Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Sixty Four: Protect The Magic

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Sixty Four: Protect The Magic · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty four of the
0:03
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host in today's show. Why may have been wrong
0:08
Speaker 1: to defend John Bolton on his classified documents issue when
0:12
Speaker 1: almost everyone missed about No King's Day, a series of
0:16
Speaker 1: significant updates on the artificial intelligence front, why the Jeffrey
0:21
Speaker 1: Epstein narrative is heading in exactly the opposite direction of
0:24
Speaker 1: where it should be, And yet another absolutely mind blowing
0:28
Speaker 1: story from the Jerry Sandusky saga. We begin this episode
0:33
Speaker 1: of the podcast with a couple of quick programming notes.
0:36
Speaker 1: At the end of our last episode of the Death
0:38
Speaker 1: of Journalism, I teased that I was anticipating a new
0:42
Speaker 1: episode of With the Benefit of Hindsight, our epic podcast
0:46
Speaker 1: about the entire Penn Stage Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky saga,
0:51
Speaker 1: and that in fact came to fruition. We put out
0:55
Speaker 1: an episode number twenty two, which was a remarkable, mind
0:59
Speaker 1: blowing in interview almost two hours long, that I conducted
1:03
Speaker 1: with the wife of wanted various Sandusky's trial accusers.
1:07
Speaker 2: Her name is Jasmine.
1:08
Speaker 1: The interview, as described by former Penn State President Graham
1:12
Speaker 1: Spaniard is quote unquote spectacular.
1:15
Speaker 2: And I agree that it's very very good.
1:17
Speaker 1: Our executive producer, Mike Agavino thinks it's the best, if
1:21
Speaker 1: not one of the best interviews that we've ever done
1:24
Speaker 1: for with the benefit of hindsight, and so if you
1:27
Speaker 1: have not yet checked that out, I urge you to
1:29
Speaker 1: do so. It's totally free. There's not even any ads
1:32
Speaker 1: on the episode. That's episode number twenty two with the
1:36
Speaker 1: benefit of hindsight, and I think you'll find it to
1:39
Speaker 1: be worth your while. I will have another somewhat related
1:44
Speaker 1: but not completely related update on the Sandusky saga at
1:47
Speaker 1: the end of this episode of the Death of Journalism,
1:50
Speaker 1: so stay tuned to that or go forward to it
1:53
Speaker 1: if you are so interested in that particular case. Also,
1:58
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that people understand that in
2:01
Speaker 1: episode two sixty three of the Death of Journalism, our
2:03
Speaker 1: last episode, we did a very extensive, deep, deep dive
2:09
Speaker 1: into the entire artificial intelligence issue, which we put a
2:13
Speaker 1: lot of work into. I don't know how effective it
2:17
Speaker 1: was or how compelling it was. Some people thought it was,
2:19
Speaker 1: but I don't think we really got the kind of
2:22
Speaker 1: reaction to it that I was hoping for I'll have
2:25
Speaker 1: some thoughts on that a little bit later on in
2:27
Speaker 1: this particular episode, because we are doing an AI update,
2:30
Speaker 1: which I think we're going to probably be doing on
2:33
Speaker 1: most episodes going forward, because that's how important I think
2:35
Speaker 1: the topic is. But I just wanted to make sure
2:38
Speaker 1: in case you happen to have missed it, and it's
2:40
Speaker 1: easy to happen in this very busy world. Episode two
2:43
Speaker 1: sixty three of this episode of this podcast, The Death
2:46
Speaker 1: of Journalism has a very deep dive into AI, which
2:50
Speaker 1: should not only provide you a lot of I think
2:53
Speaker 1: interesting information and potentially good insight, but also it lays
2:57
Speaker 1: the framework and the foundation for now this particular podcast
3:01
Speaker 1: will handle the topic of AI going forward, So if
3:05
Speaker 1: you get a chance, make sure you check that out now.
3:08
Speaker 1: As far as this episode of the Death of Journalism,
3:11
Speaker 1: as you probably are already aware, I always follow up
3:14
Speaker 1: on my predictions and opinions, even when they turn out
3:18
Speaker 1: to be wrong or maybe wrong. I think I do
3:21
Speaker 1: a pretty good job of being fair about that. I
3:23
Speaker 1: think human bias would indicate I probably focus more on
3:27
Speaker 1: things where I turned out to be right or probably
3:30
Speaker 1: right than when I'm.
3:31
Speaker 2: Wrong or probably wrong.
3:32
Speaker 1: But I do make a concerted effort to try it
3:35
Speaker 1: to be as unbiased and as fair as possible on
3:39
Speaker 1: that front for the purposes of truth and credibility, and
3:43
Speaker 1: just because I think it's the right thing to do.
3:45
Speaker 1: And I am wrong a lot, just ask my wife,
3:49
Speaker 1: and it looks like I may have been wrong on
3:50
Speaker 1: the entire John Bolton issue.
3:53
Speaker 3: Now.
3:53
Speaker 1: John Bolton, the former National security advisor for Donald Trump,
3:57
Speaker 1: the guy who I don't really like that much. He's
4:00
Speaker 1: wrong a lot, but I have a little bit of
4:03
Speaker 1: contact with him, very little. I've met him a couple
4:06
Speaker 1: of times, gone to a speech of as many years ago,
4:08
Speaker 1: followed his career, and I've always thought him to be
4:11
Speaker 1: an intelligent and sincere guy. That doesn't mean he's not
4:15
Speaker 1: wrong a lot, doesn't mean he's perfect. But I've never
4:18
Speaker 1: considered John Bolton, unlike Donald Trump considers him to be
4:21
Speaker 1: a bad guy like I'm you know, because I think
4:24
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at being able to pick out who
4:26
Speaker 1: the bad guys are and who the good guys are,
4:28
Speaker 1: and I would never have considered John Bolton to be
4:31
Speaker 1: quote unquote a bad guy. I'm still not sure I
4:34
Speaker 1: consider him to be quote unquote a bad guy, but when.
4:38
Speaker 2: His house was raided recently in.
4:41
Speaker 1: An attempt to gain information surrounding an investigation into his
4:44
Speaker 1: use of classified documents, I felt very strongly that this
4:48
Speaker 1: was a classic situation where there were people of the
4:51
Speaker 1: FBI that were trying to please the King Donald Trump
4:54
Speaker 1: because they knew that he wanted revenge against John Bolton,
4:57
Speaker 1: and that this was most likely case of total bullshit
5:01
Speaker 1: and trying to create aggravation in the life of a
5:04
Speaker 1: guy who didn't deserve it. That was my take when
5:07
Speaker 1: we heard that there had been a raid on John
5:11
Speaker 1: Bolton's home, and I think I predicted that there probably
5:14
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be an indictment. I can't remember what I
5:16
Speaker 1: predicted as far as the indictment, but I'm quite certain
5:19
Speaker 1: that I gave the impression that there's no possible way
5:21
Speaker 1: John Bolton is ever going to be convicted of anything
5:24
Speaker 1: related to this, because I don't believe he would have
5:26
Speaker 1: been guilty, and you know, just the nature of anything
5:29
Speaker 1: coming from Trump, it's going to be very, very difficult
5:31
Speaker 1: to get a unanimous verdict in a case that is
5:35
Speaker 1: so steeped in politics as anything like this would be. Well,
5:39
Speaker 1: in the last week, John Bolton has in fact been
5:41
Speaker 1: indicted by a federal grand jury, and that.
5:44
Speaker 2: Doesn't necessarily mean anything because.
5:46
Speaker 1: The same thing happened with James call Me, and we
5:48
Speaker 1: have also a Letitia James indictment, and all these are
5:52
Speaker 1: seemingly consistent with the same pattern of behavior, where people
5:55
Speaker 1: are desperate to try to give Trump what he wants.
5:58
Speaker 1: He's the King, let's please the King. Doesn't matter if
6:01
Speaker 1: we're actually gonna use our justice system as a vehicle
6:05
Speaker 1: of retribution and revenge. So I was very skeptical, like,
6:09
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, there's no way that this is legitimate.
6:13
Speaker 1: This is purely, you know, Trump and his people trying
6:17
Speaker 1: to get revenge on a guy that Donald Trump doesn't like.
6:20
Speaker 2: He doesn't like John Bolton. Why, I don't know.
6:23
Speaker 1: I guess because John Bolton has been critical of Donald Trump.
