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election being fixed against Donald Trump. Now,
6:14
Speaker 1: I frankly never understood why Fox News Channel settled this
6:19
Speaker 1: case for as much money as they did, because I
6:21
Speaker 1: didn't think that they were nearly as guilty as some
6:23
Speaker 1: other Magamedia outlets did. I actually thought that they did
6:27
Speaker 1: it maybe as a strategery to try to force Newsmas
6:31
Speaker 1: into a very difficult situation, but I don't have any
6:34
Speaker 1: solid information on that. The point is, look from an
6:38
Speaker 1: economics perspective, a rating standpoint, it makes sense for Fox
6:42
Speaker 1: News Channel to carry this, which they did. They gave
6:44
Speaker 1: it full credibility, lots of hype, lots of preview. But
6:49
Speaker 1: then something really, really really telling happened, which was literally
6:56
Speaker 1: five or six minutes after the speech was over on Hannity,
7:01
Speaker 1: Trump's buddy number one supporter on Fox News Channel for many,
7:05
Speaker 1: many years, immediately changed subjects and did so in a
7:11
Speaker 1: way that was clearly pre planned. They had guests lined up,
7:17
Speaker 1: they knew they wanted out of this as quickly and
7:21
Speaker 1: as seamlessly as possible. Give Maga what it was, pretend
7:25
Speaker 1: to give the king his credibility, but we're going to
7:29
Speaker 1: move on from this immediately because we already know there's
7:33
Speaker 1: nothing to this now. I'm fully open to the idea
7:37
Speaker 1: that Handy was basically told, this is what you have
7:40
Speaker 1: to do because the parent company or the higher ups
7:43
Speaker 1: are already very antsy about this subject, given the settlement
7:47
Speaker 1: that I already discussed. I get that, but Handity clearly
7:52
Speaker 1: went along with this. There were all sorts of ways
7:54
Speaker 1: that if Hannity didn't want to do that, he could
7:57
Speaker 1: have at least given the wink wig nod nod to
7:59
Speaker 1: the audience. That didn't happen. Even Sean Hannity knows that
8:03
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump did last week was mostly bullshit, and
8:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't difficult to discern that this was mostly bullshit,
8:12
Speaker 1: if not totally bullshit. First of all, when I looked
8:16
Speaker 1: at this and I watched the whole damn thing, I
8:18
Speaker 1: wasted however long, this was, you know, almost an hour
8:23
Speaker 1: of my life watching this thing, and it was so
8:27
Speaker 1: clearly absurd on the very basics of the speech. It
8:32
Speaker 1: didn't even get out of the batter's box. It tried
8:35
Speaker 1: to prove this case. Why well, Number one, he kept
8:40
Speaker 1: talking about all these classified documents that he was they
8:43
Speaker 1: were being made public. He didn't show one of them,
8:48
Speaker 1: not one online. As I was starting to mock the speech,
8:52
Speaker 1: I kept having MAGA supporters say, John, are you going
8:55
Speaker 1: to Are you going to read the documents for yourself?
8:59
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I will read all the documents that
9:01
Speaker 1: Donald Trump presented during his presentation, which was zero zero
9:09
Speaker 1: If he really had, can we use our brains for
9:11
Speaker 1: a second year? People? If he really had bombshell information
9:14
Speaker 1: that the presidential election have been rigged against him by
9:17
Speaker 1: a foreign nation, in this case, China not Russia. Although,
9:21
Speaker 1: ironically enough, when people actually looked at the documents that
9:26
Speaker 1: he released, shockingly there were fragments that also indicated guess what,
9:31
Speaker 1: Russia tried to help Trump in twenty twenty. That's true,
9:35
Speaker 1: that's a fact. You can look it up for yourself.
9:37
Speaker 1: But if he really had this bombshell information, he would
9:43
Speaker 1: show the fucking document or documents that were in question.
9:47
Speaker 1: He did nothing of the sort. But what he did
9:51
Speaker 1: do instead was try to bring in Spencer Pratt in
9:56
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles may or election into this as somehow
10:00
Speaker 1: a proof that what he's talking about is true. And
10:05
Speaker 1: as someone who was way ahead of the curve and
10:07
Speaker 1: what really was going on with Spencer Pratt in the
10:09
Speaker 1: LA election, I know that's undeniably bullshit. Now are our
10:16
Speaker 1: elections poorly run? Absolutely? Are they ridiculously poorly run in
10:21
Speaker 1: Los Angeles one hundred percent? Is there the opportunity for
10:27
Speaker 1: fraudulent votes? Absolutely, especially with universal mail in balloting. I
10:32
Speaker 1: can't stand universal mail in balloting. I'm one of the
10:36
Speaker 1: few people the rail against it on sa IT and Live,
10:40
Speaker 1: which I did about a month ago after the election
10:43
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and so I get it. I get
10:47
Speaker 1: that our elections are far from perfect and things ought
10:50
Speaker 1: to be done to fix them. COVID basically blew a
10:55
Speaker 1: hole in our election process. It totally changed the rules,
11:00
Speaker 1: which is why Joe Biden got eighty one million votes.
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Speaker 1: And this, I think is maybe the most important part
11:07
Speaker 1: of this whole controversy, because I think we have everything
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Speaker 1: backwards in this day and age, and this goes for
11:14
Speaker 1: the right as well as the left, and it's one
11:17
Speaker 1: of the reasons why journalism is dead, why we have
11:21
Speaker 1: the death of journalism podcasts, and that is that it
11:25
Speaker 1: used to be. I thought when I was learning how
11:28
Speaker 1: to do journalism that you go where the facts take you,
11:33
Speaker 1: and then you come to a conclusion. And by the way,
11:38
Speaker 1: you're open to changing that conclusion if you get more
11:41
Speaker 1: facts or new facts or old facts turned out to
11:44
Speaker 1: not be what you thought they were going to be,
11:46
Speaker 1: that's the way you did this. Now everything's in the
11:49
Speaker 1: opposite direction. Now we come to a conclusion first, and
11:54
Speaker 1: then we try to look for facts to back up
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Speaker 1: our preferred conclusion. And that's what's happened with the twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty election and magworld and specifically Donald Trump. They can't
12:05
Speaker 1: wrap their minds around the fact that Joe Biden got
12:08
Speaker 1: eighty one million popular votes. I get that it's a
12:12
Speaker 1: crazy number for a guy no one really was all
12:15
Speaker 1: that indhused about. But Trump fans refuse to understand the
12:20
Speaker 1: basic reality of the twenty twenty election. It was not rigged,
12:26
Speaker 1: but it was a completely absurd election because of what
12:31
Speaker 1: COVID did to the narrative, the COVID panic did to
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Speaker 1: the narrative, and what the COVID panic did to the rules.
12:38
Speaker 1: And when you have universal mail in battling, you have
12:42
Speaker 1: this unprecedented panic, and you have an enormous amount of
12:46
Speaker 1: hatred towards Donald Trump because he was rightly or wrongly
12:50
Speaker 1: I think mostly wrongly, getting enormous amounts of blame by
12:53
Speaker 1: the fact that the country had been essentially shut down
12:58
Speaker 1: for most of the year because because of the COVID panic,
13:01
Speaker 1: you're gonna have people who are going to be super
13:04
Speaker 1: energized to vote against the incumbent president. And their only
13:10
Speaker 1: way of doing that was to vote for the alternative,
13:15
Speaker 1: which was Joe Biden, which is why Joe Biden got
13:19
Speaker 1: eighty one million votes. Now, we're all eighty one million
13:23
Speaker 1: votes one hundred percent legitimate. I'm sure they weren't, but
13:28
Speaker 1: it was darned near close to eighty one million votes
13:31
Speaker 1: and it did not impact the results of the Electoral College.
13:36
Speaker 1: And you know how I know that because we have
13:39
Speaker 1: the state of Georgia. If people were to ask me, okayzike,
13:43
Speaker 1: in one word, how do you know Trump's speech was
13:47
Speaker 1: mostly bullshit, if not totally, that one word would be Georgia,
13:52
Speaker 1: because we have a Republican state with a very good
13:56
Speaker 1: Republican governor, a very good Republican Secretary of State, most
14:00
Speaker 1: of the infrastructure was Republican in twenty twenty. And there
14:05
Speaker 1: was absolutely, positively no evidence that the election in Georgia
14:10
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty was stolen from Donald Trump. And if
14:13
Speaker 1: it had been, we would know about it because the
14:17
Speaker 1: state of Georgia would have been the first to be
14:19
Speaker 1: screaming bloody murder because they had the self interest to
14:22
Speaker 1: do so. The people there had an enormous self interest,
14:25
Speaker 1: especially once Trump was effectively asking them to find new
14:29
Speaker 1: votes and doing all sorts of completely inappropriate things. Although
14:34
Speaker 1: he technically I don't think he broke the law in
14:37
Speaker 1: what he said, but it was totally inappropriate. They had
14:40
Speaker 1: a huge self interest to try to find fraud and
14:44
Speaker 1: they didn't. And as far as this issue of China, look,
14:48
Speaker 1: I have no problem believing that China. We already know
14:51
Speaker 1: China disrupted the twenty twenty election. This was maybe the
14:54
Speaker 1: part of Trump's speech that bugged me the most. It
14:57
Speaker 1: wasn't just that it was based in a fallacy with
15:01
Speaker 1: no real evidence, that he was not even providing the
15:04
Speaker 1: evidence because it's not really there, but the part where
15:07
Speaker 1: he's actually right, he didn't forget about emphasize. I don't
15:11
Speaker 1: think he even mentioned how do you talk about the
15:13
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election and China and not reference what the
15:19
Speaker 1: impact of COVID was and the COVID panic. Now, did
15:24
Speaker 1: China do that on purpose to influence the twenty twenty
15:28
Speaker 1: presidential election? I don't think so. I don't think there's
15:31
Speaker 1: any evidence that. I don't think they're that smart or
15:32
Speaker 1: that effective. But essentially that's what happened. If you want
15:37
Speaker 1: to say that the twenty twenty election was dramatically impacted
15:42
Speaker 1: by a foreign nation, either on purpose or not. Yes,
15:46
Speaker 1: it was China, and it was China through the COVID panic.
15:49
Speaker 1: Because without the COVID panic, Donald Trump does get reelected.
15:54
Speaker 1: Almost assuredly, I'm one hundred percent on board with it.
15:58
Speaker 1: I mean, my record on this is as clear as
16:01
Speaker 1: could possibly be. I have ripped the COVID panic reaction
16:05
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways, and without a doubt it
16:09
Speaker 1: was the COVID panic reaction that caused Trump to lose.
16:13
Speaker 1: But is that rigging an election against a particular candidate,
16:18
Speaker 1: in this case, an incumbent president. By the way, just
16:21
Speaker 1: the idea of rigging a presidential election a foreign nation
16:24
Speaker 1: rigging a presidential election against an incumbent president seems awfully
16:29
Speaker 1: far fetched to begin with, especially in republican states like Georgia.
