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Episode Two Hundred Fifty Two: The Three R's · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and fifty two of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host on today's show. Our good friend, former Trump
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: political advisor Steve Cortes returns to the podcast in what
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: may well be our best interview yet, plus more news
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: on the never ending Epstein Front. South Park goes scorched
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: earth on Trump in the wake of the paramount sale
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: finally being approved. Cincinnati police condemned social media for making
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: what appears to be an anti white hate crime look
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: like an anti white hate crime. The Washington Post continues
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to crumble, and my extremely long journey from Mexico to
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  Speaker 1: San Diego to play in the Southern California Golf Championship
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: at Torrey Pines, which went pretty much as I feared
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: that it would. Normally, when I do an interview on
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the podcast, I like to save it for the second
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: half of the episode, but our interview this week with
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  Speaker 1: former Trump political advisor and good friend of the show,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Steve Cortes is so compelling that I want to lead
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: with it. For the record, it is dated by a day.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I taped this interview with Steve from my Tory Pines
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  Speaker 1: Hotel as I was preparing for the second round of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the Southern California Amateur Golf Championship, which I'll get to
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: momentarily later on in the podcast. But Steve did a
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: fantastic job in this. This was recorded on Tuesday. I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: don't think there's anything really dated on this interview, but
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: there are several topics that are newsy, including the shooting
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: in New York City that has a football connection to it,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and that is one of the many topics that we discussed.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But mostly this, at least the first half of this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: interview is about issues related to Donald Trump, to whom
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Steve Cortez obviously was very close as an advisor. Then
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: he endorsed Ron DeSantis during the twenty twenty four Republican primary.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It appears as if Steve is coming back into the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: good graces of the MAGA world. I don't know about Trump.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I honestly have no idea either way, but obviously also
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Steve is very close to Vice President jd Vance as
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a former political advisor to him as well, and that
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  Speaker 1: relationship seemingly is in good shape. So, without further ado,
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  Speaker 1: here is about an hour and a half long interview
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  Speaker 1: with Steve Cortes. Steve Cortez, Welcome back to the Death
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast.
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  Speaker 2: John. Thank you.
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  Speaker 3: It's always an honor to be here, mainly because I
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: have such respect for you and your work. I'm an
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: avid listener listen to every episode. But also I want
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: to keep my streak alive as being your most frequent guest,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: which means I've got to keep coming back.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Well, you do have that record. We check in at
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: least twice a year, and this is a good halfway
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: point of the first year of the Trump administration. So
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that's where I want to start. Right, give me your
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: general eva of how things have gone in comparison to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: what you expected. It's my assessment that there's probably never
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: been a presidency where after six or seven months his
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: fans are more enthusiastic and his detractors right are more
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: pessimistic about how things have gone. What is your evaluation
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of the first six or seven months?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first year.
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  Speaker 3: You know, certainly according to the polls, you're exactly accurate,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: because you know I do such extensive polling, and is
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: actually that is true. His supporters have gotten more ardent
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: and more satisfied with him and his detractors the opposite,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: which is certainly unusual, right, But here's my honest evaluation,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: trying to be objective about it, And of course I'm
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: not objective on Donald Trump the American for its agenda,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: but I think he has gotten far more done in
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: these six months of this term than he did in
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  Speaker 3: the entire.
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  Speaker 2: Four years of his first term.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm not blaming that lack of production all on him.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: By the way, I think a lot of that had
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  Speaker 3: to do with the Russia hoaks, and of course that's
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: very much back in the news, but regardless of why,
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  Speaker 3: I think the point is this has been a more
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  Speaker 3: consequential six month months than years and even entire terms are.
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  Speaker 2: For a lot of presidents.
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  Speaker 3: And to me, the two biggest accomplishments are closing the border,
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  Speaker 3: something that he did within weeks, which I think is
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  Speaker 3: just a magnificent achievement. Still a lot of work to
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  Speaker 3: do regarding internal enforcement, and that's not going quite as
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: well as I would like, but I understand the challenges
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: there as well. But as far as closing the border,
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  Speaker 3: that was even more swift and more effective than I
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  Speaker 3: thought it would be. But then so I think that's
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  Speaker 3: one grand historic achievement. And then the second one is
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  Speaker 3: reorienting trade, and I think that ultimately that can be
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  Speaker 3: one of his most lasting legacies. And this very recent
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: win with the EU, I'll admit to you that achievement
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  Speaker 3: was a little more up in the air. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I think it was trending our way, but not solidly
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  Speaker 3: in his favor until.
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  Speaker 2: This new news on the EU.
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  Speaker 3: But when you secure that kind of a bargain that
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  Speaker 3: so favors the United States with one of the biggest
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  Speaker 3: trading blocks on planet Earth and our biggest rival other
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: than China in terms of the global economy, our biggest
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  Speaker 3: competitor in terms of global trade, the place in the
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  Speaker 3: world that is most like the United States, it's the EU.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: When you put it all together, this trade deal, he
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  Speaker 3: stuck with them. I mean, even I as a Trump fan,
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  Speaker 3: was impressed and surprised that he was able to pull
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  Speaker 3: that off.
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  Speaker 2: And so to me, those two massive wins.
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  Speaker 3: Aside from even anything else that was accomplished, mark this
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  Speaker 3: six month period as a highly highly successful start to
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: the presidency to this second term.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Steve, I agree with your evaluation of the immigration situation.
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  Speaker 1: A great job closing the border. I think as you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: know from having listened to the podcast, I'm a bit
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: skeptical about whether the internal enforcement has met the perception
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that has been created, especially among the left. I think
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  Speaker 1: we're on the same page there as an economics guy,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: which you are, and I know you weren't a big
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: fan of the tariffs. So tell me why the EU
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  Speaker 1: and Japan deals are so spectacular for somebody like myself
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  Speaker 1: who is not an expert in this area.
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  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, no, I am very much a
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  Speaker 2: fan of terarriffs.
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  Speaker 3: Just so you know, I did not like to rollout
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  Speaker 3: at all, you know, right, I mean, I thought there
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: was so much chaos with the rollout.
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  Speaker 2: But no.
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  Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I would say I'm a
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  Speaker 3: little more pro tariff than even Trump himself.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, I believe in permanent.
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  Speaker 3: Tariffs for every country who wants to import into the
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: United States, who wants to export to US. And the
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  Speaker 3: reason being that I believe and this is admittedly, you know,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: something I came to in the last ten years or so. Trump,
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  Speaker 3: you know, changed my mind on this. I used to
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  Speaker 3: be a Wall Street you know, quote free trader, and
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  Speaker 3: number one, I realized there never really was free trader.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Was always managed and I thought managed generally against the
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  Speaker 3: interests of American workers. But in terms of access to
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: the American market, which is the crown jewel of the world,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the US consumer market, I believe we should always charge
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  Speaker 3: a premium, you know. So for me, I think something
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: like a ten percent tariff that is just standard operating
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: procedure makes tremendous economic sense. It's something the United States
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: did for much of our history, not our recent history,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: but for much of our history. And it seems like
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: we're getting back there. But to me specifically on the
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: on the EU and the Japan deal, you know, and
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  Speaker 3: other than China, though, are our two most important trading
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  Speaker 3: partners and our two most important allies in every sense,
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  Speaker 3: not just economically, you know, but strategically and in terms
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: of national security in the world. In both cases which
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  Speaker 3: you have are terms that do favor the United States,
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  Speaker 3: that recognize that again we have a comparative advantage that
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: we are the good seats. You charge more for the
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: good seats at a theater, at a sporting event, at
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  Speaker 3: a concert, and we are doing that and saying you
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  Speaker 3: have to buy in effectively access to our country with
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  Speaker 3: a reasonable rate. I mean it doesn't necessarily have to
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  Speaker 3: be punitive if you're treating us fairly in terms of
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  Speaker 3: access to your markets. But in addition to that, and
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  Speaker 3: this doesn't get I think enough attention, it's the foreign
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  Speaker 3: investments in the United States. So you know, in the
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  Speaker 3: case of this European deal, seven hundred and fifty billion
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  Speaker 3: dollars of energy purchases, six hundred billion dollars of direct
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  Speaker 3: investment in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: These are massive amounts.
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  Speaker 3: And that's on top of, for example, four trillion dollars
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  Speaker 3: of investment commitments from the Middle East, you know, primarily
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  Speaker 3: from the UAE just because of Trump to invest directly
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  Speaker 3: in the United States. Now, those are investments that you
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: won't see the positive effects immediately. Those take years and
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: sometimes even decades for them to come to you a
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  Speaker 3: full fruition. But bigger picture, I mean, this is just
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  Speaker 3: these are massive wins.
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  Speaker 2: It shows you.
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  Speaker 3: That we remain the envy of the world in terms
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  Speaker 3: of the consumer market that every company, every country on
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  Speaker 3: Earth wants to sell into. And we also remain, thankfully,
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  Speaker 3: and we're intensifying I think our lead as the number
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  Speaker 3: one investment destination in the world. And some of that
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  Speaker 3: zig is all in all honesty, not because America is
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: doing everything right. It's also because the rest of the
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  Speaker 3: world is doing so many things wrong. But global capital
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  Speaker 3: wants to invest here. Donald Trump makes it more attractive
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  Speaker 3: for them to invest here, and on top of that,
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  Speaker 3: compels them to invest here. You know, so sort of
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  Speaker 3: care and stick. Let's create the environment they want to
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  Speaker 3: invest in, but then let's also force them, push them,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: nudge them to invest here. And so I just think
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  Speaker 3: that these trade deals so far are massive wins. I
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  Speaker 3: wish it would have been rolled out in a way
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  Speaker 3: more disciplined way. This is often the trouble with Trump.
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  Speaker 3: I think he's often directionally right, great instincts, and then
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  Speaker 3: a lot of problems in implementation and sort of discipline
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  Speaker 3: and roll out.
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  Speaker 2: I think we've seen that in the tariffs.
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  Speaker 3: But here we are now after all that tumult back
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: in April, which I think was preventable, But here we
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  Speaker 3: are now a few months later, I think getting where
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: we should be regarding trade.
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  Speaker 1: Well. As you know, I've been a critic of the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: tariffs personally because I bought into the idea that this
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was going to create inflation. So far that has not happened.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: And I was also skeptical about whether or not the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: tariffs were a policy or a tactic negotiating. And I'd
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  Speaker 1: like to know from you, Steve, which do you think
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: it was. Are tariffs in Trump's mind a policy or
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was it simply a means to an end of trying
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to create leverage for these trade deals?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: You know, John, here's my honest take. Like a lot
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: of things, I think he vacillates between the two. Is
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: it a policy or a tactic. I think he leans
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: toward tactic that as long as he believes American products
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: and services are being treated fairly by that foreign country,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: he's willing to go to zero. But I guess what
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: I'm saying is that's where I'm saying. I am more stringent,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: more of a hawk on tariffs than he is. I
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: think it should be policy. I think we should always
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: have tears, and again we did for the early part
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: of American history. As a matter of fact, it solely
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: funded our federal government for a long time. The government
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: was way smaller, and it was a different era, of course,
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  Speaker 3: But during the Cold War, I think a lot of
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  Speaker 3: folks don't really know the history here. During the Cold War,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: we effectively unilaterally surrendered on trade. And we did it
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: purposefully and probably for good reasons. Right, We so wanted
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: to build back up Japan and Western Europe. We so
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: wanted them to become our allies, strong proponents and allies
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: industrial allies in the Cold War, that we very purposefully
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: gave up our own advantages, and that made sense probably
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: for a very long time. That stopped making sense once
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: the Cold War was over, and it certainly didn't make
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: any sense once we invited China into that scenario and
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: into that trade paradigm, and then it became not just
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: bad policy but utterly ruinous for the United States to
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: allow China to in fact have advantages with their predatory
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: trade practices against the United States and US effectively unilaterally
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: economically arming. And Donald Trump really changed the country's paradigm
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: on that. He's certainly changed my mind on that, and
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: I think it's amazing, you know, he has moved the center.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: In other words, now there's almost no one any longer
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: who is proposing what we were doing in the early
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: two thousands with China, where we completely opened our markets
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to them. They were not reciprocal in any sense, if anything,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: punished American products, stole our ip wholesale, you know, just
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: absolutely brought havoc to entire American communities because of their
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: predatory trade practices that were all about stealing market share
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: rather than profits. And so, you know, to me, terriffs
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: should be policy going forward.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: They used to be.
