Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Thirteen: Horseshit
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and thirteen of the Death
- 0:03Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
- 0:05Speaker 1: host in today's show. The reaction to Joe Biden's deceitful
- 0:09Speaker 1: pardon of his son Hunter.
- 0:11Speaker 2: The news media reloads in.
- 0:13Speaker 1: Their attacks on Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, but.
- 0:17Speaker 2: They may have gone too far.
- 0:19Speaker 1: A tackling controversy explodes in the National Football League and
- 0:23Speaker 1: in the aftermath of a new Netflix documentary, a deep
- 0:27Speaker 1: dive into the John Benet Ramsey murder case. Well, as expected,
- 0:33Speaker 1: most of this week, at least the first half of it,
- 0:35Speaker 1: has been devoted in the news media to evaluating the shocking,
- 0:40Speaker 1: not shocking pardon by President Biden of his son Hunter.
- 0:44Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through all of the clips
- 0:47Speaker 1: of liberal insanity and rationalization in their response, because it
- 0:53Speaker 1: was all so predictable. I think the only thing that
- 0:57Speaker 1: was remotely interesting about those that tried to justify it
- 1:01Speaker 1: was that there was some attempt to claim that Biden
- 1:05Speaker 1: had changed his mind and that he had only decided
- 1:09Speaker 1: this just over Thanksgiving weekend, which is frankly just so
- 1:15Speaker 1: ridiculous and so absurd, mostly because Obviously there was no
- 1:21Speaker 1: new information, nothing had changed. In order to change your mind,
- 1:27Speaker 1: circumstances have to change, or you have to get new information.
- 1:31Speaker 1: And there's no evidence or logic that that actually happened. Now,
- 1:35Speaker 1: some very delusional Democrats and liberals have tried to rationalize, well,
- 1:41Speaker 1: once Trump won, that changed the equation. Well, yeah, it
- 1:44Speaker 1: did change the equation because he knew Harris wasn't going
- 1:47Speaker 1: to be taking over and he had to act and
- 1:50Speaker 1: act to the election.
- 1:51Speaker 2: There was no more to lose.
- 1:54Speaker 1: There's nothing to lose by exposing yourself as a liar
- 1:59Speaker 1: and pardoning yourself after you said multiple times that you
- 2:02Speaker 1: would never do so and that you would respect the.
- 2:05Speaker 3: Rule of law.
- 2:06Speaker 1: But in the minds of many Kooki liberals, they think, well,
- 2:10Speaker 1: Trump's gonna put everybody in prison, He's going to have
- 2:13Speaker 1: firing squads. I mean that's literally one CNN commentator reference that,
- 2:18Speaker 1: and so therefore you have to do everything you can
- 2:20Speaker 1: to protect your son. This is just pure rationalization and
- 2:25Speaker 1: its absurdity, And frankly, it's not even worth getting into
- 2:29Speaker 1: because there's a lot of things I'd rather talk about,
- 2:31Speaker 1: But I do want to play two clips of the
- 2:35Speaker 1: response to the pardon because they come from liberals, But
- 2:39Speaker 1: liberals who seem to at least in their public comments,
- 2:44Speaker 1: have had the scales lifted from their eyes, which I
- 2:48Speaker 1: think is the right way to interpret what happened here.
- 2:52Speaker 1: Our last episode of this podcast reference Kaiser. Sosee the
- 2:56Speaker 1: character played by Kevin Spacey in the movie The Usual Sons,
- 3:00Speaker 1: And that's a metaphor that I made for what you
- 3:04Speaker 1: could use to describe Joe Biden in this situation. You know,
- 3:09Speaker 1: both characters were seen as physically crippled and harmless and
- 3:16Speaker 1: not somebody who would be a threat. And then at
- 3:19Speaker 1: the very very end of the movie, everything flips and
- 3:23Speaker 1: they reveal themselves to actually be.
- 3:26Speaker 2: The bad guy.
- 3:27Speaker 1: And I think at least two people in the liberal
- 3:30Speaker 1: elite media have kind of.
- 3:33Speaker 2: Figured that out.
- 3:34Speaker 1: The first is comedian John Stewart, and he did a
- 3:38Speaker 1: rather funny and I thought dead on commentary about this
- 3:41Speaker 1: whole situation on The Daily Show. Now, part of this
- 3:45Speaker 1: isn't going to transfer to audio because you kind of
- 3:49Speaker 1: got to see it and see his reaction to fully
- 3:52Speaker 1: appreciate it. But I think you'll be able to imagine
- 3:55Speaker 1: what's happening, and if you can't go find it for yourself.
- 3:58Speaker 2: It's pretty easy to find. But here's John Stuart setting
- 4:01Speaker 2: this up.
- 4:02Speaker 1: From the standpoint of going into the transition, Democrats had
- 4:09Speaker 1: the moral high ground, right, Joe Biden is the guy
- 4:12Speaker 1: who is standing up for the rule of law, democracy, honesty,
- 4:17Speaker 1: and you know Trump's the bad guy. And now Democrats
- 4:21Speaker 1: at least have the moral high ground, at least up
- 4:25Speaker 1: until Joe Biden broke his word and pardon his son.
- 4:30Speaker 1: And here's how John Stewart evaluated that set of circumstances.
- 4:35Speaker 2: Faith in the rule of law.
- 4:36Speaker 4: Finally, Democrats have a moral perch from which they can
- 4:43Speaker 4: judge without shame, hypocrisy, or nuance.
- 4:49Speaker 5: Right the news, President Biden has issued a pardon for
- 4:52Speaker 5: his son Hunter Biden.
- 4:55Speaker 1: Mother, We were so.
- 5:05Speaker 4: But you know it, get fine, it's good, it's right,
- 5:08Speaker 4: It's just right.
- 5:09Speaker 2: An eighty two year old man doesn't.
- 5:11Speaker 4: Want to spend the rest of his life visiting his
- 5:13Speaker 4: son in prison. But Pabas, you can't a wait with
- 5:15Speaker 4: this shit all the time. I'm sure the pardon is
- 5:18Speaker 4: a narrowly written, precisely drawn farewell note of compassion for
- 5:24Speaker 4: a loved one.
- 5:26Speaker 6: The pardon sweeping covering offenses that Hunter Biden quote has
- 5:29Speaker 6: committed or may have committed or taken part in over
- 5:32Speaker 6: the past eleven years.
- 5:45Speaker 4: Eleven years is a very specific and not rounded amount
- 5:54Speaker 4: of time. So Hunter, I'll give you a pardon a
- 5:58Speaker 4: few years, five years to years.
- 6:00Speaker 3: It needs to be eleven.
- 6:05Speaker 4: And if you would be so kind, make sure this
- 6:07Speaker 4: upcoming New Year's Eve is also covered.
- 6:16Speaker 3: Shit's going to get Christy.
- 6:20Speaker 4: I didn't know pardons could come for crimes you may
- 6:22Speaker 4: have committed us. I'm surprised Biden didn't include the phrase
- 6:26Speaker 4: on Earth one or any of the Earth's in the multiverse.
- 6:34Speaker 1: Now, that was pretty funny and pretty dead on, and
- 6:36Speaker 1: even went to the point of really making.
- 6:40Speaker 2: Almost the Kaiser.
- 6:40Speaker 1: So's an argument that the reason why the pardon was
- 6:44Speaker 1: so expansive was that Biden maybe trying to protect his
- 6:49Speaker 1: own malfeasons, something that was basically forbidden in the liberal
- 6:54Speaker 1: elite media to even be discussed prior to the Hunter
- 6:57Speaker 1: Biden pardon.
- 6:59Speaker 2: But if Stuart wasn't alone in this.
- 7:02Speaker 1: There was an interesting moment on a podcast hosted by
- 7:05Speaker 1: a former CNN commentator, Chris Siliza, and he.
- 7:10Speaker 2: Has on regularly.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Chuck Todd, the former host, to Meet the Press on NBC.
- 7:16Speaker 1: And this is also, I think similar to the Kaiser
- 7:20Speaker 1: so say theory of Joe Biden, because here Chuck Todd
- 7:25Speaker 1: goes off again a liberal member of the elite media,
- 7:29Speaker 1: member of the club for a very long time, and
- 7:32Speaker 1: he makes the argument that, well, now that you can
- 7:36Speaker 1: evaluate Joe Biden and the Biden family through the prism
- 7:40Speaker 1: of this pardon, we now have to go back to
- 7:44Speaker 1: how and why Biden even decided to run for president
- 7:47Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and that based upon the allegations against
- 7:52Speaker 1: Hunter and the transcripts from Hunter's trial, that decision was,
- 7:56Speaker 1: in the words of Chuck Todd, extremely selfish and a
- 8:01Speaker 1: detriment in retrospect to the country, which is exactly the
- 8:06Speaker 1: opposite narrative that the media has been spinning about Joe
- 8:09Speaker 1: Biden always. You know, he stood up for the country
- 8:12Speaker 1: and democracy and truth and honesty and all that bullshit.
- 8:17Speaker 2: Well, now Chuck Todd is off that bandwagon.
- 8:20Speaker 1: And this evaluation of the evidence I thought was quite interesting.
- 8:24Speaker 7: I followed the Hunter Biden trail very closely. I read
- 8:27Speaker 7: every transcript, all the testimony, because that's what you can
- 8:30Speaker 7: all that was made public, and there is you want to,
- 8:35Speaker 7: you want to read, you want to you want to
- 8:36Speaker 7: get angry, just as a as as somebody in just
- 8:40Speaker 7: all these mixed emotions. You read the Halle Biden transcript,
- 8:43Speaker 7: and that's both widow yes and and essentially he turned
- 8:48Speaker 7: her into a crack addict. And this was all happening
- 8:54Speaker 7: in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and Joe and Joe Biden
- 8:59Speaker 7: were so concerned learned about their family that they decided
- 9:02Speaker 7: to run for president.
- 9:03Speaker 2: YEP.
- 9:04Speaker 7: I just so when you talk about the word selfish,
- 9:08Speaker 7: it's almost like the word doesn't. I mean, their decision
- 9:12Speaker 7: to run for president put the entire Democratic Party in
- 9:15Speaker 7: the United States of America in the position that it's
- 9:18Speaker 7: in now.
- 9:18Speaker 1: So at least in some circles of the liberal elite media,
- 9:23Speaker 1: people are getting it. They're starting to realize, wait a minute,
- 9:26Speaker 1: hold on, did we get sold to Bill.
- 9:29Speaker 2: Of Goods here?
- 9:29Speaker 1: Did we get duped by who Joe Biden was? I
- 9:34Speaker 1: don't know what, if any, the real long term impact
- 9:37Speaker 1: of this is going to be other than what I
- 9:40Speaker 1: said in the last episode of the podcast, which.
- 9:42Speaker 2: Is this is a huge boost to Donald Trump.
- 9:46Speaker 1: John Stewart said that, and I completely agree with that
- 9:50Speaker 1: that now Trump can do almost anything he wants, especially
- 9:55Speaker 1: in the realm of pardons, because the other side has
- 9:58Speaker 1: completely and totally last any semblance of the moral high ground.
- 10:03Speaker 1: And I do think that the country has lost here.
- 10:06Speaker 1: This is gonna be a race to the bottom. This
- 10:08Speaker 1: is we're in a downward cycle. We're just gonna keep
- 10:12Speaker 1: one not upping each other, one downing each other. Really
- 10:15Speaker 1: in this race to the bottom, when it comes to
- 10:18Speaker 1: having no standards of ethics, principles, behavior, anything goes.
- 10:24Speaker 2: Whatever you can get away with, you're gonna do.
- 10:27Speaker 1: And at one point, you know, not that long ago,
- 10:29Speaker 1: thought this country was.
- 10:30Speaker 2: Better than that.
- 10:32Speaker 1: But if we ever were, we certainly are no longer.
- 10:35Speaker 1: And that's that's unfortunate. Now moving on to the Pete
- 10:39Speaker 1: Hegstadt situation, because there's some very very interesting things going
- 10:43Speaker 1: on there with regard to the media coverage of the
- 10:47Speaker 1: nominee to be the next Defense secretary. At least he
- 10:49Speaker 1: is currently the nominee as I tape this on Wednesday morning.