16:34
Speaker 1: But that's the claim with no real evidence evidence. That
16:38
Speaker 1: is a lot like the Epstein files. Frankly, because I
16:41
Speaker 1: did eventually look at some of these documents and there's
16:44
Speaker 1: no there there. A lot of it is suspect, a
16:49
Speaker 1: lot of it has bad sourcing, a lot of it
16:51
Speaker 1: was debunked, a lot of it is fragments of information.
16:56
Speaker 1: And that's really why I related to the Epstein files,
17:01
Speaker 1: as I predicted correctly when the Epstein files were being
17:04
Speaker 1: talked about, I said, there's going to be fragments of
17:07
Speaker 1: crappy information that comes out here. You can come up
17:10
Speaker 1: with almost any conclusion you want, because some crackpot is
17:14
Speaker 1: going to put something in there that is going to
17:17
Speaker 1: be used to try to substantiate the conclusion that you've
17:22
Speaker 1: already come to. This is the danger of concluding something
17:26
Speaker 1: first and then seeking evidence to back up that conclusion.
17:30
Speaker 1: But this is the way we do it in all
17:32
Speaker 1: sorts of walks of life. Now, this is the way
17:35
Speaker 1: journalism works. And this is absolutely the way Trump and
17:39
Speaker 1: Maga world works when it comes to the twenty twenty
17:42
Speaker 1: presidential election. Because of Biden's eighty one million votes and
17:46
Speaker 1: because Trump won in twenty twenty four, they can't wrap
17:49
Speaker 1: their minds around the idea that Trump lost in twenty twenty.
17:53
Speaker 1: So they have their conclusion. Now they need evidence Trump
17:57
Speaker 1: was able to find or someone was able to find
17:59
Speaker 1: for him, fragments of information within all these this massive
18:04
Speaker 1: trove of documents that in their minds backs up their argument.
18:09
Speaker 1: By the way, even Trump isn't claiming a smoking gun
18:14
Speaker 1: that this is where China actually impacted the results of
18:19
Speaker 1: the election. In fact, the closest he comes as a
18:21
Speaker 1: situation in Venezuela, not in the United States of America.
18:26
Speaker 1: So this was a big, fat nothing burger, and I
18:29
Speaker 1: believe those that decided not to carry it live were vindicated.
18:34
Speaker 1: That was the proper decision, because Trump didn't have the goods.
18:39
Speaker 1: This was a speech based almost entirely in trying to
18:43
Speaker 1: placate his own massive ego. And I get that. There's
18:49
Speaker 1: the Save America Act, and frankly, that was the other
18:52
Speaker 1: political element of this, that Trump is desperately trying to
18:56
Speaker 1: revive the Save America Act. If there was a political
18:59
Speaker 1: motive and not just an egomotive. Here, he's trying to
19:03
Speaker 1: save the Save America Act, which in general I'm in
19:06
Speaker 1: favor of, but has no chance of passing. And it
19:11
Speaker 1: has no chance of passing for a number of reasons,
19:13
Speaker 1: but one of them is Donald Trump's own political incompetence,
19:19
Speaker 1: because effectively, Trump has lost three, at least three key
19:26
Speaker 1: Republican votes in the US Senate because of his own ego,
19:32
Speaker 1: because those three GOP senators from North Carolina and Louisiana
19:39
Speaker 1: and Texas whose careers Trump effectively ended because they weren't
19:44
Speaker 1: loyal enough to him in his mind. They're still in power,
19:48
Speaker 1: they're still in office, and Trump no longer has these
19:53
Speaker 1: three GOP senators under his thumb. So that has destroyed
19:59
Speaker 1: the already incredibly small margins that Republicans had to try
20:03
Speaker 1: to pull off some sort of miracle to pass this thing.
20:06
Speaker 1: By the way, it's my understanding, which I agree with,
20:10
Speaker 1: that even if some how this thing passed, there's no
20:14
Speaker 1: way to implement it before the midterms. It's too late.
20:19
Speaker 1: But Trump never is forced to be accountable for his
20:23
Speaker 1: own actions. You want to take out incumbent Republican senators
20:28
Speaker 1: when you have a small majority to begin with, okay, fine,
20:33
Speaker 1: but somebody should have told Trump, and no one was
20:36
Speaker 1: willing to tell the king. Hey, you know, mister president,
20:40
Speaker 1: I understand why you want to do this, but you
20:42
Speaker 1: do understand that they're going to be in office for
20:44
Speaker 1: another six, seven, whatever it is months, and we need
20:48
Speaker 1: their votes, and now all of a sudden we're gonna
20:51
Speaker 1: have no leverage on them. I doubt anyone ever said
20:54
Speaker 1: that to them, or if they did, Trump wasn't smart
20:57
Speaker 1: enough or broadly thing thinking enough. To understand the impact
21:03
Speaker 1: of that. So this is at least in part, not
21:06
Speaker 1: in totality, but at least in part, this is on
21:10
Speaker 1: Trump why he can't get the Save America Act passed
21:15
Speaker 1: in the US Senate because he doesn't understand politics or
21:19
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the discipline to be able to institute
21:23
Speaker 1: whatever political advantage he has. So to me, the whole
21:29
Speaker 1: thing was really telling. It was really telling about Trump,
21:33
Speaker 1: about Maga, about Trump acting like a king, about how
21:37
Speaker 1: we come to our conclusions first now and then we
21:41
Speaker 1: try to look for evidence to back that up, and
21:44
Speaker 1: therefore that's dangerous in so many ways. But one of
21:47
Speaker 1: the ways it's most dangerous is that it creates a
21:52
Speaker 1: situation where you become invested in a conclusion. So therefore
21:57
Speaker 1: your standards for evidence gets dropped dramatically. If you come
22:01
Speaker 1: to a conclusion first and then you're looking for evidence
22:03
Speaker 1: to back that up, like with the twenty twenty election,
22:08
Speaker 1: then you're gonna fall for a bunch of crap. And
22:12
Speaker 1: that's essentially what has happened here. So again, our elections
22:17
Speaker 1: need to be improved one hundred percent, especially here in California.
22:22
Speaker 1: And I cannot stand universal mail in balloting, But China
22:28
Speaker 1: did not steal the twenty twenty election from Trump, other
22:33
Speaker 1: than by what happened because of the virus being released
22:39
Speaker 1: from probably the lab and Wuhan and the impact that
22:42
Speaker 1: that ended up having on the entire world, and obviously
22:46
Speaker 1: the US economy and the political panic and Black Lives Matter,
22:50
Speaker 1: everything else that transpired in that absolutely crazy, insane year
22:55
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty. Now I mentioned that a lot of
22:58
Speaker 1: this is a lot like what happen and with the
23:00
Speaker 1: Epstein files, and that leads me to some news involving
23:04
Speaker 1: what's been going on with Epstein, which is always so
23:10
Speaker 1: frustrating because I believe the truth of that story has
23:13
Speaker 1: been long ago lost. I've been very much on the
23:17
Speaker 1: record as to what I believe did and did not
23:19
Speaker 1: happen there. I believe with ninety nine point something percent
23:25
Speaker 1: certainty that I have been vindicated by what has come
23:28
Speaker 1: out so far, or at least apparently what we know
23:31
Speaker 1: of the Epstein files, and there's no evidence or logic
23:34
Speaker 1: to indicate there's anything else that will be coming out
23:37
Speaker 1: or should be coming out that would change the reality
23:41
Speaker 1: of that situation. That much like what happened with the
23:44
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election people bought into a conclusion. I mean,
23:49
Speaker 1: the Epstein story has a perfect example of this phenomenon.
23:52
Speaker 1: And this is why I always go back to Epstein's suicide,
23:56
Speaker 1: because that's where the story really begins. I have said
24:00
Speaker 1: it a million times, so I'm not going to repeat it.
24:03
Speaker 1: Epstein killed himself, but the perception that he might have
24:06
Speaker 1: been murdered in a federal prison is what caused everyone
24:10
Speaker 1: to go down a path of bizarre, nonsensical, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
24:19
Speaker 1: If you understood that he killed himself from the beginning,
24:23
Speaker 1: then I believe most of these conspiracies immediately evaporate, including
24:29
Speaker 1: the idea that he somehow had blackmail information on the
24:33
Speaker 1: sitting president of the United States when he killed himself
24:35
Speaker 1: in a federal prison, which makes no goddamn sense, would
24:38
Speaker 1: never have happened. And so it has been exceedingly frustrating
24:43
Speaker 1: to see sometimes even smart people still buy in to
24:48
Speaker 1: this conclusion. They come to a conclusion that's something really
24:50
Speaker 1: crazy must have happened with Epstein, and then they find
24:55
Speaker 1: the bits of information that seemingly substantiate that, but they
25:00
Speaker 1: they don't actually revisit their conclusions when they don't find
25:05
Speaker 1: the evidence that you should be finding. There's maybe no
25:08
Speaker 1: story other than the Sandusky story where the absence of
25:12
Speaker 1: evidence where it should be plentiful is in fact evidence
25:17
Speaker 1: of absence. Then the Epstein saga. And we had another
25:22
Speaker 1: fascinating situation occur when Todd Blanche, the acting Attorney General,
25:28
Speaker 1: was testifying in front of the US Senate Committee and
25:32
Speaker 1: he was being questioned by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.
25:35
Speaker 1: Was a very smart guy, but who has seemingly brought
25:39
Speaker 1: into most of not all, of this bs Epstein massive
25:45
Speaker 1: sex trafficking conspiracy theory. Although I would like to give
25:51
Speaker 1: Kennedy some credit because in his questions there's the implication
25:56
Speaker 1: that that conspiracy is real. But he seems to at
25:59
Speaker 1: least be someone open minded because he's wanting someone to
26:02
Speaker 1: answer his questions, and at least maybe I'm giving him
26:07
Speaker 1: too much credit, but in this particular situation, he wants
26:11
Speaker 1: to understand something that's very rational. If you believe what
26:15
Speaker 1: the majority believes regarding the Epstein story, why the hell
26:21
Speaker 1: hasn't anyone else been charged? So we have all this
26:24
Speaker 1: alleged information, this treasure trove of Epstein files, all these allegations.
26:30
Speaker 1: Why is it that no one else has been charged
26:33
Speaker 1: other than you know, obviously Glenne Maxwell, who I don't
26:37
Speaker 1: believe got a fair trial, And I don't know whether
26:39
Speaker 1: she's guilty or not. I'm open to either side of this.
26:42
Speaker 1: It's currently possible. It's certainly possible that she enabled his crimes.