6:26
Speaker 1: That's the worst sin you can create, and you can
6:29
Speaker 1: commit in Trump world, even when you used to work
6:33
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. I mean, it's just always amazing to
6:35
Speaker 1: be how Trump gets away with the idea of having
6:39
Speaker 1: hired somebody, praise the hell out of them at certain points,
6:41
Speaker 1: especially when you first hire them, have them not do
6:44
Speaker 1: anything particularly horrendous or scandalous, fire them, and then they're
6:48
Speaker 1: the worst person in the world. And then, of course
6:51
Speaker 1: they become even worse when they say critical things of
6:54
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, which is the worst thing you can possibly do,
6:56
Speaker 1: the worst sin you can commit in Trump world. And
7:00
Speaker 1: so this all seemed very consistent with this pattern until
7:04
Speaker 1: there started to be some legitimate commentary about the charges
7:09
Speaker 1: against John Bolton. Now, to be clear, I have not
7:12
Speaker 1: changed my mind that John Bolton would.
7:15
Speaker 2: Not be being charged with these alleged.
7:18
Speaker 1: Crimes involving his use of classified information if he was
7:22
Speaker 1: not a quote unquote enemy of Donald Trump.
7:25
Speaker 2: That has not changed.
7:27
Speaker 1: However, there does seem to be a different narrative about
7:32
Speaker 1: the John Bolton charges than there were certainly about the
7:34
Speaker 1: James Comy allegations. And it's very, very, very difficult, We've
7:39
Speaker 1: talked about this before to find people whose opinion on
7:44
Speaker 1: such matters is both objective as well as coming from
7:49
Speaker 1: the standpoint of a so called expert. All these experts
7:53
Speaker 1: are biased in one way or the other, and there
7:56
Speaker 1: are very very few voices, especially in the legal round,
8:00
Speaker 1: that I consider to be credible enough to take at
8:05
Speaker 1: their word and to have it influence my opinion I've
8:09
Speaker 1: referenced Dan Abrams, a guy I used to work for,
8:11
Speaker 1: a guy I considered to be a friend.
8:13
Speaker 2: I've been on his old.
8:14
Speaker 1: Television show dozens and dozens of times, and he's the
8:18
Speaker 1: legal analyst for ABC News.
8:20
Speaker 2: I have not seen him.
8:21
Speaker 1: He probably has, but I've not seen him chime in
8:24
Speaker 1: on the John Bolton issue.
8:26
Speaker 2: But I did see a.
8:27
Speaker 1: Clip on CNN from a lawyer by the name of
8:31
Speaker 1: Ty Cobb. Now that name always gets people's attention because
8:34
Speaker 1: Ty Cobb, and a baseball fan will tell you, was
8:37
Speaker 1: one of the best baseball players, certainly in the old
8:40
Speaker 1: history of Major League Baseball. And Ty Cobb happens to
8:44
Speaker 1: be apparently a distant relative of the famous baseball player
8:49
Speaker 1: Ty Cobb. But the lawyer I'm referring to is somebody
8:51
Speaker 1: who worked in the Trump administration. Although he has never
8:55
Speaker 1: been a fan of Donald Trump and says he's never
8:57
Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump and it should be want it
9:00
Speaker 1: out for the purposes of his credibility. It's not perfect
9:02
Speaker 1: because he even once predicted that Donald Trump would go
9:06
Speaker 1: to prison because of some of the charges he was
9:09
Speaker 1: facing before he became president. So he was obviously incorrect
9:13
Speaker 1: about that. So ty Cob is hardly perfect, but I
9:15
Speaker 1: find him to be an interesting guy. He's intelligent, and
9:19
Speaker 1: he has this unique background where he has worked in
9:22
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, but he's no fan of Trump. And
9:26
Speaker 1: he was on CNN with Aaron Burnett and he gave
9:30
Speaker 1: what I thought was a pretty good analysis of why
9:33
Speaker 1: the charges against John Bolton should be seen far more
9:37
Speaker 1: seriously and with far more credibility then for instance, those
9:42
Speaker 1: that are currently pending or actually not pending but have
9:45
Speaker 1: been levied against James. Call me and Leticia James. And
9:49
Speaker 1: here's what it sounded like with Aaron Burnett interviewing ty
9:53
Speaker 1: Cobb on CNN.
9:56
Speaker 4: But then you say, that's where the similarities end. So
9:59
Speaker 4: why is this indictment different?
10:02
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right.
10:03
Speaker 3: That's exactly my view, which is, yes, this case would
10:06
Speaker 3: not have been brought but for Trump's revenge, because we
10:08
Speaker 3: know the Biden Justice Department declined to bring this case
10:12
Speaker 3: quite likely to avoid burning the means and methods through
10:15
Speaker 3: which they extracted the Iranian intelligence, which is a valid
10:19
Speaker 3: governmental concern. What we have now is you know, Bolton
10:24
Speaker 3: insisting that this is you know, purely revenged. That's clearly
10:27
Speaker 3: not the case. If you read the indictment, keep in
10:29
Speaker 3: mind that in the Comi case, seasoned senior prosecutors who
10:33
Speaker 3: were later forced to resign told told the Justice Department
10:37
Speaker 3: that there was insufficient.
10:39
Speaker 2: Evidence to pursue the case.
10:40
Speaker 3: In the James case, senior prosecutors in the in the
10:46
Speaker 3: Eastern District advised that now they didn't go to the
10:50
Speaker 3: insufficient evidence.
10:51
Speaker 2: They said, there's no case. That's clearly not what we
10:54
Speaker 2: have here.
10:55
Speaker 3: When when you look at this indictment, and keep in mind,
10:58
Speaker 3: Judge Lambert years ago, in the dispute over the book
11:02
Speaker 3: uh pointed out that Bolton's unilateral conduct had raised serious
11:07
Speaker 3: national concern, national security concerns, that he had gambled with
11:11
Speaker 3: national security, he'd probably harmed his country, and he certainly
11:14
Speaker 3: exposed himself to potential criminal liability.
11:16
Speaker 2: So this shouldn't come as a.
11:18
Speaker 3: Newsflash that you know, there's there's a potential crime here.
11:22
Speaker 3: Two federal judges, magistrate judges issued search warrants where the
11:26
Speaker 3: probable cost standard that was used by the grand jury
11:29
Speaker 3: today was met, and they issued issued search warrants and
11:32
Speaker 3: the materials that were taken are consequential and highly consequential
11:39
Speaker 3: because The most important paragraph in the indictment to me
11:44
Speaker 3: is the paragraph that makes playing not a single one
11:47
Speaker 3: of the documents used in the book or in the
11:49
Speaker 3: pre review process is a basis for any of the charges.
11:53
Speaker 3: All these charges are based on newly found evidence. So
11:58
Speaker 3: I think that I think that echoes the seriousness of this,
12:01
Speaker 3: and it certainly undermines undermines the political arguments that Bolton
12:06
Speaker 3: would like to make.
12:08
Speaker 1: Now, this is not just Ty Cobb's opinion. This seems
12:11
Speaker 1: to be the conventional media narrative about the Bolton indictments.
12:15
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm always very nervous about the conventional media
12:19
Speaker 1: narrative because it's so often wrong. But my sense is
12:22
Speaker 1: because it is consistent with what other credible people are saying,
12:25
Speaker 1: and because Cobb comes at this from a pretty unique perspective,
12:28
Speaker 1: I'm willing to acknowledge that appears as if Bolton probably
12:32
Speaker 1: screwed up, that he probably did something very careless, very reckless,
12:36
Speaker 1: very stupid. Now, there's no evidence that I've seen so
12:38
Speaker 1: far that what he did was nefarious, but he was
12:42
Speaker 1: particularly stupid given the fact that he had to know
12:45
Speaker 1: that he was in a very vulnerable position, and when
12:48
Speaker 1: you know you're in a vulnerable position being an enemy
12:50
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, that you maybe should be more careful. Now,
12:54
Speaker 1: maybe he didn't think that Trump was going to be
12:56
Speaker 1: president again.
12:58
Speaker 2: That could have been part of the deal.
13:00
Speaker 1: The Biden administration looked into this and decided not to
13:03
Speaker 1: press for charges against John Bolton for reasons that ty
13:07
Speaker 1: Cobb referenced in that clip.
13:09
Speaker 2: But I just for the record, I wanted to say,
13:11
Speaker 2: all right, I'm willing.