- 10:53Speaker 1: I think he'll still be the nominee by the time
- 10:56Speaker 1: you hear this on Thursday or after that. But here's
- 11:00Speaker 1: what's happened in the last couple of days regarding Pete Hegstath,
- 11:03Speaker 1: we talked extensively about the sex abuse or rape allegations
- 11:08Speaker 1: against him, a little bit about the fact that alcohol
- 11:12Speaker 1: was involved in some of those allegations, specifically the rape
- 11:17Speaker 1: allegation from two thousand and seventeen, and I referenced for
- 11:21Speaker 1: point of context, I referenced that George Herbert Walker Bush,
- 11:28Speaker 1: his first Defense Secretary nominee, was a guy in the
- 11:31Speaker 1: named of John Tower, who was a former US Senator
- 11:34Speaker 1: Republican who did not get confirmed by the US Senate
- 11:40Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, which was highly unusual.
- 11:43Speaker 2: It was highly unusual to not.
- 11:44Speaker 1: Get confirmed, but especially when you're a former member of
- 11:46Speaker 1: the Senate. These are your old buddies, and the reason
- 11:50Speaker 1: behind that was his potential abuse of alcohol and his
- 11:55Speaker 1: tendency to womanize. Remarkably similar to what's going on with
- 11:59Speaker 1: Pete Hegestat, although based upon my memory and my investigation
- 12:04Speaker 1: into it, the allegations against Tower were far less specific
- 12:09Speaker 1: than what currently exists against Hegstad. But we're living in
- 12:13Speaker 1: a different world than we did in nineteen eighty nine,
- 12:15Speaker 1: especially with Trump just having been elected president again. But
- 12:20Speaker 1: in that context, the media attacking Hextat. I think is
- 12:24Speaker 1: even a little bit more interesting, and the result of
- 12:28Speaker 1: this will be more fascinating to see just how much
- 12:31Speaker 1: things have changed since nineteen eighty nine. But since we
- 12:35Speaker 1: last spoke, the New Yorker put out a story. Although
- 12:38Speaker 1: they might have put this out before the last episode,
- 12:40Speaker 1: I may have been negligent not mentioning this.
- 12:43Speaker 2: But the New.
- 12:44Speaker 1: Yorker acquired a whistleblower report on Peterexstet's tenure as the
- 12:49Speaker 1: president of Concerned Veterans for America from twenty thirteen until
- 12:53Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, which describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while
- 12:58Speaker 1: acting in his official capacity, to the point of needing
- 13:01Speaker 1: to be carried out of the organization's events. Now, this
- 13:07Speaker 1: report was immediately absolutely criticized and mocked and destroyed, although
- 13:16Speaker 1: not in great specifics by Team Hegstat. I had no
- 13:20Speaker 1: problem believing Team heggstath on that because the writer of
- 13:25Speaker 1: this New Yorker story is Jane Mayer, and Jane Mayer
- 13:29Speaker 1: has now become a caricature.
- 13:31Speaker 2: I mean, she is somebody who.
- 13:33Speaker 1: Comes in like a liberal cavalry at any and all
- 13:38Speaker 1: times whenever they need somebody to do a hit job
- 13:41Speaker 1: on a Republican. Most infamously, she teamed with Ronan Farroh
- 13:47Speaker 1: to do this against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court
- 13:52Speaker 1: nomination hearings. And I've talked about that Ronan Pharaoh Jane
- 13:57Speaker 1: Mayer piece before. This is what I refer to as
- 14:00Speaker 1: the Yale Urban legend, and Jane Mayre and I have
- 14:04Speaker 1: had extensive interaction over the years because she's been wrong
- 14:08Speaker 1: about a lot of stories, but I think she was
- 14:11Speaker 1: most wrong about that one involving Brett Kavanaugh. So the
- 14:14Speaker 1: fact that she's behind the New Yorker report, at least
- 14:19Speaker 1: in my mind, automatically automatically caused it to be seen
- 14:24Speaker 1: through a very cynical eye. I mean, I would have
- 14:28Speaker 1: to see really strong evidence to believe anything that Jane
- 14:32Speaker 1: Mayer wrote, especially in this kind of a situation where
- 14:36Speaker 1: you have a Republican nominee in trouble and now the
- 14:39Speaker 1: blood is in the water, the media sees it as
- 14:42Speaker 1: their moral obligation.
- 14:44Speaker 2: To try to take him out. So I did not
- 14:47Speaker 2: believe that the Jane Mayer.
- 14:48Speaker 1: Story, which maybe is why I didn't mention the last
- 14:51Speaker 1: episode of the podcast that the Jane Mayer story was
- 14:54Speaker 1: gonna leave a mark.
- 14:55Speaker 2: I did not think that was going to take hegstath out.
- 14:58Speaker 1: But then yesterday, as I'm taking this on Wednesday morning,
- 15:02Speaker 1: on Tuesday of this week, NBC came out with an
- 15:07Speaker 1: absolutely bizarre story. And when I say bizarre, I really
- 15:13Speaker 1: mean it. I mean this is so strange on so
- 15:17Speaker 1: many different levels. The basics of the story is that
- 15:21Speaker 1: they have ten, they claim ten unnamed anonymous sources who
- 15:30Speaker 1: either have worked for Fox News Channel seven of them
- 15:34Speaker 1: of them were former Fox News Channel employees, three allegedly
- 15:39Speaker 1: were current Fox News employees. Right there, you've got a
- 15:44Speaker 1: very interesting situation where one news media outlet is allegedly
- 15:50Speaker 1: using anonymous sources from another major news outlet, a competing
- 15:56Speaker 1: news outlet both you know, economically as well as full
- 15:59Speaker 1: of soophically in Fox News Channel, and that those ten
- 16:04Speaker 1: anonymous sources aren't claiming that Pete Hegg's death regularly regularly
- 16:12Speaker 1: went on the air at Fox News Channel effectively intoxicated,
- 16:18Speaker 1: and that the evidence of this was overwhelming the alcohol
- 16:22Speaker 1: smell on his breath and all sorts of other indicators
- 16:26Speaker 1: that he would regularly go on the air at Fox
- 16:30Speaker 1: News Channel as a weekend host, and I guess as
- 16:33Speaker 1: a commentator during the weekdays, and he would shows very
- 16:38Speaker 1: strong signs of being intoxicated. Now, when I first read this,
- 16:43Speaker 1: I'm like, this is this. I already said the word bizarre.
- 16:47Speaker 1: This is so weird. It's so weird in so many
- 16:51Speaker 1: different ways. First of all, if it's true, if it's true,
- 16:57Speaker 1: Heag's death is done. And the reason why death would
- 17:02Speaker 1: be done under these circumstances is First of all, again,
- 17:07Speaker 1: if it's true. If it's true, then this is clearly
- 17:12Speaker 1: an indication that it's impacting his work. And if you
- 17:16Speaker 1: can't show up to work as a Fox News Channel
- 17:19Speaker 1: co host without being intoxicated on a regular basis, there's
- 17:24Speaker 1: no way you could be the Defense Secretary of the
- 17:27Speaker 1: United States of America. Defense Secretary of the United States
- 17:29Speaker 1: America is basically the CEO of the largest, most complex
- 17:33Speaker 1: corporation in the world. Effectively, that's what it is, so
- 17:39Speaker 1: with enormous amounts of pressure, so there's no chance you
- 17:42Speaker 1: can do the job.
- 17:43Speaker 2: And even worse for Heig's death.
- 17:46Speaker 1: And I don't know whether or not the media has
- 17:48Speaker 1: used this as part of their equation that maybe they
- 17:51Speaker 1: can get them on the drinking part. But I've not
- 17:53Speaker 1: seen enough commentary on this, especially from the right, because
- 17:57Speaker 1: the right is still very very much supporting Pete Hegstath
- 18:01Speaker 1: and I can understand that given who his enemies aren't,
- 18:04Speaker 1: but the alcohol issue makes him particularly vulnerable in this
- 18:09Speaker 1: situation because of who Donald Trump is.
- 18:13Speaker 2: People are forgetting.
- 18:14Speaker 1: I think that Donald Trump has never had a drink
- 18:17Speaker 1: of alcohol in his life, and the reason is because
- 18:22Speaker 1: his brother Fred died at the age of forty three
- 18:26Speaker 1: due to issues related to alcoholism.
- 18:29Speaker 2: He despises alcoholism.
- 18:32Speaker 1: He sees it as a huge weakness, one that he
- 18:36Speaker 1: has gone to great lens to avoid in his life.
- 18:39Speaker 1: So logic would dictate that if Trump became convinced that
- 18:46Speaker 1: these allegations were real, that he would bail on Heg's death,
- 18:51Speaker 1: not necessarily for political reasons, but because of how he
- 18:55Speaker 1: would view hegstats he he stood by Trump did he
- 18:59Speaker 1: stood by because he didn't believe the allegations. It wasn't
- 19:04Speaker 1: because he thought, Okay, well, it's fine that he's a
- 19:07Speaker 1: sexual abuser or whatever. And by the way, there were
- 19:09Speaker 1: also alcohol allegations against Kavanaugh, but they were never, in
- 19:13Speaker 1: my mind, credible at all, and a lot of them
- 19:15Speaker 1: had to do with high school stories, and I think
- 19:18Speaker 1: you kind of can compartmentalize those. But there's a lot
- 19:21Speaker 1: of similarities between what the media did the Kavanaugh or
- 19:25Speaker 1: tried to do to him, and what they're trying right
- 19:27Speaker 1: now to do to Pete Heg's death.
- 19:29Speaker 2: But I think there might be a better chance that they're.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Successful with Hex's death, partially because the stakes aren't as
- 19:36Speaker 1: high as they were with Kavanaugh.
- 19:39Speaker 2: You can replace Hegstad, you know, pretty easily.
- 19:42Speaker 1: In fact, there's already a story out there that the
- 19:45Speaker 1: Hex's death replacement might be Ron DeSantis, which is really weird,
- 19:50Speaker 1: although intriguing. This came from the Wall Street Journal, which
- 19:55Speaker 1: is also potentially significant because one it's not a lit outlet.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Two it's owned by News Corp, which is the same
- 20:03Speaker 1: company that owns Fox News Channel, which you would think
- 20:06Speaker 1: would be supportive or would be hesitant to go after
- 20:10Speaker 1: effectively one of their own employees, as they have been
- 20:13Speaker 1: nominated for Defense Secretary.
- 20:16Speaker 2: So there's a lot going on here. But I want
- 20:18Speaker 2: to go back to the NBC story.
- 20:20Speaker 1: So when you use ten anonymous sources, that's inherently troubling,
- 20:28Speaker 1: especially when it's from a media outlet.
- 20:31Speaker 2: But you can understand, given.
- 20:33Speaker 1: The unique circumstances here, why somebody at Fox News Channel
- 20:38Speaker 1: would not want to be known publicly as having provided testimony.
- 20:44Speaker 1: If you will, that could be damaging to Pete Hegstat,
- 20:47Speaker 1: because that would be bad for your career. One because
- 20:50Speaker 1: Pete Heggstat is still very popular within Fox News Channel,
- 20:54Speaker 1: has a lot of support there, So internally you would
- 20:56Speaker 1: be in deep trouble if your name came out. So
- 21:00Speaker 1: because Pete Hextead is very popular among Trump fans, and
- 21:03Speaker 1: obviously Trump fans are the base of support for Fox
- 21:07Speaker 1: News Channel, you would be putting yourself in a very
- 21:10Speaker 1: precarious situation publicly. So I can understand why, in theory,
- 21:16Speaker 1: I want to underline this, in theory, if this was
- 21:18Speaker 1: all real, if this was all true, why you would
- 21:21Speaker 1: want to remain anonymous. That doesn't necessarily mean that it
- 21:25Speaker 1: meets journalistic standards. But as we try to evaluate this
- 21:29Speaker 1: NBC story, we go Okay, I can't understand why a
- 21:32Speaker 1: Fox News Channel employee, either past or present, might want
- 21:36Speaker 1: to stay anonymous. Ten is a rather large number, But
- 21:40Speaker 1: what does the number ten tell you? The number ten
- 21:43Speaker 1: tells you that those people didn't come to NBC. That's
- 21:49Speaker 1: this is really important, folks. Those people didn't come to NBC.