26:46
Speaker 1: Maybe she committed crimes herself. But I'm very confident she
26:50
Speaker 1: did not receive a fair trial, and there is a
26:52
Speaker 1: logical scenario where she's mostly, if not totally innocent. I'm
26:57
Speaker 1: not saying she is. I'm just saying that's possible, and
26:59
Speaker 1: we're never gonna to know because their trial was a
27:01
Speaker 1: complete sham for a whole bunch of reasons, including the
27:04
Speaker 1: fact that it occurred during the COVID panic. Well, here
27:08
Speaker 1: is what happened when Senator Kennedy asked Todd Blanche who
27:12
Speaker 1: I have actually been complimentary of, Because Todd Blanche, I
27:18
Speaker 1: am positive has my view of this story, but he's
27:23
Speaker 1: not allowed to say that publicly because he'll get skewered,
27:28
Speaker 1: especially since you know, he's still up for confirmation to
27:31
Speaker 1: be the next official Attorney General of the United States,
27:36
Speaker 1: so he has to to be very careful he can't
27:39
Speaker 1: step on any landmines. And I think Todd Blanche, well,
27:43
Speaker 1: this answer isn't as good as an answer he gave
27:46
Speaker 1: several months ago that we played on this podcast to
27:48
Speaker 1: a reporter because back then he had he was the
27:51
Speaker 1: assistant attorney Attorney General Pam Bondi was still the Attorney General,
27:55
Speaker 1: so he may not have thought that this was going
27:57
Speaker 1: to be a situation where he was vulnerable to, you know,
28:01
Speaker 1: public concern, and he didn't have to worry about creating
28:06
Speaker 1: a backlash. So he was much stronger in his what
28:10
Speaker 1: evidence are you talking about? Take? Because it was so
28:14
Speaker 1: obvious this, which is why we played the clip on
28:16
Speaker 1: the podcast. It was so obvious to me that Blanche
28:19
Speaker 1: had looked at this and go, this is all This
28:21
Speaker 1: is all just garbage. As I have said many times,
28:25
Speaker 1: the Epstein files is garbage. It's just an utter junk
28:30
Speaker 1: that was that was thrown out there sometimes by literally
28:33
Speaker 1: crazy people, because this thing became such a huge story
28:37
Speaker 1: after Epstein killed himself and Donald Trump was running for reelection,
28:45
Speaker 1: so you have Trump connected to Epstein, a highly unpopular
28:49
Speaker 1: president is running for reelection. There's all these conspiracy theories,
28:54
Speaker 1: so people, especially those that don't like Trump are going
28:56
Speaker 1: to come forward with a whole bunch of kokamany stories
29:01
Speaker 1: that aren't based in reality. So here is a slightly
29:06
Speaker 1: different Todd Blanche with much more to lose, responding to
29:11
Speaker 1: Senator Kennedy on this issue. But Blanche still is leaving
29:16
Speaker 1: it out there that if you use your brain, which
29:19
Speaker 1: no one is seemingly willing or able to do, that
29:23
Speaker 1: there's no evidence. He's open to the idea that there
29:25
Speaker 1: could be evidence, but if you use your brain, that
29:28
Speaker 1: evidence would already be out there, especially after this unprecedented
29:33
Speaker 1: release of all these files. And here's what that exchange soundedite.
29:38
Speaker 2: Other than to himself, who if anyone else, did mister
29:45
Speaker 2: Epstein traffic young women too?
29:51
Speaker 3: There's from what we learned.
29:53
Speaker 1: From what we know.
29:55
Speaker 3: So when we know, I mean what's in the FBI
29:57
Speaker 3: files and what's in the DOJ file. We did not
30:03
Speaker 3: identify evidence. And by we I mean career prosecutors, not
30:07
Speaker 3: not me, not my leadership, but career prosecutors in New
30:11
Speaker 3: York and career prosecutors in Florida who worked this case
30:14
Speaker 3: hard did identify other participants, some of whom, as has
30:19
Speaker 3: been discussed, were also victims themselves of mister Epstein, but
30:25
Speaker 3: we did not have evidence as of now of other
30:31
Speaker 3: men who were that were trafficked that Epstein helped traffic.
30:36
Speaker 3: That does not mean it didn't happen, and I want
30:38
Speaker 3: to be clear about that. It just means that we
30:40
Speaker 3: have evidence that the FBI gathered and that the Department
30:43
Speaker 3: of Justice gathered, and that's the body of work that
30:47
Speaker 3: we have to work with, which is why I said earlier,
30:50
Speaker 3: if there's anybody out there, victim or otherwise that has information,
30:54
Speaker 3: I begged them to come forward.
30:56
Speaker 1: So that wasn't Blanche at his best, but I totally
31:00
Speaker 1: get it because of the situation that he's in. If
31:03
Speaker 1: you have a brain, you understand the story and you
31:06
Speaker 1: think this through. He's still saying the same thing, which is,
31:10
Speaker 1: there's no evidence of this, which is why no one
31:13
Speaker 1: has been charged. And what he doesn't say is if
31:17
Speaker 1: there was going to be evidence, if this reality existed,
31:22
Speaker 1: we would have overwhelming evidence of that by now. Instead
31:26
Speaker 1: there's nothing, which is why correctly nobody has been charged
31:31
Speaker 1: because there was no massive sex trafficking conspiracy, which is
31:36
Speaker 1: partially why Epstein killed himself in a federal prison. So
31:42
Speaker 1: this is why you have to follow the facts before
31:45
Speaker 1: you come to your conclusion, instead of getting invested in
31:47
Speaker 1: the conclusion and then trying to find semblance of shreds
31:52
Speaker 1: of information that might back up the theory that you're
31:55
Speaker 1: already invested in. And unfortunately, some very smart people have
32:00
Speaker 1: fallen prey to this, and there was more evidence of
32:04
Speaker 1: that when jad Van's Vice Prosi the United States went
32:08
Speaker 1: on Joe Rogan's podcast. Now, Joe Rogan I don't consider
32:11
Speaker 1: to be a very smart person, but he does have
32:14
Speaker 1: a good gut instinct. Boy, I would love I would
32:16
Speaker 1: love if there was one major podcaster I would love
32:21
Speaker 1: to have a shot at when it comes to explaining
32:24
Speaker 1: the whole Penn State Paterno Sandusky case, it would absolutely
32:27
Speaker 1: be Joe Rogan, mostly because of the size of his audience.
32:29
Speaker 1: But I really believe that if I could pierce through
32:34
Speaker 1: his defenses that he would buy in totally to what
32:39
Speaker 1: actually transpired in that situation. But Joe Rogan unfortunately buys
32:44
Speaker 1: into a lot of conspiracies, most of which are not
32:48
Speaker 1: based in reality, and it seems to me by the way,
32:52
Speaker 1: I think I could probably do the same thing with
32:54
Speaker 1: him on Epstein. I'm not sure, but I'd like to
32:57
Speaker 1: get a crack at that too. But he bought in
33:00
Speaker 1: on Epstein and jd Vance was a guest on the
33:05
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan podcast, and unfortunately jd Vance, who I have
33:10
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for when it comes to his
33:12
Speaker 1: intelligence and I want the best for. And you know,
33:16
Speaker 1: my good friend Steve Cortes was a very close advisor
33:20
Speaker 1: of his and his US Senate run in Ohio and
33:23
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time with him and speaks very
33:25
Speaker 1: very highly of jd Vance and that carries a lot
33:27
Speaker 1: of weight with me. But I am starting to really
33:31
Speaker 1: have a tough time with getting on the jd Vance
33:35
Speaker 1: train because to me, his response on this issue was
33:42
Speaker 1: not based in reality. And I get the jd Vance
33:47
Speaker 1: likes to give his audience what he thinks they want.
33:51
Speaker 1: I mean, his memoir was called He'll Billy Elegy, But
33:55
Speaker 1: I'm starting to think of jd Vance as Hillbilly chat GPT,
33:59
Speaker 1: where he has two things that are a lot like
34:01
Speaker 1: jet GPT. He gives the audience what they want to hear,
34:06
Speaker 1: gives them the answer that he thinks they want, and
34:09
Speaker 1: he always feels like he has to be authoritative because
34:13
Speaker 1: he's the vice President of States, even on things where
34:17
Speaker 1: he may not have a whole lot of information. And
34:20
Speaker 1: I'm actually trying to give jd Vance it out here.
34:23
Speaker 1: I'm trying to believe that he hasn't really done a
34:26
Speaker 1: deep super dive into the Epstein case. Maybe he has,
34:30
Speaker 1: in which case this excuse doesn't really hold water. But
34:34
Speaker 1: I would like to believe that he's just trying to
34:36
Speaker 1: be more authoritative than he really has any right to be,
34:41
Speaker 1: because that's what he does. Oh, he has to have
34:44
Speaker 1: an authoritative answer, just like chat GPT. And so here
34:48
Speaker 1: is Joe rogued and jd Vance, the Vice President States,
34:53
Speaker 1: essentially coming to the conclusion with no evidence or nor logic.
34:57
Speaker 1: That part of why we don't have the but it's
35:00
Speaker 1: that we should have. I guess that's the implication against
35:02
Speaker 1: Epstein and others, is that Ebstein was clearly foreign intelligence
35:07
Speaker 1: or maybe domestic intelligence. But you know, Rogan says Massad,
35:13
Speaker 1: and Band seems to think that that's a plausible scenario.
35:18
Speaker 1: It's all absolutely crazy. But here is Joe Rogan and
35:22
Speaker 1: jd Vance discussing this topic.
35:25
Speaker 3: Well, most people think he was Masade, yeah, Masad or
35:28
Speaker 3: Cia or some other deep state, whether in America or
35:31
Speaker 3: Israel or another country or both.
35:35
Speaker 4: You know, look was he He clearly had connections to
35:39
Speaker 4: the upper the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly
35:43
Speaker 4: had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.
35:46
Speaker 1: Now it's probably not that big of a deal in
35:49
Speaker 1: the larger scheme of things, but to me, that was
35:53
Speaker 1: very problematic when it comes to evaluating JD. Vans because
35:59
Speaker 1: that's just not a sensible conclusion. There's no evidence nor
36:04
Speaker 1: logic to back that up, and it's a serious allegation,
36:08
Speaker 1: and it's pandering to the worst of magaworld and conspiracy world,
36:14
Speaker 1: which are basically the same thing in this day and age,
36:17
Speaker 1: And to me, this is something we need to get
36:21
Speaker 1: away from asap. And instead Vance seems to be more
36:26
Speaker 1: than willing to placate that element of the audience that
36:30
Speaker 1: wants that. Again, I'm trying to give Advance as much
36:33
Speaker 1: credit as I can that he's actually pandering that he
36:36
Speaker 1: doesn't really believe this, because he's a very smart guy,
36:41
Speaker 1: and he does seem to change his positions pretty dramatically.
