Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Seventy Six: Legality And Morality

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Seventy Six: Legality And Morality · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and seventy six of the
0:03
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler, I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host, and today's show is jam packed. We'll begin
0:09
Speaker 1: with a breakdown of the ice killing in Minnesota. I'll
0:12
Speaker 1: revisit whether Trump is playing chest Checkers or Candyland. In
0:17
Speaker 1: foreign affairs, there are dramatic developments involving FED Chairman Jerome Powell,
0:23
Speaker 1: more on the football playoffs, an extraordinary and extensive interview
0:27
Speaker 1: with sportscasting legend Bob Costas, and my trip to Hawaii
0:32
Speaker 1: to surprise former Democratic Congressman and my old TV co
0:36
Speaker 1: host John Yarmouth. We begin this episode with what was
0:41
Speaker 1: by far the most talked about story of the past week.
0:44
Speaker 1: It actually almost seems old now because it occurred just
0:47
Speaker 1: after we taped the last episode of the podcast. I'm
0:51
Speaker 1: referring to the shooting and the death of a woman
0:56
Speaker 1: by the name of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota by
1:00
Speaker 1: an ice agent during an episode that was videotaped by
1:05
Speaker 1: numerous people, maybe a dozen different angles of this tragic
1:11
Speaker 1: episode that resulted in Good's death. And this has been
1:16
Speaker 1: something that, like many Americans, I have thought a lot
1:19
Speaker 1: about Over the last week, I've watched all the video
1:24
Speaker 1: and I've come to the conclusion that just about every
1:27
Speaker 1: single person that has commented on this is wrong. That
1:32
Speaker 1: almost everybody who was involved in this story was wrong
1:35
Speaker 1: to at least some degree. This was a long time
1:40
Speaker 1: in coming. This was a tragedy. In my opinion, This
1:47
Speaker 1: was actually more significant from the standpoint of what it
1:50
Speaker 1: says about where we are and where we're going as
1:54
Speaker 1: a country, specifically as to how divided we are and
1:57
Speaker 1: how impossible it is for anyone to see the other
2:02
Speaker 1: side of a controversial and complex issue. Basically, this was
2:09
Speaker 1: a terrible situation from beginning to end, and it's hard
2:13
Speaker 1: for me to see any kind of even remote silver
2:17
Speaker 1: lining in any of this. Everybody's wrong, in my opinion.
2:23
Speaker 1: Let's begin where I think this starts. This starts with
2:28
Speaker 1: liberal leaders, Democrat leaders in the House and the Senate,
2:34
Speaker 1: mostly the House, and certainly on a local level, on
2:37
Speaker 1: an activist level, condemning Ice, demonizing Ice, disrespecting Ice to
2:46
Speaker 1: the point where, and I think this is important to
2:48
Speaker 1: what actually transpired in the episode, that people like Renee
2:53
Speaker 1: Good and those around her, and specifically her girlfriend or
2:58
Speaker 1: her wife, who I think was integral in what went
3:00
Speaker 1: down here. When they look at ICE, they don't see
3:05
Speaker 1: a law enforcement agency. They have so little respect. They
3:09
Speaker 1: see Gestapo. They don't see even local police would have
3:15
Speaker 1: more respect in their minds because of the demonization by
3:19
Speaker 1: the left of ICE, because ICE has become so politicized,
3:24
Speaker 1: obviously in the realm of Trump two point zero, because
3:28
Speaker 1: in liberals' minds, ICE is being used to deport innocent
3:34
Speaker 1: immigrants who belong in this country according to them, and
3:38
Speaker 1: they're being deported willy nilly, and lives are being destroyed,
3:42
Speaker 1: families are being broken up. Now, I actually think that's
3:45
Speaker 1: greatly exaggerated. I've said numerous times living here in southern
3:49
Speaker 1: California that the amount of publicity and angst that's being
3:54
Speaker 1: created by these alleged ICE raids, at least here, because
3:59
Speaker 1: I'm close to the epicenter of it in Ventura County, California,
4:02
Speaker 1: just above just north of Los Angeles, is ridiculously exaggerated.