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  Speaker 3: Alexander Hamilton believes strongly in them. Abraham Lincoln believes struggly
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: in them. I know that's, you know, not recent history,
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: but I think it's time for us to resurrect that
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: policy and that thinking and that approach.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Well, I am, as you know it, trump critic, but
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to acknowledge it. At least. So far, this
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: entire situation has gone better than I had feared. The
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: stock market obviously has recovered from the rollout of the tariffs,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: some of these deals have been made. I'm not I
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: don't think we're totally out of the woods yet until
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: there's a legitimately good deal with China and a little
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: bit more time to see how this goes. But so far,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I think Trump has indeed been vindicated, at least in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: part by his terror policy. And you know that's a
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: surprise to me because I did not think that this
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: was going to go well, but so far it has
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: not been the disaster that a lot of people predicted. Now,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I may have mis stated your position on terrorists, but
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to misstate your position on
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the Big Beautiful Bill. I know you were not a
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: fan of that right and it probably cost Donald Trump
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: his most prominent supporter in Elon Musk. Give us your
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: political analysis of what went down with the Big Beautiful Bill,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and specifically the destruction of the Trump Musk relationship, which
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: many of us always knew was doomed.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Sure, well, First, regarding the bill, any bill that is
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: that expansive, that is that big, right as it's named
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: aptly named, is going to have some fantastic elements and
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: some terrible elements, right, And so I think the fantastic
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: elements mostly revolve around immigration. And I think the fact
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: that ICE is getting funded in the way that it
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: really needs and getting just empowered for the internal enforcement
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: that we talked about that it's going to be really difficult,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: but I think that part is just magnificent. It's exactly
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: what Trump was elected to do. I think it's going
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: to have great benefits for this country for a long time.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Including by the way, economically, you know, I mostly view
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: immigration from an economic lens that these illegals do not
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: belong here, competing in the labor market against American workers
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: who have seen the great real wages declined for many,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: many years largely because of immigration.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: So that part great, The not at all great.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Parts that troubled me a lot are just the levels
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: of spending and effectively getting rid of the debt ceiling
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: or raising it so much that it doesn't really matter.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I do not trust that Washington, d C. On either
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: side of the aisle is serious about debt reduction. And look,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: it was a problem pre COVID, but because of the
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: COVID panic, and it was a panic, and because of
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: what we did, they're both during the Trump administration and
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: then kept doing during the Biden administration, you know, at
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: an aggressive pace in terms of borrowing and spending, even
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: though the crisis was clearly over by the time that
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Biden took office. We are just in no position to
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: continue with the kind of profligacy that we have gotten
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: away with for a certain amount of time, and we
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: can't get away with it now. For a couple of reasons.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: One of his interest rates have started to rise. You know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: they're not dramatic, they're not back in nineteen seventies and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: early nineteen eighties levels, but they're far higher than they
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: have been for most of the last twenty years. And
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: so debt financing is now the largest single line item
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: of the federal budget.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: That's a huge problem.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: We're spending more on financing our debt than we are
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: on even defense. And by the way, I think we
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: spend too much on defense. I think we could pull
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: back significantly if we got more strategic about what we.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Do in the world.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: So the spending levels, to me, are very problematic. I
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: also firmly believed, from a populous standpoint, that Trump had
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: a terrific opportunity to actually raise taxes on the very
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: wealthy Americans. I think number one, in my view, it
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: actually made would make economic sense.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: But number two, politically, it would have been gold.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: If we were able to say into the midterms into
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty eight that we cut taxes for the middle
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: class and we actually raised them on the very highest earners,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: that would have been fantastic. It was certainly considered, It
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: was bandied about a lot. I know from my conversations
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: with the White House, that there were a lot of
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: proponents within the administration, very senior people who wanted that
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: to happen. Trump even you know, publicly said he was
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: considering it. Ultimately it didn't happen. And this tax package,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: My biggest worry about it is that this reconciliation bill
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: was really pretty fantastic for rich people, especially if they
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: live on the coast, in terms of the salt increases,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: keeping carried interest, keeping their low rate from the first
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Trump tax cut. This was a pretty magnificent bill if
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: you're an investment banker in New York or you're a
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: law partner in.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: LA who makes a ton of money.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: And that is worrisome to me because middle class people,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: and I see this in all my polling, even though
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: they generally like Trump, they don't like this economy and
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: they are increasingly attaching this economy to Trump that he
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: now owns it. Whether that's fair or not, that's just
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: political reality. So the BBB worries me in a lot
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: of ways. And by the way, just on that bill,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: specifically the reconciliation bill, it polls terribly for my polling.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: My most recent pole of Virginia, for example, granted Virginia
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: is a blue state. But in Virginia, where I had
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Trump upside down fifteen in approval, the BBB only thirty
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: two percent said they thought that this bill was going
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: to help them. So that's a really bad number, far
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: underperforming Trump, you know, in the state. And I think
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: we're seeing similar you know, similar reads. Not quite that bad,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: of course, if you go to a more national survey
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: that's not as blue as Virginia, but similar reads at
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: you know, the upper thirties to the low forties. So
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: it is definitely unpopular at this point.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: That said, there's a lot of time between now and
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: next November. I think there are green shoots.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: In the economy.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: If things get better for middle class folks, those views
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: can change dramatically by next November. But right now, the
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: economy is a troublesome spot for the Trump administration.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And what about what the Big Beautiful Bill did to
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the Trump Musk relationship and how that may impact the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: midterms next year, Losing Elon Musk as a not only
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a major proponent of the Trump agenda, but potentially an
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: opponent right actively of the Republican Party. What's your take
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: on that?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Listen, I take Trump, excuse me, Musk. I take Musk
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: seriously as a potential opponent for two reasons.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Number one, he's obviously got a big pocketbook. But I
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: think even more important than that is his control of Twitter,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: which you know, is really effectively the digital town square
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: now for politics, especially right there are obviously competing social
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: media platforms when it comes to politics, Twitter is really
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: what matters, at least right now, almost entirely when it
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: comes to social media for politics, and he can turn
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: that dial and he can he can shade things in
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the favor of candidates he wants.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: To back, and he can be really potent. So he
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: worries me.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: But I will also say this, I don't believe Elon
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Musk that it's concerned over spending that really broke his
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: relationship with Trump.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of things there.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Number One, I think he didn't get the subsidies he wanted,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm glad Trump didn't give them those subsidies, even
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: though I think there's way too much borrowing and spending
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: in the bill. I don't believe in ev mandates, I
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: don't believe in electric vehicle subsidies. And somebody like Elon
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Musk is the last person who needs subsidies from hard
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: work in American taxpayers. So I think that was critical
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: in the breakdown in their relationship.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I think on top of that, though.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Just more generally, I think Elon Musk is he's a
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: brilliant but largely troubled individual. I think he is in
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: some ways mentally imbalanced, as a lot of genius people are. Well,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: I do I really think he is.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: No, I understand what, I agree. I agree with you, I.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Agree, and I just don't think the partnership was ever
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: going to last that long. And it worried me that
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Trump was treating him. It's at times like almost a
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: co president.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: In the first place, that was to me very worrisome.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: You know, he is not, in my view, a populist
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: right you know, slash conservative person, even though you know
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: he helped us tremendously in the twenty twenty four election.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I think he's done.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: He's such a complicated figure, as you've covered extensively in
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: your podcast, He's done amazing things, especially restoring free speech
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: via Twitter. I mean, it's almost hard to exaggerate how
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: important that is just for our whole society. Right, But
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: at the same time, you know, I think he's sort
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: of a corporate welfare queen when.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It comes to subsidies for TESLA.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: In terms of his philosophy, he's not remotely where I
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: am or where most people in the America First Movement are.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: You know, he is an atheist, transhumanist.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: He's the opposite of a Christian conservative, which is where
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of the magabase is so and I think
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of folks didn't even realize that, you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: how whacked his ideas are and a lot of things
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: that matter a lot to people like me. So it
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: really worried me that he was so close to the
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: levers of power at the very very highest levels. But
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: having said that, again, he did amazing things taking apart
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: USAID incredible And in terms of the twenty twenty sixth election,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of us, even those of us
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: we are full time in the game of politics, didn't
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: realize just how much our opponents were being financed with
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: public money. That the entire leftist ecosystem here in the
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: States was financed with our tax dollars via USAID domestically,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: not overseas, And the fact that we've taken that away.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Now, taken that piggy bank away of public money.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: That's a I think going forward like that's a big
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: reason to be optimistic if you're on the right politically,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: that we might start winning some races that we would
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: have lost because now they've got to go and find
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: money just the way.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: We do for our causes and our candidates.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Let me push back a little bit on something we
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: said about the breakdown of the Musk Trump relationship. You
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: mentioned the subsidy issue, which has been Trump's line that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you know he was upset that the ev subsidies were
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: taken away. I'm old enough to remember, Steve when Trump
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: actually praised Elon Musk for not caring about that right now,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: so it seems awfully convenient that, now that the relationship
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: has disintegrated, that that is somehow the cause of what happened.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that that was the cause. I actually
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: think that changing the head of NASA from someone who
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: was Trump's friend played a much bigger role, because I think,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: judging from my evaluation of Musk's ego and the way
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: people like him tend to think about things, that is
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: something that would really offend an Elon Musk, especially if
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it wasn't communicated properly. When this is your area of expertise,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Do you think your guy is going to be the
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: head of NASA and then all of a sudden the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: rug is pulled out for rather vague reasons. I mean,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: reasons that I thought were pretty hypocritical, given the fact
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: that Robert Kennedy Junior is a major part of this administration,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and it's complaining that the guy is a Democrat. I mean,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: come on, what do you make of my evaluation of that?
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: No, I think you're onto something. I think that that
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: was part of it, And to be honest, that just
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: slook my mind when I was explaining it. So No,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I think that absolutely is part of it. Maybe it's
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: the key part of it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I can tell you this.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I do know this, just because of my extensive conversations
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: with White House people, that there was a growing anti
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Musk faction worried about him for the reasons I you know,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: announcid that I'm always worried about him, worried about his philosophy,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: his stability as a person, the amount of power he had.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: He was pulling terribly and always did in my polling.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, he never pulled decently, not even close to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Trump levels, for example, and Trump has his polling challenges, right,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: but particularly with women, which is interesting.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Women despise Elon.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: I think it probably has a lot to do with
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: his you know, ten baby mamas and whatever it is,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: fifteen kids and no really I mean that.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: You know. I don't think many women like that, and
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I don't blame them.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But anyway, clearly, Steve, certain women do like Elon.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Well, yes, okay, well I wonder why on a one
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: on one level, all right, with that much money. Yeah,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I'm sure he does just fine. But polling the masses
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: who will never meet him, those women don't like him
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: very much, even though yeah, maybe they would if he
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: pulled up, you.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Know, to their to their house whatever.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: No, But anyway, there was what I can say, you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I think with good authority, is there was a growing
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: movement against him. Some of it was public, someone was
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: private on the public side. Steve Bannon was very public
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: about this, right, but he had a lot of allies
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: on the inside of the administration. And my point is
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: that movement that opposition to him culminated. And this back
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: to your point in turning down his nasnominee, right, because
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: that really was, in a lot of ways sort of
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: his baby, right. I don't mean the person was the baby,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: the position was his baby, and as you can understand,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: it would be right given what he largely does for
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: a living. So yeah, there certainly was I'm sure intense
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: disappointment and probably anger from him over that issue, but
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: I guess I would just say, more broadly, it couldn't
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: last anyway. I mean, I don't believe he's mentally stable.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I really don't, and I have no idea if he
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: uses drugs. There's obviously a lot of credible people who
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: tell me he does. A lot of people say that
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: publicly too.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: But regardless, like a lot of geniuses, he's a really
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: volatile personality. I don't think he's all that stable. He's
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: definitely not a conservative frankly too. It also worries me
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: that he's not an American born. I mean, I know
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: he's a citizen, but there's just there's a number of
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: things where to me are caution flags with Elon Musk,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: and I'm glad he's out, but I do agree with you.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I do worry and a lot of folks on the
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: right just dismiss it like, oh, no big deal.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: No, it could be a very big deal.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: If he is committed to fighting in twenty twenty six,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: because I think he will only hurt us. I think
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: he only takes from the right, you know, whatever he
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: or almost only whatever he chooses to do if he
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: does in fact get involved. So you know, I think
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump has been pretty magnanimous since the breakup, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I hope that continues, and I hope he can at
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: least bring him back in the fold and say, hey,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: we may not be best friends, but we certainly don't
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: need to be enemies.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I hope that will happen. I think it can. I
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: don't think that's unrealistic, but we'll see, well as usual.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's a fair analysis. Now I am fascinated,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and I want to address another area of disagreement that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: you've had with this administration, and that was the airstrikes
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: on Iran. And I think you even send me a
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: text at some point kind of pushing back on my
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: use of the word pacifist for portions of the of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the MAGA base. I didn't know one hundred percent how
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to interpret that, but tell me why you apparently took
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: issue with my support of the strike airstrikes in Iran
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and why you seem to disagree with that policy.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Sure, so you know, really it's twofold.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: First that I thought it was a Rand's problem primarily
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: to take care of, and I think, you know Iran,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: that it was Israel's problem to take care of. I
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: think I misspoked that it was it's Israel's problem to
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: take care first of all, and that you know, Look,
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Israel has been an independent country, now modern Israel, for
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: eighty years, and we have been supporting them, at times
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: lavishly for eighty years. It is a wealthy, sophisticated country
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: I believe, more than capable of defending itself in every sense,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: you know, including what it needed to do in Iran.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: So that that's sort of my first reason is sort
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: of Israel, you are a friend an ally, but you're
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: not the fifty first state, so you know, guard your
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: neighborhood and you should be able to take care of
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: this and that. So that's my first The second one,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: you know, and I just think American foreign policy has
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: been far too beholden to Israel.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: They can be a friend without us doing their bidding.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: But secondly, I'm just not sure that, you know, there's
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: zero evidence that Iran had an ability even if they
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: do get nukes to strike the United States. With those nukes,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: it's not like they have ICBMs, And so I don't
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: view it as being in the strategic national immediate strategic
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: national interests of the United States to go and attack
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: a sovereign country in that manner. Now, having said that,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I will be the first to admit so far it
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: has worked. There has been no blowback, and you know,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: so perhaps I was too worried, but my default position
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: is always to non intervention, and I think Trump on
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: the whole has been great on that point. And he
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: is such a contrast to his predecessors, to Biden and
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Obama and George W. Bush, who are intervening all over
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the world causing tremendous havoc, tremendous death oversees, too many
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: deaths of American servicemen, trillions of dollars in expenses. I
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: just think that American adventurism around the world, which has
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: been pushed so aggressively by the Washington war machine, by
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: the foreign policy establishment of Washington d C, has been
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: a miserable failure for this country, particularly since September eleventh,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Trump came into office to reverse that.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: He almost entirely has.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: But in my view, this was a hiccup in that
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: agenda of non interventionism, and again seems like we're getting
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: away with it. But that still doesn't mean that it
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: was the right policy to do so. But you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: clearly I'm in a distinct minority on this. Most Americans,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: even critics of Trump, you know, roundly praise this. The
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: operation thankfully was pulled off flawlessly. I mean, you know,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: obviously tremendous praise belongs to the US military for the
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: kinds of things they can do, their their technology, their abilities, their.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Bravery, you know, all of that.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: So thankfully it seems like this pass without real collateral consequences.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Here's what I find interesting about our disagreement. It's not
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: really about the specifics of the Iranian situation, although those
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: are important. I think this goes to are slightly differing
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: views of the world and America's role in it. You're
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in America first, guy, and I understand America first as
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a philosophy and in general, I actually find a lot
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of those principles appealing, but I believe that we are
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: living in a dangerous world and I believe that to
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: who much is given, much is expected. And like it
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: or not, we are the only the only country that
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: can perform the role effectively of policemen. Now that doesn't
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: mean we police the entire world, but when our self
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: interest is at stake, and when right and wrong is
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: at stake to a level high enough for us to
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: get involved, I think we have a responsibility. And I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: think that region of the world is so combustible, it
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: is so strategically important that Israel is so incredibly vulnerable.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I think you're being a little bit naive about how
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Israel would handle the world without us. I think they
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: would be wiped off off the map in fairly short order.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: And this is one of those unique situations where we
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: have the ability and I believe we have the moral
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: responsibility and no one else will do it. And I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: also think that there is a benefit for showing the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: rest of the world every once in a while fuck
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: around and find out and that pay that pays dividends
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: that you can't even possibly comprehend. What do you make
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of my analysis of that?