36:45
Speaker 1: My gosh, he changed his position on Donald Trump about
36:47
Speaker 1: as dramatically as anybody that could possibly do so. So
36:52
Speaker 1: he does have this pension for doing that, but I
36:56
Speaker 1: still don't like it, and I think that it's a problem,
36:59
Speaker 1: and it might be a problem that's too big for
37:03
Speaker 1: me to overcome. And I'm not alone when it came
37:06
Speaker 1: to my reaction to his appearance on Joe Rogan in
37:09
Speaker 1: general Ben Shapiro, for whom I have respect as a
37:13
Speaker 1: conservative commentator, he posted on X I tuned into Joe
37:17
Speaker 1: Rogan yesterday and heard Bernie Sanders economics, Barack Obama's foreign policy,
37:23
Speaker 1: and Roe Conna's conspiracy theories. I think that's a reference
37:27
Speaker 1: to the Epstein situation. And then I realized jd Vance
37:31
Speaker 1: was talking I want a candidate in twenty twenty eight
37:34
Speaker 1: who doesn't mirror the Democrats and who can win. Mister VP,
37:39
Speaker 1: this is not the way. I think that's pretty well said,
37:42
Speaker 1: and that's pretty much where I am on this. But
37:46
Speaker 1: there's obviously a long way to go, and of course,
37:49
Speaker 1: as I've said many, many times, the twenty twenty eight
37:52
Speaker 1: candidate is going to be picked either directly or indirectly
37:55
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump unless Trump dies. I mean, that's just
37:58
Speaker 1: the reality of it. So I'm not going to get
38:00
Speaker 1: too hyped up over Okay, are we on team Vance
38:03
Speaker 1: or Team Rubio or team somebody else. And obviously I'd
38:08
Speaker 1: love for it to be DeSantis, but it's not gonna
38:09
Speaker 1: be DeSantis. I mean, it's it's either Vance or Rubio.
38:13
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna pick one of those two, and nothing else matters,
38:16
Speaker 1: because that's the world we live in. Because Trump has
38:19
Speaker 1: been made a king within the Republican Party, and that's
38:23
Speaker 1: not an exaggeration. We see evidence of that almost every
38:27
Speaker 1: single day, clearly every single week. And part of that problem,
38:31
Speaker 1: the problem, part of the problem that that creates is
38:34
Speaker 1: this increasingly pervasive conspiracy theory thread that weaves itself through
38:44
Speaker 1: almost all of right wing or maga media. Now it's
38:49
Speaker 1: just gotten completely ridiculous. And there was a moment I
38:53
Speaker 1: thought about playing the clip and I'm not gonna bother.
38:55
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna describe it because it just sickens me
38:58
Speaker 1: so much. But Tucker Carlson, who I used to have
39:02
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for, but I believe I have
39:04
Speaker 1: called way out in front of anyone else, the reality
39:08
Speaker 1: that he's lost his mind, that he's no longer a
39:10
Speaker 1: credible person. I don't know when exactly it happened. I
39:13
Speaker 1: don't know why it happened, but I know that for
39:15
Speaker 1: the last several years, even before he left Fox News Channel,
39:18
Speaker 1: but definitely after he left Fox News Channel. Tucker Carlson
39:22
Speaker 1: is not a credible person. He has lost his goddamn mind.
39:27
Speaker 1: And there was even more evidence of that when this
39:32
Speaker 1: week he had on Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, The
39:39
Speaker 1: Music Bad Pink Floyd Roger Waters as somehow an expert
39:46
Speaker 1: on what happened, among other things, what happened on nine
39:51
Speaker 1: to eleven that according to Waters, there's no chance that's
39:55
Speaker 1: what he said, no chance that the conventional wisdom story
39:59
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven is true. He went down the
40:01
Speaker 1: whole building seven rabbit hole, which Tucker has questioned before.
40:08
Speaker 1: And the whole building seventh thing is among all the
40:12
Speaker 1: crazy conspiracy theories, maybe the dumbest, and I'm not going
40:16
Speaker 1: to get too deeply into it, but just to address
40:18
Speaker 1: it because sometimes people say, zig you're too prone to
40:22
Speaker 1: quickly dismissing conspiracy theories, even though I'm one hundred percent right,
40:26
Speaker 1: I'm never wrong when I dismissed these conspiracy theories. But
40:30
Speaker 1: why don't you give your evidence or at least your
40:32
Speaker 1: counter argument. And for those that believe that Building seven,
40:35
Speaker 1: which collapsed in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks,
40:39
Speaker 1: that somehow this was evidence that the whole thing was
40:43
Speaker 1: an inside job. You're a fucking moron, because what happened
40:48
Speaker 1: with Building seven was I don't know if you heard,
40:52
Speaker 1: but there was not one, but two earthquakes that happened
40:55
Speaker 1: across the street, and there was a massive amount of
41:00
Speaker 1: rubble and debris that fell on top of Building seven,
41:05
Speaker 1: and it caused a fire. And I don't know if
41:08
Speaker 1: you're heard, but there were a lot of very busy
41:11
Speaker 1: firemen that day, like really busy. A lot of them
41:14
Speaker 1: died and their focus was elsewhere, and so there was
41:20
Speaker 1: no ability to fight the fire. And then the building,
41:23
Speaker 1: which was apparently had structural problems to begin with, collapsed
41:27
Speaker 1: in and out of itself because of the fire. This
41:32
Speaker 1: isn't difficult, by the way, You have no alternative scenario
41:36
Speaker 1: to explain. So all this was an inside job to
41:40
Speaker 1: try to take out Building seven. What It's just so
41:44
Speaker 1: fucking insane with no logic or no evidence. And Tucker
41:50
Speaker 1: bought in one hundred percent, even brought in Donald Trump
41:53
Speaker 1: and using an out of context statement from the morning
41:57
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven from Donald Trump, trying to give
41:59
Speaker 1: him credit for seeing through the conventional wisdom story immediately
42:04
Speaker 1: and somehow he understood that what we were being told
42:07
Speaker 1: couldn't be true. It's all complete and total nonsense, garbage.
42:16
Speaker 1: And I mean, here we are in the twenty fifth,
42:19
Speaker 1: coming up on the twenty fifth anniversary of nine to eleven,
42:23
Speaker 1: And if you had told me in the afromat of
42:26
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, almost twenty five years ago, when we
42:30
Speaker 1: were united as a nation and we knew what had happened,
42:33
Speaker 1: and there were no conspiracy theories about it, yet you
42:37
Speaker 1: told me, you know what zig in just less than
42:40
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Tucker Carlson, you know that guy, seemingly
42:44
Speaker 1: a very credible conservative commentator. He's going to have a
42:48
Speaker 1: guy from Pink Floyd on his independent talk show that's
42:53
Speaker 1: incredibly popular among nutjobs, and he's going to use a
42:58
Speaker 1: clip from the then president Donald Trump, who's serving his
43:03
Speaker 1: second non con consecutive term as president, to claim that
43:10
Speaker 1: nine to eleven was all an inside job. If you
43:14
Speaker 1: had told me that scenario, I would have been more
43:18
Speaker 1: likely to believe. In twenty oh one, just after nine
43:23
Speaker 1: to eleven, I would have been more likely to believe
43:26
Speaker 1: almost twenty five years ago that by twenty twenty six,
43:31
Speaker 1: the daughter of the guy who read OJ Simpson's suicide
43:37
Speaker 1: note to the nation would use the infamy of her
43:42
Speaker 1: name via a sex tape to become one of the
43:47
Speaker 1: most well known quote unquote entertainers of our time. I
43:52
Speaker 1: would have been more likely to believe that scenario. Of course,
43:54
Speaker 1: that both of the scenarios happen. I just describe what
43:59
Speaker 1: occurred with Tucker Carlson and Roger Waters, what I'm referring
44:04
Speaker 1: to Kim Kardashian. I mean, this is what a fucked
44:08
Speaker 1: up world we're living. But Tucker Carlson has become the
44:14
Speaker 1: new Art Bell. It's amazing. As someone who grew up
44:18
Speaker 1: in radio and had a pretty significant radio career for
44:21
Speaker 1: a while and did a lot of late night radio
44:24
Speaker 1: talk shows on stations that had Art Bell on them.
44:27
Speaker 1: Art Bell's show was very popular. It was absolutely crazy, insane.
44:33
Speaker 1: But now I understand. You know, we used to think
44:36
Speaker 1: of Art Bell as like a joke. In fact, I'm
44:38
Speaker 1: not even one hundred percent of your Art Bell truly
44:41
Speaker 1: believed some of the stuff he was saying. I got
44:43
Speaker 1: to know George Norri, the guy who took over for
44:45
Speaker 1: Art Bell pretty well, and George was a nice guy,
44:47
Speaker 1: but I don't think he really believed a lot of
44:50
Speaker 1: what he was claiming. In fact, I even went on
44:52
Speaker 1: the George Norri show tried to be serious, which was
44:55
Speaker 1: really strange. I think we were talking about the jfk assassination.
45:00
Speaker 1: But the point is we should have known that. I
45:02
Speaker 1: should have known that that this wasn't just a tiny
45:07
Speaker 1: slice of the population, that there is a real, deep,
45:11
Speaker 1: dark thirst for conspiracy theories and nonsensical narratives about the
45:17
Speaker 1: way the world really works, and unfortunately now it's become
45:22
Speaker 1: what's considered essentially mainstream. Yes, Tucker Carlson is independent, but
45:29
Speaker 1: his numbers canis Owen's numbers, Megan Kelly's numbers, They're very,
45:33
Speaker 1: very large. It is a huge portion, certainly of the
45:37
Speaker 1: right wing formerly known as MAGA base. Although I don't
45:41
Speaker 1: even know what the hell Tucker Carlson is politically anymore.
45:44
Speaker 1: He says he wants to create a third party, doesn't
45:46
Speaker 1: consider himself to be MAGA. He's attacking Ben Shapiro all
45:50
Speaker 1: the time. He seems to be anti Israel, pro Russia.
45:55
Speaker 1: He's lost his mind. He's not credible and he's effectively
45:58
Speaker 1: art belt. Now, weirdly, this conspiracy pensioned within MAGA. I
46:08
Speaker 1: think played a small but not completely irrelevant role in
46:14
Speaker 1: a major sports controversy over this past week. And what
46:19
Speaker 1: I'm referring to is what happened at the British Open
46:21
Speaker 1: golf tournament, which was run won by Ryan Fox from
46:27
Speaker 1: New Zealand. He deserved to win, fantastic finish. I wasn't
46:30
Speaker 1: really thrill with the way the course played because there
46:33
Speaker 1: was no real rough, but you know, he earned the
46:37
Speaker 1: victory and he deserved it, and it was close. It
46:41
Speaker 1: was dramatic, and so I'm okay with that. But his
46:46
Speaker 1: victory was largely, not totally, but largely overshadowed by something
46:50
Speaker 1: that happened at the end of round number two on
46:54
Speaker 1: Friday of the British Open, and that involved Bryson D. Chambeau. Now,
47:00
Speaker 1: before i tell you this story for context, it's important
47:03
Speaker 1: for you to understand my view of Bryson D. Chambeau.
47:08
Speaker 1: When Bryson D. Chambeau first came onto the scene, I
47:12
Speaker 1: liked him because he was different. He was an a conoclast,
47:17
Speaker 1: he was a contrarian, he was an outside the box thinker.