13:12
Speaker 1: To change my opinion and acknowledge that I may have
13:15
Speaker 1: been wrong about the charges being completely bogused. They don't
13:18
Speaker 1: appear to be completely bogus. I'm still not believing that
13:23
Speaker 1: this is ever going to result in John Bolton going
13:25
Speaker 1: to prison, but I'm certainly more than willing to be
13:29
Speaker 1: objective and listen to it as it goes forward and
13:32
Speaker 1: will keep you updated as it does on this podcast.
13:35
Speaker 2: A couple other updates.
13:37
Speaker 1: We spent quite a bit of time in the last
13:38
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast talking about the peace deal between
13:42
Speaker 1: Hamas and Israel and Gaza, and from a.
13:46
Speaker 2: Media perspective, I still find the treatment of Trump.
13:50
Speaker 1: And particularly Jared Kushner, who's getting a lot of credit
13:53
Speaker 1: for having broken the deal, to be almost in the
13:57
Speaker 1: realm of being bizarre. I really I have a theory
14:01
Speaker 1: that I put out there in the last episode of
14:03
Speaker 1: the podcast, is what's really going on here where the
14:05
Speaker 1: right wing media, of course, it's Trump, so they want
14:07
Speaker 1: to give him credit at every possible turn, And the
14:10
Speaker 1: left wing media is actually, you know, excited because they
14:14
Speaker 1: love peace, which is understandable. They love the hostages being returned,
14:17
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. And also it appears as if Israel
14:22
Speaker 1: did not get the better end of the deal, which
14:24
Speaker 1: might also please a lot.
14:25
Speaker 2: Of members of the legacy news media.
14:28
Speaker 1: But the part of this that is so baffling to
14:31
Speaker 1: me is the premature nature of the overwhelmingly positive media coverage, because.
14:39
Speaker 2: We don't know whether or not this deal is going
14:41
Speaker 2: to hold.
14:42
Speaker 1: The deal appears to be still at this moment remarkably fragile,
14:46
Speaker 1: though it has not blown apart as some had worn.
14:50
Speaker 2: In fact, there was a warning by the State Department.
14:52
Speaker 1: A few days ago that there appeared to be imminent
14:56
Speaker 1: news that the ceasefire was going to be broken and
15:00
Speaker 1: then there was going to be hostilities breaking out in Gaza.
15:04
Speaker 1: To what extent that ever actually happened, I don't think
15:06
Speaker 1: it did to the point where the ceasefire was actually
15:09
Speaker 1: quote unquote broken. But we've seen all sorts of reports
15:13
Speaker 1: where you know, Hamas is saying that they didn't really
15:16
Speaker 1: agree to what has claimed that they agreed to.
15:19
Speaker 2: And it's my opinion that Israel can't be.
15:22
Speaker 1: All that thrilled about this except for the fact that
15:25
Speaker 1: they got their hostages back because they gave.
15:29
Speaker 2: Up an awful lot in return.
15:31
Speaker 1: And you know, there are some people believe that Israel
15:35
Speaker 1: ended up being strong armed into agreeing to this, and
15:38
Speaker 1: then Yahoo agreed to this almost banking on the idea
15:42
Speaker 1: that the peace wouldn't hold, that'd get the hostages back,
15:45
Speaker 1: and you know, then the hostilities would be reinstated. I
15:50
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true or not, but it makes
15:52
Speaker 1: at least some sense given the.
15:53
Speaker 2: History of the situation here.
15:56
Speaker 1: But sixty Minutes interviewed Kushner and and others about this,
16:01
Speaker 1: basically allowing them to take a victory lap literally as
16:04
Speaker 1: they're also reporting, hey, the whole thing might not hold together,
16:07
Speaker 1: which I just find to be bizarre, especially given the
16:10
Speaker 1: fact that the legacy news media like CBS sixty Minutes,
16:13
Speaker 1: at least until Bari Weiss took over as one of
16:16
Speaker 1: the leaders at CBS News has not been exactly known
16:20
Speaker 1: as being pro Trump. In fact, Trump sued them over
16:24
Speaker 1: the whole sixty minutes Kamala Harrison interview during the twenty
16:28
Speaker 1: twenty four election, and so you know, there's always there's
16:31
Speaker 1: been a lot of conflict there, But here they almost
16:34
Speaker 1: seem to be going out of their way to praise Trump.
16:38
Speaker 1: I think from a motivational perspective, almost from the standpoint
16:42
Speaker 1: of trying to prove that they're objective, that this was
16:46
Speaker 1: an opportunity to prove by the legacy news media that
16:50
Speaker 1: proved that they don't have tens, that they are objective
16:52
Speaker 1: about Trump, that when he does well, they can give
16:55
Speaker 1: him credit. And in my opinion, they were actually prematurely
16:59
Speaker 1: willing to praise this entire administration because especially given the
17:04
Speaker 1: history of these things, to me, you cannot celebrate this
17:07
Speaker 1: until you know that the piece is going to hold.
17:10
Speaker 2: Which may in fact happen. I hope that's the case.
17:12
Speaker 1: Nobody wants war, especially in the situation like this. It
17:16
Speaker 1: would be fantastic if it did. I'm just from a
17:19
Speaker 1: purely media analysis perspective. I think it's a remarkable set
17:23
Speaker 1: of circumstances where Trump and Kushner and others are getting
17:28
Speaker 1: so much praise when we don't really know for sure
17:31
Speaker 1: how this is all going to shake out in the
17:33
Speaker 1: longer run. And I still maintain that this was not
17:37
Speaker 1: that great a deal from Israel's perspective, and.
17:39
Speaker 2: That that was actually the key.
17:41
Speaker 1: The key to how they did this was that Kushner
17:45
Speaker 1: has all these contacts in the Arab world conflicts of interest,
17:48
Speaker 1: some people might say, with all these billions of dollars
17:51
Speaker 1: exchanging hands with his hedge fund, anybody has these relationships,
17:55
Speaker 1: and he was able to use these relationships in the
17:58
Speaker 1: Arab world for those countries used to put pressure.
18:01
Speaker 2: On Hamas to go ahead and make a deal.
18:04
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the United States pressured their own ally, Israel into
18:08
Speaker 1: making a deal. And that's how it ended up happening.
18:12
Speaker 1: And let's hope it works. I hope it holds. It
18:15
Speaker 1: be fantastic, and if it does, then Trump had pushed
18:18
Speaker 1: everybody else deserves a whole lot of credit. I just
18:20
Speaker 1: think it's premature to be celebrating, especially to this degree.
18:24
Speaker 1: But it's interesting to note one there's elements in that
18:28
Speaker 1: sixty minutes interview that back up my whole theory on this.
18:32
Speaker 1: Number one, you know, not that that's the most important thing,
18:34
Speaker 1: but just for the record, And number two, it appears
18:37
Speaker 1: as if this exact same philosophy that I outlined in
18:41
Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast that Trump and the
18:44
Speaker 1: people surrounding him seem to have when it comes to
18:47
Speaker 1: resolving these conflicts is to not pressure our enemies, but
18:51
Speaker 1: pressure our allies, which is.
18:53
Speaker 2: A novel strategy.
18:55
Speaker 1: You can see how if you really want a deal,
18:57
Speaker 1: that's how it could work. And years to have worked
19:00
Speaker 1: with Israel, but it doesn't appear to be working with Ukraine.
19:05
Speaker 1: And there's yet another example of this where there's it's
19:08
Speaker 1: been widely reported that Zelensky and Trump had another blow up,
19:12
Speaker 1: this time in private.
19:14
Speaker 2: Which is where this should happen.
19:15
Speaker 1: It should not happen in public like it famously did
19:18
Speaker 1: at the White House earlier on in the effort to
19:21
Speaker 1: try to come to some sort of a peace agreement,
19:24
Speaker 1: where Trump told the world that Zelensky has no cards.
19:28
Speaker 1: I mean that, to me was as clear a piece
19:31
Speaker 1: of evidence as you ever going to get that that's
19:33
Speaker 1: Trump's philosophy here, cut the balls off of your ally
19:37
Speaker 1: to force them into making a deal because you erode
19:41
Speaker 1: their leverage, or at least their perception of leverage. Well, Zelensky,
19:45
Speaker 1: who I do not like at all, is not going
19:48
Speaker 1: along with this. And there's, like I said, more evidence
19:51
Speaker 1: of this where apparently widely reported, even in right wing
19:55
Speaker 1: media outlets, that there was a massive blow up between
19:59
Speaker 1: Zelensky and Trump. And you know, Trump keeps going back
20:03
Speaker 1: and forth between you know, kissing Putin's ass and then
20:07
Speaker 1: attacking Putin and doing the same thing with Ukraine.