4:08
Speaker 1: It is not close to the reality. In other words,
4:11
Speaker 1: the publicity and the controversy is way greater than the
4:16
Speaker 1: actual reality. I'm seeing no difference on the ground, and
4:21
Speaker 1: I would see it, trust me. If there was really
4:25
Speaker 1: a massive wave of deportations or people self deporting because
4:30
Speaker 1: of the actions of Ice. So in large part, not
4:33
Speaker 1: in totality, but in large part, all of this is
4:37
Speaker 1: a media creation, a bit of a panic hysteria. There's
4:42
Speaker 1: some reality to it. For instance, we just learned this
4:46
Speaker 1: morning that for the first time in fifty years, there's
4:49
Speaker 1: been a negative mass migration in America, meaning that many
4:54
Speaker 1: illegal immigrants have either self deported or been deported themselves.
4:58
Speaker 1: So there's some reality to it. I'm not denying that,
5:01
Speaker 1: but in my opinion, the reality is greatly exaggerated. But
5:06
Speaker 1: the important part with understanding what happened in Minneapolis is
5:10
Speaker 1: that that demonization of Ice erodes almost all respect that
5:17
Speaker 1: someone like a Renee Good and those around her would
5:21
Speaker 1: have for Ice. And so when they're in a situation
5:26
Speaker 1: where they're clearly trying to be agitators, they're clearly trying
5:32
Speaker 1: to cause problems, they're protesting Ice when they get an order,
5:38
Speaker 1: they don't consider the order to be legitimate, whether it's
5:43
Speaker 1: conscious or subconscious. Ice in their minds doesn't have legitimate authority,
5:50
Speaker 1: and that is in large part due to liberals, democrats,
5:55
Speaker 1: and the news media. So that's where this begins, when
5:59
Speaker 1: you look at this horrific incident that we've seen tons
6:04
Speaker 1: and tons of videos on. Now, the next part of
6:08
Speaker 1: this equation is liberal activists and how they respond in
6:14
Speaker 1: situations where they are protesting. And this is a situation
6:20
Speaker 1: that I have a bit of experience in. I can't
6:23
Speaker 1: remember whether I've ever told this story on this podcast before,
6:27
Speaker 1: but when I was a radio talk show host at
6:29
Speaker 1: KFI in Los Angeles, on two different occasions we covered
6:35
Speaker 1: what one was supposed to be an execution and the
6:39
Speaker 1: other was actually an execution, a death penalty case where
6:43
Speaker 1: we went up to San Quentin State Prison to cover
6:47
Speaker 1: the final execution. You know, obviously in California or any
6:52
Speaker 1: other state we used to have the death penalty. We
6:54
Speaker 1: no longer have the death penalty in California effectively, but
6:57
Speaker 1: it takes years and years and years for someone who's
6:59
Speaker 1: can usually of horrific murders, to finally be executed. And
7:05
Speaker 1: on two different occasions, we went up to San Quentin
7:08
Speaker 1: Prison while I was a talk show host, and it
7:12
Speaker 1: was a big to do and there were lots of
7:15
Speaker 1: liberal activists that were there, and what was most shocking
7:19
Speaker 1: to me and this was the second time this happened.
7:22
Speaker 1: I was so naive was the actions of organized that
7:28
Speaker 1: I believe paid liberal activists that were there to protest
7:32
Speaker 1: the death penalty. These people were incredibly well trained. They
7:39
Speaker 1: had to have been paid. They knew who I was,
7:43
Speaker 1: they knew my radio station. They had clearly practiced what
7:48
Speaker 1: they were going to do to try to sabotage my broadcast.
7:53
Speaker 1: They had chants that were ready to go. They surrounded
7:57
Speaker 1: me at times, and their entire they had two goals
8:01
Speaker 1: that appeared to me, one to disrupt the broadcast and
8:04
Speaker 1: two to potentially provoke me into doing something that would
8:09
Speaker 1: give them the moral high ground. That's really what they're
8:11
Speaker 1: all about. They provoked, provoke until you finally snap and
8:16
Speaker 1: they can go Aha, See I'm a victim. I'm a victim.