- 21:52Speaker 1: There is zero, and I repeat zero chance that ten
- 21:57Speaker 1: Fox News Channel employed he's passed and present, all within
- 22:02Speaker 1: a fairly short pion of time decided to contact NBC
- 22:07Speaker 1: News to tell their stories about Pete Hex's death being
- 22:11Speaker 1: intoxicated on the set.
- 22:13Speaker 2: There's zero chance of that.
- 22:15Speaker 1: So what does that mean, Well, that means that NBC
- 22:20Speaker 1: decided they had a story.
- 22:22Speaker 2: It's possible one, maybe one.
- 22:25Speaker 1: Person from Fox News Channel said something to somebody at
- 22:28Speaker 1: NBC and that then they use that as a lead
- 22:34Speaker 1: a clue. Oh there might be something here. Let's investigated.
- 22:39Speaker 1: So let's contact everybody we can, as to president who
- 22:43Speaker 1: might have had contact with Pete Hexstath and Fox News
- 22:46Speaker 1: Channel to see whether or not this story is true.
- 22:48Speaker 1: Now giving NBC the benefit of the very large doubt,
- 22:52Speaker 1: at this point, they're claiming that they found ten people
- 22:56Speaker 1: that backed up this story of alcohol use it Fox
- 23:00Speaker 1: News Channel, again, very very obvious. NBC was proactively searching
- 23:09Speaker 1: for these Fox employees.
- 23:11Speaker 2: Why is that important, Well, because the first.
- 23:15Speaker 1: Thing I did, as basically an expert in this realm
- 23:18Speaker 1: of trying to evaluate the tee Lea's when it comes
- 23:21Speaker 1: to whether or not a media story is true or
- 23:24Speaker 1: untrue or somewhere in the middle.
- 23:26Speaker 2: The first thing I'm.
- 23:27Speaker 1: Looking at is, all right, well, if this is true,
- 23:31Speaker 1: then a lot of people at Fox News Channel are
- 23:33Speaker 1: gonna know it. It's unbelievable. We've never heard anything.
- 23:36Speaker 2: About this before.
- 23:37Speaker 1: But okay, he's never become this large of a news
- 23:40Speaker 1: story before. But here's what is gonna happen if.
- 23:43Speaker 2: It's not true. Right, if it's not true, we're.
- 23:48Speaker 1: Gonna hear from people who worked with petextat the Fox
- 23:52Speaker 1: News Channel that are gonna have a huge incentive to
- 23:55Speaker 1: come forward and say this is bullshit. So I was
- 24:00Speaker 1: looking around and on Twitter, and at first I didn't
- 24:05Speaker 1: see anything, and there was nothing in the NBC article
- 24:09Speaker 1: from anyone at Fox News Channel saying this is bullshit.
- 24:13Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, is it possible that Fox News Channel
- 24:18Speaker 1: has basically pulled the rugout from under Pete Heggstath and
- 24:22Speaker 1: this is all real? But they didn't want to be
- 24:24Speaker 1: the source of the story, so they effectively outsourced it
- 24:27Speaker 1: to NBC, which, by the way, is a weird place
- 24:30Speaker 1: to put it because Trumpsters are never going to believe
- 24:33Speaker 1: anything that NBC writes about a Trump nominee. It's just
- 24:38Speaker 1: the world, unfortunately that we live in. And NBC and
- 24:41Speaker 1: all the other major networks deserve what they have created
- 24:45Speaker 1: here because they have no credibility, they have no trust left.
- 24:49Speaker 1: But okay, I'm trying to figure out is a story real?
- 24:52Speaker 1: Is it not real? Is it somewhere in between? I'm
- 24:55Speaker 1: looking for some reaction from somebody at Fox News Channel.
- 24:59Speaker 1: My god, living in the instant information age, all these
- 25:02Speaker 1: people have Twitter accounts. Somebody's gonna come forward and say
- 25:07Speaker 1: this is bullshit.
- 25:09Speaker 2: Well someone did, and that was Will Kine.
- 25:13Speaker 1: Now, Will Kine is a former sports guy who's actually
- 25:17Speaker 1: been co hosting with Pete Hegk's death for five years
- 25:22Speaker 1: on the weekends at Fox News Channel, and he tweeted
- 25:26Speaker 1: out the following, your story is horseshit, NBC News put
- 25:32Speaker 1: my name on it.
- 25:33Speaker 2: On the record.
- 25:34Speaker 1: It'll be you're only on the record source signed the
- 25:40Speaker 1: guy who sat next to him for eight hours every
- 25:43Speaker 1: week for five years, starting at six a m. Now,
- 25:48Speaker 1: that is a very strong denial from somebody who would know.
- 25:54Speaker 1: Now I know Will a little bit. I've had conversations
- 25:58Speaker 1: or a conversation with Will. We've communicated on Twitter a
- 26:03Speaker 1: little bit, you know, so I have some sort of
- 26:07Speaker 1: I wouldn't say a relationship, but some sort of communication
- 26:11Speaker 1: with Will.
- 26:11Speaker 2: I've always thought him to be a.
- 26:13Speaker 1: Smart guy, a straight up guy, a guy I don't
- 26:16Speaker 1: have any reason to distrust, So that has weight to me.
- 26:21Speaker 2: But does it prove it?
- 26:22Speaker 1: I mean, could he be somebody who was in the dark,
- 26:27Speaker 1: you know, he just got fooled?
- 26:28Speaker 2: It never somehow? I mean, this seems kind of strange, right.
- 26:32Speaker 1: If you're with somebody on weekends that's important on weekends
- 26:37Speaker 1: starting at six am, and you know you're doing four
- 26:41Speaker 1: hours each show with them, and they're making a habit
- 26:46Speaker 1: of being on the air intoxicated, there's a dark good
- 26:49Speaker 1: chance they're going to know it. But one person doesn't
- 26:52Speaker 1: prove anything. So on Twitter and via direct message, I
- 26:58Speaker 1: asked Will Kine question. I said, Will, thank you for
- 27:04Speaker 1: posting this. Could you let us know whether or not
- 27:07Speaker 1: NBC ever contacted you for this story because that would
- 27:13Speaker 1: be seemingly an important piece of information. That's what I
- 27:17Speaker 1: wrote publicly and then privately I direct message Will and
- 27:21Speaker 1: I said, Will you have got to if you have
- 27:24Speaker 1: not been contacted by NBC. You need to find out
- 27:27Speaker 1: whether or not any of your colleagues were contacted by
- 27:32Speaker 1: NBC here, because if they weren't, you go a long
- 27:37Speaker 1: way in proving that the story is I don't think
- 27:40Speaker 1: I said bullshit, but that the story is not valid,
- 27:44Speaker 1: it's not credible. And the reason why that's so significant
- 27:47Speaker 1: is what I said a couple of minutes ago. Because
- 27:51Speaker 1: there's ten sources, all anonymous here, that means we know
- 27:57Speaker 1: we know that if the story is real, and be
- 28:00Speaker 1: proactively went after them, there is zero chance ten people
- 28:05Speaker 1: on their own suddenly came to NBC can't happen. So
- 28:10Speaker 1: if we accept that NBC is going on the hunt
- 28:15Speaker 1: for people, then that would mean for the story to
- 28:19Speaker 1: be credible, Will Caine would.
- 28:21Speaker 2: Have to be on the list.
- 28:23Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of other people that would have
- 28:25Speaker 1: to be on the list of people who were contacted,
- 28:28Speaker 1: because I think the show's got like four co hosts
- 28:32Speaker 1: and obviously a lot of guests and producers and all that,
- 28:36Speaker 1: so there's a whole lot of people on the list.
- 28:38Speaker 1: If this is a credible story that would at least
- 28:41Speaker 1: be contacted. Doesn't mean they have to be spoken to
- 28:45Speaker 1: because you know, there's a time limit on this, but
- 28:48Speaker 1: at the very least somebody from NBC has got to
- 28:53Speaker 1: have at least reached out to you.
- 28:55Speaker 2: So that was my question to Will, and Will told.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Me absolutely nobody from NBC contacted him. And then I said, well, well,
- 29:04Speaker 1: can you please post that because that's important information. So
- 29:08Speaker 1: Will then took my tweet question to him and said
- 29:13Speaker 1: exactly what he said to me in direct message, which
- 29:16Speaker 1: was one hundred percent, no one contacted me. This story
- 29:20Speaker 1: is horse crap. Again I'm paraphrasing. And so then I
- 29:25Speaker 1: keep watching and one by one, other members of the
- 29:30Speaker 1: Fox News Channel weekend crew start making remarkably similar statements
- 29:35Speaker 1: that Will Kine made that they never witnessed anything like this,
- 29:40Speaker 1: Seemingly they were never contacted by NBC. Will keeps retweeting
- 29:46Speaker 1: all of them, and at times even quote tweeting them.
- 29:49Speaker 1: So it appears I don't have direct knowledge of this,
- 29:53Speaker 1: but from my observation, it appears as if Will.
- 29:56Speaker 2: Maybe on his own, maybe at my urging, maybe a
- 29:58Speaker 2: little bit of both.
- 30:00Speaker 1: Exactly what I wanted him to do was that he
- 30:03Speaker 1: corralled other Fox News Channel employees, not just to support
- 30:08Speaker 1: Pete Heg's death, but also to make the point that
- 30:12Speaker 1: they were never contacted, and the fact that they were
- 30:15Speaker 1: never contacted obliterates the credibility of the story, obliterates it.
- 30:22Speaker 2: I'm willing to at least listen to ten anonymous sources.
- 30:26Speaker 1: Anonymous sources don't prove anything, especially in this very part
- 30:29Speaker 1: of the media era, but I'm at least willing to
- 30:31Speaker 1: listen until I find out you didn't even bother to
- 30:36Speaker 1: contact the very public people that would have absolutely positively
- 30:42Speaker 1: known if this was true.
- 30:44Speaker 2: Now, that doesn't mean, by the way, that this group.
- 30:47Speaker 1: Of people that all came forward to support Pete Hegstath
- 30:51Speaker 1: would have been trustworthy or credible. I mean Don Bengino
- 30:55Speaker 1: or Bongino, who I have no respect for Dan Bongino,
- 31:00Speaker 1: one of them would I would have no. I would
- 31:03Speaker 1: put no credibility in what Dan Bongino says, because he's
- 31:07Speaker 1: an absolute trumpster and a moron, and I don't have
- 31:10Speaker 1: any reason to have any faith in his word. But
- 31:13Speaker 1: it's not just Dan Bongino. It's Will Caine, and it's
- 31:16Speaker 1: a bunch of female hosts as well that are on
- 31:19Speaker 1: this show, and they're all saying, not only did they
- 31:22Speaker 1: not witness this, but they were not contacted. And at
- 31:26Speaker 1: the very least, if you're going after people and you
- 31:29Speaker 1: come after come up with ten anonymous sources, seven of
- 31:33Speaker 1: whom don't even work in Fox News Channel anymore, they
- 31:36Speaker 1: claim this. For that to be credible, you have to
- 31:40Speaker 1: have at least spoken to Will Caine and others like him,
- 31:43Speaker 1: and there's no evidence they even tried. So what does
- 31:46Speaker 1: that tell you, Well, that tells you at best, at best,
- 31:51Speaker 1: they were trying to target people who might give them
- 31:55Speaker 1: the story they wanted at best, because the reason they
- 31:59Speaker 1: didn't go after the on air people was that they
- 32:01Speaker 1: had very strong suspicions that those people were going to
- 32:04Speaker 1: contradict their story because they are friends with and fans
- 32:09Speaker 1: of Pete Hegstad, and obviously they have a public reputation
- 32:13Speaker 1: within the Trump base to protect. So you wouldn't go
- 32:19Speaker 1: ask Will Kine or certainly Dan Bongino if you didn't
- 32:23Speaker 1: want a contrarian view of this.