20:11
Speaker 2: He seems to be all over the map.
20:12
Speaker 1: We were going to give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles and you
20:16
Speaker 1: know that was probably a bluff. And Trump has not
20:20
Speaker 1: been able to fulfill his promise of ending the Ukraine
20:23
Speaker 1: Russian War on day one, and there's no sign that
20:25
Speaker 1: it's going to end. And I think the main reason
20:27
Speaker 1: is because Trump's whole philosophy, which apparently has worked when
20:32
Speaker 1: it came to Israel and Hamas, does not work when
20:35
Speaker 1: it comes to Ukraine and Russia. Partially because Putin is
20:40
Speaker 1: not as easily manipulated as Hamas, because there are no
20:43
Speaker 1: allies that we have that we can go to to
20:45
Speaker 1: put Prussia on Russia, and also our ally alleged in
20:49
Speaker 1: this Ukraine doesn't seem to be willing to give up
20:53
Speaker 1: the ghost as Israel apparently was, at least in the
20:56
Speaker 1: short run. So that's my analysis of those two situations.
20:59
Speaker 1: I think they're actually remarkably similar, and in one situation
21:03
Speaker 1: we have an apparent success, and in the other one
21:06
Speaker 1: we do not have any success, at least not as
21:09
Speaker 1: of yet.
21:10
Speaker 2: One of the big moments.
21:11
Speaker 1: That occurred over the last week, at least politically, was
21:15
Speaker 1: that liberals across the country did a protest called.
21:19
Speaker 2: No King's Day. And this is one.
21:22
Speaker 1: Of those situations where you might think that I'm a
21:25
Speaker 1: little bit conflicted, because obviously, as a conservative critic of
21:30
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and someone who believes strongly in the Constitution
21:34
Speaker 1: and in our republic, I am very much on the
21:38
Speaker 1: record as saying that one of the most important things
21:41
Speaker 1: about the United States of America is that we.
21:43
Speaker 2: Never have a king.
21:45
Speaker 1: It's literally in our branding, it's literally how we became
21:49
Speaker 1: a country. And obviously we're we're about to celebrate the
21:53
Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,
21:56
Speaker 1: which was declaring independence from a king from a monarchy.
22:01
Speaker 1: And so I have been very very concerned. It's been
22:04
Speaker 1: my number one concern. I stated numerous times during the
22:08
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four campaign about why I was hesitant to support,
22:13
Speaker 1: not that I matter, but just for the record, to
22:15
Speaker 1: support a second Donald Trump administration because I strongly believed
22:21
Speaker 1: that Trump was going to have nobody around him who
22:24
Speaker 1: was going to be willing to say no. Everyone would
22:26
Speaker 1: treat him as a king, especially after the assassination attempt.
22:30
Speaker 1: He would be like a godlike figure. Everyone would be
22:34
Speaker 1: terrified of him, The Congress would lay down for him,
22:38
Speaker 1: and he would effectively be a king.
22:41
Speaker 2: And that has happened.
22:42
Speaker 1: I mean, there's absolutely no objective analysis that can conclude
22:47
Speaker 1: anything other than that Trump, in many ways, not in totality,
22:52
Speaker 1: but in many ways does act as a king.
22:56
Speaker 2: That is a fact.
22:58
Speaker 1: However, I did not support, nor did I like, the
23:03
Speaker 1: No King's Day protest, mostly because it was obviously overtly political.
23:08
Speaker 1: It's all a bunch of far left wing progressive Democrats
23:12
Speaker 1: and whack jobs with their latest excuse to protest. Now,
23:17
Speaker 1: I do think that the numbers were at least somewhat impressive.
23:21
Speaker 1: Everyone always talks about how many people are there, and
23:23
Speaker 1: right wing people will say, oh, it's an exaggerated number,
23:26
Speaker 1: and left wing people will exaggerate in the other way.
23:29
Speaker 1: It's very tiring, But I don't think you can argue
23:32
Speaker 1: that it was not a success from the standpoint of turnout.
23:37
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of people turned out, and I think, frankly,
23:40
Speaker 1: the storm clouds are brewing for the twenty twenty six
23:43
Speaker 1: midterm elections in a lot of different ways, not just
23:45
Speaker 1: from how many people turned out.
23:47
Speaker 2: For No King's Day, but also a lot of polling
23:50
Speaker 2: that we're seeing.
23:50
Speaker 1: By the way, it could be a very bad twenty
23:53
Speaker 1: twenty five election in a couple of weeks for Republicans
23:56
Speaker 1: as well, especially without Trump on the ballot. So the
24:00
Speaker 1: fact that this was overtly political as opposed to philosophical
24:06
Speaker 1: and the idea of no Kings was one problem I
24:10
Speaker 1: had with it. But the biggest problem I have with
24:12
Speaker 1: it is that we're doing this less than four years
24:16
Speaker 1: or five, depending on how you do the dates. But
24:19
Speaker 1: we're doing this within the same time period, within the
24:23
Speaker 1: same decade that the entire Democratic Party and progressive apparatus.
24:29
Speaker 2: Laid down completely completely.
24:33
Speaker 1: During the COVID panic for blue state kings, especially here
24:38
Speaker 1: in California, and of course, Gavin Ussu desperately once the
24:41
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight Democratic nomination. He was all over the
24:45
Speaker 1: no king's situation and passionately promoting it by saying, we
24:52
Speaker 1: don't do kings in America. I'm like, are you fucking
24:54
Speaker 1: kidding me? You are such a hypocrite in general particular issue, it's.
25:01
Speaker 2: Off the charts.
25:02
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom literally declared himself a king. I didn't use
25:07
Speaker 1: the word king, but during a state of emergency that
25:10
Speaker 1: he declared, and he created the panic. There's no I've
25:14
Speaker 1: gone through this a dozen times in this podcast. He
25:17
Speaker 1: created the panic by shutting down California, declaring a state
25:21
Speaker 1: of emergency, giving himself emergency powers for two fucking years.
25:28
Speaker 2: Over a lie.
25:31
Speaker 1: His original emergency declaration was a complete lie.
25:34
Speaker 2: It wasn't a miscalculation.
25:36
Speaker 1: It was a grotesque, overt and obvious lie that I
25:40
Speaker 1: wrote about the next fucking morning, and I was one
25:42
Speaker 1: thousand percent right about. He lied about how many people
25:46
Speaker 1: were gonna get COVID in the next eight weeks.
25:48
Speaker 2: He duped Donald Trump into believing it.
25:51
Speaker 1: None of it turned out to be anything close to
25:54
Speaker 1: what he claimed or predicted.
25:56
Speaker 2: Even all these years later, we've only.
25:58
Speaker 1: Gotten half the cases that he predicted or claimed was
26:02
Speaker 1: going to happen in the next eight weeks when he
26:04
Speaker 1: declared the state of emergency. But he was dictating every
26:08
Speaker 1: little scintilla of our lives.
26:10
Speaker 2: Literally. It was absurd. Have people forgotten this already?
26:15
Speaker 1: I mean, what businesses could be opened and closed, what
26:19
Speaker 1: schools could be open to closed, beaches open and closed,
26:23
Speaker 1: color coded guides for how you could get from one
26:27
Speaker 1: level of close to the next level of openness.
26:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just complete absurdity.
26:32
Speaker 1: First, forget about the back that none of it was
26:34
Speaker 1: effective or warranted or did anything positive. But it was
26:39
Speaker 1: the most grotesque violation of the no king's concept that
26:44
Speaker 1: has certainly occurred, and then close in my lifetime or
26:48
Speaker 1: even in the modern history of America, maybe during the
26:51
Speaker 1: Civil War when Habeas Corpus got suspended was maybe something
26:55
Speaker 1: close to it. But this was unprecedented in the modern
26:59
Speaker 1: history of this country. And for Newsome to be out
27:03
Speaker 1: in front on this, by the way, he put out
27:05
Speaker 1: a tweet where somebody it's I mean, you can't make
27:10
Speaker 1: up this level of hypocrisy and irony. Somebody had gone
27:14
Speaker 1: into I think a cornfield or some sort of a
27:17
Speaker 1: field of vegetation where they carved out no kings Day,
27:22
Speaker 1: as well as yes on Proposition fifty. Now, Proposition fifty
27:28
Speaker 1: here in California is going to be voted on in
27:31
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. That is Gavin Newsom's attempt to
27:35
Speaker 1: try to, in his mind, counteract what Republicans are doing
27:38
Speaker 1: nationwide when it comes to congressional redistricting. And I'm like,
27:42
Speaker 1: oh my god, the level of hypocrisy here. First of all,
27:46
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom declared himself a king for two years, no
27:49
Speaker 1: self awareness, no accountability for that.