47:22
Speaker 1: I wasn't a real big fan of his swing or
47:25
Speaker 1: the fact that he all of his irons were the
47:27
Speaker 1: same length, but I respected the fact that he was
47:32
Speaker 1: willing to think outside the box. And I actually, I believe,
47:37
Speaker 1: made some pretty bold and optimistic predictions about how his
47:43
Speaker 1: career would turn out when he first turned pro I
47:45
Speaker 1: thought that he would be a major force on the
47:49
Speaker 1: professional then PGA tour golf scene. Of course, one of
47:53
Speaker 1: the things that changed my mind about Bryson D. Chambeau
47:56
Speaker 1: is that he sold out to live golf. It's not
48:00
Speaker 1: the only reason why my view of Bryson D. Schambeau changed,
48:03
Speaker 1: but it's one of the major ones. He sold out
48:07
Speaker 1: for lots of money in a kamikazi attack by the
48:11
Speaker 1: Saudi Royal Family against the PGA tour. I mean, speaking
48:16
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven, I mean the idea that last
48:21
Speaker 1: year at the Ryder Cup, Bryson D. Chambeau, you know,
48:25
Speaker 1: just a few miles from ground zero in New York
48:29
Speaker 1: at Bethpage Black came out to great cheers waving the
48:33
Speaker 1: American flag. When he's an employee of the Saudi Royal family.
48:39
Speaker 1: I mean, that goes right in that list of things
48:41
Speaker 1: I could never possibly believe. So someone who's an employee
48:45
Speaker 1: of the Saudi royal family, the country where fifteen of
48:49
Speaker 1: the nineteen hijackers came from, and there's a lot of
48:53
Speaker 1: evidence that they at least knew that this was going
48:55
Speaker 1: to happen, or should have known this was going to
48:58
Speaker 1: happen at the at best. And he's the guy the
49:02
Speaker 1: New York crowd is cheering waving the American flag. I
49:06
Speaker 1: have a huge problem with what Bryson did there, but
49:09
Speaker 1: it's not the only reason why I turned on Reisen
49:12
Speaker 1: d Chambeau. He does gambling commercials. I believe he's a
49:16
Speaker 1: phony blooney. I think he purposely and very effectively, very
49:21
Speaker 1: successfully changed his image by basically being someone who's creating
49:28
Speaker 1: an act. He's an actor, he's good at it. But
49:32
Speaker 1: it's not Sincere. He's Phil Mickelson. I was right about
49:37
Speaker 1: Phil Mickelson. I've said for years Phil Mickelson is not Sincere.
49:41
Speaker 1: It's not authentic. Now does that change the reality of
49:47
Speaker 1: when you're signing all these autographs, when you know you're
49:50
Speaker 1: on camera that the kid getting the autograph is happy. Yeah,
49:54
Speaker 1: that's great. So there's some good in being a phony
49:58
Speaker 1: bologoney that happens by accident. But that doesn't mean that
50:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trust you, because I know it's an act,
50:06
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty good at being able to tell who's
50:08
Speaker 1: authentic and who's acting, and Bryson d Chambeau was clearly
50:13
Speaker 1: acting in his change of his persona. So he goes
50:17
Speaker 1: to live and he thinks he's the smartest person in
50:21
Speaker 1: the world, and I think he's phony in the persona
50:26
Speaker 1: that he's creating. And this year, up until the British Open,
50:30
Speaker 1: he's had a very poor year in the major championships.
50:33
Speaker 1: He's missed the cut all three times. But on Friday
50:36
Speaker 1: at the British Open, he played exceedingly well, one of
50:40
Speaker 1: the best rounds of the tournament, and he makes a
50:44
Speaker 1: long putt on eighteen and he's right there, right behind
50:49
Speaker 1: the leaders, and it looks like he's going to be
50:52
Speaker 1: a major, major part of the weekend story. Now I'm
50:57
Speaker 1: not particularly thrilled by this because I don't like Bryson,
51:00
Speaker 1: but I'm also well aware that Bryson being in the
51:03
Speaker 1: mix makes it more interesting. He's absolutely an interesting person
51:07
Speaker 1: I watch when he plays. You know, sports does well
51:12
Speaker 1: when it has a villain, and in my view, Bryson
51:15
Speaker 1: d Chambeau fills that role of being a villain. I
51:18
Speaker 1: was going to be rooting hard against him, but he
51:21
Speaker 1: made things more interesting and it became very clear not
51:25
Speaker 1: long after Bryson d Schambeau finished that something was wrong.
51:31
Speaker 1: And it's not really that important, but I first recognized
51:35
Speaker 1: that something was wrong because I wanted to share the
51:39
Speaker 1: putt that he made on eighteen on social media, but
51:43
Speaker 1: the British Open x account hadn't posted it, which I
51:49
Speaker 1: thought was really odd. And then they started to show
51:54
Speaker 1: pictures of Bryson acting animated outside the scoring tent, and
51:57
Speaker 1: long story short, the officials gave him the option to
52:03
Speaker 1: go back out to the fifth hole, where he had
52:06
Speaker 1: had a wayward tea shot land in some very very
52:09
Speaker 1: very high grass and tell him or explain to him
52:15
Speaker 1: why they thought that he deserved a two shot penalty. Now,
52:20
Speaker 1: in my opinion, this is where Bryson d Chambeau the
52:24
Speaker 1: showman comes into play in this story. And I think
52:28
Speaker 1: that the British Open officials were very very naive. These
52:31
Speaker 1: are older guys, this is the British Open. I don't
52:36
Speaker 1: think they're fully aware of what they're dealing with when
52:40
Speaker 1: it comes to Bryson d Schambeau. But Bryson was given
52:44
Speaker 1: what I believed to be an extraordinary option to tell
52:48
Speaker 1: his side of the story because there was a question
52:51
Speaker 1: about whether or not, when he went to go hit
52:54
Speaker 1: his shot out of the high grass, whether he had
52:58
Speaker 1: stepped on grass around his ball in a way that
53:03
Speaker 1: improved his lie, which would be in violation of the
53:07
Speaker 1: rules of golf. Now, I watched the shot live, and
53:11
Speaker 1: I had to say I did not register in my brain,
53:16
Speaker 1: at least not consciously, that there was a rules violation.
53:20
Speaker 1: Of course, I didn't see all of the video that
53:22
Speaker 1: would come out later, but I did have a very
53:25
Speaker 1: strong feeling that something wasn't right because he had hit
53:29
Speaker 1: his shot so far off line. I don't think people
53:33
Speaker 1: understand how bad a shot. This was into literally the
53:37
Speaker 1: highest grass on the entire golf course, and somehow there
53:43
Speaker 1: was a little path that was wide open right behind
53:46
Speaker 1: his ball, and I remember thinking that, just how did
53:50
Speaker 1: that happen? Now, part of me, because I understand my
53:54
Speaker 1: own biases, is thinking, well, Zig, you're just rooting against him,
53:59
Speaker 1: and you know, you're just pissed off that he got
54:01
Speaker 1: a really, really really lucky break. But I did remember
54:06
Speaker 1: the situation, and so in the midst of this controversy
54:11
Speaker 1: on live television, and I'm sure Bryson understood exactly what
54:15
Speaker 1: was going to happen, because he's a showman and he
54:17
Speaker 1: gets this very very well, and he's got a bazillion
54:20
Speaker 1: YouTube followers, he's extremely media savvy. He either directs or
54:28
Speaker 1: takes up the British Open officials on their offer to
54:31
Speaker 1: take him back out to the fifth hole. So he
54:33
Speaker 1: complead his case that he doesn't really deserve this penalty,
54:36
Speaker 1: and he gets extremely animated, extremely like Earl Weaver Baltimore
54:43
Speaker 1: Oriols manager agitated, you know, screaming at an umpire forgetting
54:49
Speaker 1: what he thinks is a bad call because it's so
54:51
Speaker 1: it's obvious that he's going to be penalized for having
54:55
Speaker 1: improved his lie. And in the midst of going bananas,
55:00
Speaker 1: he very clearly and it just so happens to be
55:02
Speaker 1: in a situation where the camera is directly on him
55:05
Speaker 1: and it's clear as day to anybody who can lead
55:09
Speaker 1: read lips what he's saying. He actually says to the officials,
55:13
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna play tomorrow. In other words, he's threatening
55:17
Speaker 1: to withdraw should he get this two shot penalty, which
55:24
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. I mean, to me, it's one of the
55:27
Speaker 1: most unbelievable parts of this story that Bryson got away
55:31
Speaker 1: with this from a public relations perspective, because that is childlike,
55:36
Speaker 1: that's petulant. He didn't end up withdrawing from the tournament
55:41
Speaker 1: even though he got the two shot penalty, and to
55:46
Speaker 1: me it was a temper tantrum. But as far as
55:49
Speaker 1: the penalty itself is concerned, I was in agreement. Then
55:54
Speaker 1: he deserved the two shot penalty. Now I fully acknowledge
55:57
Speaker 1: I have a bias against Bryson d Sham, but it
56:01
Speaker 1: was very clear when looking at the video from all
56:05
Speaker 1: sorts of different angles and new video that I did
56:08
Speaker 1: not see when it first happened, that whether on purpose
56:12
Speaker 1: or whether by accident or carelessness, Bryson absolutely had stepped
56:17
Speaker 1: all over that very high grass, and that whether it
56:21
Speaker 1: helped or didn't is to me uncertain. But it doesn't
56:26
Speaker 1: matter whether or not it helped give him a backswing.
56:30
Speaker 1: It's against the rules and part of one of the
56:35
Speaker 1: many things people aren't getting that aren't golf officionados on
56:39
Speaker 1: this story is that part of the penalty for hitting
56:44
Speaker 1: into super high grass there is that you have to
56:48
Speaker 1: be very careful with how you get into the shot
56:53
Speaker 1: because if you improve your lie, you're going to get
56:56
Speaker 1: a two shot penalty. That's part of the penalty for
57:00
Speaker 1: heading away with having hit a terrible t shot into
57:04
Speaker 1: the high grass, and Bryson didn't seem to understand or
57:08
Speaker 1: care about that. Now, there's two ways to look at this.
57:12
Speaker 1: From the intention perspective, and I get where people want
57:16
Speaker 1: to believe the best. I get where you know, you
57:20
Speaker 1: want to give people the reasonable doubt and you don't
57:25
Speaker 1: want to conclude something that's really horrible that you're a
57:27
Speaker 1: cheater at golf without really strong evidence. Now, I think
57:31
Speaker 1: my record on this is about as strong as anybody,
57:34
Speaker 1: because if you're a long time listener to this podcast,
57:37
Speaker 1: you know I've been involved in two USGA rules violation
57:42
Speaker 1: situations where I'm the person that ended up creating a
57:46
Speaker 1: circumstance with a plerson I was playing with got disqualified
57:50
Speaker 1: because they clearly broke the rules of golf. And I
57:53
Speaker 1: was correct in both incidents. And I'm not sure that
57:57
Speaker 1: most people would have even gotten involved, but I did
58:00
Speaker 1: it because this is really really important to me. Truth
58:03
Speaker 1: is important to me. Right and wrong is important to me.