- 32:26Speaker 2: That's the best case scenario.
- 32:29Speaker 1: The worst case scenario is this is all effectively made up.
- 32:35Speaker 1: When you have anonymous sources, you can't get one person
- 32:39Speaker 1: on the record, and the only people that are on
- 32:41Speaker 1: the record or those like Will Cain and others who
- 32:44Speaker 1: were right there and should know whether or.
- 32:46Speaker 2: Not this is true.
- 32:48Speaker 1: And they're not just saying it's false, they're saying, fucking a,
- 32:52Speaker 1: it's false.
- 32:53Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
- 32:54Speaker 1: Your story has no credibility, no credibility, and you have
- 33:00Speaker 1: have to at least consider the possibility that it's.
- 33:03Speaker 2: Largely, if not totally, made up.
- 33:06Speaker 1: And it is really difficult for me to even contemplate
- 33:11Speaker 1: that this could be made up. Not because they're not
- 33:14Speaker 1: capable of being that corrupt, I just find it impossible
- 33:19Speaker 1: to believe that they're this stupid. I mean corruption, I get.
- 33:25Speaker 1: This level of stupidity is if it's even close to
- 33:31Speaker 1: how I currently evaluate it, if this story is even
- 33:35Speaker 1: a little bit made up. Frankly, even if it's not
- 33:38Speaker 1: made up, even if they just decided we're only gonna
- 33:40Speaker 1: talk to people we think are that they're gonna give
- 33:42Speaker 1: us what we want to hear, and they're gonna do
- 33:44Speaker 1: so anonymously.
- 33:46Speaker 2: To do this.
- 33:47Speaker 1: Involving Fox News is coossally stupid, colossally stupid.
- 33:56Speaker 2: Because they had to know, they had to know.
- 33:59Speaker 1: That Fox News Channel personalities. We're going to be deeply
- 34:03Speaker 1: incentivized to contradict their story if it wasn't real. That's
- 34:09Speaker 1: why at first I was looking around, going, well, right
- 34:12Speaker 1: now the silence is deafening. Well, that was only like
- 34:16Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty minutes something like that before Will Caine
- 34:21Speaker 1: started the counter attack and then the floodgates open, And
- 34:27Speaker 1: so now I'm looking at this story completely differently. Had
- 34:30Speaker 1: there not been a Will Caine and others with a
- 34:36Speaker 1: counter attack here, I would be telling you a very
- 34:38Speaker 1: different story right now. I would be telling you, well,
- 34:41Speaker 1: this is ten anonymous sources. That doesn't really win the day.
- 34:46Speaker 1: But you know, where's the other side. The silence here
- 34:49Speaker 1: is definiting. Where are the Pete Hextas supporters? Because in
- 34:53Speaker 1: the media world, if this was real, everybody would know
- 34:58Speaker 1: about it or at least have heard a room about it.
- 35:01Speaker 1: There's no way you can hide this. I mean, come on,
- 35:05Speaker 1: and for NBC to be this dumb to either contrive
- 35:10Speaker 1: or concoct or manipulate a story when the opponent is
- 35:15Speaker 1: Fox News Channel, you just can't do that. If this
- 35:21Speaker 1: was at a normal company where you you know, not
- 35:25Speaker 1: everybody had Twitter followings with hundreds of thousands of followers,
- 35:31Speaker 1: and obviously the ability to go on the most popular
- 35:35Speaker 1: cable news network in a moment's notice to tell their
- 35:38Speaker 1: side of the story. That would be one thing you
- 35:41Speaker 1: could get away with that not as easily in this
- 35:44Speaker 1: day and age. But to go after Fox News Channel
- 35:48Speaker 1: is just so dumb unless you absolutely positively have.
- 35:53Speaker 2: The goods and they don't have the goods on this story.
- 35:57Speaker 1: Again, I want to emphasize, is it possible that Pete
- 35:59Speaker 1: had death has a drinking problem and that drinking problem
- 36:04Speaker 1: may have had some semblance of influence over his work
- 36:10Speaker 1: at Fox News Channel.
- 36:11Speaker 2: Yeah, that's possible.
- 36:12Speaker 1: I mean, there are all sorts of other stories already
- 36:14Speaker 1: out there where Pete Hegg's death has an issue with alcohol.
- 36:18Speaker 1: How big of an issue is an important question, because,
- 36:21Speaker 1: as we all know, there's a massive chasm between somebody
- 36:26Speaker 1: likes to have a couple of drinks on an a
- 36:29Speaker 1: Friday or Saturday night and somebody who is an alcoholic.
- 36:34Speaker 1: Those are two very, very different things, especially when trying
- 36:37Speaker 1: to evaluate whether they can be the Defense Secretary of
- 36:40Speaker 1: the United States of America. But NBC's story does not
- 36:44Speaker 1: come close to meeting the threshold of journalism, especially now
- 36:50Speaker 1: that we see the backlash from those at Fox News Channel,
- 36:55Speaker 1: who absolutely positively would have known if this was true.
- 36:59Speaker 1: And I went one more time, this wasn't just you, Now,
- 37:03Speaker 1: that's I never saw anything like that. I mean, that
- 37:05Speaker 1: would be like the normal reaction of a newsperson to
- 37:10Speaker 1: a story that involved them that they didn't have anything
- 37:13Speaker 1: to add to. They would say something like, I never
- 37:16Speaker 1: witnessed anything like this, and that would be it. That's
- 37:19Speaker 1: not what these people are saying. They're all saying exactly
- 37:22Speaker 1: the same thing as Will Caine, absolutely positively not.
- 37:26Speaker 2: This is bullshit.
- 37:27Speaker 1: Now, granted, they have an incentive to use more incendiary
- 37:32Speaker 1: language one because they like Pete hex Steath than two
- 37:34Speaker 1: because they know their audiences hate NBC and like Pete
- 37:38Speaker 1: Headstack and so so all the incentives here are a
- 37:42Speaker 1: bit askew. You know, this is partially the price we
- 37:46Speaker 1: pay for this screwed up world of the death of
- 37:49Speaker 1: journalism that we're living in. But I tend to believe
- 37:54Speaker 1: Will Caine, and I tend to believe Will Caine because
- 37:57Speaker 1: of the fact that his view has been substantiated by
- 38:00Speaker 1: multiple members of the Fox News Channel staff, and also
- 38:05Speaker 1: again basically just understanding the way the media works and
- 38:08Speaker 1: all the rumors that fly around the news media. I mean,
- 38:10Speaker 1: that's the nature of the news media, that's nature of
- 38:13Speaker 1: people that are in the news media.
- 38:14Speaker 2: If this was real, people would know about it.
- 38:18Speaker 1: And now, of course you might say, well, John, NBC
- 38:21Speaker 1: found ten people who knew about it.
- 38:23Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're.
- 38:24Speaker 1: All anonymous, and clearly NBC went to them under the
- 38:30Speaker 1: presumption that those people are even real. I can't believe
- 38:33Speaker 1: I'm even openly contemplating that they could have just made
- 38:37Speaker 1: this up.
- 38:39Speaker 2: But that's possible, and you know, I just that's if so.
- 38:44Speaker 1: I mean, that's just would be one of the worst
- 38:48Speaker 1: journalistic offenses I've ever seen. I mean, if they purposely
- 38:52Speaker 1: made it up, even I have a hard time believing
- 38:54Speaker 1: that that. Now there's a you know, different definitions of
- 38:57Speaker 1: making something up. You can manipipulate somebody into saying something
- 39:01Speaker 1: that you want them to say, especially when it's anonymous,
- 39:04Speaker 1: and I guess that's making it up. But you at
- 39:06Speaker 1: least still spoke to somebody who was either a former
- 39:10Speaker 1: or current Fox News Channel employee. But I think all
- 39:13Speaker 1: bets are off on this story because they didn't even
- 39:16Speaker 1: bother to contact Will Caine and many others like him.
- 39:20Speaker 1: I have zero faith in this story, zero And I
- 39:24Speaker 1: think any scenario is possible, And it's just an absolute
- 39:30Speaker 1: stunter that NBC could be both this corrupt and or
- 39:34Speaker 1: stupid or both to do something like this involving another
- 39:39Speaker 1: news media outlet.
- 39:40Speaker 2: So I don't believe the story is credible.
- 39:43Speaker 1: Is it possible that Pete Heggstath still has a major
- 39:46Speaker 1: problem with alcoholism?
- 39:48Speaker 2: Yeah, I do.
- 39:49Speaker 1: I still think the Hegxteath nomination is in trouble. The
- 39:54Speaker 1: news media definitely sees blood in the water, There's no
- 39:58Speaker 1: question about that, and they're acting on it.
- 40:02Speaker 3: You know.
- 40:02Speaker 1: They didn't get Brett Kavanaugh, and they think they got
- 40:05Speaker 1: Matt Gates, so maybe they're.
- 40:07Speaker 2: Feeling a little bit more confident. Maybe.
- 40:10Speaker 1: One of the worst examples of the media going after
- 40:13Speaker 1: Heckstaff came from CBS News and Nora O'Donnell, someone I've
- 40:17Speaker 1: talked a lot about on this podcast, an obvious liberal
- 40:20Speaker 1: hack from her days at MSNBC, somehow becomes the anchor
- 40:24Speaker 1: of the CBS Evening News, a formerly prestigious journalistic position
- 40:29Speaker 1: but now has a history of hiring liberals who only
- 40:33Speaker 1: become overtly liberal hacks after they leave the position. Although
- 40:37Speaker 1: Nora o'donald kind of went in the opposite direction. She
- 40:40Speaker 1: was a liberal hack at MSNBC. They cleaned her up,
- 40:44Speaker 1: and here she is acting as a liberal hack, very traumatically,
- 40:49Speaker 1: starting the CBS Evening News with an attack on Pete Hegstath,
- 40:53Speaker 1: using both the sex abuse allegations against him as well
- 40:57Speaker 1: as issues related to his use of alcohol.
- 41:00Speaker 2: And here's what that sounded like on CBS Good Evening.
- 41:03Speaker 5: I'm Nora O'Donnell, and we begin with new reporting tonight
- 41:06Speaker 5: by CBS News. The highest priority of the President of
- 41:10Speaker 5: the United States is the safety and security of the
- 41:14Speaker 5: American people. As the commander in chief, Presidents rely on
- 41:17Speaker 5: their defense secretaries to help carry out that solemn task.
- 41:21Speaker 5: President like Donald Trump, wanted a Fox News Weekend host
- 41:24Speaker 5: to hold that post, the forty four year old combat
- 41:27Speaker 5: veteran Pete Hegseth, But tonight that nomination appears to be
- 41:31Speaker 5: on the rocks. Hegseth is facing new allegations of sexual
- 41:34Speaker 5: misconduct and excessive drinking. Tonight's CBS News has learned that
- 41:38Speaker 5: Hegseth may not have the support of enough Republican Senators
- 41:43Speaker 5: to be confirmed for the job, meaning his nomination is
- 41:45Speaker 5: in serious jeopardy.
- 41:47Speaker 1: So this is war. The news media is going after Hegstath.
- 41:53Speaker 1: Whether or not they're going to be successful is a
- 41:56Speaker 1: lot like the Brett Kavanaugh situation. It's a tough call.
- 42:00Speaker 1: It's right on the precipice right now. And I've already
- 42:03Speaker 1: made the argument that Trump is not nearly as incentivized
- 42:08Speaker 1: to stand by Hegstad as he was Kavanaugh. And part
- 42:13Speaker 1: of the reason is not just because of how Trump
- 42:15Speaker 1: feels about alcohol and alcoholism, but also because it's a
- 42:20Speaker 1: lot easier to replace, a lot easier to replace Hegstath
- 42:25Speaker 1: as Defense Secretary, especially since we're not even to Christmas yet,
- 42:30Speaker 1: and you know, this doesn't really become a major issue
- 42:33Speaker 1: until January, so there's plenty of time to get rid
- 42:37Speaker 1: of Hex's death and replace him.
- 42:40Speaker 2: And the name.