27:52
Speaker 2: Number two, No King's Day, and yes on.
27:57
Speaker 1: Proposition fifty are also inherently contradictory because Proposition fifty is
28:03
Speaker 1: a way for our governor, former king to get around
28:08
Speaker 1: the state fucking constitution that was voted on by the voters.
28:13
Speaker 2: It's in the state.
28:14
Speaker 1: Constitution, and so here he has this proposition where he knows,
28:20
Speaker 1: or at least he thinks he knows, that he has
28:23
Speaker 1: the votes to do it because it's an overwhelmingly liberal
28:25
Speaker 1: state that hates Donald Trump, and all the Prop fifty
28:28
Speaker 1: commercials are about Donald Trump, folks, it's not even about
28:32
Speaker 1: the issue itself. They don't want to talk about the
28:34
Speaker 1: issue itself, because they don't want to tell you the
28:36
Speaker 1: truth about what it's all about, because even average people
28:39
Speaker 1: are gonna go, what the fuck is this? Didn't we
28:41
Speaker 1: already vote on this? This doesn't sound very democratic at all.
28:45
Speaker 1: We're going around the state constitution so that Democrats can
28:49
Speaker 1: get more representatives in Congress. How is that democratic? And
28:55
Speaker 1: it's certainly far more consistent with the idea that Newsom's
28:59
Speaker 1: a king then the concept that we don't have kings,
29:01
Speaker 1: that we're sacred defenders of democracy. And so I'm unfortunately
29:09
Speaker 1: of the belief that Proposition fifty is probably going to pass.
29:12
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be by a lot.
29:15
Speaker 1: It's probably going to be in the maybe two to
29:18
Speaker 1: four point range, which is going to be very, very frustrating.
29:21
Speaker 1: But it's based on a total lie. It's completely anti democratic,
29:26
Speaker 1: it's anti constitutional. It's not the same thing that happened
29:30
Speaker 1: in Texas at all, although that's what they're lying about.
29:34
Speaker 1: And it's a brazen power grab. And here we have
29:37
Speaker 1: Gavin Dusom connecting no King's Day with yes on Proposition fifty.
29:41
Speaker 1: And here he was the worst offender by way, not
29:45
Speaker 1: the only one, not the only one. I mean, we
29:48
Speaker 1: had Hochel in New York, and Whitmer and Michigan, and
29:52
Speaker 1: Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Bashir in Kentucky. By the way,
29:57
Speaker 1: all these people are going to be running for president
29:59
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. They were the worst governors when it
30:02
Speaker 1: came to the COVID panic. They were all effectively kings,
30:07
Speaker 1: and now here they are blatant hypocrites with no credibility whatsoever,
30:12
Speaker 1: claiming that Donald Trump is a king, which there's a
30:15
Speaker 1: decent argument to be made there that I think it's
30:17
Speaker 1: an important discussion to be had. It's very concerning a
30:21
Speaker 1: lot of the things that Trump has done from the
30:23
Speaker 1: perspective of becoming a monarch or a king. But these
30:28
Speaker 1: people have no credibility on this issue at all. And
30:31
Speaker 1: of course the media doesn't point any of us out,
30:33
Speaker 1: nobody in even the right wing media. I mean, that's
30:37
Speaker 1: the part that's most frustrating to this story, that the
30:40
Speaker 1: entire issue of the COVID panic and how we turned
30:44
Speaker 1: our government into a tyrannical force, especially in the Blue States,
30:49
Speaker 1: just never gets talked about it, like we pretend it
30:51
Speaker 1: never happened. It was only four or five years ago,
30:54
Speaker 1: people were forced to get a fucking experimental vaccine. Gys
31:00
Speaker 1: were forced to wear masks in school with no evidence
31:03
Speaker 1: that they work at all, all because Democrats wanted to
31:07
Speaker 1: signal their virtue and make it clear to the world
31:11
Speaker 1: during the twenty twenty election that this was unprecedented and
31:14
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump inherently was doing such a bad job
31:18
Speaker 1: that he needs to be kicked out of office. And
31:20
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. So I have nobody to support
31:25
Speaker 1: when it comes to the whole King's Day protest, even
31:28
Speaker 1: though it's a subject on which I obviously have a
31:31
Speaker 1: lot of passion and a lot of concern, because I
31:35
Speaker 1: do think this is where we're headed. I mean, these
31:37
Speaker 1: things don't tend to reverse themselves. There have been people
31:40
Speaker 1: who have been warning about presidential power in this country
31:44
Speaker 1: for a long time. Go search it for yourself. One
31:46
Speaker 1: of these days, I'll play it. I probably should play
31:48
Speaker 1: it right now, but I don't have the time for it.
31:51
Speaker 1: But Barry Goldwater, who was the nineteen sixty four Republican nominee.
31:55
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, he made a tremendous statement about
32:01
Speaker 1: the future of the US presidency and how he feared
32:05
Speaker 1: it would effectively become like a monarchy, and I think
32:09
Speaker 1: he was prescient. And I think Trump has moved the
32:11
Speaker 1: football down the field at.
32:14
Speaker 2: Least twenty thirty yards.
32:15
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're what guard line we're at currently,
32:18
Speaker 1: but we're in the red zone, that's for sure. And
32:22
Speaker 1: if Gavin Newsom ends up becoming president in twenty twenty eight,
32:26
Speaker 1: God help us all. I mean, because we saw what
32:30
Speaker 1: he did during COVID and he has absolutely no no
32:36
Speaker 1: restrictions on him whatsoever from the standpoint of what he
32:39
Speaker 1: thinks a leader should be restricted by or that they shouldn't.
32:44
Speaker 1: Actually doesn't really believe in this idea of no kings.
32:47
Speaker 1: He's just doing it because it's popular among the left,
32:50
Speaker 1: and he's trying to be the democratic now many in
32:52
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. We know that because we have the
32:55
Speaker 1: history of what occurred during the COVID panic. Now I
32:58
Speaker 1: referenced proposition fifty and how I'm not optimistic, even though
33:03
Speaker 1: I think Proposition fifty could be defeated. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
33:07
Speaker 1: He's been out there a little bit, but I don't
33:09
Speaker 1: think he's been out there enough. Barack Obama disappointed me
33:12
Speaker 1: by hopping on and doing commercials in favor of Proposition fifty.
33:18
Speaker 1: But so I think it is possible that fifty could lose,
33:21
Speaker 1: and boy, that would be fantastic, not just because it's
33:23
Speaker 1: wrong and because it would be good for Democrats if
33:27
Speaker 1: it passed and bad for Republicans if it passed, but
33:30
Speaker 1: it would also probably greatly hinder Newsom's presidential hopes for
33:35
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight. I mean, he really is trying to
33:38
Speaker 1: build this brand as the guy who is effectively fighting
33:42
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, and if he were to lose in
33:45
Speaker 1: his home state with Proposition fifty, I think that would
33:49
Speaker 1: really destroy that brand and destroy that narrative. But unfortunately,
33:53
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen. It's in the
33:55
Speaker 1: realm of possibility, but I think it's probably going to
33:58
Speaker 1: pass by a few percentage points. There's also, understandably a
34:02
Speaker 1: lot of consternation and a lot of discussion about what's
34:04
Speaker 1: going to happen in the New York City mayor's race
34:07
Speaker 1: in November, and it's looking more and more like Zoron
34:11
Speaker 1: Mondani is going to be the next mayor of New York.
34:14
Speaker 1: Now there's a lot of speculation about especially after they
34:18
Speaker 1: just had a debate, which which was funny to watch
34:21
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York, basically
34:25
Speaker 1: suddenly claim that socialism is bad.
34:27
Speaker 2: I find that fascinating.
34:29
Speaker 1: So wait a minute, Andrew Cuomo, socialism is bad when
34:33
Speaker 1: you have no other argument to make because you're running
34:36
Speaker 1: against the guy who's to the left of you in
34:39
Speaker 1: a desperate attempt to try to.
34:41
Speaker 2: Salvage your political career.