58:05
Speaker 1: The rules of golf really matter, because if they don't
58:08
Speaker 1: matter in golf, they don't matter anywhere. This is why
58:11
Speaker 1: I talk about golf, because if it's happening in golf,
58:14
Speaker 1: I think golf is a the Canarian the coal mine
58:18
Speaker 1: for a lot of our social ills, because this is
58:20
Speaker 1: an area that used to be immune to this stuff
58:24
Speaker 1: and no longer is. This is partially why I talk
58:26
Speaker 1: about golf. It's not just because I'm a golfer and
58:29
Speaker 1: I have expertise in this area. I think we can
58:31
Speaker 1: tell a lot about what's happening to society by seeing
58:35
Speaker 1: what's happening to golf, and this Bryson d Chambeau situation
58:39
Speaker 1: is a great example of that where Bryson, in my opinion,
58:45
Speaker 1: there's really only two scenarios here. Either he was unbelievably
58:51
Speaker 1: stupid and careless and doesn't know the rules, which is
58:56
Speaker 1: possible because you know, it's interesting that these live guys
59:00
Speaker 1: keep getting involved in a lot of rules violations, and
59:04
Speaker 1: this is kind of where I get into the conspiracy
59:06
Speaker 1: part of this whole narrative, and absolutely MAGA plays a
59:10
Speaker 1: role because Trump was associated with Live, and I believe
59:13
Speaker 1: Live was in part a way for the Saudi's the
59:15
Speaker 1: funnel money to Donald Trump. But you know, there's no
59:19
Speaker 1: question that the Live guys tend to get involved in
59:23
Speaker 1: these rules issues. And the conspiracy people say, ah, this
59:29
Speaker 1: is a vendetta against the Live guys, And I say,
59:33
Speaker 1: are you sure? Isn't it possible that the Live guys
59:36
Speaker 1: are just more prone to this one because on the
59:40
Speaker 1: Live tour there are a lot more lax about the
59:42
Speaker 1: rules and maybe more importantly, inherently, if you sold out
59:47
Speaker 1: to Live, you don't really have many morals. You don't
59:51
Speaker 1: have a real strong principled foundation, because if you did,
59:55
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have sold out to Live. I mean that
59:58
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean,
1:00:00
Speaker 1: we're dealing with a pool of people that don't have
1:00:03
Speaker 1: real strong morals. If you sold out to Live, Gee,
1:00:07
Speaker 1: what a shock that you might also be prone to
1:00:10
Speaker 1: creating rules violations in the world of golf. But Bryson,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: in this situation, I think it should be if we
1:00:17
Speaker 1: were using our brains, which we don't, should be in
1:00:20
Speaker 1: a very difficult spot because the only path to his
1:00:24
Speaker 1: innocence is ignorance and stupidity. But Bryson's entire narrative is
1:00:33
Speaker 1: I'm the smartest guy in the room, a lot like
1:00:36
Speaker 1: Phil Nicholson, by the way, who also went to live
1:00:40
Speaker 1: not a coincidence. I'm the smartest guy in the room.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that figured out that if you make
1:00:46
Speaker 1: all your irons the same length in the shaft, that
1:00:49
Speaker 1: somehow that gives you an advantage. I've re imagined the
1:00:54
Speaker 1: game and I'm going to win golf tournaments because I'm
1:00:57
Speaker 1: smarter than everybody else. Okay, fine, if that's your narrative,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: then how can you possibly plead total ignorance and stupidity
1:01:07
Speaker 1: when it comes to this kind of a violation. That
1:01:11
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me what I think is
1:01:15
Speaker 1: the more likely scenario. And this is a fine line.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: This is a fine line. You know, Baseball is a
1:01:23
Speaker 1: sport where you know people would romanticize trying to get
1:01:28
Speaker 1: away with breaking the rules just a little bit. And
1:01:33
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're Pete Rose or Ty Cobb or
1:01:36
Speaker 1: whoever it might have been, there's all sorts of examples
1:01:40
Speaker 1: of this where in the culture of baseball that's part
1:01:44
Speaker 1: of the game. You try to get away with whatever
1:01:47
Speaker 1: you can get away with. Well, you know, whether it's
1:01:49
Speaker 1: framing pitches as a catcher, whatever it is, it's part
1:01:53
Speaker 1: of the game, at least until technology took over. But
1:01:57
Speaker 1: in golf that's not supposed to be part of the game.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: And what I think happened here is Bryson knew exactly
1:02:04
Speaker 1: what he was doing. Bryson saw immediately that his backswing
1:02:10
Speaker 1: was going to have a problem with the high grass.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: He stood behind the ball, stood down on that grass,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: then stepped on that grasp behind the ball as he
1:02:19
Speaker 1: was getting into his shot. Now how much it impacted
1:02:22
Speaker 1: the shot, it's impossible to know, but I think he
1:02:25
Speaker 1: had some intent. I think he thought he had plausible deniability,
1:02:31
Speaker 1: which he got away with for you know, most of
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the round until it was over. Now I agree with
1:02:37
Speaker 1: those that say he probably should have been notified to
1:02:40
Speaker 1: the problem immediately. I have no idea how the British
1:02:44
Speaker 1: Open officials decided that there was a violation. So I
1:02:49
Speaker 1: get that there's you know, there's some blame to go
1:02:52
Speaker 1: around here, but the main problem was that Bryson broke
1:02:57
Speaker 1: the rule, I believe, at least semi intentionally. But this
1:03:03
Speaker 1: is where Bryson benefits, one from his celebrity and popularity,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: especially among MAGA fans, which is a big part of
1:03:12
Speaker 1: this whole situation unfortunately, as well as the unwillingness of
1:03:19
Speaker 1: the golf media or his peers to make that devastating charge.
1:03:25
Speaker 1: This is the charge of cheating and golf is still
1:03:28
Speaker 1: so devastating and such a big deal that people are
1:03:33
Speaker 1: very very hesitant to make it, which in a weird
1:03:36
Speaker 1: way actually helps the cheater, right because it creates more
1:03:43
Speaker 1: room for plausible deniability, because no one wants to call
1:03:48
Speaker 1: anyone a cheater because it's such a huge and absolutely
1:03:54
Speaker 1: crushing claim. Because if you're a cheater in golf, although
1:03:57
Speaker 1: it's not as strong as it used to be, that's
1:04:00
Speaker 1: a labeled you just can't get passed, or at least
1:04:03
Speaker 1: I think you can't get past. I mean, Patrick Reed
1:04:07
Speaker 1: has been accused of this on a couple of occasions
1:04:09
Speaker 1: and it absolutely has damaged his reputation. So no one
1:04:14
Speaker 1: wants to call anyone a cheater without overwhelming evidence, and
1:04:19
Speaker 1: there was not overwhelming evidence here because Bryson did it
1:04:23
Speaker 1: in a way that was pretty artful, not perfect, but
1:04:29
Speaker 1: I think he knew what he was doing. Can I
1:04:31
Speaker 1: prove that? Absolutely? I cannot prove that. But it doesn't
1:04:34
Speaker 1: matter because intent is irrelevant here. It's not about intent
1:04:38
Speaker 1: and it's not about the impact. It doesn't matter if
1:04:42
Speaker 1: his lie was actually improved, which I think it probably
1:04:46
Speaker 1: was to some degree, that doesn't matter under the rules.
1:04:50
Speaker 1: So the ruling was correct. It was not clear cut,
1:04:54
Speaker 1: it was not overwhelming, but I believe it was the
1:04:58
Speaker 1: correct ruling. Now for those that say that, well, John,
1:05:03
Speaker 1: isn't it unfair that Bryson was held to a higher
1:05:07
Speaker 1: standard because he's on television every single shot? I get
1:05:13
Speaker 1: that it is a flaw in the sport because obviously,
1:05:18
Speaker 1: you know, golf takes place where you got you can
1:05:22
Speaker 1: have one hundred guys on the course at the same time,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: and obviously there's eighteen holes and there's only one you know,
1:05:29
Speaker 1: not one camera recording at any time, but there's only
1:05:31
Speaker 1: a certain number of cameras, and you know, things can
1:05:34
Speaker 1: happen where the television camera is certainly not broadcasting live,
1:05:39
Speaker 1: and so the officials aren't you know, they do have
1:05:42
Speaker 1: an official monitoring the television broadcast to make sure that
1:05:45
Speaker 1: nothing strange happens. There's no question that a more popular player,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: where a player who is near the lead is inherently
1:05:54
Speaker 1: under greater scrutiny because of the television cameras. One hundred
1:06:00
Speaker 1: percent agree with that, and that there's a problem that
1:06:04
Speaker 1: that causes. There is a caveat though, that no one
1:06:08
Speaker 1: wants to mention. Yes, there are negatives to being a
1:06:13
Speaker 1: person in that situation, but there are also positives, like,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: for instance, I'm not saying that this happened in Bryson's circumstance,
1:06:23
Speaker 1: but it might have. When you're Bryson d. Chambeau and
1:06:27
Speaker 1: you have multiple cameras and a much larger gallery following
1:06:32
Speaker 1: you every move, it's much more difficult for you to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: lose a golf ball. And it was a miracle almost.
1:06:40
Speaker 1: In fact, I heard announcer say this, it was a
1:06:43
Speaker 1: near miracle that his t shot on that fifth hole
1:06:46
Speaker 1: was found to begin with. And so to me, that
1:06:51
Speaker 1: issue basically evens out. Now does it perfectly even out?
1:06:54
Speaker 5: I don't know.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: It's impossible to know, but it's not a one sided situation.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: And as far as the way the media and the
1:07:03
Speaker 1: other players reacted, I found this to be so telling.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: I have been very, very critical of the golf media
1:07:10
Speaker 1: I think it is the worst of the worst. I
1:07:14
Speaker 1: referenced Canary and a coal mine before. You know, in
1:07:17
Speaker 1: my experience, having been very briefly in the golf media
1:07:22
Speaker 1: and been around it for quite a while, I saw
1:07:26
Speaker 1: this coming from you know, ten miles away, not just
1:07:29
Speaker 1: a mile away, where the death of journalism was first
1:07:33
Speaker 1: being seen within golf, because in golf you have some
1:07:37
Speaker 1: unique circumstances that create conflicts of interests, and corporate interests
1:07:43
Speaker 1: are incredibly pervasive, especially today in the golf world, and
1:07:48
Speaker 1: that golf journalism has died a horrible death. And let's
1:07:52
Speaker 1: be clear, golf journalism used to be real. Some of
1:07:55
Speaker 1: the greatest newspaper sports reporters and writers of all time
1:08:01
Speaker 1: used to cover golf. I mean, I don't even start
1:08:04
Speaker 1: naming names, but Dan Jenkins is won. But there's many
1:08:07
Speaker 1: many names that I could cite for you in the
1:08:12
Speaker 1: heyday where golf journalism was a real thing. Now was
1:08:16
Speaker 1: it perfect? No, They let Arnold Palmer, you know, sleep
1:08:19
Speaker 1: around as much as he wanted without telling anyone about
1:08:23
Speaker 1: it because they wanted to protect Arnold Palmer. And maybe
1:08:25
Speaker 1: the same kind of thing happened with Tiger Woods. But
1:08:29
Speaker 1: the golf journalism used to be real. Now it's a
1:08:32
Speaker 1: complete and total joke as corporate interests and conflicts of
1:08:36
Speaker 1: interest and the fact that the gigs are so difficult
1:08:39
Speaker 1: to get and they're so cushy, and no one wants
1:08:42
Speaker 1: to do anything to possibly upset the apple card or
1:08:45
Speaker 1: get fired, and there's certain players that are untouchable. I
1:08:49
Speaker 1: truly believe that that's part of how the tiger Woods
1:08:52
Speaker 1: scandal happened was because the golf media completely imploded and
1:08:57
Speaker 1: no one wanted to upset tiger Woods, which ended up
1:09:00
Speaker 1: creating a bigger problem in the long run for everybody.