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Well, to me, I think your last point maybe the
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: strongest in my estimation. Right, there absolutely is value right
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: and showing the world like, hey, we are badass, you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: and we have capabilities that no one has that that
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: I do agree that there's there's certainly value there.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Where I would disagree with you is, you know, I
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: believe in.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: A very real politique foreign policy that only operates based
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: on American interest and not on some sort of ethical calculus.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: You know that, you stated, you know.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: The world is full of evil, The world is full
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: of ancient rivalries, The world is full of wars that
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: don't involve in an American American interest, and I simply do
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: not believe that we should be getting involved in them
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: on a moral or ethical cause.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I just do not.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think it works long term. We always end
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: up screwing things up when we do get involved. We
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: don't have the money, We're completely broke. I think it's
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: wrong to order young Americans. Yes, they volunteered for service,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: but still you are ordering them into a dangerous situation
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: if it doesn't involve directly defending American interest. I frankly
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: don't think that's moral uh to do. And you know,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I agree it's a dangerous world. But I think that
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: we I think most of the threats, by the way, too,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: these days are far more technologically and digitally based rather
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: than you know, sort of old school kinetic based in
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: terms of what the way we at least used to
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: think of war. And we need to invest a ton there.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And I think we are investing, but probably should should
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: shift even.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: More resources there. But I also believe this.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I believe in spheres of influence, which I guess I
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: would take issue with you and I, you know, I
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: think the sphere of influence for the United States is
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: essentially the entire Western hemisphere, which is quite a lot.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: But for example, when it comes to Ukraine, Okay, if
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: that is really a threat, if Russia is really a
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: threat to Western Europe, and I don't believe it is,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: but if it is, that's Western Europe's problem. Okay, Western
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Europe again, just as wealthy as the United States, just
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: so sophisticated, could be just as militarily strong as they
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: chose to be. They're just choosing not to be because
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: they dependent on us for again eighty years. But that's
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: you know, you take care of your neighborhood, Western Europe,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: You take care of of any problem in the Black
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Sea to Israel. And again, Israel's way smaller than Western Europe,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: So I get that it's different, and maybe they do
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: need some American assistants, But like Israel, primarily.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: You take care of your neighborhood in the Middle East,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: I also, I don't believe the Middle East is that
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: strategic for the United States anymore. Thankfully, because of what's
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: going on with American energy, we just aren't beholden to
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: the Middle East the way we used to be.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: So I mean, is it that important to us?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: I would argue know that that it's strategic importance to us,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: thank goodness has diminished, if not crashed, because of you know,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: we are Saudi America now. So I just I take
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: a very real politique view, you know, I ought I
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: think it called an isolationist or a pacifist. I don't
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: mind being called isolationist because I'm fine with that label. Actually,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: I basically am. I don't take kind of the past
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: fist but but.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I could tell I can tell. All right, let's move
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: on to a topic that bizarrely some in MAGA world
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: have actually connected to Israel, and about which I've discussed
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: extraordinary detail over the last several weeks, and that is
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the entire Jeffrey Epstein's story, which, unlike Epstein, just won't die.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm very curious about your take on all this
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: because you and I have had some conversations that indicate
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that one you believe that this story has had a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: real impact on the MAGA base, and that two it's
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: even caused you some issues in your personal life, the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: indication of just how dramatic the MAGA reaction has been. So,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: what is your general analysis of what has happened over
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the last several weeks regarding this never ending conspiracy theory?
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know here too, I think you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: the role the implementation of the messaging is so important,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: you know, in addition to the substance, And I would
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: almost like it to the tariffs in a way.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: And what I mean by.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: That is, you know, the Trump administration, I think totally
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: miscalculated how much a portion of the MAGA base cares
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: about this, and because of that, they were somewhat flippant
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: and dismissive in.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: The rollout of the news that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Hey, we're not going to make every single part of
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: these files public. And we have good reasons not to
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: do so. We do believe that Epstein killed himself. And
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: here's why.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: You know, it should have been far.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: More serious orchestrated, and I do think that it was.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: It was misplayed in that regard. So let me tell
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: you too. Yeah, and you're exactly right. This issue does
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: not mean a lot to me at all.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, as a.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Matter of fact, I'm kind of tired of reading about
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: it and hearing about it, talking about it. But there
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: is a you know, a significant minority of the MAGA
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: base that cares deeply, deeply about this issue. And yeah,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: a lot of them happened to be in my life.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: And I'm telling you these it really really matters to
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: these folks. Now, these are ardent Trump supporters and they
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: still are overall. But has their enthusiasm been diminished in
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: a serious way. Yeah, it really has. And you know, again,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: would that worry me into the midterms? Possibly, There's a
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: lot of time between now and then. If the midterms
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: are right now, it would really worry me that a
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: certain portion of them stay home. They're not going to
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: vote for dams. These aren't those kinds of folks, But
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: you know, would they stay home. If it were today
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: the midterms, they probably would. And you know that could
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: be problematic if we're talking really close races. But if
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: you combine that, for example, with our prior discussion of Musk, like, okay, yeah,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: those are worries. If you take a part of when
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: you build this broad coalition and you take a part
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: a certain element of it that loses its enthusiasm, you know,
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: that can of course really really matter.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: And but again, I don't.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Think the Trump administration has done anything particularly wrong other
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: than the messaging on it. And I think President Trump
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: was definitely very mistaken and in terms of where a
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: lot of his base was on this issue, and that's rare.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I think he normally understands his art and supporters really well,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: and he didn't on this issue.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: My theory is, I think you know as to why
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Trump has not read the magabase well on this is
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: that he never believed in this conspiracy theory, partially because
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: he knew Epstein and he knew Baxwell, and I think
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: he understands the case better than almost anybody, and that
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: he understands that there was no massive conspiracy. He let
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: his base believe in this. I think his big mistake
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: was not confronting Tucker Carlson a couple of years ago
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: more strongly when Carlson asked him about it, and he
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: gently said, well, I think Epstein probably did kill himself.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I think he should have stamped it out then, And
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: that Trump is actually, in a very ironic way, a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: victim of the fact that he's actually right on the issue,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and it's now coming across as if he's part of
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the cover up, right, And are you are you seeing people,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: even in your world and in the MAGA base, who
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: are actually believing this narrative that Trump is acting as
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: if he is covering up the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not seeing that. They think he's being duped.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: That's what I see, you know right now, is from
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: those folks things again's adultal.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I don't have data obviously on that, but.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they believe instead that he's been fooled, you know,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: whether it's by Pam Bondi or Dan Bongino or whomever. Right,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: But they're not willing to say, you know, Trump's part
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: of the sort of you know, the grand lie. But
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: here's the thing too, though, John before, like, I don't
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: want to sound too dismissive of folks who do take
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: this issue very seriously because what I do understand, even
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: though I'm not at all with them on the facts
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: of this case, okay at all, but I do understand
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: the almost total destruction of trust in our public institutions, right,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: particularly federal law enforcement once and I think that is
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: unfortunately earned by federal law enforcement, by.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: The national security agencies of the United States.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Like I understand why people have zero trust in those institutions.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: But the problem is in a republic, in our kind.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Of society, once you have lost all trust, you can
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: end up in all kinds of crazy places and believe
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: all kinds of you know, theories and conspiracies.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: And that's too bad.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Right And and by the way, too, I don't think
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: that the MAGA base or the right is any more
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: susceptible than the left on those issues. I just think
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: that's America. That's just a low trust society that we
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: live in right now. That's not a good thing, but
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: that's where we are. I couldn't agree with you more
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: on the lack of trust, and I get that. What
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: I don't understand is.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: The lack of logic, Okay, Yeah, And I have tried,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: is I always do to use logic to evaluate what
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: we know. And to me, this conspiracy theory is illogical
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: at almost every single level. It doesn't have evidence that
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: should exist if it was remotely real. And I guess
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just mystified as to why the magabase is so
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: fascinated and obsessed by this case. I really don't get it.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Do you know?