8:20
Speaker 1: That's not an exaggeration. And as it turned out, because
8:26
Speaker 1: of a decision that I strongly disagreed with by my
8:29
Speaker 1: boss in one particular episode, they won. And this is
8:35
Speaker 1: a little bit of a weird situation, and I think
8:38
Speaker 1: in a strange way, it was actually a compliment to
8:40
Speaker 1: how could the broadcast I was doing was because I
8:45
Speaker 1: made it sound so dangerous and so on the edge,
8:50
Speaker 1: and that this was such a dramatic situation where I
8:53
Speaker 1: was fighting not literally but figuratively, these organized liberal activists
8:58
Speaker 1: at San Quentin outside what was supposed to be execution
9:03
Speaker 1: of a murderer, that our boss at kf I pulled
9:06
Speaker 1: the plug, took us off the air out of safety concerns,
9:11
Speaker 1: out of an abundance of caution. I was irate about that,
9:15
Speaker 1: as you might expect, but because, among other things, not
9:20
Speaker 1: only were we killing what was a really interesting broadcast,
9:24
Speaker 1: but we were giving the protesters exactly what they wanted.
9:28
Speaker 1: They won. And the reason why this is relevant is
9:31
Speaker 1: because this was the exact same mentality. When I saw
9:35
Speaker 1: these videos, a lot of it reminded me of what
9:38
Speaker 1: happened actually on a smaller scale in this particular situation
9:42
Speaker 1: to what happened with me at San Quentin. And the
9:46
Speaker 1: worst offender on the videos is the wife or the
9:51
Speaker 1: wife slash girlfriend. I'm never quite sure whether they were
9:55
Speaker 1: actually married. Of the woman who ended up getting killed,
9:58
Speaker 1: Rene Good, she was clearly the worst agitator in this,
10:03
Speaker 1: getting up in the face of the ice agents, videotaping them,
10:07
Speaker 1: taunting them, and creating an environment where everybody is far
10:13
Speaker 1: far more on edge than they need to be or
10:17
Speaker 1: they should be. And whether it's conscious or subconscious, this
10:21
Speaker 1: plays a huge role in human reaction. It's just an
10:27
Speaker 1: escalation of situations. It's just basic human nature. Right. If
10:33
Speaker 1: you're in a relaxed atmosphere, there's far far less of
10:38
Speaker 1: a chance of something really crazy happening. People are gonna
10:43
Speaker 1: be able to control their emotions. They're not going to
10:46
Speaker 1: go all the way to a tend But if you
10:48
Speaker 1: start at a seven or eight by escalating things, taunting people,
10:55
Speaker 1: you know, videotaping in their face, showing disrespect, obeying orders,
11:01
Speaker 1: not following what the agents want to have happened to
11:04
Speaker 1: create a safe way out of this circumstance, you don't
11:08
Speaker 1: have far to go if you start at a seven
11:10
Speaker 1: or eight to get to a ten. So the woman
11:15
Speaker 1: who you see in the video, who was romantically involved
11:19
Speaker 1: with the woman who would end up being killed, I
11:22
Speaker 1: think plays a very significant role in how all of
11:27
Speaker 1: this happened. That being said, so, I'm willing to blame
11:32
Speaker 1: liberals in general, democrats, the media, the activists on the ground,
11:39
Speaker 1: and I'm even willing to blame Renee Good to a
11:43
Speaker 1: certain degree for further escalating because it's clear she did
11:47
Speaker 1: not obey the orders. At least it seems to be
11:50
Speaker 1: clear that she did not obey the orders from the
11:53
Speaker 1: Ice agents, although she clearly did not have the same
11:58
Speaker 1: level of escalation that her romantic partner did. I mean,
12:02
Speaker 1: the last video of her is her smiling and seemingly,
12:07
Speaker 1: you know, not being antagonistic at all towards the Ice
12:11
Speaker 1: agent and who would end up shooting her moments later.
12:17
Speaker 1: But it does appear as if she made a mistake,
12:20
Speaker 1: whether it was intentional or otherwise, in driving the car
12:23
Speaker 1: in the direction of the Ice agent who would end
12:27
Speaker 1: up shooting her. Now you can argue, should the Ice
12:29
Speaker 1: agent sho should he have been there? Was it poor training?