- 42:41Speaker 1: That's been floated, which has created quite a stir is
- 42:45Speaker 1: Florida Governor Ron de Santis. The Wall Street Journal had
- 42:49Speaker 1: a headline yesterday Trump moules replacing Pete Hegstad.
- 42:54Speaker 2: With Florida Governor Ron de Santis.
- 42:56Speaker 1: The President elect is discussing replacing the current Pentagon nominee
- 43:01Speaker 1: as the former Fox News's faces mounting scrutiny over allegations
- 43:05Speaker 1: about his personal life. Now there are a lot of
- 43:10Speaker 1: there's so much mind virus within the pro Trump forces,
- 43:14Speaker 1: especially on Trump on social media, almost.
- 43:17Speaker 2: On Trump media.
- 43:18Speaker 1: But that's a lot what Twitter has become since Elon
- 43:21Speaker 1: Musk bought Twitter. And so there's so many people saying
- 43:26Speaker 1: that this is actually a sign that Hexstath has got
- 43:29Speaker 1: to be the guy because the establishment is trying to
- 43:32Speaker 1: replace him with rod DeSantis, who they still somehow.
- 43:36Speaker 2: See as an establishment figure.
- 43:38Speaker 1: I don't know how the hell Ronde Santis is an
- 43:41Speaker 1: establishment figure, but this is the screwed up.
- 43:43Speaker 2: World in which we're living.
- 43:45Speaker 1: But from a media tea Leave perspective, I do think
- 43:50Speaker 1: this is significant. I don't know whether not Rohnda Santis
- 43:53Speaker 1: is really being considered as the replacement for Hegstath. I mean,
- 43:57Speaker 1: there are those that are putting things out there side
- 44:00Speaker 1: sources that say this story is horsecrap. I have inside
- 44:03Speaker 1: sources that say this story is absolutely true. There's word
- 44:07Speaker 1: out this morning that Trump is standing by Heg's death,
- 44:11Speaker 1: but that's obviously for now. But the fact that this
- 44:15Speaker 1: would make it into the Wall Street Journal and also
- 44:17Speaker 1: the New York post another news Corp, news organization owned
- 44:21Speaker 1: by the same company that knowns Fox News Channel is
- 44:25Speaker 1: very very interesting. And there's already been some murmurs that
- 44:29Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham, uh, you know, senator from South Carolina, who
- 44:33Speaker 1: is very influential in this, is jumping off the Hegg's
- 44:36Speaker 1: death bandwagon. There are other senators have been indicated similar concerns.
- 44:42Speaker 1: He can only lose a couple of these senators before
- 44:45Speaker 1: it becomes a very serious problem. And obviously Murkowski and
- 44:49Speaker 1: Collins are always going to be an issue in situations
- 44:52Speaker 1: like this. So I think right now that Heg's death
- 44:58Speaker 1: he's not toast, but I think there's a pretty good
- 45:02Speaker 1: chance he's not going to be the Defense Secretary. It's
- 45:05Speaker 1: just it's hard for me to imagine how the Santis
- 45:09Speaker 1: trial balloon makes it into a prominent article in the
- 45:13Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and Heg's.
- 45:17Speaker 2: Death still survives.
- 45:19Speaker 1: That's hard for me to see how that could happen. Now,
- 45:22Speaker 1: as far as now, I'm not saying it's impossible.
- 45:25Speaker 2: I'm putting it.
- 45:26Speaker 1: You know, we're into like fifty five to forty five
- 45:29Speaker 1: territory as far as where Heig's death is right now,
- 45:32Speaker 1: and I would say, his chances of eventually becoming Defense
- 45:35Speaker 1: Secretary are probably in the forty five range and probably
- 45:39Speaker 1: trending lower.
- 45:40Speaker 2: As far as DeSantis is concerned, I.
- 45:43Speaker 1: Hesitate to even go down this path because I don't
- 45:46Speaker 1: feel like this story is real.
- 45:49Speaker 2: I mean, it's almost too good to be true.
- 45:50Speaker 1: As the Santas fan, because if he were to become
- 45:54Speaker 1: Defense Secretary, although he would obviously give up his last
- 45:57Speaker 1: two years as governor of Florida, it would at least
- 46:00Speaker 1: give him a new chapter in his career. There would
- 46:04Speaker 1: be a you know, a path for a future, and
- 46:08Speaker 1: you know, he would be Defense Secretary, presumably for four years.
- 46:13Speaker 1: I don't think that would put him in a great
- 46:14Speaker 1: position at all to run for president in twenty twenty eight,
- 46:18Speaker 1: unless there was a falling out between JD. Vance and
- 46:22Speaker 1: Donald Trump, which is the only way that anybody other
- 46:25Speaker 1: than JD. Vance is going to be the Republican nominee
- 46:28Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. But let's say there was a
- 46:31Speaker 1: falling out between JD. Vans and Donald Trump, having, you know,
- 46:38Speaker 1: Rohn de Santis be the Defense Secretary, although he got
- 46:40Speaker 1: to resign presumably to run.
- 46:43Speaker 2: Would would be a pretty good place for which to
- 46:45Speaker 2: do that.
- 46:47Speaker 1: He's not really that qualified for the position, although he
- 46:50Speaker 1: obviously has served in the military, but he certainly has
- 46:54Speaker 1: the makeup to do the job I referenced to. The
- 46:57Speaker 1: Defense secretary position is really the CEO of the largest,
- 47:01Speaker 1: most complex corporation in the world, and this is a
- 47:05Speaker 1: job that Ron de Santis, regardless of what his resume says,
- 47:08Speaker 1: Rond de Santis would be very well suited to do,
- 47:11Speaker 1: and philosophically he would be exactly the same as Pete Hegstaff,
- 47:16Speaker 1: especially when it came to DEI and political correctness and
- 47:20Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So I have zero doubt
- 47:23Speaker 1: that Ron de Santis would do a great job as
- 47:27Speaker 1: Defense Secretary, and it would theoretically keep his future presidential
- 47:32Speaker 1: hopes at least flickering, because I think they're currently pretty
- 47:37Speaker 1: much dead.
- 47:38Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he's turned out.
- 47:40Speaker 1: In twenty twenty six, he can't beat jd Vance in
- 47:45Speaker 1: a Republican prominent primary. If Trump is backing Vance even
- 47:49Speaker 1: a little bit, I mean, it wouldn't even.
- 47:51Speaker 2: Have to endorse Dvance. I think the Advance would still.
- 47:55Speaker 1: Be the nominee, unless again, there was a clear falling
- 47:59Speaker 1: out between him and Trump.
- 48:01Speaker 2: But if you completely change pass here, and.
- 48:04Speaker 1: DeSantis has said he's not interested in a cabinet position,
- 48:08Speaker 1: but this one is this one's a horse of a
- 48:10Speaker 1: different color. This is this is a big deal Defense secretary.
- 48:14Speaker 1: And I could see DeSantis changing his mind on this,
- 48:19Speaker 1: especially given these current circumstances. But my gut tells me
- 48:22Speaker 1: that that would just be too good to be true.
- 48:25Speaker 1: It's hard for me to imagine that DeSantis ends up
- 48:28Speaker 1: as the Defense secretary, but who knows. I think what
- 48:31Speaker 1: we have here is a very very fluid situation, and
- 48:35Speaker 1: I don't think that he's dead can survive much more,
- 48:39Speaker 1: you know, you know there can't. The ice here is
- 48:41Speaker 1: extremely thin, but he has a lot of support, and
- 48:47Speaker 1: you know, I would very much like to know what
- 48:49Speaker 1: the hell really happened with an NBC story, because that
- 48:54Speaker 1: story smells the high heaven. I don't think it's going
- 48:57Speaker 1: to really hurt Hegstad's specific or directly, but if the
- 49:03Speaker 1: drum beat continues and there continues to be stories like
- 49:06Speaker 1: this at a certain point, especially when it comes to
- 49:09Speaker 1: the subject of alcoholism, Trump's going to pull the plug
- 49:12Speaker 1: on this. I don't think there's much doubt about that.
- 49:15Speaker 1: So Hegstaff cannot survive much more. Now, speaking of Ron
- 49:20Speaker 1: de Santis, there is some interesting news on the COVID
- 49:24Speaker 1: front where obviously DeSantis, in my view, saved the country
- 49:29Speaker 1: from the COVID panic by reversing course sooner than almost
- 49:33Speaker 1: anyone else did and doing so and by far the
- 49:36Speaker 1: most high profile position that being the governor of Florida.
- 49:40Speaker 1: I really truly believe that if Ron DeSantis had been
- 49:43Speaker 1: more like Mike the Wine in Ohio, who was awful
- 49:47Speaker 1: on COVID, that the entire COVID panic would have lasted
- 49:50Speaker 1: longer and would have had a much more negative impact,
- 49:56Speaker 1: as even as much of a negative impact as it
- 49:58Speaker 1: already did have on the higher country. I think DeSantis
- 50:02Speaker 1: saved us, and he saved us specifically in blue states
- 50:05Speaker 1: like here in California, because Newsom couldn't continue this anymore.
- 50:12Speaker 1: De Santa's single handedly or almost single handedly made it
- 50:15Speaker 1: untenable eventually for Newsom to continue the tyranny. And the
- 50:20Speaker 1: House Subcommittee on the COVID Pandemic released their final report.
- 50:27Speaker 1: Now this is a Republican dominated committee, but they released
- 50:31Speaker 1: their final report on their investigation into the so called
- 50:36Speaker 1: COVID pandemic, and here are some of the conclusions that
- 50:40Speaker 1: they came to, and these are really amazing. Of course,
- 50:42Speaker 1: the news media has absolutely no incentive to amplify these
- 50:46Speaker 1: at all. They'll just dismissed this as some sort of
- 50:48Speaker 1: you know, Republican propaganda job done by the Republican House.
- 50:54Speaker 1: Are members of the Republican House, and so here's what
- 50:58Speaker 1: they came up with. The Biden administration repeatedly obstructed the
- 51:04Speaker 1: COVID Select Committee's investigations. Doctor Fauci's senior advisor, doctor David Morin's,
- 51:10Speaker 1: violated multiple NIH policies.
- 51:13Speaker 2: And likely lied to Congress.
- 51:16Speaker 1: Rather than prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable populations,
- 51:20Speaker 1: federal and state government policies forced millions of Americans to
- 51:24Speaker 1: forego crucial elements of a healthy, happy, and financially sound life.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Federal and state governments had significant lapses in coordination, lack
- 51:36Speaker 1: proper oversight functions, and were unprepared to oversee the allocation
- 51:41Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen relief funds. Contrary to what was promised,
- 51:46Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen vaccine did not stop the spread or
- 51:51Speaker 1: transmission of the virus. Well, that's interesting considering the fact
- 51:55Speaker 1: that obviously these are all Trump's supporters, Trump's going to
- 51:59Speaker 1: be again, and Trump is still pretending as if Operation
- 52:03Speaker 1: Warp Speed was the greatest thing that ever happened in
- 52:06Speaker 1: the history of man.
- 52:07Speaker 2: So I found that to be.
- 52:09Speaker 1: Particularly significant and also obviously very very accurate, but something
- 52:13Speaker 1: that the mainstream news media has never acknowledged. Back to
- 52:17Speaker 1: their conclusions, vaccine mandates trampled individual freedoms and harmed military readiness.
- 52:25Speaker 1: More than one hundred and sixty thousand businesses closed due
- 52:31Speaker 1: to the COVID nineteen pandemic, although I would suggest it
- 52:36Speaker 1: was the response to the pandemic. Maybe that's what they
- 52:38Speaker 1: really meant, but that's what this summary says. With sixty
- 52:42Speaker 1: percent of those closures classified as permanent, I mean, that
- 52:47Speaker 1: is just tragic and something that's not talked nearly enough about.
- 52:52Speaker 2: I mean, sixty percent of those one hundred.