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure, Eater, but by the way too, And
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: I want to credit you, because no, and I agree
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: with your analysis right that it doesn't make logical sense.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: And to me, what you brought up with it, I've
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: not seen anyone else or heard anyone else bring up
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: is the idea that why aren't all of these victims
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: suing Jeffrey Epstein or even now his state.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: You can sue in a state.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: The state has tons of money, hundreds of millions of dollars,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: and yet that's not happening, right, I mean, surely that
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: would be happening.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Or Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and all these other people.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Well correct, yeah, or the yeah correct or the wealthy
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: powerful men who are still alive.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Part of the narrative here, the biggest part of the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: narrative that falls apart, and there are several as I
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: think I have documented is that these are very prominent
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: men that any victim would know who they were. We
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: already have a we already have a situation. The only
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: two prominent people other than Epstein that have been implicated
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in this are Alan Dershowitz, who was then vindicated and exonerated,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and Prince Andrew, about whom I think that there was
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: a whole series of unique circumstances that allowed him to
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: get railroaded because he's part of the royal family. To me,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: there would be dozens and dozens of accusations, lawsuits, victims
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: coming forward. There's none of that, and that's just one
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: of the pillars of this case that falls apart. But
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I just, I guess I'm just most mystified by by
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: why the magabase is so into this, especially considering the
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: fact that it's been well documented that Trump and Epstein
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: were friends for quite a while. That point has always
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: mystified me, although.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: That friendship did break down pretty badly. I mean, let's
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: be fair, no.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: But my point is, Steve, it's it's not as if
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: this is someone who is completely unconnected to their savior,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: Now let me ask you this so because I think
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: this is important and I've never gotten a good answer
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: on this, and maybe you have one where and this
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: is the only place where I might be putting the
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: conspiracy bucket a little bit fine, Where the hell did
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: his money come from? That I've never I've never heard
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: an explanation.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Well, obviously he was a massad agent, and obviously that
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: they pay very very well. And I'm kidding, I mean,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: but that's that's the conspiracy mindset. Look, I agree that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: it's mystifying where he got his money. However, Steve, that
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: is not evidence. A question about where someone got their
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: money isn't interesting lead that is not evidence of a
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: larger conspiracy. Agree, and I think, Look, I think there
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: are lots of people in public life who you would
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: go like the they Obama, Swami, where did he get
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: his money? Well, no, I can explain that there's a
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: public but the point, the point is, Steve, I'm sure
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: you know you're a finance guy. I'm sure you have
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: run across people that you're like, where the hell they
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: get their money from? And I agree that that's an
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: interesting question about em Steve, but people have Here's what
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I think happens. And I've seen this happen in other
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: stories in a way it happened in the Penn States
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: and Dusky story where people buy the conspiracy guilt narrative
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: and then they see everything else through that prism. Sure,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: and and it's only through that prism that him having
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: money that doesn't seem to be explainable becomes evidence of
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the conspiracy itself.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: That's it works.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: It's it's a lead. It's not evident. Now. I'm not
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: pretending that there's not something super weird. By the way,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: my theory I have no evidence for. This is just
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: my analysis of you know, and you know the way
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: that my brain works. My theory is that he was
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: probably largely a financial fraud, that he probably was one
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of these people that created see. I think he was
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: all about creating the myth that he was incredibly well connected.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: That's why he had toit people to this island, why
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: he used his private jet back when a private jet
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today, where he could
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: connect himself to very famous and seemingly powerful and credible people,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: much like Bernie made Off. I think there was a
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: very Bernie made Off element to this and the psychology
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that Epstein understood that you could get away with a
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: whole lot of shit if people thought you were super
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: rich and thought you were connected to very powerful and
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: well known people, and that you had been vetted, that
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: you have been vetted by the elites of society. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: my guess is that when it really came down to it,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: he probably didn't have nearly as much money as we perceive.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And I based out in part in what some of
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: the things Alan Dershowitz has talked about. Dershowitz is completely
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: convinced that the guy killed himself partly because he had
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: conversations with Epstein about how he viewed life and his
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: legacy and basically he wanted to die as soon as
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: it was no longer fun to live. And these are
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: my words, but that's my analysis of what he said.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: And a guy that has that philosophy isn't worried about
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: saving money. He's he's creating a persona, a persona that
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: can be very effective. You know, these people, steve people
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: in this world, the financial elites, they get very influenced
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: by the fact, oh you you know, you've had Bill
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Clinton to your island, and you know that type of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: stuff that has a real impact. So I'm not convinced
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: he was nearly as rich as the perception, but I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: agree it's a fair question. However, it does not prove
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: ever come close to proving a massive conspiracy, especially when,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: as you well now, because you've heard me talk about
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: this one hundred times, if he killed himself in prison,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: which the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he did, and would
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: require a conspiracy involving Dan Voncino and Cashpitell and dam
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Body and Bill Barr and Donald Trump to all lie
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: about this, which is insane. If he really did kill himself,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: the whole conspiracy theory falls apart, because that him being
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: murdered in prison is the basis for why everyone thinks,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: oh my god, he was protecting all these powerful people
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and that they had him killed because he was about
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: to turn state's evidence on them. Or if he killed himself,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: that all falls apart. So anyway, that's that's my response.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you find that to be a
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: value or not, but that's that's where I am on it. Okay,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: let's somewhat similar. These are all somewhat similar stories. In
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: response to the Epstiny controversy. Tulsi Gabbard has come forward
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: with the allegation that the Obama administration basically attempted a
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: coup on on Donald Trump via the Russia Gate investigation.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And I'm very curious as to where you are on
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: this because, as you probably already know, I have a
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: big problem with it in that we already had a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Trump administration. Yeah, and and and for me to get
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: to first base on this theory, I need a really
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: good explanation for how it is that Tulsi Gabbert was
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: able to crack this case and nobody in the first
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: administered Trump administration was able to do so. Well, where
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: are you on this story?
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Well no, And here, by the way, I don't think
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: this story has any connection to the prior one that
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: we were talking about.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I don't think at all.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You don't think the timing is suspicious?
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: I did not listen. Here's what I what I think is.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: I think it's relatively clear even to the public, but
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: I certainly know it from my private interactions.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Would Donald Trump and his staff in his first.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Term, the intelligence community in his first term fought him,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: tried to stymy him at absolutely every turn, right, I
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: mean It's just the idea that he had full command
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: of them even though he was commander in chief is
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: just not reality.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I mean that it just is not.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: By two years in everybody was fired. I mean Komi
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: was fired. No, everybody. Everybody was.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Not the civil servants, though, I mean, I think you're
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: thinking too much of the very top level, the civil
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: servants who really run those bureaucracies. None of them were fired.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: I think lots of them should have been. I hope
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: they will be this term. But the point is they weren't,
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: and they were simply they were not just uncooperative. I mean,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: they were in open rebellion. I guess I shudn't they open,
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: But they were in rebellion, secret rebellion really within those
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: agencies against Trump, and they were convinced that it was
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: a fluke that he became president at all. I think
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: many of them actually believed that he became president because
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: of Russia.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Whether they believe that or not, they thought it was.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: A fluke that he was there, that he wouldn't be
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: there for long, and that they weren't going to obey orders.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: You know, quite frankly, it was a bureaucracy, and this
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: was not just the national security and this was across
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: the bureaucracy. Bureaucrasy just dug itself in and said, we're here,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: we have civil service protections, we are not going to.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Cooperate with you.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: But it was particularly pernicious on the national security side.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: And so the idea that he got full transparency, that
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: even he internally got full access and transparency, I just
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: don't believe that that happened.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: And I'll give you one.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: Concrete example from my conversations with him during the first term.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: I was frustrated the whole first term that he wasn't
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: coming down hard enough on big tech, which I thought
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: had acted so egregiously, particularly when it comes to matters
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: of free speech right and what you know, it happened
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: on steroids then in twenty twenty, but even prior to
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: the COVID panic, they were suppressing free speech so aggressively,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: putting so many limits on those of us on the
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: political right that and I believed it was in a
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: coordinated way.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And I believed that at least some.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Of it, because we were getting some indications of this
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: flowed from the Obama administration and the directives when Obama
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: was president to big tech and his coziness with Mark
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Zuckerberg and you know, the other titans of big tech.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: And I would regularly, you know, tell him, just in general,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: you need to crack down on big tech. He was
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: very reticent to do so, mostly because of its worries
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: about the stock market.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: But I would also say, dig.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Down and find out, you know, what have been the
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: communications between the DJ and the and big tech.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: You know, has the FBI been in direct contact with them?
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: You know, did the Obama administration actively work with them
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: to harm you, to suppress Broad's free speech? And he
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: would tell me, Steve, he goes, I can try, but
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: I don't think I'll get results. And that's out of
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: his own intelligence community. So I just I think you're
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: starting from a false premise that he had full control
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: or that he had obedience from the barrocracy.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: I know fully buy that, but I understand that there's
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a point to be made there. But explain to me
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: why you think my what you apparently do my skepticism
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: towards Tulsi Gabbert is misplaced. I mean, this is a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a person who Trump publicly stated didn't know what she
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: was talking about when it came to the intelligence with
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: regard to Iranian nuclear facilities. And now, all of a sudden,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: just as he needs a distraction from the Epstein story,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: she comes forward on a white horse with the most trumpy,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the pro trumpy story in the You can possibly imagine
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: anyone who's ever met Donald Trump knows this is a
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: story he's gonna love in every possible way. And now
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: she's being praised by the Boss. Right, Why is am
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I incorrect to be skeptical of that scenario?
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: You're not incorrected to approaching with skepticism, but I think
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: your conclusions are nonetheless incorrect. And here's why. By the way,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: I was totally with Tulcia on the Iran thing. So
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: maybe that's one reason I'm more willing to trust her. Right,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: I think she's fantastic.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I do. I just think on.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: National security stuff, and I've always agreed with her, even
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: when she was a Democrat, even when she was running
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: for president of a Democrat.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: By the national security I.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Don't know, you know this. I liked her when she
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: was a Democrat too. I meant, I remember having a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: conversation with my friend, Congressman John Yarmouth about whether she
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: could be the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic side
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: several years. I mean, so I like a lot about her.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I have nothing against her, So anyway, go ahead.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: No, but here's the important point is you know you
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: use the words several times they're of story.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't even care what Pulsey's story is.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: She has the receipts, we have the documents, we have
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: the emails and the text and they.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: But they don't. I think they're being misinterpreted. I think
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I believe here's what I think has happened here. And
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: I think that we have changed the definitions of terms.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I think we've conflated some terms. I think that the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Obama administration correctly concluded that Russia did not influence the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: election structurally, like with voting machines and with actual you know,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: vote tabulations, that type of stuff, and that that they've
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: taken that premise and then extrapolated from there. This is
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: what Gabbard has done to say, Oh my god, they
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: knew this was this was wrong, they knew this was false,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: and this was all an attempted code or discredit Trump. No,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: that's not what the allegation was. The allegation was, which
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: has been verified even by Marco Rubio's Committee of the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Senate is that Russia did try to influence the election
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: in Trump's favor. Were they successful? We have no way
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: of knowing whether or not they played a significant role.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: I think it was probably exaggerated, but there were some
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: very close states where they may have made a slight difference.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Because the issue was their intention. It was their intention.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: So where am I okay on everything? So listen.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: First of all, every country on planet Earth that matters
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: tries to influence our elections. Okay, England tries to influence
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: our elections, China does, Russia does, every country does.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, So you know, trying to influence us is almost
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: an irrelevant absurdity. Okay.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: Russia's efforts to try to influence the election, we're totally immaterial.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: It came down to it, you know, from we know
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: from the Mueller probe.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: I think it was a total of something like ten
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: million dollars of spending, you know, in a race where
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: each side spent more than a billion dollars.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Steve, I'm flying with that. I'm fine with that.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: So their efforts were immaterial, first of all.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: But secondly, what was not immaterial was the way that
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: a that a myth of collusion, of direct collusion and
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: cooperation between the Russians and Trump, because the Russians had
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: supposed compromise, right because Trump was supposedly compromised, you know,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: by selacious activities with prostituts in Moscow.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, that entire narrative.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: It was that lie was legitimized by the Biden administration,
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: by President Biden himself, his most senior national security officials.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: And we know that now with documented evidence. We know
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: it now because of what tells you all of us
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: suspected it. All signals pointed that way anyway. But now
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: what we have and how do we know it? Let
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: me let me be really specific on this. We know
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: it now because of these new and these are new
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: revelationations from TULCA gabbartt again with receipts, not her word.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Brennan's own CIA determined that there was no collusion between
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: the Trump administration or Juan the Trump campaign and the Russians.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: That was put in the President's Daily Briefing on December
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: ninth of twenty sixteen. The administration, Brennan and others had.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: A huge problem with that.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: He went back to his own CIA analysts, and again
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: we have the records of this. Now he argued with them,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: they objected, He overruled them, and they created a new
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: intelligence community assessment, this you know now infamous ICA, that
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: said there was collusion because they had compromise over They
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: then took this finding, gave it the stamp of approval
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: of the US intelligence community, and brought it to Donald
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: Trump on January sixth of twenty seventeen, to the President
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: elect and briefed him on it for the sole purpose
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: they knew it was false, for the sole purpose of
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: then immediately within hours leaking it to BuzzFeed and CNN,
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: and it became the poison seed that grew the entire
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Russia hoax, that led to a cloud hanging over his
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: presidency for two years, that read to the entire led
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: to the entire Mueller inquest.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: And those are crimes.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: That's not just a terrible, malicious lie, it's not just unethical.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: It is a crime to weaponize the national security and
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: law enforcement capabilities of the federal government at the highest
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: levels to effectively leave a poison pill for the elected
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: president of the United States.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: So this, to me.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Is is perhaps the greatest scandal in American political history,
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: and I think ultimately will lead to incredibly senior.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: People in handcuffs.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Whether or not they're convicted, I don't know, especially if
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: they get tried in Washington, d C. But John, I
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: rarely disagree with you on this. I couldn't disagree with
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: you more.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Vehemently I can tell, and I still and I'm not
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: changing my position. And but I do want to get
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: further into it because you've you've written a related column
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: for Real Politics entitled the Real January sixth wasn't at
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the Capitol, It was a Trump Tower, And this involves
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: James Comy, which I want I want to get into
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: more specifically, but let may address in general why I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: think we disagree on this. And by the way, I
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: don't even know if you're aware, but I actually have
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of credibility on this issue
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: as not being part of the Russia Russia, Russia gang
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: because I interviewed Michael Isakov, who was then I don't
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: remember who he was working for at the time, but
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: he wrote a book basically blowing apart a lot of
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the whole Russia Gate narrative, and my interview was tweeted
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: about three times by Donald Trump. Okay, so and yeah,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think you not. I did not know that
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: because I actually I don't talk about it very much.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: But I find it to be fascinating because part of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: why I interviewed Isakov is I think he cracked the
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: code on, for instance, a large part of the Steele dossier. Like,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: for instance, I don't know you and I have never
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: talked about this. I don't even I've ever talked about
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: it on the air before. But like you know, the
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: infamous P tape situation, right, what I think happened with
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the P tape is that there really was there were
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Russians who attended a strip club in Las Vegas with
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and in that strip club there was a
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: performance that involved urination. And I believe that those Russians
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: went back to Russia and effectively started a whisper down
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: the Lane situation involving Trump, porn stars or whatever you
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: want to call them, strippers and this urination ritual, and
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that that somehow that rumor came back to Steel and
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: it became the P tape because it got exaggerated, and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that was and that was a huge that was huge
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: to the narrative, not just because it's salacious, but because
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: that's the so called compromise, right, they got to have
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: leverage over Trump. By the way, I've never bought the
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: idea somehow Trump having sex with somebody was going to
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: be was going to be leverage over him, depending on
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: how you know, attractive the models were at the time.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: But because we're talking about a different animal here. But
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the point here is Isakov I believe cracked the code
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: on this, that this was a series of rumors that
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: got out of hand. Now why did they get out
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of hand? Partially why they got out of hand, Steve,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: is that Trump, either knowingly or by mistake or somewhere
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: in between, did a lot of things during the twenty
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: sixteen election and after the twenty sixteen election that understandably
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: arose aroused suspicion if you didn't know what the truth was.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Now Trump knew what the truth was. Trump knew there
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: was no collusion with Russia. He knew the story was largely,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: if not in his mind, totally bullshit. But if you're
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: looking at this through the prism of the intelligence agencies,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and I fully acknowledged, Steve, I think you're dead on
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: that the number one factor here is people like James
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: call Me and others like him were stunned, stunned that
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Trump won. So they need an explanation, right, Psychologically, you
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: need an explanation for why this stunning thing that you
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: never had any comprehension could happen has occurred. And so
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the Russia narrative fills that void. Oh oh, and then
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: if you buy into this, if you buy that there's
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: a Russia collusion narrative, this goes to the top of
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the priority list, right because you can't think of as
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: an intelligence agent, you can't think of anything more potentially
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: dangerous than having some sort of a Manchurian candidate as
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. So then people start to
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: overreact to it, and they see everything through the prism
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: of that possibility. And then and this gets me to
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: your article in real clear politics. Then when Trump fires
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: call me, which I understand from your perspective and probably
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and obviously from Trump's perspective, makes total sense that firing
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: is seen as holy shit, this is exactly what he
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: would do if he was guilty. What are we dealing
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: with here? So you I don't think you're you're giving
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: enough credibility to the idea that these people, while they
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: were wrong, while they were wrong, were not necessarily nefarious.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: If they're they're in, they're look at looking at this,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: especially when you have situations like Trump trying to build
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: a Trump tower, using the Republican nomination to get a
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Trump tower built in Moscow, uh after he was the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: de facto nominee and publicly calling for Russia to find
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's emails, and and the Moulla report found that
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Russia tried to do exactly that that night. So there
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: was a lot of smoke Steve, and so I, I
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: you know how cynical I am about people. Don't like
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: any of these people. I think James Comy is an ass,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: But I think James Comy is in love with his
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: own perceived virtue. And the thing about Comy that I
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: think creates the biggest problem for your theory is cally
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: is why Trump got elected? Steve, how do you explain?