34:43
Speaker 1: That was interesting, But the biggest issue for a lot
34:46
Speaker 1: of people is that there are three people in the
34:49
Speaker 1: race Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Silva, who is a long time
34:53
Speaker 1: right wing gadfly talk show host in New York City,
34:56
Speaker 1: and Zoron Mondani, who's an open socialist communist seemingly pro
35:02
Speaker 1: terrorist sympathizer. It's unbelievable hanging out with people who are
35:05
Speaker 1: unindicted co conspirators in the nineteen ninety three World Trade
35:10
Speaker 1: Center bombing in the very city he wants to be
35:12
Speaker 1: the mayor of it's mind blowing. It's unbelievable, less than
35:16
Speaker 1: twenty five years after nine to eleven, not to mention
35:19
Speaker 1: the fact that he's an open and overt communist. But
35:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of speculation. Okay, if Mondonnie's winning in
35:25
Speaker 1: the polls, what would happen if Silva got out? Would
35:28
Speaker 1: Cuomo actually beat him? And I understand why there's pressure.
35:32
Speaker 1: The New York Post came out and said that Silva
35:34
Speaker 1: ought to drop out of.
35:36
Speaker 2: The race, and look, he probably should. He can't win.
35:39
Speaker 1: He's in there just for ego, which he has a
35:42
Speaker 1: huge ego, as most people in politics do, but he particularly.
35:45
Speaker 2: Has a massive ego.
35:48
Speaker 1: But I also don't buy necessarily that him dropping out
35:51
Speaker 1: would really mean that Mandonnie would lose. It would certainly
35:55
Speaker 1: bring it into the possibility in realm of possibility. But
35:58
Speaker 1: I'm not a big believer that you can simply take
36:01
Speaker 1: all the votes from a third party candidate and give
36:05
Speaker 1: them to the part of the candidate that's in second
36:09
Speaker 1: place and say whila, that would mean that Cuomo would
36:13
Speaker 1: beat Mondani. I just don't think it works that way.
36:15
Speaker 1: First of all, a lot of the soul Well vote
36:18
Speaker 1: may not even be real in the polls. It may
36:21
Speaker 1: just be people saying they don't like the other two candidates.
36:24
Speaker 1: Number Two, they may not show up or they may
36:26
Speaker 1: not decide to vote if their candidate is out. Three,
36:30
Speaker 1: you know, they may I think he's going to be
36:32
Speaker 1: on the ballot anyway, they may end up voting for him,
36:34
Speaker 1: regardless of whether or not he were to drop out
36:37
Speaker 1: and endorse Cuomo, not to mention that the endorsement of
36:40
Speaker 1: Cuomo would be very awkward in my opinion. By the way,
36:44
Speaker 1: there's also some sivil voters who might even vote for
36:46
Speaker 1: Mandanni just because people are crazy and weird and unpredictable.
36:51
Speaker 1: So I just don't think the math works out, and
36:54
Speaker 1: so unless the polls are catastatic strapically wrong, I think
36:57
Speaker 1: Mandanni is going to win. And you know what does
37:01
Speaker 1: that mean for New York. Now there's a divide here
37:04
Speaker 1: between people who are like, we need to stop this
37:07
Speaker 1: at all costs and people who are like, well, let's
37:10
Speaker 1: just let it burn to the fucking ground and use
37:13
Speaker 1: New York as an example for why communism is bad.
37:16
Speaker 2: I have kind of been in that ladder group. I'm
37:19
Speaker 2: still in that ladder group. But I'm also I'm concerned.
37:22
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about is it possible that this is actually
37:27
Speaker 1: a situation where we're setting a very bad precedent, that
37:31
Speaker 1: maybe this is getting allowing the Mandans of the world
37:35
Speaker 1: to get a foothold in a very powerful position, and
37:37
Speaker 1: obviously the largest city in America, you know, in theory,
37:42
Speaker 1: one of the most important cities, if not the most
37:44
Speaker 1: important city in the world. Still, from a financial perspective,
37:48
Speaker 1: I get both arguments. I'm still kind of in the
37:51
Speaker 1: in the perspective of the perspective of let it burn
37:54
Speaker 1: and use it as an example. But this is a
37:57
Speaker 1: very very troubling situation, especially after what we've seen in Europe.
38:02
Speaker 2: The polls are very clear.
38:03
Speaker 1: That Mandannie is if he's going to win, it's going
38:06
Speaker 1: to be on the backs of foreign born voters. There's
38:10
Speaker 1: a massive divide between foreign born voters and domestically born
38:15
Speaker 1: voters in New York. By the way, one of the
38:17
Speaker 1: stranger polling results I saw is that Mondanni is currently
38:21
Speaker 1: getting allegedly thirty percent of the Jewish vote, I mean,
38:26
Speaker 1: which is just fricking crazy given Mandani's behavior and his statements,
38:32
Speaker 1: especially on Israel. But this is where we are, and
38:37
Speaker 1: so this is I agree that this is a very
38:40
Speaker 1: significant situation, the development that could have wide spread ramifications,
38:47
Speaker 1: and if Mondanni actually gets elected and does what he says,
38:51
Speaker 1: New York is in very, very big trouble. And that
38:53
Speaker 1: could be very bad for America.
38:56
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
38:56
Speaker 1: I guess my concern is would this be isolated and
39:00
Speaker 1: it be dramatic and quick enough for it to reverse itself,
39:04
Speaker 1: and would that actually be of benefit to the rest
39:06
Speaker 1: of the country to see the ramifications of what happens
39:10
Speaker 1: when you an elect to Zora Mundani, I just I
39:13
Speaker 1: wish I had enough confidence to know.
39:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the that's going to be the result. It
39:18
Speaker 2: feels like playing with fire.
39:20
Speaker 1: In fact that it's very clearly playing with fire, and
39:23
Speaker 1: obviously we'll have more analysis on that situation as we
39:26
Speaker 1: get closer to the election in November. There's also going
39:29
Speaker 1: to be I think significant races in Virginia and New
39:32
Speaker 1: Jersey where on the governor's side there looks like to
39:36
Speaker 1: me like Republicans are going to lose pretty badly the
39:39
Speaker 1: governorship in Virginia and may not win in New Jersey
39:43
Speaker 1: when a lot of people think that that is a
39:45
Speaker 1: vulnerable place where Democrats could lose. I'm not convinced republic
39:48
Speaker 1: the Republicans going to win in New Jersey. So right now,
39:51
Speaker 1: on paper, it looks like it will be a very
39:53
Speaker 1: very good November election. Off your election for liberals and
39:59
Speaker 1: Demo Democrats. But obviously we'll know more in just a
40:02
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. Now back to the no Kings thing
40:05
Speaker 1: for just a minute, because it's going to allow me
40:07
Speaker 1: to transition into the latest on AI Artificial intelligence. Vice
40:12
Speaker 1: President jd Vance, in response to No King's Day, made
40:17
Speaker 1: his first post on blue Now. Blue is the very
40:21
Speaker 1: liberal version of Twitter and has no real impact because
40:25
Speaker 1: everyone's just in an echo chamber and the numbers aren't
40:28
Speaker 1: all that significant. Basically, it's all just a bunch of
40:31
Speaker 1: liberals who got pissed off at Elon Musk purchasing Twitter
40:35
Speaker 1: now x but basically in a troll job. Jd Vance
40:40
Speaker 1: made his first post on Blueie during No King's Day,
40:43
Speaker 1: and it was an AI video of Donald Trump as
40:49
Speaker 1: a king, literally as a king, you know, the crown,
40:55
Speaker 1: the sword, the robes, the whole bit, And it had
40:59
Speaker 1: Nancy and Democrats bowing to him, and of course, you know,
41:04
Speaker 1: MAGA fans absolutely love this. The video was well done
41:09
Speaker 1: from a production reduction standpoint, it was clearly AI obviously
41:13
Speaker 1: and had some cool cool music underneath it.
41:17
Speaker 2: And from an entertainment perspective, I got it.
41:20
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, you're you're trolling the Democrats on their No
41:23
Speaker 1: King's Day, and you're promoting the idea I guess that
41:27
Speaker 1: Donald Trump really is a king, And I have a
41:30
Speaker 1: big problem with this from a number of perspectives, but
41:35
Speaker 1: the number one is there there are some things that
41:38
Speaker 1: can be both funny and totally wrong, inappropriate and dangerous
41:44
Speaker 1: even And this is a distinction that Maga world doesn't
41:48
Speaker 1: seem to understand. Yeah, something can be funny, that doesn't
41:52
Speaker 1: mean it's inherently good or that it's not problematic, because
41:59
Speaker 1: they're awful lot of people in Maga world who had
42:03
Speaker 1: the response to No King's Day of yeah, good, I
42:07
Speaker 1: want him as my king. Now, a lot of right
42:10
Speaker 1: wingers will claim that that's not the case, but that's bullshit.