- 52:54Speaker 1: And sixty thousand businesses were closed due to the panic. Minutely,
- 53:01Speaker 1: children experienced historic learning loss, higher rates of psychological distress,
- 53:08Speaker 1: and decreased physical well being. Not to mention, I will
- 53:13Speaker 1: add that this is still ongoing today for a number
- 53:18Speaker 1: of reasons, including an increased rate of truancy, which is
- 53:21Speaker 1: what I predicted. What happened because when you cancel school
- 53:25Speaker 1: like we did here in California for well over a
- 53:28Speaker 1: year for no real parent, legitimate reason, people are going
- 53:35Speaker 1: to take the message that guess what, school's not important?
- 53:38Speaker 1: And if you try to pretend that you're doing school
- 53:40Speaker 1: via zoom, then guess what going to school isn't important.
- 53:44Speaker 1: They destroyed the entire sanctity of going to school, the
- 53:50Speaker 1: entire idea that missing school was wrong and damaging, and
- 53:55Speaker 1: that is going to be, if not permanent, that's going
- 53:58Speaker 1: to remain the case for a very long time, and
- 54:01Speaker 1: one a classic example of how liberals refuse to understand
- 54:07Speaker 1: the concept of unintended consequences and slippery slopes and domino
- 54:12Speaker 1: effects and things like that.
- 54:15Speaker 2: And that was always obviously going to be the case.
- 54:18Speaker 1: But the impact on children, which I've talked about a
- 54:21Speaker 1: lot because obviously I have two young daughters during the
- 54:24Speaker 1: COVID panic, is something that the news media has never
- 54:28Speaker 1: fully discussed, and it's absolutely outrageous. Other conclusions include unemployment
- 54:34Speaker 1: rates surge to levels not seen since the Great Depression,
- 54:39Speaker 1: and a lab related incident involving dangerous gain of function.
- 54:45Speaker 1: Research in China is the most likely origin of the
- 54:50Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic, and that whole effort used taxpayer dollars
- 54:56Speaker 1: to facilitate gain of function research in Wuhan, China. That's
- 55:02Speaker 1: a devastating report, one that the news media, of course,
- 55:06Speaker 1: is doing their best to ignore because after all, that's
- 55:09Speaker 1: just Republicans in Congress, and of course they are deeply, deeply,
- 55:13Speaker 1: deeply invested in never revisiting this because.
- 55:18Speaker 2: They enabled and promoted.
- 55:21Speaker 1: The whole thing in conjunction with Democrats in general, specifically
- 55:26Speaker 1: blue state governors, and they did so in large part because,
- 55:30Speaker 1: at least subconsciously, they realized this was going to greatly
- 55:34Speaker 1: damage Donald Trump's re election effort. There were a lot
- 55:37Speaker 1: of other reasons, panic being the number one humans deal
- 55:42Speaker 1: with panics very very very poorly, but there were also
- 55:47Speaker 1: political reasons, philosophical reasons. They were also, I mean, I've
- 55:51Speaker 1: gone through this many times before, but and nothing shocking
- 55:54Speaker 1: from this subcommittee report. But it's still worth revisiting because
- 55:59Speaker 1: we live in an area where journalism is dead, and
- 56:01Speaker 1: the news media to this day has never even come
- 56:05Speaker 1: close to fully revisiting the most significant cultural event in
- 56:11Speaker 1: the modern history of this country, which is just stupefying, frustrating,
- 56:15Speaker 1: but another indication that we are living in the era
- 56:18Speaker 1: of the death of journalism. I want to move now
- 56:20Speaker 1: into the realm of sports. Although this is not really
- 56:24Speaker 1: I guess it's somewhat of a sports issue, but it's
- 56:26Speaker 1: something that I've talked an awful lot about how football
- 56:30Speaker 1: and tackle football is in grave danger, mostly because the
- 56:34Speaker 1: National Football League is systematically trying to destroy the essence
- 56:40Speaker 1: of tackle football. I believe they're doing so mostly because
- 56:44Speaker 1: they see the issue of concussions as an existential threat
- 56:49Speaker 1: to their extremely profitable business, and so I have used
- 56:54Speaker 1: the analogy of chemical castration. They know that they can't
- 56:58Speaker 1: get away with eliminating tackle football overnight, so they're going
- 57:03Speaker 1: to do it bit by bit, piece by piece, and
- 57:05Speaker 1: hope that over time, a desensitized public doesn't even understand it,
- 57:11Speaker 1: doesn't fully recognize it, or maybe doesn't even care, actually
- 57:14Speaker 1: ends up liking this new product where you know, offenses
- 57:19Speaker 1: dominate and scoring increases, and you know, the game totally changes.
- 57:27Speaker 2: By the way, there's.
- 57:28Speaker 1: No evidence that that this is a wrong evaluation so
- 57:31Speaker 1: far on the part of the National Football League, because
- 57:35Speaker 1: ratings are extremely high, especially given the limitations of fragmentation,
- 57:41Speaker 1: and you know, cord cutting and everything else that's harming
- 57:44Speaker 1: the television business. So it's hard to argue from a
- 57:48Speaker 1: business standpoint, But from a football perspective, I am totally
- 57:53Speaker 1: convinced that tackle football is in grave danger. And something
- 57:57Speaker 1: happened this past weekend that was really really telling and
- 58:03Speaker 1: very interesting and weirdly gave me a little bit of hope.
- 58:08Speaker 1: I know, I'm not known for my optimism, but there's
- 58:12Speaker 1: at least a glimmer of hope in this whole situation.
- 58:15Speaker 2: What I'm referring to is what happened in.
- 58:18Speaker 1: A game between the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars
- 58:22Speaker 1: when the Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was running out of
- 58:26Speaker 1: the pocket and he was running downfield and he slid.
- 58:32Speaker 2: Now, in modern football.
- 58:34Speaker 1: Now we have this what I view as a very
- 58:37Speaker 1: stupid slide rule where the quarterback, if they slide feet first,
- 58:43Speaker 1: they're automatically down where the slide began and you're effectively
- 58:48Speaker 1: not allowed to touch the quarterback at that point. And
- 58:52Speaker 1: so it's supposed to protect the quarterback and theory, and
- 58:56Speaker 1: it's to me this is a classic liberal conservative thing.
- 58:59Speaker 1: I mentioned this on social media, and liberals think I'm
- 59:02Speaker 1: absolutely crazy for thinking this has anything to do with politics,
- 59:05Speaker 1: because they don't understand the way the liberal mind works
- 59:09Speaker 1: versus the way the conservative mind works. This, to me
- 59:11Speaker 1: is a classic example of where, well, okay, we got
- 59:14Speaker 1: a problem.
- 59:16Speaker 2: We got to protect the quarterback. So let's make a rule.
- 59:19Speaker 2: Let's make a rule.
- 59:20Speaker 1: And we'll live in this ivory tower, this utopian world
- 59:25Speaker 1: where a quarterback can just slide and they're down automatically,
- 59:29Speaker 1: they're giving themselves up and that way, you know, quarterbacks
- 59:33Speaker 1: can run out of the pocket, but they're not going
- 59:35Speaker 1: to make.
- 59:35Speaker 2: Themselves vulnerable to major injury.
- 59:39Speaker 1: Now, you know, sacks are one thing, because generally quarterbacks
- 59:41Speaker 1: don't get hurt, especially in the modern era, when they're sacked,
- 59:45Speaker 1: because now basically you have to gently bring the quarterback
- 59:48Speaker 1: to the ground otherwise you're literally going to get a
- 59:50Speaker 1: personal foul penalty. But when you're in the open field,
- 59:55Speaker 1: you're a little bit more vulnerable to injury for a
- 59:58Speaker 1: whole bunch of reasons. One of the witches, the speed
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: of the tackler is greatly increased in general, especially in
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: the post Lawrence Tarrell Taylor era, there are no more
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: Lawrence Taylors. In fact, Lawrence Taylor probably couldn't even play
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: football today because of the rules. So in the open field,
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: the quarterback is more vulnerable to injury. So they decided,
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: let's come up with this rule where if you slide
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: that you're down, and that'll make everybody happy because you're
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: effectively tackled at that moment, but there's no chance of injury. Well,
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: that's a naive, utopian world because it doesn't understand, like
- 1:00:36Speaker 1: the liberal mind cannot seemingly understand that that is creating
- 1:00:40Speaker 1: a loophole that people are eventually going to take advantage of.
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: And that loophole is the defender doesn't know for sure
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: when you're starting to slide, and it's quite easy to
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: fake a slide and keep running. And at that point,
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: you've now put the defender in an impossible situation because
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: once you start faking the slide, what is the tackler
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: supposed to do. He cannot presume that just because it
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: looks like you're sliding that that means immediately they have
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: to abort the tackle. And what I don't think a
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: lot of fans and certainly not a lot of people
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: in charge fully understand is the speed with which you
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: have to make this decision as a defender. It's like
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: an instantaneous millisecond thing in the open field where you
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: have to decide, Okay, am I going to try to
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: tackle this guy or is he going to slide?
- 1:01:41Speaker 2: I mean, there's no time to make this decision.
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: And once you make the decision, it is really difficult to,
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: as I already said, abort it. It is very difficult.
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: It's just not physically possible. Physics makes it essentially impossible,
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: especially at the SPA in the modern National Football League,
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: that things are going. These are incredible athletes going at
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: very high rates of speed. Well occasionally, because of this
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: problem that's been created by what I view as a
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: stupid rule and some quarterbacks like Patrick Mahons and Josh
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: Allen abusing this rule to their own benefit, you're gonna
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: have a perfect storm set of circumstances occur and bad
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: things are gonna happen. And that happened over the weekend
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: when Houston Texans defender Aziz Al Sharier made a hit
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: on Jacksonville's quarterback Trevor Lawrence after he was sliding and
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: he hit him in the head and it looked absolutely awful.
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: And when the quarterback was hitting the head, his head
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: hit the ground and he apparently was maybe been knocked out,
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: but he clearly had a concussion. He had to be
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: taken off the field. He did not return to the game.
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: And so this became a huge deal, especially because immediately
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: the hit, looking as awful as it did, Jacksonville Jaguars
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: teammates went after al Sharier and they went after him
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: in a big way.
- 1:03:20Speaker 2: Basically a melee ensued and.
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: Basically a fight broke out, which only furthered the perception that,
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: oh my god, this was an unprecedented dirty play because
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: players don't generally react that way, and al Sharier was
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: kicked out of the game and eventually Alsherier was given
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: a three game suspension, a three game suspension for this
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: hit on Trevor Lawrence.
- 1:03:53Speaker 2: Now, when I saw this, I'm like, oh geez, what
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: do I do?
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: Because I know I know that everybody on social media
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: is going to be outraged by this.
- 1:04:04Speaker 2: The virtue signaling is going to be off the charts.
- 1:04:08Speaker 1: Nobody is going to want to defend this hit because
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: it looks terrible.
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: It looks awful, and because Lawrence got hurt. And it always.
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: Bothers me that the result of a play like this
- 1:04:22Speaker 1: has such a large impact on how we perceive the
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: intent or the action. I mean to me, so if
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: Lawrence doesn't get a concussion, does that mean that there's
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: not a three game suspension? I mean, it's a bit
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: I don't know. To me, the outcome doesn't really matter
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: that much. It's the intent and the actual action. Like,
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: for instance, I've never understood how it attempted murder gets
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: penalized or punished so much less than actual murder.
- 1:04:53Speaker 2: Like, so we're giving you a.
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: Benefit, you're getting less punishment because you're really bad at murder.
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: Your actions and your intent were exactly the same. So
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: the results shouldn't matter that much when it comes to punishment.
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: Shouldn't matter in theory at all. Really, and in a
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: weird way, I think there's an analogy to be made
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: in this situation.
- 1:05:16Speaker 2: But I'm a realist, and you know, Lauren's getting.
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: A concussion, being taken out of the game, the Jacksonville
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: players reacting so dramatically and the hit looking so bad.
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: I knew, I knew this was going to be one
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: of those deals where almost everybody was going to be
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: on one side, and I didn't really want to get
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: into the fray, but I couldn't resist it, so I
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: started tweeting that, Okay, I realized this looks terrible and
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: I got no problem with there being a penalty on
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: the play, but ejection and then eventually we didn't know
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: this at the time, a three game suspension is way
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: too much, even though al Sharia has a bit of
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: a history.