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: How do you explain Steve as a political person. There's
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: no way around that reality. If James Comy doesn't come
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: forward ten days before the election and accuse reopened the
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton email investigation, Trump does not win that election.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Period So how do you explain.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: That Comy didn't address that because he's an ethical person.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: He addressed it because there was no choice at that point,
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: because he was becoming so obvious that Hillary had really
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: serious problems with her emails. But here's the thing I think,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: and John, I've never accused you of being naive. I
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: think you're being super naive on this entire point, the
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: fact that you are ascribing so much goodwill to Comy
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: that he's just some patriot too his concern about the country.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, Onomi has a.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Very long history of incredibly insidious activities. I mean, going
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: all the way back to the Martha Stewart prosecution for instance.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, not that I want to get in all
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: these details, but you know, he's the.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Village of him, and rehire him.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Steve, Well, he should have fired him day one, right, should.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: Have fired him on day one and rehire him because
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: he probably thought because Trump is a charmer and he
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: probably thought he could win him over, right, and if
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: he said, if he's not going to fire him, he
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: doesn't need him hating him.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: So but here's the Okay, let me just give you
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: other than just you know, my assessment of call me
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: as a scumbag, all right, as a terrible individual. Let
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: me give you just some of the facts of the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: case that argue against your position. The first thing is
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: that Steele dossier. Okay, no matter what ended up with
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: it or how here's the reality. Any intelligence official who
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: is trying to be a professional would know instantly that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: that dossier was ludicrous, Okay, that it was a tabloid
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: that you would see at the checkout counter at the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: grocery store.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: It had no.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: Validity of any kind, not even a pretense of being
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: serious intelligence gatherings. So no one would use the Steele
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: dossier for anything credible at all, much less to this
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: level of significance right where it's literally a president to
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: incoming president briefing.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Right that just would never ever happen. So I deny.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I just totally reject the notion that this was about
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: serious suspicion about Russia. No, this was about trying to
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: discredit Trump, and it was even pre planned. And my
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: evidence for that would be Stock and Paige, Peter Stock
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: and Lisa Page. And they're documented conversation which we've now
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: paid them millions of dollars for. And by the way,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: Peter Strock, professor at our university at Georgetown getting paid.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: There two scumbags, right, who are engaged in an instrumental affair,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: but much more importantly for the people, we're planning to
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: undermine the electoral will of the people. Two people who
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: said that MAGA supporters smelled at a Walmart that they visited.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: But most importantly for this case, who said that they
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: had a quote insurance policy. Well, what is the insurance
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: policy from these two very very senior DOJ and FBI officials. Well,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: the insurance policy to me is blatantly obvious. It was
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: this ludicrous Steele dossier that was going to be laundered
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: through the intelligence community, turned into something supposedly authoritative, and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: then used to set a trap for Donald Trump.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And I think that the trap had a twofold aim.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: They were hoping to get some sort of ridiculous, bogus
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: confession out of him that didn't happen.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Thank good, Trump didn't fall for that ruse.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: But what they the real point of the Trump Tower meeting,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: the real Jan six of jan six, twenty seventeen, was
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: to then leak this whole briefing to the press, and
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: unfortunately it worked their plan worked. They set in motion
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: a chain of events and a cloud of suspicion over
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: Trump that really bedeviled his first two years in office
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: until we finally got the Muller Report, which completely exonerated
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: Trump and his team and for that matter, all Americans
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: right that the Mother Report didn't have determined that Trump
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: didn't participate. No American at all participated in Russia's super
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: minor efforts to influence the election. By the way, too,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: we also now know regarding efforts to influence the election,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: that the Russians, if anything, seemed torn on which candidate.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Because of these Tulsi revelations, we know that in many
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: ways Putin preferred Hillary why because.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: He believed he actually had comprom out.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: On her, which included her apparent drug habits, her complete
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: mental instability.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, hold on a.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Second, please, you know I love you, but this drives
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: me crazy because you've just accepted as fact as fact
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: that what is effectively even less substantiated than the Steele
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: dossier is this, We're now accepting this fact what Putin alleged.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not accepting this fact. I'm not accepting this fact.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not and I doubt it's even true, you know,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: at least as stated right, I would guess if the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Russians believe that that they were wrong. But my point
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: is the idea that Russia was hell bent on electing
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Trump anyway, I just don't think holds water.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: You know, on his face either.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: All right, look, it's first of all, there's so many
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: things you said there. But as far as those text
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: messages between the lovers, not that we're ever close to
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: being lovers, but I'm guarantee if you looked at all
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: of our texts from the last election and took something
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: out of context that was intended as a joke, you
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: could probably come up with something similar to insurance policy.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, people on texts, especially when their lovers tend
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: to joke around and try to give each other.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: The okay, fine, but what about legitimizing What about legitimizing
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: the Steele dossier, which was ludicrous from the start.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Again, obviously in retrospect it was ludical. I've even just
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: explained the no not in retrospective in a small role
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: in debunking the Steel dossier, so it's hard for me
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: to defend it. However, the key part of this equation
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: is the lefs unbelievable psychological need to explain the twenty
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: sixteen loss. That's what they needed, and this perfectly filled
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the void. Now was it used in a weird way? Steve,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I'm probably the only person in the world that's going
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: to make this analogy and maybe you won't understand it.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe you won't. It was a lot like covid. Okay,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: they panicked and saw this also as a weapon. It
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: was simultaneously fitting both of their agendas, the psychological need
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: to explain the twenty sixteen election, and they also saw
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: it as, oh my god, we can use this to
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: take Trump out, to get them impeached and remove from
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: office if this is all real, and that in their minds,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: in their minds, because you know, liberals, they love thinking
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: that they're trying to say the world and they're in
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: like COMI, they're in love with their own goodness, their
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: own alleged virtue. This hit all those buttons, and frankly,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: because of some of the things that Trump did, it
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: bothers me that you don't accept any responsibility for some
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: of the things that Trump did that promoted that allowed
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: this false narrative to take hold, including the way in
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: which he fired Kmy because the firing of Komy, which
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: I get, I get it, and Trump's mind made total sense.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: But when you have when it comes right after that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: conversation between Comy and Trump, where Comy is starting to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: get the heavy gbis about what's really going on here,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and Trump is effectively asking him, are you know you're
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: gonna be on my side here? Right? And Kmy's seeing
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: this through the prism of a false narrative. Okay, I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: want to make that clear. Comy is seeing Trump's actions
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: through the prism of a false narrative involving potential Russian collusion.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: But in his mind, because he's so in love with
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: his own virtue, he thinks he has to save the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: fucking world from Donald Trump. And but Steve, you're never
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: gonna get past the fact that Donald Trump himself praised
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Komy for winning him the election and then rehired him.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: You can't get a.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: So I just said, rehiring him was absolutely a mistake.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: He should have been fired on day one.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: If Tony had it out for Trump so much, why
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: why wouldn't he stay quiet for ten more days to
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: let Hillary win the election? Why wouldn't he do.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: That because there was so much public pressure at that point,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: because the evidence.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Of her public pressure there was, Yes, there was.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: We were talking about all like crazy in the Trump
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: campaign about the email of her of her evidence and
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: smashing phones as secretary of State. I mean, these were
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: these are really problematic issues for her that that we
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: needed an explanation on. And it was in a very
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: tight race, and the polling was very tight at least
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: good polling was ar certainly was at that point.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: This was a problem for her that could move marginal voters.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: So no, I don't agree that he that he took
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: an unnecessary shot at Hillary Clinton.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: I really just I don't see that.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: And and here's the thing regarding call me specifically, let's
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: even say that was true.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: Well, once Trump won, that completely switched his thinking, right.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, now we have to undermine, as president, I believe
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: you are giving him are too much credence and you
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: are assigning far too much patriotism and goodwill to him individually,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: to the FBI in general, to the intelligence community, you know,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: even more broadly than that.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, this is an FBI.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Which we now know was spying on Catholics for going
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: to the Latin mass in the United States, like, this
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: is a poisoned organization. This is just a totally corrupted
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: organization that is a parallel government in many ways that
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: answers they think only to themselves, and they largely have
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: and in my view, in combination with a really unethical
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: commander in chief Barack Obama, you know, who was worried
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: that his legacy would be tarnished because he led directly
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump, which he did, by the way, to
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: the populism that elected Donald Trump. When you combine this,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: this corrupt intelligence community with a scurrilous commander in chief
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: like Barack Obama, I one hundred percent believe that they said,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: we can lay a trap, we can make it so
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: that his presidency is hobbled, so that we perhaps even
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: set a predicant upon which he can be removed from office,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: and we'll lie to do it, and we don't mind.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: And by the way, he's a political neo fight He's probably.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Gonna fall for this.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: And I think to me, it was an absolutely nefarious plot.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: It was a conspiracy. It was actual sedition, that was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: the insurrection. It was the real jant six.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: In my view, well, I think it's kind of funny
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: that you think I'm naive about their intent, and I
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: think you're naive about their efficiency, because I think you're
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: giving them way too much credit about how well they
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: could have pulled this off. Because if they were able
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: to pull this off as well as they did, how
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: the hell did they lose the election in the first place?
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: All right, Well, because they don't control the election corrections
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: control by states.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: But let's move on to something. I think we're going
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: to agree with it.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: I've got to get your analysis as someone who knows
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Trump really well as to Trump's evolution on the Washington
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Redskins nickname situation. As you know, as an avid listener
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to the podcast, I have been frustrated and mystic fighters
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: to why Trump has been very slow to realize his
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: unique leverage in this situation and the benefits that could
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: be had if the Redskins were ever to be restored
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: to their proper name. I was stunned that recently Trump
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: has made a couple of rather dramatic statements indicating that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: he's all on board, in fact even willing to use
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: the stadium leverage to try to get the Washington commanders
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: to be returned to their rightful name of the Washington Redskins.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: What is your take on how forget let's hold off
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: on what's going to happen? How did Trump's mindset evolve
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: so seemingly dramatically and quickly on this in your opinion.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: I would like to tell you that it leads in
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: part flows from me, but I have no idea that's true.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: I have talked to a lot of White House officials about.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: It, all of whom agreed with me, though already I'm
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: not sure they have thought about the issue. But you know, hey,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: this is a leverage point, and it matters way more
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: than just this name, right, It matters symbolically so much
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: for the country to try to squash this, you know,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: hiding history and political correctness, you know, more broadly. So
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know if if I played any part, And
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: if I did, it was largely because of your influence
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: on me, because of what you said the other podcast.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: But the answer is, I don't know how it happened.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: Who got to Trump with it?