42:13
Speaker 2: I see it all the time. I mean JD. Vance
42:16
Speaker 2: is not just the vice president United States.
42:18
Speaker 1: He's the guy who's most likely to take over as
42:21
Speaker 1: the leader of the Republican Party, very likely to be
42:24
Speaker 1: the the nominee for the Republican Party in the twenty
42:27
Speaker 1: twenty eight election, assuming that Trump isn't a king and
42:32
Speaker 1: doesn't try to run for a third term. That's a
42:35
Speaker 1: huge part of this whole equation why this is very,
42:38
Speaker 1: very troubling that the vice president would do this, this
42:41
Speaker 1: trolling job, which I acknowledge was funny, but one from
42:46
Speaker 1: the perspective that it comes from Advance essentially not even
42:51
Speaker 1: that subtly acknowledging that, hey, he doesn't really mind that
42:54
Speaker 1: Trump runs for a third term. That seems to be
42:57
Speaker 1: the implication of him posting an AI depiction of Donald
43:03
Speaker 1: Trump as a king, not to mention that, yes, I
43:08
Speaker 1: know you're trolling Democrats that they think Trump is a king,
43:12
Speaker 1: but you seem to be promoting this idea as if
43:16
Speaker 1: it's a good thing, which it's clearly not, and it's
43:20
Speaker 1: clearly against whatever principles the Republican Party still theoretically believes in,
43:26
Speaker 1: and so coming from Vance, I thought this was completely wrong,
43:32
Speaker 1: highly inappropriate. Yes, it's funny, I acknowledge it. I think
43:36
Speaker 1: a pretty good sense of humor all the time. I
43:40
Speaker 1: will say, you know what, this might be inappropriate, but
43:43
Speaker 1: I'll allow it because it's just so funny, and maybe
43:46
Speaker 1: it's effective in owning the Libs. But owning the Libs
43:50
Speaker 1: shouldn't be the end goal of everything. There can be
43:55
Speaker 1: problems created, There can be very troubling precedents, set very
44:01
Speaker 1: bad messages that are promoted, and having the Vice Pressing
44:06
Speaker 1: of the States put out an AI video of Donald
44:10
Speaker 1: Trump as a monarch on No King's Day just to
44:14
Speaker 1: have fun with trolling the Democrats. I did not like
44:18
Speaker 1: that at all, regardless of how funny it was, especially
44:22
Speaker 1: coming from Vance, and what this inherently says about the
44:26
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight election, because you still have Trump himself
44:30
Speaker 1: constantly quote unquote joking or trolling about running for a
44:35
Speaker 1: third term, which would be clearly unconstitutional.
44:40
Speaker 2: And then there's the AI part of this.
44:41
Speaker 1: Now, look, I have no problem and unfortunately I think
44:45
Speaker 1: Trump does this way too much. But you know, when
44:48
Speaker 1: you put out an AI video and it's very clear
44:50
Speaker 1: that it's AI and you're trying to make a point
44:53
Speaker 1: or you're trying to make trying to be funny.
44:55
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the new world we're living in. I
44:58
Speaker 2: get it.
44:58
Speaker 1: I'm okay with it if it's used properly. But I
45:03
Speaker 1: want to use this as a way of entering into
45:05
Speaker 1: an update on a subject that we spent quite a
45:08
Speaker 1: bit of time on in the last episode of the podcast,
45:11
Speaker 1: which is where we are on artificial intelligence. And where
45:14
Speaker 1: we are going. And I want to start with JD.
45:17
Speaker 1: Vance because not only did he put out that AI
45:19
Speaker 1: video on No King's Day, he did an interview with
45:24
Speaker 1: Greta Van Sustern on Newsmax. By the way, now that
45:27
Speaker 1: this is why I'm playing the clip, but the idea
45:30
Speaker 1: that Greta Van Sustern is now on Newsmas is just
45:34
Speaker 1: amazing to me.
45:35
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this.
45:36
Speaker 1: Woman I think has been on every single cable news
45:40
Speaker 1: network that there is. And I use the term shape
45:43
Speaker 1: shifter to describe Megan Kelly. I've used it to describe JD. Evans,
45:47
Speaker 1: but there's no greater shape shifter than Greta Van Suster,
45:52
Speaker 1: who has been a liberal, has been a conservative. I mean,
45:55
Speaker 1: this woman was the last white person in America that
45:58
Speaker 1: still believed O. J. Simpson might be innocent. And that
46:01
Speaker 1: was in her alleged realm of expertise. That's part of
46:05
Speaker 1: how she became famous.
46:07
Speaker 2: Back in the day. But she's worked for MSNBC, she's
46:10
Speaker 2: worked for CNN, she's worked for Fox News. She had
46:13
Speaker 2: me on several times on Fox News Channel.
46:15
Speaker 1: In fact, she did almost an entire show on Fox
46:18
Speaker 1: News Channel based upon my interview with Sarah Palin after
46:21
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight elections.
46:23
Speaker 2: She was very smart.
46:24
Speaker 1: She saw the Sarah Palin thing from a mile away,
46:27
Speaker 1: and she jumped on that because she knew it was
46:30
Speaker 1: good for ratings, just like she did with the Natalie
46:33
Speaker 1: Holloway miss disappearing disappearance in Aruba that she was constantly
46:38
Speaker 1: talking about for years about what twenty some years ago now.
46:43
Speaker 1: So Gretavn Sstrat is a remarkable media story in and
46:47
Speaker 1: of herself. But here she is now with Newsmax interviewing JD.
46:51
Speaker 1: Vance and the issue of AI comes up, and specifically,
46:56
Speaker 1: Vance starts talking about the idea that open AI has
47:02
Speaker 1: now announced that they are going to start limiting their
47:07
Speaker 1: restrictions on what is erotica or effectively pornography. In other words,
47:13
Speaker 1: it is going to be possible soon with the new
47:17
Speaker 1: update with chat GPT to engage or create some forms
47:23
Speaker 1: of pornography. Now I don't know all the rules, obviously
47:26
Speaker 1: it doesn't even exist yet, so who knows what that
47:29
Speaker 1: is actually going to mean. But I found this clip
47:32
Speaker 1: from JD Vance to be very telling and a bit
47:35
Speaker 1: concerning and troubling because jd Vance appears to have and
47:43
Speaker 1: again maybe he's just using slogans here.
47:46
Speaker 2: I don't know.
47:46
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be as fair as possible, but he
47:49
Speaker 1: appears to have a remarkably limited understanding of the far
47:54
Speaker 1: reaching impact that AI could very likely have on our
47:59
Speaker 1: society as a whole, because he tries to break it
48:03
Speaker 1: down as to what when AI is good and when
48:07
Speaker 1: AI is bad, as if it's going to be a
48:11
Speaker 1: very isolated thing that will have only marginal impact on society.
48:16
Speaker 1: And this was very very concerning to me because I
48:20
Speaker 1: can I consider JD. Vance to be a very smart guy.
48:23
Speaker 1: He's obviously much much younger than Trump. He's clearly much
48:28
Speaker 1: more in tune with what's going on from a technological perspective,
48:32
Speaker 1: if only because of his age. And so here's a
48:35
Speaker 1: guy who I would actually look to as somebody who
48:39
Speaker 1: might actually get it.
48:40
Speaker 2: He's a big, big picture thinker.
48:43
Speaker 1: He's clearly got a big brain, a great educational background.
48:47
Speaker 1: If there's somebody in Trump's world who could be there
48:50
Speaker 1: and say, you know, mister President, this AI thing is
48:53
Speaker 1: really going to have far reaching and potentially very very
48:57
Speaker 1: damaging implications on our society need to be prepared for it,
49:01
Speaker 1: it would be JD. Vance and instead he seems to
49:05
Speaker 1: be grand standing on this incredibly minor issue of open
49:09
Speaker 1: AI and the topic of pornography. And here's what it
49:13
Speaker 1: sounded like in his interview with Greta Ancestorn on Newsmax.
49:18
Speaker 2: Where are we going with ourtificial intelligence? What about the
49:20
Speaker 2: jobs are going? Yeah?