- 1:06:00Speaker 2: Although there are those on the Houston Texans that.
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: Are strongly defending him as a human being and saying
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: that this is not who he is. But and reputation
- 1:06:09Speaker 1: shouldn't matter that much, but it does when it comes
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: to people evaluating this situation. And I don't want to
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: get too deeply involved in this, but to me, this
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: is important because this might have been a seminal moment
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: in the history of tackle football in the National Football
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: League because my argument was, all right, so let's use
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: our brains for a second. First of all, we have
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: the issue of the fear of a quarterback faking the slide,
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: so that greatly reduces the time period that the defender.
- 1:06:44Speaker 2: Has to make a decision.
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: And so we had Ausherier from I don't know, three
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: to five yards away, already trying to make a tackle
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: on Trevor Lawrence. But at that point, Lawrence begins to slide.
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: And here's to me the most important part of this.
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: When you slide, guess what happens to your head.
- 1:07:09Speaker 2: Your head goes down.
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: Significantly, from about six feet off the ground to about
- 1:07:16Speaker 1: two feet off the ground. Now, the part that confused
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: me most about people being sure that al Sharier purposely
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: did this was that in order to believe that he
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: purposely targeted Lawrence's head, you actually have to believe that
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: he's the greatest tackler in the history of football. You
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: have to believe that if you know anything about the
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: sport of football, because he has to be able to
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: determine exactly.
- 1:07:46Speaker 2: Where Lawrence's head is going to.
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: Be before he launches the tackle, and Lawrence's head is
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: dropping about four feet at least.
- 1:07:59Speaker 2: So how can he pop possibly do that? I would
- 1:08:02Speaker 2: submit that he can't.
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: I would submit that there's another explanation, and that explanation
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: is that al Sharier was trying at first to hit
- 1:08:13Speaker 1: Lawrence in the mid section, which is about the only
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: place you're allowed to hit, especially a quarterback, and not
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: get penalized.
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: But then people say, but John.
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: He hit Lawrence in the head with his forearm, and
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: I'm like, hello, that is actually, to me far more
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: consistent with a guy who has launched his tackle is
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: now seeing that, oh shit, Lawrence is sliding. I'm in
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: big trouble here. He realizes he's about to hit him
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: in the head and he desperately puts up his forearm
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: to be able to avoid helmet to helmet contact, which
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: is like the you know, the most forbidden thing in
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: the national four football leg And so he is, in
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: my view, potentially actually trying to avoid a very problematic
- 1:09:09Speaker 1: hit by using his forearm, because what else are you
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: going to do If you launch yourself at someone's midsection,
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: they dropped their head four feet and you're careening towards them.
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: You can't stop it at that point. It's physically impossible.
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: The only thing you might be able to do is
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: if you put your forearm up first, that's gonna make
- 1:09:30Speaker 1: contact instead of the helmet. And my view of the
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: replay shows that Elshemier never actually.
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: Made helmet to helmet contact with Lawrence. Now, it didn't
- 1:09:40Speaker 2: matter because there.
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: Was contact with Lawrence's head that drove him back into
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: the turf, that caused a concussion, and then all hell
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: broke loose. Well, of course, I got murdered on social media.
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: In fact, I even had a mainstream news media member
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: with whom I'm fairly friendly, contact me on direct message
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: and tell me I was totally full of shit. Not
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: a sports person, by the way, a news anchor, uh
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: told me, I'm totally full of shit, And I mean,
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: what am I talking about here?
- 1:10:09Speaker 2: This was obviously a dirty hit.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: And I understood that that was the way that the
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: vast majority of the public was going to respond to this.
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: And I thought this was going to be a situation where, Okay,
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: we're all just going to have to pretend that this
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: was a dirty hit, a horrible hit, that the quarterback
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: didn't do anything wrong, and that there's nothing wrong with
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: the slide rule, because that, to me, is the essence
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: of the problem here. The slide rule is the reason
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: why this happened. The slide rule is dumb, and to me,
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: it's it's born out of a liberal mentality of you know,
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: letting the perfect get in the way of the good, right,
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: and that happens a lot when it comes to liberalism. Oh,
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: we got a problem here, so how are we going
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: to fix it. Let's create a rule.
- 1:10:52Speaker 2: Well, we create a.
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: Rule, and we don't even think about the ramifications of
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: that rule. And I've already said the ramifications here are
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: people are going to use it, and people have abused it.
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: So when the NFL put down their three game suspension
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: and they wrote a very scathing statement about al Sharier,
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, boil boy, you know, this is just
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: another another mile marker in the journey to the death
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: of tackle football. We're all just going to put flags on,
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: especially the quarterback. I've been predicting this for a very
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: long time in the next decade or so, that there
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: will be some form of flag football, especially when it
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: comes to the quarterback. But then's something weird happened. There
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: was some pushback, and there was some pushback from some
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: very prominent and diverse voices, and I want to share
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: some of those with you.
- 1:11:45Speaker 2: First came I don't know if.
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: This was exactly the chronology, but this is I think
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: a logical chronology.
- 1:11:51Speaker 2: First came the head.
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: Coach of the Houston Texas the god b name of
- 1:11:55Speaker 1: DeMarco Ryans.
- 1:11:56Speaker 2: Now, I've talked a lot about how, especially in sports.
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: When you happen to be black, it gives you a
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: lot more freedom when it comes to what you're allowed
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: to say on controversial topics. And DeMarco Ryans happens to
- 1:12:10Speaker 1: be black. And I don't know if that's why he
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: felt more comfortable or he was just defending his guy,
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: But DeMarco Ryans at a press conference made a pretty
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: darn good argument that was very similar to the one
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: I'm making that we got a problem here with this
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: slide rule and that that's primarily the cause of what
- 1:12:30Speaker 1: happened and what created this very unfortunate situation resulting in
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: Trevor Lawrence getting a concussion.
- 1:12:35Speaker 2: And here's what he had to say.
- 1:12:37Speaker 8: You stand behind disease and everything you know that came
- 1:12:41Speaker 8: from that. Of course, he unfortunately hit on a quarterback,
- 1:12:45Speaker 8: but it's also it's his.
- 1:12:46Speaker 2: Twofold, right.
- 1:12:47Speaker 8: I mean, a lot of the quarterbacks in this day
- 1:12:50Speaker 8: and age, they try to take advantage of the rule
- 1:12:52Speaker 8: or they slide late and they try to get an XHRAYR.
- 1:12:55Speaker 8: And now you're a defender. A lot of honors is
- 1:12:58Speaker 8: on a defender right, whether it's on the sideline or
- 1:13:01Speaker 8: where it's on the quarterback, you don't know what a
- 1:13:04Speaker 8: guy's thinking. You don't know if a guy's standing up
- 1:13:06Speaker 8: and he's continuing to run, you don't know. And then
- 1:13:08Speaker 8: you get a late slide and you're you know, you
- 1:13:11Speaker 8: hit the guy. Unfortunately that Trevor got hurt. We want
- 1:13:14Speaker 8: to hope Trevor is okay. But it's also if we're sliding,
- 1:13:17Speaker 8: we have to get down. If we're getting out of bounds,
- 1:13:19Speaker 8: we get out of bounds, and that rule is there
- 1:13:22Speaker 8: to protect the quarterbacks, and we want our quarterbacks to
- 1:13:24Speaker 8: be safe in the league. So we just have to
- 1:13:26Speaker 8: be safe if we're sliding, make sure we're keeping our
- 1:13:29Speaker 8: heads down. So and the entire thing is, you know,
- 1:13:33Speaker 8: a zz it's the guy, but their sideline overreacts and
- 1:13:37Speaker 8: it turns out and turns into a melee. It wasn't
- 1:13:40Speaker 8: our guys, it's their team overreacted, pushed our guy, dragging
- 1:13:44Speaker 8: our guy to the sideline. So that's uncalled for on
- 1:13:48Speaker 8: that side. We have to be better on the sidelines
- 1:13:50Speaker 8: as well, with both teams.
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: So I saw that, I'm like, okay, at least his
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: coach stood up for the truth and for football, and
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: maybe that's worth something. But then I saw on ESPN
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: Rex Ryan, former head coach of the New York Jets
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: and a defensive guy. I'm thinking, Okay, what does Rex
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: Ryan have to say? And he put it in a
- 1:14:16Speaker 1: slightly different way. Of course, he has to be pc
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: about it, has to rip the tackle. But he, then,
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: I thought, kind of brilliantly decides to pretend as if
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: he's actually in favor of player safety by blaming not
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: just quarterbacks but the coaches of quarterbacks for not properly
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: teaching the slide, effectively making my argument that the slide
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: rule is really terrible and the quarterbacks are abusing it.
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like on ESPN.
- 1:14:50Speaker 9: Yeah, you got to learn how to protect yourself. And
- 1:14:52Speaker 9: I'm going to tell you right now, obviously it was
- 1:14:54Speaker 9: a dirty hit. I am so sick and tired of
- 1:14:57Speaker 9: seeing people teach, you know, hey, slide. When you're running
- 1:15:02Speaker 9: out here, you.
- 1:15:03Speaker 3: Slide the hell you do.
- 1:15:05Speaker 9: Not when you're going full speed down the field and
- 1:15:08Speaker 9: the defender's coming full speed at you, you don't slide.
- 1:15:11Speaker 9: I can see this happens over and over and over again.
- 1:15:16Speaker 9: All you have to do is watch every Saturday college football.
- 1:15:19Speaker 9: Two to three of these happen every single week. I'm
- 1:15:21Speaker 9: sick and tired of it. You are not protecting your
- 1:15:24Speaker 9: quarterback when you teach him how to slide when it's
- 1:15:27Speaker 9: not in the open field. Open field, of course, that's great,
- 1:15:30Speaker 9: Absolutely not here. If you want to get a concussion,
- 1:15:34Speaker 9: you slide like this when contacts.
- 1:15:36Speaker 2: Come, what should they be taught to do?
- 1:15:37Speaker 9: They should be taught to dive at the ankles of
- 1:15:40Speaker 9: the defender, or run the football and keep your head
- 1:15:43Speaker 9: out of it. I would, I mean, trust me, I
- 1:15:45Speaker 9: would take the ankles of the defender, run right there,
- 1:15:49Speaker 9: dive at his ankles.
- 1:15:50Speaker 2: Immediately.
- 1:15:50Speaker 9: The guy's going to go to protect himself. He's not
- 1:15:52Speaker 9: worried about tackling you.
- 1:15:54Speaker 3: Look the kid.
- 1:15:55Speaker 9: Absolutely it was awful, all right, and yes he's going
- 1:15:59Speaker 9: to be suspending things. But also this happens all the
- 1:16:02Speaker 9: time when the guy's just trying.
- 1:16:03Speaker 2: To make a tackle.
- 1:16:04Speaker 9: All right, there's a big quarterback run in here. Like,
- 1:16:07Speaker 9: I am so sick and tired of it. Let's put
- 1:16:09Speaker 9: a film together and actually teach our young quarterbacks how
- 1:16:12Speaker 9: to protect themselves.
- 1:16:13Speaker 2: I'm sick and tired of it so well.
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: I wasn't one hundred percent thrill what Rex Ryan said.
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: And he's obviously defensive guys, so of course defensive guys
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: are going to be more willing to stand up for
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: the defense, especially in this day and age where defenders
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: have no advantages whatsoever. And I don't even know how
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: the hell you play defense. I'm stunned that every NFL
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: game is in you know, forty five to thirty eight.
- 1:16:40Speaker 2: I mean, I really am. It's astonishing to me.
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: Given the rules and how difficult it is to play defense.
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: But so there, you got the Houstons, Houston Texans head coach.