1:09:04
Speaker 1: But the point here is that we now have a
1:09:07
Speaker 1: completely dead golf media and there are tons of Bryson
1:09:12
Speaker 1: fans that tend to be MAGA fans. I'm not sure
1:09:15
Speaker 1: if that's because that he and Trump are friends. I'm
1:09:19
Speaker 1: sure that's part of it, and so Bryson has the
1:09:21
Speaker 1: seal approval from Trump, both from their personal relationship as
1:09:26
Speaker 1: well as the fact that Bryson went to live But
1:09:29
Speaker 1: I think there's a symbiotic relationship here because I do
1:09:34
Speaker 1: think that Bryson's persona appeals to MAGA supporters quite a bit.
1:09:38
Speaker 1: So there's no question that a lot of the Bryson
1:09:43
Speaker 1: support is MAGA support, at least in America. But I
1:09:48
Speaker 1: have to say I was stunned and very disappointed that
1:09:51
Speaker 1: the English fans, who are clearly not MAGA were also
1:09:57
Speaker 1: extremely supportive of one of the happening with Bryce and
1:10:01
Speaker 1: d Chambeau. This was stunning to me. I get that
1:10:05
Speaker 1: MAGA fans now think that, and this is one of
1:10:08
Speaker 1: the most disturbing parts of the whole Bryson d Schambeau story.
1:10:11
Speaker 1: They think that popularity now dictates right and wrong. If
1:10:17
Speaker 1: you're popular, then you know you should either be allowed
1:10:21
Speaker 1: to get away with stuff or I'm going to side
1:10:24
Speaker 1: with you because I like you. That seems to be
1:10:27
Speaker 1: the way things work now. Nobody's objective. No one is
1:10:32
Speaker 1: willing to call out their own side, no one's almost
1:10:35
Speaker 1: no one's willing to say, you know, this person was
1:10:38
Speaker 1: wrong even though I like them, or you know, the
1:10:40
Speaker 1: fact that I disliked this person is not the reason
1:10:43
Speaker 1: why I'm saying what they did was wrong. I mean,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: on social media, people just presume that if you take
1:10:49
Speaker 1: a I could call it a liberal all the time
1:10:52
Speaker 1: when I criticize conservatives, because the minds of most of
1:10:56
Speaker 1: these morons. That's the only reason why you would ever
1:10:58
Speaker 1: criticize a conservatives is if you're a liberal. No, some
1:11:02
Speaker 1: of us are still trying to call balls and the
1:11:04
Speaker 1: strikes here. Some of us are still trying to be objective.
1:11:07
Speaker 1: And when it came to the English fans, this part
1:11:09
Speaker 1: really blew my mind. So here's what happens. So Bryson
1:11:14
Speaker 1: has his temper tantrum, he gets the two shot penalty,
1:11:18
Speaker 1: he comes back from the fifth hole to the clubhouse.
1:11:21
Speaker 1: Todd Lewis of the Golf Channel politely asks him if
1:11:25
Speaker 1: he could do an interview, and he declines. Now, I
1:11:29
Speaker 1: got a big problem with Todd Lewis. I've had problems
1:11:32
Speaker 1: with Todd Lewis before, and I've even expressed them to
1:11:35
Speaker 1: him on X and he's absolutely flummox He doesn't even
1:11:38
Speaker 1: understand what I'm talking about. I'm not going to get
1:11:40
Speaker 1: into the details of that, but some of them actually
1:11:42
Speaker 1: relate to a video that he helped spike involving Bryson, d
1:11:46
Speaker 1: Chambeau and Brooks Koepka, which was a huge deal a
1:11:49
Speaker 1: few years ago. Anyway, Todd Lewis should not be politely
1:11:54
Speaker 1: asking a guy who's in the midst of a massive
1:11:58
Speaker 1: news story, whether it's cay for me to record an
1:12:01
Speaker 1: interview with you. This is not a normal post round situation.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: You don't ask for fucking permission. You put the goddamn
1:12:11
Speaker 1: camera on and even when he returns, you start asking
1:12:15
Speaker 1: him questions, and on camera he either answers them or
1:12:18
Speaker 1: he dodges them. That's fucking journalism. But it didn't even
1:12:23
Speaker 1: occur to Todd Lewis that he could do something like that,
1:12:27
Speaker 1: I guarantee you, because that would have been too dangerous.
1:12:30
Speaker 1: We have to ask for permission. No no, no, no no no, no,
1:12:33
Speaker 1: no no. When when Bryson d Chambeau has a temper
1:12:37
Speaker 1: tantrum live on your air over a major penalty that's
1:12:43
Speaker 1: gonna possibly impact the results of the British goddamn Open,
1:12:48
Speaker 1: you don't need to ask for permission anymore. But that's
1:12:52
Speaker 1: the mentality. That's how broken things are. So so Bryson
1:12:56
Speaker 1: blows off Todd Lewis by the way he blows off
1:13:00
Speaker 1: all the media. He never did any interviews with the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: assembled media during the entire British Open, which to me
1:13:06
Speaker 1: goes to another issue that I have talked about constantly.
1:13:10
Speaker 1: And I'm the only one that I know of that's
1:13:12
Speaker 1: made this prediction. But this whole Bryson d Chambeau story
1:13:16
Speaker 1: is proving that I'm right that the sports postgame press
1:13:20
Speaker 1: conference is in grave jeopardy. It is an endangered species.
1:13:26
Speaker 1: Because Bryson knows he does not need the media, it's
1:13:30
Speaker 1: not worth it to him. He can just go on
1:13:32
Speaker 1: social media and post some ridiculous meme and that's going
1:13:36
Speaker 1: to get way more views and playcats fans way more
1:13:39
Speaker 1: than having to face actual, potentially real questions. And so
1:13:45
Speaker 1: whether the sports media is smart enough to figure this out,
1:13:48
Speaker 1: I doubt it. But their weakness, their woosiness, is burying themselves.
1:13:53
Speaker 1: They're digging their own grave because they're creating a situation
1:13:59
Speaker 1: where these superstars are going to realize, why the hell
1:14:02
Speaker 1: do I need to do a post round or post
1:14:05
Speaker 1: game press conference. I don't. But back to Bryson, so
1:14:09
Speaker 1: he does this temper tantrum, says on camera, I'm not
1:14:12
Speaker 1: gonna play tomorrow. He comes back Dodge's interviews, then he
1:14:17
Speaker 1: goes to the driving range, which he knows, because he's
1:14:21
Speaker 1: a media genius, is going to be broadcast live on
1:14:24
Speaker 1: the Golf Channel and in the darkness, he keeps hitting
1:14:29
Speaker 1: range balls. No need for him to do this. He
1:14:31
Speaker 1: just played a great round. His swing is obviously in
1:14:34
Speaker 1: fine shape. Now is it possibly one to blow off
1:14:36
Speaker 1: some steam. I'm okay with that for a few shots,
1:14:39
Speaker 1: just to blow off some steam because you just got,
1:14:42
Speaker 1: you know, a two shot penalty and you got to
1:14:44
Speaker 1: rethink things for tomorrow. But Bryson did this as a show.
1:14:50
Speaker 1: This is Bryson the Phony Blooney, and Bryson doesn't care that,
1:14:57
Speaker 1: you know what, There are a whole bunch of people
1:14:59
Speaker 1: that have to keep that range open for him on
1:15:02
Speaker 1: a Friday night when they probably had plans to go
1:15:04
Speaker 1: do other things. But Bryson doesn't care because this is
1:15:09
Speaker 1: all about Bryson. And by the way, the British Open
1:15:13
Speaker 1: couldn't put out the tea times, so all the other
1:15:15
Speaker 1: players were inconvenienced into late in the night because they
1:15:19
Speaker 1: didn't know if Bryson was going to play. They first
1:15:21
Speaker 1: didn't know what position he was going to be in
1:15:23
Speaker 1: because it took so long for the penalty instituted. Because
1:15:27
Speaker 1: they gave Bryson every benefit of the doubt and the
1:15:31
Speaker 1: idea that Bryson got mistreated here is so preposterous. He
1:15:34
Speaker 1: actually got kid glove treatment both by the British Open
1:15:38
Speaker 1: and by the media. Now, was there some harsh commentary
1:15:42
Speaker 1: in the Golf Channel with Bryson and you know, with Brandall,
1:15:47
Speaker 1: Chambilee and Paul McGinley, who I have some respect for. Yeah,
1:15:51
Speaker 1: But interestingly enough, the Golf Channel changed its tune or
1:15:56
Speaker 1: actually basically cut off discussion over the weekend. I have
1:16:01
Speaker 1: a pretty good spidy sense on these things, and I
1:16:04
Speaker 1: think something happened that the Golf Channel over the weekend
1:16:08
Speaker 1: because the Golf Channel had a perfect opportunity on Saturday
1:16:13
Speaker 1: to really stick a fork or a state through the
1:16:17
Speaker 1: heart of Bryson d Chambeau, and they did not take it.
1:16:21
Speaker 1: In fact, they went out of their way not to
1:16:24
Speaker 1: take it. And what I'm referring to is the comments
1:16:29
Speaker 1: of Rory McElroy. Now, before I get into Roy maclroy,
1:16:32
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I finished the point
1:16:34
Speaker 1: on the English fans. The English fans on that next
1:16:38
Speaker 1: day lapped up Bryce and d Chambeau's act, hook line
1:16:44
Speaker 1: and sinker, and I just could not believe this. This
1:16:47
Speaker 1: is an American player, a guy associated with MAGA, which
1:16:52
Speaker 1: you would think would piss off some English fans. A
1:16:55
Speaker 1: guy who acted like a bratt, threatened not to play dodged.
1:17:00
Speaker 1: The media, kept everybody waiting on the tea times, kept
1:17:05
Speaker 1: everybody working at the range far and later than they
1:17:07
Speaker 1: needed to. A complete act of selfishness. A guy who
1:17:12
Speaker 1: you can make a strong argument blatantly cheated or at
1:17:16
Speaker 1: least was in the realm of cheating. I mean, that's
1:17:20
Speaker 1: the best I can spin I can put on this.
1:17:23
Speaker 1: But I think he cheated. I think he in his mind,
1:17:26
Speaker 1: he knew what he was doing. I guarantee you, guarantee you.
1:17:32
Speaker 1: Ten twenty years ago that person gets responded to by
1:17:38
Speaker 1: an English British open crowd with total silence, total silence. Instead,
1:17:46
Speaker 1: he got responded to like he was Ojay Simpson on
1:17:49
Speaker 1: the white Ford Bronco Chase, driving on the four O
1:17:52
Speaker 1: five with people saying, run, juice run in England. What
1:18:00
Speaker 1: the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening. I'm
1:18:05
Speaker 1: telling you this has massive social implications. I realize it
1:18:10
Speaker 1: sounds like an incredibly minor thing, but I'm telling it's not.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: We can tell an awful lot about where we are
1:18:19
Speaker 1: in various aspects of society through the prism of this
1:18:22
Speaker 1: Bryson d Chambeau controversy. But let's go back to Rory McElroy. Now,
1:18:27
Speaker 1: much like Bryson, I've been very conflicted about Rory McElroy.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: When Rory is at his best, I think Rory is awesome.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: He was awesome at the beginning of the live fight.