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: Because, yeah, you're right, he seemed uninterested in terms of
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: using leverage before right. He clearly hated that the name
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: is changed, but he was just stopping there, right and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: not going to the next step of wait a second,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: I've got the leverage to change his back.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: But super super glad that he did.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: You know, since I went to Georgetown, like you, I
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: had some experience with to several Redskins games when I
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: were there.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: It's an amazing.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: Franchise and it is one of the few pro teams
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: that I think has a college like atmosphere and following
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: which I think part of that is that there's not
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: major college football programs in the area. So you know,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: that sort of energy goes to the Redskins. But much
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: more importantly than the Redskins, more importantly even than football,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: is the idea that you know, we've we've got to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: stop with this nonsense. I just read today that in Taos,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: New Mexico, they're going to rename Kick Carson State Park
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: because you know, he was at times brutal to the Indians.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: Well he also married in Indians, so it's a very
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: complicated history with the Indians. But regardless, like Kit Carson
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: as an American hero, okay, who should absolutely be revered,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: you know, especially by people military and so forth. I mean,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: we're talking about an unbelievable fighter like this is absurd. Okay,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: stop this nonsense. Stop tearing down statues, stop renaming federal bases,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: stop renaming the redskins.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: So if this in.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: Fact happens, if he accomplishes this, not only is it
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: going to win over John Zigler, but he's going to
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: I think, accomplish something really important for the country.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: Now, what do you think the chances are of it
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: actually happening. I'm still not at fifty percent. I think
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: it's thirty thirty five percent. You know, there's a saying
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: about Trump. Unless he says something two or three times,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: you don't really take him that seriously. He's got a
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: lot on his plate. He does have the leverage here.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I think we both agree that there is an absolute
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: leverage point here. This is not the way I would
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: have liked it to have happened. In other words, and
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: I realized this is this is not the way Donald
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: Trump operates. But this is one of those things that
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: had to happen under the surface. For him to be
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: so public about it, I think actually makes it more
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: difficult for the Washington Ownership group because then it looks
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: as if they would be doing this at the at
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: the point of Donald Trump's gun, which is very, very problematic,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: especially in Washington, d C. If Trump had been able
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: to do this behind closed doors, and if the Washington
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: ownership had suddenly said, you know what, we've rethought about this.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: We really love the old name. We've listened to our fans,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: we've listened to Native Americans, and we're doing this on
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: our own that I think would be effective and have
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: a potentially, you know, very positive impact. But I don't
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: think that that's where we are. And so that's partially
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: why I'm not sure he's going to get this into
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the end zone where.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: You certainly could be right and your logic makes sense.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: Although I will say this, you know he's somewhat publicly on.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: The clock on this issue now.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: So you know, if that stadium does start getting built
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: and there's still the command, you know, he does have
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: a problem.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: He's going to have to explain that. He will get
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: asked about that at.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Some point right at that state, because I would assume
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: construction would start within his term, So to some degree.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: He's on the clock.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: But you're right in terms of what would have been
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: the preferred method, of course, to do it privately and
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: by the way I'll give you know, and I think
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: you and I talked about it on this podcast previously.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: A football issue that was handled that way, the right
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: way was restoring the college football season back in twenty
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: twenty where and I was certainly a key part of
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: that and really got that ball rolling.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: And specifically asked him, let's please.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: Not be public about this yet, and you know, because
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: you don't want the Big Ten, with the Big Ten
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: was really the conference that was in play then was
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: undecided and mattered, you know, for the totality of college football,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: and the Big Ten, you know, does not want to
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: have to take a stance that looks like it's agree
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: with Donald Trump, even though.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: In fact it is.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: And he did stick quite about that one, and it
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: was really effective, right, and it worked. We didn't have
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: the season we should have had, of course, but we
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: had a season. And had he used the same tactic here,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: I think it would have been absolutely you know, more
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: effect and probably would have already worked.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: He probably could have already then announced Hey, you know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: they're the Redskins, and they're going to be playing in Washington,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: d c.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: And you know, and we're going to give full federal
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: approval to this.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good analogy and a good analysis.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Now two other as we finish up here, and you've
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: been very as generous as always with your time, I
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: want to talk about two other football related issues. One is,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: as we are taping this on Tuesday of this week,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest news stories is an attack in
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: New York City by a former high school football player
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: here in southern California that killed four people and including
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: himself then five And apparently the narrative as we are
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: taping this, which seems pretty solid, is that the intended
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: target was the National Football League and that the motivation
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: was the issue of CTE. And I am extremely agitated
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: about where I think this story could end up going,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: depending on how it evolves in the next twenty four
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: to forty eight hours. But my take, Steve, is that
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: this is a classic example of where the media is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: likely to take an one hundred and eighty degree opposite
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: perspective on the truth, because what appears to be the
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: truth to me is that this was a kid who
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: played only a couple of years of high school football
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: in southern California, where as you well know, I don't
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: even believe they really play tackle football, right, And I
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: mean that sinceerially there's no tackle football in southern California,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: and I've seen the highlights from his games. This was
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: you know, this was legitimate high school football. But he
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: did not get CTE and it did not impact him.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: His decision at the age of twenty seven, I believe,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: is how old he is to go kill a whole
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of people and go after the NFL. What I
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: think is most likely is he had a history of
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: men illness and latched on to this narrative that the
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: reason for his mental illness is that he played football,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: and that that was created by this media narrative that
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: somehow football is so dangerous and that you know, CTE
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: is somehow now inevitable, and that you're going to start
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: killing people and that it's perfectly normal and natural because
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: of football, when there's no evidence or logic to support
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: that whatsoever. Am I overreacting? Am I too pessimistic about
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: where this story may end up going?
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: No, Unfortunately, I think maybe you're not even being pessimistic enough, because,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: particularly because it happened in New York, you know, on
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: Park Avenue, this story will have a lot of legs
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: with the corporate media, and they would love to grab
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: onto an anti football angle as we're about to start
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: a new football season, because they despise football, you know.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: And why do they despise football? Because it represents Americana
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: and masculinity in a way that is, you know, truly unique,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: and they hate both of those concepts of you know,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: American patriotism, American heritage, and strong masculinity, especially when you
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: marry the two together.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: You're exactly correct. I think that the idea that CTE.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: Caused this is an absurdity for somebody who played so
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: little football at a relatively low level, you know, first
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: of all, but secondly, even on the broader issue, even
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: for people who hald footballuntil they were forty years old
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: in the NFL and might have actually you know, endured CTE.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: There is such a difference between somebody who has mental
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: illness or has inclinations toward extremely aggressive behavior and happens
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: to have CTE versus the CTE.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: Causing their behaviors.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: And what I would give as an example of this
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: is if you look, for example, at some of the
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: statistics regarding like special Forces operators or take groups that
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: have very high testosterone, high type a personality, super aggressive,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: risk tolerant behaviors. If you look at those groups, and
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: Special Forces kind of represents all of that in a
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: way that probably only NFL does as well. They have
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: similarly problematic outcomes once they leave the military, meaning higher
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: suicide rate in many cases, lower life spans, shorter life spans, criminality.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: But the point is, it's not that the military did
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: that to them, right. If anything, the military, you know,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: probably sent them the other direction while they were in
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: the military. The point is the kinds of people, the
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: kinds of personalities who are that aggressive, who are that
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: risk tolerant, who had that kind of motivation, and that
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: kind of you know, personal and mental makeup, chemical and
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 3: mental makeup, are the kinds of people who can take
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: that aggression in really bad directions and in really great directions.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: And those are the kinds of people who are going
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 3: to succeed and become a Green Beret or the kind
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: of people who are going to become a middle linebacker
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: in the NFL.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: Right, that's the issue.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: It's not that being a Special Forces operator or being
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: a football player made them that way.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: No, they were that way, and that's why they succeeded.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: Now, I'm not saying CT's a zero issue, especially for
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: people who play football long term, and certainly it needs
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: to be studied. My point is, though, that it's not
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: being studied legitimately. Why because the NFL. You always talk
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: about the conflicts of interests, You're so good on those points.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: The NFL has such an intense conflict of interest, and
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: in the case of the media, it's not a conflict
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: of interest. The media has an absolute interest with no conflicts.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: Just they want to destroy football, period because they hate it,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: because it's masculine and it's American. And so this is
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: a confluence of events here that you know, I think
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: is problematic for a sport that is already in some
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: trouble right especially at the youth level, and where a
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: lot of American parents, I think, have been pushed into
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: a place where they're not taking a rational cost benefit
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: analysis of does football make sense for my son? You know,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: is this a rational risk? Because it is a risk.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: Of course it is, by the way, so is hockey,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: so is soccer. By the way, heading the ball by
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: all medical data tells us that is at least as
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: bad as hard hits in football maybe much worse because
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: of no helmet, right, But those don't get attacked because
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: they're not viewed as being archetype, masculine American sort of
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: constructs right to be taken down.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: Lacrosse isn't viewed in that way.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: Hockeys, not wrestling, is not even boxing, which is clearly
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: worse for your head, right, But there's no move toward
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: banning boxing. I mean, I'm not aware of any kind
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: of move of.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Saying, you know, no kid from boxing, boxing boxing band
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: itself effectively, Well.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: He's pretty popular at the youth level. I will tell
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: you that. I mean, because I'm very involved in the sport.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: I obviously never cared much for my head because football
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: and boxing were my two my two sports, and you
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: know I've done reasonably well in life with an adult brain.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: So I think you and I have almost exactly the
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: same opinion on this. It's a legitimate issue, it's a
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: legitimate thing that needs to be researched. However, I don't
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: trust the research, first of all, because I don't trust
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: the agenda of those behind it. Also, the science is
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: bad because inherently your pool is polluted because the only
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: people being tested for CTE are people who had dramatic
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: systems symptoms of CTE and you only get tested at
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: do you're dead, And so I'm not all suggesting it's
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: not legitimate. However, I would like somebody, anybody, because this
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: reminds me very much of the whole global warming debate.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: You know, the other side makes these predictions and they're
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: they're ominous, and then they never come true and there's
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: no accountability. So explain to me, you know how it
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: is it Terry Frickin Bradshaw is still on television in
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: his seventies. I mean, this guy got brutalized, Yeah, seventies,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: and while he's not the brightest ball with the chandelier,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: he's still functional on television in his seventies. I mean,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: if anybody should have CTE, it's Terry Frickin Bradshaw.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: And he's not alone. I mean, I have done a
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: study of this. I mean, when you look at the
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: quarterbacks who were sacked the most in the history of
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: the National Football League other than Brett farre who has
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: Parkinson's which they're going to try to connect to CTE
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: but there's no evidence of that, and and Bart Starr,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: other than those two everyone's fan doing fantastic well, right,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: So how does that make any sense? Right?
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: No, And I know it's just anecdotal, but it's a
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: strong point.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: And yeah, by the way, I'm not sure Bradshaw was
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: ever the sharpest knife for the drawer right in his
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: best days. But when you look at the hits that
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: he would take and quarterbacks would take in the seventies,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's scary. And you know, and you've talked
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: about a lot too, and I do think the game
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: probably went too.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: Far right in those days.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: I mean where it was getting almost gladiatorial, right, you know,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: particularly for quarterbacks who really can't defend themselves.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: It was getting a little crazy.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: But now we've gone, you know, obviously massively too far
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: the other way. But I also think again there's really
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: something to remember that when there are these bad stories,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: and of course there are terrible stories, you know from
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: the Steelers a Jack Lambert for example.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: Right, here's the issue.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: Was it because of football or is it because that's
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: the kind of person they were? And hyper masculine, hyper
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: type A aggressive people will often find themselves in behaviors
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: that are really destructive to themselves or others, regardless of
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: whether or not they would play football, and in fact,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: maybe football made it better rather than worse.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: Steve, you make a great point, but let me amplify
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: it because this is you know, it's funny that you
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned Jack Lambert Pittsburgh Steelers, obviously a teammate of Terry Bradche,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: obviously a teammate of my friend, the late great Franco Harris,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and Franco and I had conversations about this. You know,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: it was that team that was the focus of the
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: movie Concussion with Will Smith, which I think was huge
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: and it was a turning point in this entire debate.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: What people don't ever think about on that Steeler team
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: is that the guys who were most impacted in their
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: lives after leaving, and you know it was attributed to CTE,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: were the non stars. Well, think about this. If you're
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: a non star on a Pittsburgh Steeler team that wins
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: four Super Bowls, you have just lived through the greatest
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: adrenaline rush any human is likely to ever experience in
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: their life. And then if you're a non star, it's over.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: It's especially in that era, it's over in every way
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: because you don't even make a lot of money so
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: you probably trying. You now go from winning four super
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: balls to needing a job just to make ends meet,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: and so I'm sorry. Mental problems are inevitable, especially given
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the type of personality that you already described as someone
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: who is likely to be engaged in that endeavor to
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: begin with, and no one ever thinks about it. So
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: that's Steeler team. It's just magical that Joe Green is
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: perfectly fine, that Franco was perfectly fine, that Bradshaw is
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: perfectly fine, that Rocky Blyier is perfectly fine, that Swan
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: and stalwarts perfectly fine. Why are the stars all doing great?