49:21
Speaker 4: So artificial intelligence that's still in many cases very dumb.
49:24
Speaker 2: And I think that.
49:25
Speaker 4: There you asked, is it good or is it bad?
49:27
Speaker 2: Or is it going to help us or is it
49:28
Speaker 2: going to hurt us?
49:29
Speaker 4: The answer is probably both, and we should be trying
49:31
Speaker 4: to maximize as much of the good and minimize as
49:33
Speaker 4: much as the bad. Let me give you a very
49:35
Speaker 4: concrete example. So two artificial headline intelligence or sorry, two
49:39
Speaker 4: artificial intelligence headlines that I've read in just the last
49:42
Speaker 4: week is one researchers used AI to identify a new
49:47
Speaker 4: cancer drug pathway that nobody had ever come up with,
49:51
Speaker 4: and they're actually starting to see some evidence that that
49:54
Speaker 4: could be a credible and a promising way to treat
49:56
Speaker 4: certain types of cancer.
49:58
Speaker 2: So that's great.
49:58
Speaker 4: That's what we want artificial intelligence to do is to
50:01
Speaker 4: unlike unlock new therapeutics so that people can live.
50:04
Speaker 2: Longer, healthier lives.
50:05
Speaker 4: At the same time, I saw an announcement I think
50:07
Speaker 4: it was from San Altman of open AI who said
50:10
Speaker 4: that basically, they're going to start using AI to introduce
50:13
Speaker 4: erotica and porn and things like that. And if AI
50:17
Speaker 4: is helping us find new cures for new diseases, that's great.
50:20
Speaker 4: If it's helping us come up with increasingly weird porn,
50:23
Speaker 4: that's bad. And I think that we actually need policymakers here.
50:27
Speaker 4: And this is where you know, me and the President
50:28
Speaker 4: have been so focused on this issue. We want to
50:31
Speaker 4: lean in as much to the socially positive applications of
50:34
Speaker 4: artificial intelligence.
50:36
Speaker 1: Now, on the surface, there's nothing really wrong with that statement,
50:41
Speaker 1: except to me, it indicates that Advance is not getting
50:46
Speaker 1: the big picture here.
50:48
Speaker 2: Now maybe he just decided not to get into it.
50:51
Speaker 2: I don't know.
50:52
Speaker 1: But the idea that judg EPT or open AI or whatever,
50:59
Speaker 1: you know, a source that you're using is going to
51:02
Speaker 1: be limiting restrictions on pornography, I get you might find
51:06
Speaker 1: that concerning.
51:08
Speaker 2: You might Okay, what's that all about? What that's going
51:10
Speaker 2: to means?
51:10
Speaker 1: That's a perfectly legitimate question, especially given the difficulty of
51:15
Speaker 1: trying to restrict age and whether not people of a
51:20
Speaker 1: certain age are going to still.
51:21
Speaker 2: Have access to AI. I get all that those are
51:24
Speaker 2: legitimate questions.
51:25
Speaker 1: However, in my opinion, that topic is not in the
51:29
Speaker 1: top one hundred, not in the top one hundred of
51:32
Speaker 1: the concerns.
51:34
Speaker 2: That we as a society, or JD.
51:36
Speaker 1: Vans as the Vice President the United States, ought to
51:38
Speaker 1: have about what is going to transpire in the next
51:41
Speaker 1: several years regarding artificial intelligence. And by the way, let
51:45
Speaker 1: me just very quickly address this issue of restrictions on pornography.
51:51
Speaker 2: See to me, this actually is quite.
51:53
Speaker 1: Interesting from the perspective of the problems that AI creates. See,
51:58
Speaker 1: once you create a restriction in the algorithm, it will
52:03
Speaker 1: inevitably go too far inherently because there's no human discretion.
52:10
Speaker 1: This is one of the areas where humans ideally have
52:16
Speaker 1: an inherent advantage over artificial intelligence.
52:20
Speaker 2: Now, a lot of humans are not capable of this.
52:23
Speaker 1: You know, if you've ever run into a police officer
52:26
Speaker 1: that pulled you over for going six miles per hour
52:28
Speaker 1: over the speed limit and he gave you a ticket
52:31
Speaker 1: and you weren't causing any problems, you know that not
52:34
Speaker 1: all humans are willing and.
52:36
Speaker 2: Able to use proper discretion.
52:38
Speaker 1: We've also seen this on a weekly basis in the
52:42
Speaker 1: National Football League in college football when it comes to
52:44
Speaker 1: really horrendous calls, usually involving roughing the passer. There's very
52:49
Speaker 1: little discretion that some people are able to actually use
52:53
Speaker 1: in real life. But human beings are at least capable
52:57
Speaker 1: of using discretion, of being able to discern Okay, this
53:01
Speaker 1: might be technically a violation, but there's nothing really wrong
53:05
Speaker 1: going on here. Algorithms are not capable of doing that.
53:11
Speaker 1: And I have seen this already, specifically when it comes
53:14
Speaker 1: to restrictions on whether it's Chat, GPT or rock or
53:20
Speaker 1: Imagine or some of the other AI platforms that I use,
53:25
Speaker 1: where our request requests something that is clearly not even
53:29
Speaker 1: close to the roum of pornography, but somehow it gets
53:33
Speaker 1: flagged that way and they're not able to fulfill the request.
53:39
Speaker 2: Well, I totally get why.
53:41
Speaker 1: That happens, because there's no human being going This isn't
53:45
Speaker 1: a request involving pornography, or you know, or you'll take
53:49
Speaker 1: a picture that you want to have the AI may
53:54
Speaker 1: it come to life, and that there's something they don't
53:56
Speaker 1: like about the picture, because I guess maybe I don't
53:59
Speaker 1: even know. I'm I'm just theorizing that they didn't like
54:02
Speaker 1: how much skin there was in the picture or whatever
54:04
Speaker 1: it was. I have no idea, there's no way of knowing,
54:06
Speaker 1: because the algorithm doesn't tell you this, and they never
54:09
Speaker 1: give you an explanation for why you can't do what
54:13
Speaker 1: you're trying to do. But the lifting of restrictions on pornography,
54:18
Speaker 1: in my view, as someone who's against censorship and is
54:21
Speaker 1: in favor of free expression and is against restrictions and
54:26
Speaker 1: is in favor of allowing adults to be able to
54:29
Speaker 1: have control over what they create.
54:32
Speaker 2: I think it's actually a good thing.
54:33
Speaker 1: And it's disappointing to me that jd Vance doesn't seem
54:36
Speaker 1: to understand that. So there's two elements here where I
54:40
Speaker 1: think jd Vance is expressing a lack of fully understanding
54:45
Speaker 1: where we're at.
54:46
Speaker 2: He doesn't understand.
54:47
Speaker 1: Why you need to pull restrictions on porn, because when
54:51
Speaker 1: you restrict porn, you're inherently going to restrict all sorts
54:54
Speaker 1: of other things in the creative process that have nothing
54:57
Speaker 1: to do with porn. Not to mention, you know, in theory,
55:01
Speaker 1: adults should be able to do what they want in
55:03
Speaker 1: a free country. But then there's also the issue of
55:06
Speaker 1: does jd Vance really think that that's the biggest problem
55:10
Speaker 1: or one of the biggest problems that we're going to
55:12
Speaker 1: face when it comes to AI.
55:14
Speaker 2: Because if it is, which I'm actually.
55:17
Speaker 1: Hoping is not the case, I'm hoping this is just
55:19
Speaker 1: what he happened to say in an interview with Redevan Sustern.
55:22
Speaker 2: He thought it was a pithy way of describing AI.
55:27
Speaker 1: But if it is, that's very disappointing and very concerning
55:30
Speaker 1: because I was counting on jd Vance for being a
55:33
Speaker 1: real to for him to be a real leader on
55:36
Speaker 1: this issue, for reasons that I've already stated. Thanks for
55:39
Speaker 1: listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If
55:42
Speaker 1: you're interested in listening to the entire show, you must
55:45
Speaker 1: become a patron.
55:47
Speaker 2: Please go to Patreon. That's p A t R e
55:51
Speaker 2: O n dot com.
55:53
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Zigler.
56:00
Speaker 1: My name is j O h N z I E
56:02
Speaker 1: G L e R. That's patreon dot com. Slash the
56:08
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism with John Ziegler. Good luck to you
56:12
Speaker 1: on that.
56:13
Speaker 2: But that's how you can subscribe,