1:18:40
Speaker 1: He has defied my expectations. On the course. I thought
1:18:43
Speaker 1: he was probably done winning majors. He's won two straight Masters.
1:18:47
Speaker 1: Obviously you could ever forget him winning the Grand Slam
1:18:52
Speaker 1: last year in dramatic fashion. But when Rory's bad, I
1:18:57
Speaker 1: have problems with Rory. Rory is a little bit like
1:18:59
Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham. To me. At his best off the course,
1:19:03
Speaker 1: Rory is amazing, but then he disappoints you from time
1:19:06
Speaker 1: to time. And I get that that Rory, like a
1:19:09
Speaker 1: lot of these guys, can have a big ego and
1:19:11
Speaker 1: be a little self obsessed, and it'll be a little
1:19:13
Speaker 1: whiny and maybe a little hypocritical. I get that. I
1:19:17
Speaker 1: am not vouching for Rory McElroy as the be all
1:19:21
Speaker 1: end all, but at the very least, Rory is a
1:19:25
Speaker 1: smart guy, and Rory's in a position where he can
1:19:28
Speaker 1: actually take a stance without being afraid of the ramifications.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: And I respect that. And Rory was asked on Saturday
1:19:39
Speaker 1: about the rules controversy involving Bryce and d Chambeau and
1:19:44
Speaker 1: what resulted was something that I wanted shot right into
1:19:48
Speaker 1: my veins, just straight into my veins, Rory, because this
1:19:52
Speaker 1: was fucking fantastic.
1:19:54
Speaker 6: WELLVIKILASKI apion on those rosy to them, what's not a
1:19:58
Speaker 6: few different plays of me then with different what did
1:20:01
Speaker 6: you say?
1:20:02
Speaker 1: So?
1:20:02
Speaker 6: I was watching it live, I was up in the
1:20:04
Speaker 6: players lines watching it with a few other players, and
1:20:08
Speaker 6: as soon as he made the step into the ball,
1:20:10
Speaker 6: we all sort of looked each.
1:20:11
Speaker 5: Other each other and we're like, that didn't seem right.
1:20:15
Speaker 6: And then when I heard that he was, you know,
1:20:17
Speaker 6: he was called in by the rules officials, I think
1:20:19
Speaker 6: we all it was pretty obvious for why. Yeah, I
1:20:24
Speaker 6: mean I think, you know, I think there's no doubt
1:20:26
Speaker 6: that he improved the line of his backswing, so you know,
1:20:29
Speaker 6: and again it's like whether it was careless or whether
1:20:32
Speaker 6: it was intentional. I don't think it matters. Hopefully it
1:20:34
Speaker 6: was careless, but I think the two shot penalty was
1:20:38
Speaker 6: was justified for sure.
1:20:40
Speaker 5: What do you think the scenes after.
1:20:42
Speaker 6: Obviously you guys would delay getting your tea times as
1:20:44
Speaker 6: well because of it all going on night for everyone. Yeah,
1:20:49
Speaker 6: I look, I you know, I won't pretend to be
1:20:53
Speaker 6: up here in defend Brice, and I'm not particularly fond
1:20:56
Speaker 6: of him.
1:20:58
Speaker 5: I think a lot of it's performative.
1:21:01
Speaker 6: I think a lot of it's for attention, and yeah,
1:21:03
Speaker 6: you know, to hold the tournament hostage like that and
1:21:07
Speaker 6: have all of us volunteers, players, everyone winning on him
1:21:10
Speaker 6: to depart.
1:21:12
Speaker 5: I didn't feel like it was a great look. Do
1:21:16
Speaker 5: you think he's got him to look?
1:21:19
Speaker 6: He's gonna say, like again, I don't. I'm not in
1:21:23
Speaker 6: his mind. I'm not in his but it didn't look good.
1:21:27
Speaker 4: Boy?
1:21:27
Speaker 7: Is something like that?
1:21:29
Speaker 5: You think that happens out here.
1:21:31
Speaker 7: More than we know and it just isn't viewed or
1:21:34
Speaker 7: seen or yeah, it's hard, right, Look, he's he's every
1:21:37
Speaker 7: shot is is on camera, and there's a lot of
1:21:40
Speaker 7: guys that play this week and the shots aren't on camera.
1:21:42
Speaker 5: So you can say that that's unfair or whatever.
1:21:48
Speaker 6: It might happen more than it does, but I just
1:21:51
Speaker 6: it's it's obviously impossible to police everyone, and that's why
1:21:54
Speaker 6: it is a you know, for the most part of
1:21:57
Speaker 6: self policing game. But I think when there is obvious evidence,
1:22:04
Speaker 6: like there was last night, then obviously that's a different story.
1:22:08
Speaker 1: Now. When I saw that, I was like, Wow, Rory
1:22:10
Speaker 1: knocked it out of the park, and I thought that
1:22:15
Speaker 1: the Golf Channel at least was going to be all
1:22:19
Speaker 1: over this, but they were not. They played the clip
1:22:24
Speaker 1: one time and did not comment on it at all,
1:22:28
Speaker 1: and in fact, they kind of muted it because they
1:22:31
Speaker 1: played clips from a whole bunch of Bryce and d
1:22:33
Speaker 1: Chambeau's friends who were in the tournament, who were basically,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: you know, mealy mouthed and very uncommitted about what really transpired.
1:22:45
Speaker 1: Some were mildly defending Bryce in some were saying they
1:22:48
Speaker 1: weren't sure it was a penalty. So it was basically
1:22:51
Speaker 1: diluted in this mix of player comments and no commentary whatsoever,
1:22:58
Speaker 1: which I am I am positive could only have happened
1:23:03
Speaker 1: because someone from above ordered it, Because what I know
1:23:08
Speaker 1: about the guys like rich Lerner and Randall Chamblee and
1:23:14
Speaker 1: Paul McGinley, they were thirsty, they were salivating to discuss
1:23:19
Speaker 1: this in a normal world, and they didn't say one
1:23:22
Speaker 1: word about it. So there had to be some corporate
1:23:24
Speaker 1: influence there. And the idea that somehow the media is
1:23:28
Speaker 1: out to get Bryson d Chambeau is complete insanity. And
1:23:32
Speaker 1: that's just one example of that. It's exactly the opposite.
1:23:35
Speaker 1: Bryson d Chambeau was treated by with kid gloves during
1:23:39
Speaker 1: all of this. And I love Scotty Scheffler, but the
1:23:43
Speaker 1: difference between the way Rory reacted and the way Scotty
1:23:46
Speaker 1: Scheffler reacted were night and day. Scotty Scheffler ought to
1:23:50
Speaker 1: be a politician because he waited a day and then
1:23:55
Speaker 1: he gave an answer that literally pleased nobody and pissed
1:24:00
Speaker 1: off nobody. He gave every possible aspect of this story,
1:24:05
Speaker 1: you know, something that they would like, and every possible
1:24:08
Speaker 1: aspect of this story is something that they wouldn't be
1:24:11
Speaker 1: that pissed off about, but they wouldn't be thrilled with.
1:24:14
Speaker 1: And I think part of the problem here is Scottie
1:24:17
Speaker 1: and Bryson are friends, they both live in the Dallas area,
1:24:20
Speaker 1: their Ryder Cup teammates, and the Ryder Cup I think
1:24:24
Speaker 1: played a huge role in this. This is really kind
1:24:26
Speaker 1: of sad, not a huge deal, but it was remarkable
1:24:30
Speaker 1: how the Americans all to some degree rallied around Bryson
1:24:35
Speaker 1: d Chambeau, not completely. They all basically said, well, it
1:24:39
Speaker 1: might have been a penalty, but is it really fair
1:24:42
Speaker 1: he's on television all the time, He's not a cheater,
1:24:44
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. While the European players like
1:24:48
Speaker 1: Ry McElroy and Shane Lowry, they were like, this was
1:24:51
Speaker 1: a penalty, clearly and you know this and basically attacked
1:24:56
Speaker 1: him for the way that he handled this. That's a
1:24:58
Speaker 1: shame to me. I wish we didn't live in that
1:25:01
Speaker 1: world where you know which Ryder Cup team you play
1:25:04
Speaker 1: on clouds your judgment to that degree. I also really wish,
1:25:09
Speaker 1: and this is gonna be my final thought on this.
1:25:13
Speaker 1: The saddest part of this whole thing is that Donald
1:25:17
Speaker 1: Trump has created a world where his influence has now
1:25:25
Speaker 1: impacted everything, even a rules controversy at the British Open,
1:25:31
Speaker 1: because Bryson is associated with Trump. In fact, there were
1:25:36
Speaker 1: rumors or jokes, and I believe a false story that
1:25:40
Speaker 1: Bryson threatened to call Donald Trump. Now I don't believe
1:25:43
Speaker 1: that story because I think there would be evidence of that.
1:25:47
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing to me that Trump had the
1:25:49
Speaker 1: restraint to not get involved is what happened at the
1:25:51
Speaker 1: World Cup. I mean, he's fixing red cards for the
1:25:57
Speaker 1: American team at the World Cup, but he doesn't have
1:25:59
Speaker 1: the level at the British Open. In fact, he doesn't
1:26:01
Speaker 1: want to piss off the British Open people because he's
1:26:03
Speaker 1: still dreaming that Turnberry's going to get put back in
1:26:05
Speaker 1: the British Open rotation. So Trump's not going to do
1:26:08
Speaker 1: anything to piss off the British Open people. But I
1:26:12
Speaker 1: don't think it's a true story. Even though it was
1:26:14
Speaker 1: reported by the Daily Mail or some other clickbait organization
1:26:18
Speaker 1: that somehow Bryson had threatened to get Trump involved in this.
1:26:22
Speaker 1: That's classic clickbait because there's no way to disprove it.
1:26:25
Speaker 1: Trump's not going to comment on it. Bryce is not
1:26:28
Speaker 1: going to comment on it. The tournament's over.
1:26:31
Speaker 4: You know.
1:26:31
Speaker 1: It's exactly what people want to hear. It dovetails with
1:26:33
Speaker 1: the World Cup thing. I don't think it's true. But
1:26:37
Speaker 1: the point I'm making is Trump has now stained everything
1:26:43
Speaker 1: everything Now everything is seen, almost everything is seen through
1:26:47
Speaker 1: the prism of Trump. And that's just sad because right
1:26:51
Speaker 1: and wrong on the matter, and it shouldn't be dictated
1:26:55
Speaker 1: by whether or not someone is seen as pro Trump
1:26:58
Speaker 1: or not pro Trump, and that part of this whole thing,
1:27:02
Speaker 1: to me was rather sad. Thanks for listening to today's
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