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: It was only the guys that weren't the stars It
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: end up having horrible lives because of CTE. I'm sorry,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: there's potentially another explanation for this.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: You agree, absolutely No, that's a phenomenal point.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: And John, I'm not just saying this to be nice
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: to you, because obviously I'm willing to disagree with you.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: But that is the kind of analysis that I will
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: find on no other podcast, on no other platform. That
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: is superb analysis, and it's important not just for football, right,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: but for our society.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: It's super important. Yes, I think you're absolutely spot on.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it all right. The last point this particular
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: football season, you are an extremely interested observer because you
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: have a son who is on the roster for the
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: University of Miami Hurricanes as a football player, as a linebacker,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: although I believe he's not gonna be playing this year
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: due to injury. Right, But I'm curious now that you
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: are such an interested observer in the college game, what
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: is your current assessment of the way things are? With
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: the new House settlement apparently being approved that this liberal
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: California female judge has determined the future of college athletics,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: We still have instant transfers, nil has now effectively been
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: institutional Where what is your assessment of where we are
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: and how could things get it even worse than me currently?
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure they can get worse, honestly, I
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: mean that's the truth of it.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: And I will say, yeah, listen for somebody like my
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: son who you know, assuming he continues to.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: Rehab and ends up on the field effectively, you know,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: and actually plays at that level to school like that,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: you know, for the players and their families, Wow, so
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: many options.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, this can be fantastic.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: But as a fan, of football as somebody who cares
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: about the sport and more importantly, cares about what it
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: does for the country, how important, particularly college football is
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: as a uniquely American and unifying institution, how important is
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: culturally and otherwise. I'm it almost can't be worse it
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: is right now. At least we've got President Trump paying
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: some attention to it. Not strong attention, but you know,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: I think at least there's an acknowledgment now in sort
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: of the public square that like, this isn't okay.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: We can't keep operating the way we are right now.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: And it seems, you know, to your point that the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: NIL structure is probably entrenched and probably other than actual
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: legislation out of Washington, DC, is not going to go away.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: But I do remain optimistic that we can find something
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: on the transfer situation, and that would at least keep
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: the ANIL situation in check. Right, there would be some
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: sort of limitation if you have to sign contracts to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: get your NIL and stay at your institution. You know,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: that would be a dramatic improvement, and I think that
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: is achievable. I don't really think it. You know, serious
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: recisions on a NIL are achievable. But I think restrictions
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: on transferring and the portal situation are achievable because.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: We're ruining the game right now.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: We're ruining this magnificent game, which you know, America has
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: enjoyed for decades and decades, you know, over a century
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: old and total, and it's been a really important part
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 3: of American life for probably seventy years. I mean, I
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: think football really came into its own college football did
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: post World War Two is when it really got the
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: national consciousness. And to destroy this over dumb incentives at
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 3: places like ESPN and to you know, to not take
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: action would be an incredible, incredible shame. The House Settlement
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: is ludicrous on every level.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: The fact that a liberal woman judge in California got
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: to dictate essentially to the entirety of college football and
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: college sports for that matter, but college football is the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: most effected how they can operate is an absurdity. The fact,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: by the way, that she grandfathered in existing players who
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: aren't affected by the House Settlement, but current high school
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: players are fully subject.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: To its rules and restrictions is just an absurdity. I
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: think she's almost.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: Granting that what I'm doing is unfair, and so I'm
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: not going to kick people off of teams, particularly walk
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: ons who want to play for the love of the game.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: But going forward, we are going to eliminate them. We're
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: going to say you can't play for the love of
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: the game. No, you have to earn a scholarship, or
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: you can't play. I mean, in what world does that
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: make sense right to tell a young athlete, whether it's
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: football or any other sport, that you effectively cannot be
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: a walk on. And we're going to eliminate even the
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: pretense of amateurism and the pretense of student athletes. So
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: it has been so twisted beyond recognition that it's an absurdity.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: It's dangerous, I think ultimately, and we better get to
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: work quickly though, because you know, if there comes a
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: time that it's nothing more than a junior NFL, there
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: won't be much interest. You know, you point this out,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: I think repeated people will just beaters it in the
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: actual NFL, not the junior NFL, because once you take
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: away the magic, then you're just a second tier NFL.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: And we're in danger of getting there, you know, I
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: fear pretty quickly, and it's it's such a shame, but I.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: Don't believe it's too late. Thankfully, Nick Saban, you know,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: is a powerful.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: Powerful spokesman on this issue, and if anybody can do it,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: you know it would be Saban.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: But right now things.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: Are in a horrible, horrible spot. I have nothing possible
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: to say about the current condition.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I just want to I want to end on
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: the issue of interest in the sport because I think
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: you're probably more optimistic than I am. I don't see
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: how any of this is salvageable. I think it's already
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: the NFL light. In fact, I think it's worse than
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: the NFL because of the instant transfer situation. I mean,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: at least in the NFL, theres no, it's the transfers
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: and so. But the part that mystifies me this is
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit like it's a weird analogy. But I
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: don't get the MAGA world fascination with the Epstein story.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: I don't get having been a passionate college football fan
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: since nineteen seventy four and now where I barely care
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: at all. And the only reason I care at all
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: is because there's nothing else to do on Saturdays. And
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: you know, in the deep fall, I don't understand how
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: anyone who has been a passionate fan of college football,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: unless they have a direct connection like you do, how
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: anyone could care about this? How is it that? And
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: there's no evidence that interest has collapsed as of yet.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: Do you believe that eventually it will? Or will there
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: be an attrition or or are people just going to
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: live on memories and uniforms and pretend that the world
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: hasn't radically Yeah?
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: Well no, they can't do that forever, right, But I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: mean I take your point that right now, that doesn't
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: seem to be real pressure, right because college football has
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: been too wonderful for too long, right, And as human beings,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: we're capable of a lot of cognitive dissonance, right in
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: mass in this case. Right, And so if you're an
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: Alabama fan, right, and you know what happened under Nick
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: Saban and before of course, but in terms of recently,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: what happened under Nick Saban is enough to sustain you,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: even though this.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: Year you're like, who's on a roster? Who the heck
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: are these people? Right now? When does that break? And
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 2: when is their public pressure? Well? Probably when it's way
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: too late, right, you know, I don't know but yeah,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: you're right. I mean, there are some signs of cracks.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: You we talked a lot about this about the ratings,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: you know, particularly for the playoffs that were definitely problematic,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: especially for the for the finals. Right that surprised me.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: Is a guy who loves notre name and uh, you
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: know that a game that I would never miss. But
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: I'm obviously, you know, unique in terms of the casual fan.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: There's some evidence that they're starting to drop off, but
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: not to the degree that it's going to pressure any
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: anybody to act yet. So No, here's where I think
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: it takes leadership. And I hope whether it's Trump or
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: somebody else. I know jd Vance because I've talked to
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: them extensively about it. He is an Ohio State Buckeye nut. Okay,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: he gets the importance of college football to our country,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: to our culture.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: Will it be too late.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: If he becomes president, you know, in January twenty twenty nine,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but my guess is he'd be far
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: more interested in action on this topic. If it's still
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 3: possible to save the sport at that point. At least,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 3: that would be my hope, and I can promise you
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: this John, and I'll promise the audience as somebody who
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: you know has access to Jdvans and has a relationship
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: with him, I will do everything in my power to
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: try to get him to do so if and when
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: he becomes president.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a deal. Steve, We've done a lot
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: of these interviews. I think this one was the best.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: Oh well, good, well, let's keep getting better.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: Steve has always thanks so much for.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: Your John, Thanks for everything you do. Appreciate it.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: Now I want to review a couple of topics that
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: Steve and I touched on in that interview. The first
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: one is that New York's City shooting, where the killer
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: apparently seems to have believed that he had CTE from
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: playing high school football here in southern California and that
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: was what motivated him to go after the National Football League.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: But he made a mistake and never ended up getting there.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: He did kill four people, including himself. Five deaths resulted
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: from this attack, and as as usually the case, I'm
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: not going to say this person's name because that's part
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: of what they wanted. I'm a big believer in not
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: using a perpetrator in this kind of Situation's name unless
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: there's no other option. But I do want to emphasize
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: that this issue of how the media is likely to
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: respond to it.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: To be fair, there was a massive earthquake off the
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: coast of Russia which created all sorts of tsunami warnings
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: across the globe, including Japan, in Hawaii, and even here
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: in California. Now, thankfully it appears as if the worst
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: case scenario did not materialize with regard to the tsunamis.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: But that has taken a lot of the focus away
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: from the mass shooting in New York City. But I
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: really do believe that the narrative that a lot of
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: liberals would like to latch onto here, especially since this
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: guy happened to be black, and weirdly, CNN repeated a
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: law enforcement source that indicated that the attacker was likely
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: white or possibly white. He was clearly not white. He
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: was clearly an African American, and that got a lot
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: of people upset online. But I think the key point
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: of this is this story is actually the opposite. I think,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: based upon what we currently know, this story is the
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: opposite of what a lot of liberals, especially in the media,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: would like to portray it as I think this was
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: a case where the CTE narrative ended up resulting in
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: the deaths of five people. I believe now, again, I
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: don't have any inside information. I'm more than willing to
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: change my mind if we get new evidence, but based
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: upon my current reading of the situation, it appears to
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: me as if this guy had mental problems, was convinced
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: by this media narrative that football is so dangerous that
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: if you play it, you're going to end up with
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: mental problems. He had mental problems, he blamed it on football, because,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: as we know, everyone is desperately looking for a scapegoat.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: Everyone needs an excuse for why they're a fuck up
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: or why their life didn't turn out the way that
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: they wanted to they wanted it to or they expected
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: it to. And in this particular case, this guy apparently
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: latched onto the idea that it was football and it
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: was CTE, and there's no evidence or logic for that
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: at all. I mean, I'm not joking when I say
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: that there is no tackle football in southern California, and
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: the idea that you could get CTE playing a couple
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: of years of high school football in southern California is ridiculous.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: There's no evidence, by the way that CTE has an
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: impact that fast, even if you have it now, who
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: knows what they're going to find if they look at
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: his brain post death, assuming they're able to do so.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: But I just do not believe that high school football
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: caused CTE and caused this guy to be so angry
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: and so disturbed that he decided bizarrely to go out
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: to the National Football League as if they were the
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: cause of his CTE. I guess, you know, to try
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: to put some logic to it, they're the symbol of football,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: and he was taking it out on football, though he
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: was not confident enough, thankfully, to actually accomplish that. So
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: this story very much bothers me. It seems like a
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: classic example of where the media is very likely to
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: take a narrative that is not just misunderstanding the truth,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: it's one hundred and eighty degrees in the truth. And
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: it also is an indication that sometimes these false narratives
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: are largely false. Narratives like the CTE narrative have a
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: price to pay. There's a cost associated to them. No
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: one ever thinks about this, but that's the reality, and
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: in this case, the cost was four innocent lives. People
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with any of this. They were
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: completely collateral damage because this guy took his anger out
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: about his life. What he thought was he was doing
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: was taking it out on the National Football League and football.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: These people got in the way and he killed them. Now.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: Is it possible he would have gone on some similar
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: rampage with another motivation. I guess so, but this appears
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: to have been the actual motivation. And to me, it's
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: a great indication of how people never think about the
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: collateral damage the ramifications of creating narratives. It's a weird analogy,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: but it reminds me of what's been going on with
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: the illegal immigration debate. I've said many times, and I'm
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: probably the only person that's said this publicly. The Democrats
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: keep saying, oh my god, this is terrible what's happening
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: in California with ice, and oh my gosh. People are
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: being frightened and staying in their homes and not coming
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: to work. And I have said constantly that the stories
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: are way overblown when it comes to the number of
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: people being detained and deported here in California. But it's
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: the Democrats who are actually scaring the living daylights out
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: of the people that they're claiming to support. Well, in
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: a similar way, the media, in manifesting and creating this
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: CTE narrative has essentially militarized literally in this particular case,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: someone who thought that their troubles were because of CTE.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: And that's not perfect analogy, but I think it's similar
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: to what's going on here. People that they're pretending to
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: support and defend, they're actually creating a lot of angst within,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: and that angst can sometimes result in very very bad outcomes,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: like it did here. So I don't know exactly how
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: this is going to go from here. Maybe the story
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: will just be dropped, you know. The fact that it's
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: a black perpetrator probably helps it getting dropped because that
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: tends to be the way the news media works, and
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of other stories for people to
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: get distracted by. But I am always very very concerned
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: about how vulnerable football is to any sort of unjust
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: attack for many of the reasons that Steve and I
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: discussed during our interview. A couple other things that Steve
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: and I had conversation about, and this is certainly a
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: topic that Steve and I disagreed on pretty vehemently. I
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: want to address a little bit more of the Tulsi
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Gabbard attack on the Obama administration and on Hillary Clinton
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: and the so called coup against Trump in twenty sixteen.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: And you know, to me, we absolutely have a problem
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: with the logic of this story that demands, at the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: very least a really good explanation, which I don't think exists.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: I know Steve tried to provide one, but the idea
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: that we can have an Obama document related government document
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: related scandal in twenty twenty five just doesn't make any
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: sense because we already had a first Trump administration. Now
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: that doesn't prove that this narrative is bullshit, but it's
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: something that absolutely demands an explanation. I have not heard
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: it yet, and I also am not hearing from the
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: people that I would have some level of trust in
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: that this story is as Tulci Gabbard and Donald Trump
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: are portraying it to be. Now, I realize that very
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: very few people are going to consider John Bolton, Trump's
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: former national security advisor, to be a credible person on this,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: but I think that he is. John Bolton, to me,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: is a smart guy, who is sincere. Now he's not
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: only right, he's been wrong a lot of times. But
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: being wrong is not the same as being a charlatan
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: or being a liar. I've never perceived John Bolton as
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: a liar, and John Bolton feels very confident that the
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: scenario that I see as the most likely is what's
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: really going on here, and that this is a manipulation
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: of documents to create a narrative that Tulci Gabbard knows
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: the boss is going to love, especially when you consider
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: the timing involved in the distraction from the Epstein mess
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: that it has created. So here was John Bolton on
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: News Nation explaining his view of what's really going on here?