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: Obviously he has a bias. You got Rex Ryan, he
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: has a bias towards defense. So I'm like, okay, that's
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: at least something some sort of push. But people are
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: going to discount what they have to say for the
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: reasons I've already mentioned. But then I see it clip
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: from Colin Cowherd's show where Tom Brady is the guest. Now,
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: obviously Tom Brady is the goat, and he's a quarterback,
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: and he's an unfortunately rather mediocre announcer on Fox. He's
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: also a part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, which
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: I think makes him extremely conflicted on all controversial topics,
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: especially this one. I thought that tom Brady might be
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: one of the most impactful voices when it comes to
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: trying to save tackle football, but because the league has
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: made it obvious that they're not allowing their corporate partners
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: at Fox and ABCNBC and CBS to tell the truth
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: about how tackle football is ending, I lost my optimism
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: on that, especially once tom Brady became officially a part owner. So,
- 1:17:55Speaker 1: I mean, nobody is more conflicted on this issue than
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: tom Brady. But the fight those conflicts, and despite the
- 1:18:02Speaker 1: fact that he's a quarterback who was benefiting more than
- 1:18:06Speaker 1: anybody else by these rules, I mean, nobody benefited more
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: by the softening of the rules, especially when it comes
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: to tackling the quarterback, than Tom Brady. It's the only
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: reason why he was still quarterbacking at the age of
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: forty five. And yet tom Brady, using very careful language
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: and being a rather pc about it, he I think,
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: came forward with a pretty darn good opinion about this.
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: I was surprised that Colin Cowherd at least was pretending
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: to be on the fence, because I would have perceived
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: Cowhurts to be a virtue signaler and be like everybody
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: else and say, you know, this was obviously dirty and wrong.
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: But that's not what Cowhert said as he introduced Tom Brady,
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: and here was Brady's opinion on this whole situation.
- 1:18:50Speaker 10: The late hit on Trevor Lawrence. So I got mixed emotions.
- 1:18:55Speaker 10: I want my quarterback to have some mobility, but I
- 1:18:59Speaker 10: also think you leave the pocket, Tom, and you're a
- 1:19:02Speaker 10: running back.
- 1:19:03Speaker 2: Where are you on this hit?
- 1:19:08Speaker 3: That's a great question.
- 1:19:09Speaker 11: I've watched obviously been a part of the NFL for
- 1:19:12Speaker 11: a long time, and I remember there.
- 1:19:13Speaker 3: Was an instance.
- 1:19:15Speaker 11: There's all start by saying there's mixed emotions that I
- 1:19:17Speaker 11: have about it as well. I remember in two thousand
- 1:19:21Speaker 11: and one, I think we played at Buffalo and I
- 1:19:25Speaker 11: slid late and Nate Clements was the corner for the Bills,
- 1:19:28Speaker 11: and he came up out of the secondary and absolutely
- 1:19:31Speaker 11: crushed me. My helmet went flying off, and I got
- 1:19:33Speaker 11: back and I ran to the huddle, and I had
- 1:19:36Speaker 11: a lot of teammates that came up to me the
- 1:19:37Speaker 11: next day and said, dude, these guys are coming. You
- 1:19:40Speaker 11: got to get rid of that football, and if you're
- 1:19:42Speaker 11: going to slide, you better get down.
- 1:19:44Speaker 3: These guys are coming to get you.
- 1:19:46Speaker 11: And it was a great kind of learning experience for
- 1:19:49Speaker 11: me because I realized that when I'm out of that pocket,
- 1:19:51Speaker 11: things were moving a lot faster for me, and the
- 1:19:54Speaker 11: defense is trying to be very aggressive. And over time,
- 1:19:56Speaker 11: the NFL has obviously done a lot of things to
- 1:20:01Speaker 11: protect players and player health and safety. It's been on
- 1:20:03Speaker 11: and on and on, and the only aspect that I
- 1:20:07Speaker 11: think is very challenging, and certainly for Trevor Lawrence. Nobody
- 1:20:11Speaker 11: wants to see anybody get hurt, but it is also
- 1:20:13Speaker 11: the reality of a very physical sport that we play.
- 1:20:16Speaker 11: But the only way defensive players have to be aggressive.
- 1:20:19Speaker 11: That's their nature. I always try to be aggressive on offense.
- 1:20:22Speaker 11: We try to a block aggressively, and at the same time,
- 1:20:25Speaker 11: the defense.
- 1:20:25Speaker 3: Tries to tackle aggressively.
- 1:20:27Speaker 11: So I don't know, there's an aspect to me that
- 1:20:31Speaker 11: I think the quarterbacks, and certainly the quarterbacks need to
- 1:20:35Speaker 11: take better care of themselves. I've seen Josh Allen running
- 1:20:37Speaker 11: a lot, I see Lamar Jackson running a lot, and
- 1:20:39Speaker 11: it's a great skill set to have. A lot of
- 1:20:42Speaker 11: times I wish I had that skill set. And at
- 1:20:44Speaker 11: the same time, when you run, you put yourself in
- 1:20:47Speaker 11: a lot of danger. And when you do that, I
- 1:20:50Speaker 11: don't think the onus of protecting an offensive quarterback who's
- 1:20:53Speaker 11: running should be on a defensive player. I don't think
- 1:20:55Speaker 11: that's really fair to the defense. So if you slide
- 1:20:59Speaker 11: and it's you know, everyone can argue was it black
- 1:21:02Speaker 11: and white or was it just a gray area? Do
- 1:21:04Speaker 11: you slide late or is it unnecessary roughness or is
- 1:21:07Speaker 11: it a late hit?
- 1:21:09Speaker 3: You know, to me, a late hit is very late.
- 1:21:12Speaker 11: You know, there's quarterbacks that I see running tiptoe on
- 1:21:14Speaker 11: the sideline and they're not.
- 1:21:16Speaker 3: Even out of bounds and they.
- 1:21:17Speaker 11: Get hit as they're starting to step out of bounds
- 1:21:20Speaker 11: and there's a penalty flag thrown. So the aspect again
- 1:21:23Speaker 11: for a play caller. There's more design runs for quarterbacks
- 1:21:27Speaker 11: ever now than in the history of the NFL. So
- 1:21:30Speaker 11: are we really trying to protect quarterbacks? Because if you
- 1:21:33Speaker 11: are trying to do it through the rules, then why
- 1:21:35Speaker 11: are the offensive coordinators not protecting their quarterbacks by keeping
- 1:21:40Speaker 11: them under the pocket and not designing as many quarterback runs.
- 1:21:43Speaker 11: So I think there's just it's gone to a point
- 1:21:47Speaker 11: where there's really everyone would label a certain player as
- 1:21:50Speaker 11: a dirty player.
- 1:21:52Speaker 3: You know. I don't like that one bit.
- 1:21:54Speaker 11: I you know, maybe they find or penalize a quarterback for.
- 1:21:57Speaker 3: Sliding late, you know, and say, look, we we don't
- 1:22:00Speaker 3: want these hits to take place.
- 1:22:02Speaker 11: We've got to penalize the offense and the defense rather
- 1:22:06Speaker 11: than just penalize a defensive player for every single play
- 1:22:10Speaker 11: that happens when there's a hit on a quarterback.
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: So well, I didn't agree with everything that Brady said,
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: and I thought he could have been more forceful about it.
- 1:22:18Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
- 1:22:20Speaker 1: I mean, he's acknowledging that quarterbacks, and he's obviously the
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: ultimate goat when it comes to quarterbacks, are taking advantage
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: of this rule, and to me, that was maybe the
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: most important part of this whole controversy.
- 1:22:34Speaker 2: Can we please at least.
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: Acknowledge that the rule is bad and that quarterbacks are
- 1:22:40Speaker 1: taking advantage of it, and it's putting defenders in an
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: absolutely impossible situation, and that eventually, when defenders are in
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: an impossible situation, a set of perfect storm circumstances are
- 1:22:52Speaker 1: going to occur and you're going to have what happened
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: here where a quarterback gets a concussion and a defender,
- 1:23:00Speaker 1: it's an unfair suspension of three games for something for
- 1:23:04Speaker 1: which there may have been zero intent to cause harm
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: to the quarterback. In fact, I think there's an argument
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: to be made that al Sherier tried his best not
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: to create helmet to helmet contact with Lawrence and effectively
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: did prevent helmet to helmet contact, but it didn't matter
- 1:23:23Speaker 1: because of the unique circumstances of the timing of the
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: tackle and the late slide by Trevor Lawrence. So, in
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: a weird way, what I thought was a classic example
- 1:23:36Speaker 1: another piece of strong evidence that tackle football is toast
- 1:23:41Speaker 1: gave me a little bit of hope that there's still.
- 1:23:43Speaker 2: A heartbeat there. You know, even though it wasn't perfect.
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: You got a head coach, an ESPN commentator, and Tom
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: Brady all very publicly stating that, hey, wait a minute,
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: there's another side to this story, And as.
- 1:23:58Speaker 2: Long as there's still another side of.
- 1:23:59Speaker 1: The story, there's a chance there's a hope, there's a pulse. So,
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: you know, I hate being an optimist, but there's at
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: least some hope here in what started off to me
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: as an absolutely terrible situation when it came to the
- 1:24:18Speaker 1: inevitable death of tackle football in general and specifically in
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: the National Football League. By the way, speaking of I
- 1:24:24Speaker 1: guess you would call this a National Football League story.
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: I have to at least mention that there was about
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: a two hour window yesterday where the media became convinced
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: that we were going to get an audio confession from
- 1:24:39Speaker 1: OJ Simpson when it came to the deaths of Nicole Brown,
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: Simpson and Ron Goldman. This was because, frankly, what I
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: think happened here was that TMZ really jumped the gun
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: on a very strange story. Basically, what occurred was that
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: OJ Simpson's former bodyguard was arrested Minnesota and told police
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: that he had on his possession an audio tape that
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: contained OJ Simpson's confession in the murders, and somehow that
- 1:25:15Speaker 1: story leaked out before the police that actually listened to
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: the recording. Now, why you wouldn't wait until you got
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: verification that there was anything to this, I don't know.
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: But that's the one in which we now live, where
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: speed is everything. Well, TMZ, in my view, totally blew it.
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: The story doesn't even make any sense, right, I mean,
- 1:25:38Speaker 1: if you had audio of OJ Simpson's confession, even though
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: I believe you already confessed and running a book called
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: If I Did It, although the details of that confession
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: were obviously false. But if you really had O. J.
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: Simpson confessing, would you hand it to police after you
- 1:25:58Speaker 1: got arrested or you would you would tell police you
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: have it on your possession.
- 1:26:02Speaker 2: That doesn't even make any sense.
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: You would have, first of all, if you were going
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: to allow other people to have it, you would have
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: sold that a long time ago.
- 1:26:13Speaker 2: However, if you just got.
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: Arrested and you're desperately searching for something, you might make
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: up a story about this. I don't know the circumstances
- 1:26:23Speaker 1: surrounding all this, but it certainly at least makes a
- 1:26:26Speaker 1: little bit of sense that you might lie to police
- 1:26:29Speaker 1: for whatever reason, just to buy yourself some time or
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: maybe somehow I don't even know who the hell knows,
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: but to buy it on face value that this story
- 1:26:41Speaker 1: made any sense before there was verification or validation was
- 1:26:45Speaker 1: really an indication that TMZ has some vulnerabilities in their process,
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: because it didn't take long before we found out. Guess what,
- 1:26:55Speaker 1: there's nothing on the audiotapes. In fact, all there is
- 1:26:58Speaker 1: is this bodyguard babbling to himself, and so there was
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: no OJ Simpson audio confession, and it never made any
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: damn sense that that's how the audio confession would make itself.
- 1:27:13Speaker 9: Know.
- 1:27:13Speaker 1: Now, if this was a situation where the audio somehow.
- 1:27:18Speaker 2: You know, was leaked out accidentally or was part of.
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: A legal proceeding or something like that, where it would
- 1:27:25Speaker 1: create an explanation for why it wasn't made public or
- 1:27:29Speaker 1: why it wasn't sold, or that would at least be something, Okay,
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: I'm curious about. But these circumstances evolving an arrest and
- 1:27:40Speaker 1: the former bodyguards somehow having this on his possession just
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: was obviously absurd from the start, and it turned out
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: to be a totally false story. So there's no evidence
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: we're ever going to get an actual confession from OJ Simpson,
- 1:27:54Speaker 1: especially now that he's dead. Thanks for listening to today's
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