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: One that makes a lot of sense to me.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's got a lot of attention, that's
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 4: for sure, because it's so bizarre. I hope it hasn't
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 4: gotten much traction. She's strung together a series of things
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 4: that are not necessarily related. She's exaggerated what actual congressional
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 4: reports have said. She's imagined evidence that doesn't exist. So
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 4: if anybody really gets into it, it collapses pretty quickly.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 4: But as a campaign to save her job, I think
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 4: it actually worked out pretty successfully for her. Whether it
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 4: succeeded in distracting from the Jeffrey Epstein affair, I don't know,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 4: but there is in substance nothing to it, and certainly
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 4: no justification for the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: Now again to be clear, if there is evidence that
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: contradicts the narrative that John Bolton laid out there, I
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: am more than willing to listen to it, but I
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: have not seen it as of yet, and I need
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: an explanation for why this would be coming out now,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: just perfectly timed to give the magabase exactly what Trump
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: would want and to distract them from the other deep
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: state story in their minds, a deep state story which
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: is the whole never ending Jeffrey Epstein mess. Now there's
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: been a couple of developments on that front, amazingly. It's
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: just this is the story that just will not go away.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: And probably the most significant thing that has happened since
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: our last episode of the podcast is that Gallaine Maxwell
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: or Giselaine Maxwell. I've heard both pronunciations, but her lawyer
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: refers to her as Glaine, so I guess I'll start
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: calling her Glaine Maxwell, who was Epstein's alleged accomplice who
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: was convicted after he killed himself in prison and is
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: sentenced to effectively spend the rest of her life in
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: a federal prison. And in my view, I've said many
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: many times she did at a fair trial. She was
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: treated very shabbily, I mean, especially in the lead up
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: to her trial. Apparently reportedly they weren't even letting her
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: sleep for more than fifteen minutes. Essentially they were trying
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: to torture her driver crazy, and she never tried to
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: plea bargain. She was convicted, but the case against her
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: I've always felt was rather weak, and I thought that
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: it was certainly consistent with a situation where someone was
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: convicted in a moral panic in the aftermath of Epstein's suicide,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: where people needed a scalp. There needed to be someone
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: to pay for Epstein's crimes. To be clear, as I've
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: said one hundred times or more, Epstein was obviously guilty,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: not just because he pleaded guilty at one point before
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: what ended up resulting in him going to prison a
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: second time and him taking his own life, but clearly
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: anyone who takes their own life when they are as
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: well connected and apparently as rich as Epstein was, for
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: you to kill yourself of that situation makes no sense
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: unless you're guilty. So it's not just the evidence, but
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: it's the clear consciousness of guilt that has to exist
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: for someone like that to kill themselves in prison. And
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent convinced that that's the only
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: scenario that makes any sense at all. Well, there was
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of news several days ago when Galade Maxwell
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: met with agents from the Department of Justice the Attorney
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: General's office to discuss the Epstein case. And of course
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: the Magabase is still desperate for their Santa Claus narrative
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: to be vindicated. I mean, they're going to muddy the
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: water as much and as long as they can until
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: they can at least save face on this. And so
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: any shred of information, real, imagined, or somewhere in between
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: is going to be latched onto desperately by the Magabase.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: And that happened when it came to this interview with Maxwell,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: because one of the headlines I saw dozens and dozens
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: of times or major MAGA influencers on Twitter or x
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: was the idea that Maxwell had named one hundred people
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: who were in cahoots with Epstein in his crimes, and
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: of course Maga is like, oh, yes, this is awesome,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: this is what we've always wanted. We're going to get
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: our public execution after all. And when you look at
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: the basis for that narrative, it's complete bullshit. It's based
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: upon the fact that her attorney said. Her attorney said
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: that she was asked about about one hundred people. That's it.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: He didn't come forward and say, yep, she's got evidence
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: on one hundred prominent people and you know you ain't
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: seen nothing yet. That's not what happened. So if you
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: heard that particular storyline, it was based on total bullshit.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: But what apparently wasn't bullshit. And I'm always hesitant to
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: use comments from defense attorneys because let's be clear, defense
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: attorneys are paid liars. That doesn't mean they're always lying,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: but you always have to presume the default position is
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: they're lying, because that's what they're paid to do. But
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: I have to say, even though I have a bias
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: in Maxwell's favor because of what I believe to have
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: transpired surrounding her, my sense having watched the entire press
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: conference and some other comments made by her attorney David
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Marcus is that he believes he's telling the truth, and
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: I think he is telling the truth. And just to
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: give you some more context as to why I am
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: sympathetic although not completely convinced towards Maxwell, I'm not completely
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: convinced that she's innocent. I just think she didn't get
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: a fair trial and it's possible that she was railroaded.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: I want you to listen to one of the many
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: comments that her attorney, David Marcus, made after I believe
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: two days of interviews that his client, Dlainne Maxwell, did
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: with agents of the Attorney General's Office.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 5: Glenne has been treated unfairly for over five years now.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 5: If you looked up scapegoat in the dictionary, her face
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 5: would be next to the definition, next to the dictionary
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 5: definition of it. So you know, we're grateful for this
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 5: opportunity to finally be able to say what really happened,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 5: and that's what we're going to do.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 6: Yesterday and today. She's keeping her spirits up as much
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 6: as she can. She's one of the strongest people I've
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 6: ever met. She's been in terrible, awful conditions for five years.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 6: We wouldn't keep animals the way she's been kept in prison,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 6: and so you know, it's unbelievable that she can keep
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 6: her spirits up this high.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: And we're proud of.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 6: Her if we just asked that folks look at what
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 6: she has to say with an open mind. And that's
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 6: what Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has promised us, and
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 6: everything she says can be cooperated and and.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: She's telling the truth. She's got new reason to live
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: at this point, and she's.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: Going to keep telling the truth. Now. I could be wrong,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: but I think he is telling the truth. And I
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: have no idea exactly what she is telling the Attorney
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: General's office. My guess is she's probably saying, look, I
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: didn't do this. I didn't know everything that I it
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: was claimed that I knew. I didn't participate in this
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: in the way that was alleged. I mean, I can
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: only presume that because she never pled guilty, she never
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: engaged in a plea barket. And of course, you know,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: this is the way my brain works. No one has
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: been able to come up with an explanation for how
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: Glaine Maxwell after Epstein's death, a woman of great privilege,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: super connected, you know, of advanced middle age. I guess
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: you would call it. Why in the world would she
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: accept the chance that she would spend the rest of
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: her life in a federal prison if she had something
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: to provide prosecutors who had a weak case against her.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: It just makes no sense, And so I tend to
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: believe her attorney. I could be wrong. I'll be as
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: curious as anybody to find out more about what she
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: actually said. But don't buy into anything you hear about
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: Maxwell's I guess you would call it testimony from a
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: MAGA influencer, because they are deeply, deeply, deeply invested in
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: trying to salvage face and salvage and narrative that to
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: me makes absolutely no sense. And of course, one of
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: the strangest parts about the newest revelations and evolutions of
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: this case is that Donald Trump himself just won't let
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: it rest. He keeps fueling the story with seeming more
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: and more bizarre statements. I really do not understand what's
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: going on here. He's clearly not helping himself at all,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: because the more he talks, especially as the president of
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: United States, the more he keeps the story alive. You know,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of opportunities for it to go away
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: and for people to be distracted from it. I truly
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: believe that that's part of what Tulci Gabbard was trying
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: to do, even though Steve Cortez strongly disagrees with me.
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: But there are several statements that Trump has made just
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: in the last week that are nonsensical if your goal
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: is to let this story die and fade, and this
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: is the one I'm going to play for you is
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: the most bizarre. And I don't even understand what Trump
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: is saying here. But basically, he is asked about whether
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: or not his spa at mar A Lago was connected
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: to Epstein, and whether Epstein was, in Trump's words, taking
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: taking female employees from his spa. Now, the word taking
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: is incredibly loaded here, and I don't know why Trump
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: is so flippant with that word, but because I don't
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: even understand what he's alleging here, I mean, taken could
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: mean he steals an employee to have them work for
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: him in a you know, in a legitimate way, or
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: it could mean that he's taking them to work for
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: him as a hired prostitute. And people need to understand
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: that's the basic allegation against Epstein was that he was
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: hiring prostitutes, some of whom were underage, and that was
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: his thing. And I have no problem believing that that's
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: what he was engaging in. But there's a huge difference
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: between somebody, you know, deciding to hire someone away from
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: your spa and some on hiring that person in the prostitution,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: especially if they're underage. And the most bizarre part of
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: this statement is that the main accuser in the Epstein case,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: by far the most prominent accuser, is mentioned by the media.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: This is the woman who just killed herself a couple
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: of months ago, a woman who falsely accused Alan Dershowitz,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: a one who I believe falsely accused Prince Andrew, and
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: Trump essentially makes it sound like she was taken from
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: his spa by Epstein and what essentially was a farm
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: system for Epstein victims. I mean, that's the only way
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: to logically interpret this. And here's what it sounded like,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: I believe on Air Force one, as Trump is in
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: a media scrum.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 7: So Resident Epstein has a certain reputation of Obviously this carriates.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: Were some of the.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: Workers that were taken from.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 7: You or some of them young women or some of
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 7: the some of them young women. Well, I don't want
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 7: to say, but everyone knows the people that were taken,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 7: and it was the concept of taking people that work
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 7: for me has been but that story has been pretty
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 7: well out there and the answer is yes, they were.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the spa.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people that work in the spy.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 7: I have a great spat, one of the best spas
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 7: in the world at mar Laca, and people were taken
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 7: out of the spa, hired by him, in other words, gone,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 7: and other people would come and complain, this guy is
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 7: taking people from the SPA.
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 7: And then when I heard about it, I told him,
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 7: I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people,
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 7: whether it was SPA or not spa, I don't want
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 7: him taking people.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: And he was fine.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 7: And then not too long after that he did it
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 7: again and I said, out of here.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 3: One of those stolen, you know, persons that include from
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 3: Virginia for.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: I think she worked at the spot. I think so.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: I think that was one of the people with him.
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: He told her.
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 7: And by the way, she had no complaints about us,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 7: as you know, none whatsoever.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: From a media's strategy, perspective. I really have absolutely no
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: idea what Donald Trump is trying to do there. The
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: only thing I can think is if there's some logic
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: to it, is that there is evidence of that in
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: the Epstein files, and that he wants to try to
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: break the story first so that it doesn't come out
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: as new, because that's the worst thing that can happen,
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: is that there's something new, and that would be new information.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, especially if the main accuser was somebody who
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: and Trump doesn't seem to be sure about that. That's
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: the part that makes me think this isn't a strategy.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: If this was a strategy, Trump would know whether or
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: not she actually worked in the spy. Seems to believe
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: that she did. And this is the first I've heard
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: of that, So, I mean, I have been someone who
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: has defended Trump on this. I think he knows that
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: the story was overblown. I don't think he has any
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: culpability in the Epstein mess. I don't think he's covered
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: it up. I mean, the cover up theory makes no
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: sense to me at all, especially when you consider that
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: it has to involve Bill Barr. I mean, you know,
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: involving cash, Betel Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi is I
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: guess doable because they all now work for Trump. But
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr is a completely different animal. He was the
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: attorney general when Epstein killed himself in a federal prison,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: he was in charge of the federal prison system. So
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: I've never bought the cover up theory, and it just
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: seems to me as if Trump is spinning his wheels
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: and can't get out of his own way. To mix
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: a couple of cliches, but that was new information to me,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: and I don't really know what to make of it,
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: and I'll be very curious to see what, if any
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: of it is actually turn turns out to be true.
• 1:58:05
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