12:33
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's beyond my level of expertise. I
12:36
Speaker 1: think that's a legitimate question. But giving everybody the benefit
12:40
Speaker 1: of the doubt, it certainly appears as if good could
12:44
Speaker 1: have handled and should have handled the situation far better
12:48
Speaker 1: and did drive her truck van whatever it was, into
12:53
Speaker 1: the Ice agent. There clearly was impact made something that
12:57
Speaker 1: many liberals, especially in the news media, were very very
13:01
Speaker 1: hesitant to accept as reality. That did happen and legally legally,
13:10
Speaker 1: that's very significant. That might be enough to get the
13:15
Speaker 1: ice agent off the hook for what happened next from
13:18
Speaker 1: a legal perspective. But to me, there's a very clear difference.
13:24
Speaker 1: And this might be the most perfect example I could
13:27
Speaker 1: think of, certainly in recent memory, in recent history, of
13:31
Speaker 1: where there is such a vast difference between what might
13:34
Speaker 1: be legally acceptable and what would be morally acceptable. There's
13:42
Speaker 1: a vast difference in these two things. And I have
13:45
Speaker 1: to say, because everybody in this case, I think has
13:49
Speaker 1: screwed the poach. I think that the vast majority of
13:52
Speaker 1: conservatives who've commented on this don't seem to be recognizing
13:57
Speaker 1: the vast difference between what is legally acceptable and what
14:02
Speaker 1: should be morally acceptable. Because what ends up happening next
14:09
Speaker 1: is that the driver does hit the ice agent from
14:14
Speaker 1: an incredibly short distance from zero to the to the
14:20
Speaker 1: ice agent was only a few feet, So the vehicle
14:25
Speaker 1: could not possibly have been going more than three to
14:30
Speaker 1: five miles per hour. Now, now Y add in there's
14:33
Speaker 1: ice literally ice, not you know, ice agent, but snow
14:37
Speaker 1: and ice. That was probably another complicating factor. But the vehicle,
14:42
Speaker 1: while it hit the ice agent, was not going very fast.
14:47
Speaker 1: And a lot of people on the right had pretended
14:49
Speaker 1: like this driver was going at the ice agent at
14:54
Speaker 1: you know, thirty miles an hour or forty miles per
14:56
Speaker 1: hour and was clearly tried to run them over. There's
15:01
Speaker 1: zero evidence so that that did not happen. Yes, the
15:05
Speaker 1: ice agent was hit. The Ice agent was not injured
15:09
Speaker 1: significantly from all what we can tell. I mean, I
15:13
Speaker 1: believe they went to the hospital, but they were released,
15:16
Speaker 1: but there's no indication of any injury. They didn't even
15:18
Speaker 1: drop their cell phone, which they apparently were using to
15:22
Speaker 1: videotape all of this, which is interesting because they were
15:26
Speaker 1: able to videotape this while they ended up shooting the
15:30
Speaker 1: driver multiple times at point blank range, instantly killing Rene Good.
15:39
Speaker 1: And there's several other aspects of this that are not
15:43
Speaker 1: good in my opinion for the ice agent, but just
15:47
Speaker 1: to stop there for a second, I don't think that
15:50
Speaker 1: was necessary. I don't think that was morally justified. Yes,
15:56
Speaker 1: I get legally that there has to be Because I
15:59
Speaker 1: am a very strong proponent of law enforcement, there has
16:03
Speaker 1: to be wide latitude to defend yourself in these kind
16:07
Speaker 1: of situations, which is why I think there's an incredibly
16:10
Speaker 1: significant distinction here between legally and morally. So I'm not
16:16
Speaker 1: suggesting in any way, shape or form that, based upon
16:18
Speaker 1: what we currently know, that the ICE agent should be
16:22
Speaker 1: put in jail. I don't think that that's the right
16:25
Speaker 1: thing to do based upon what we currently know. I'm
16:28
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure on that, but that's that's
16:32
Speaker 1: basically where I am. Based upon what we currently know.
16:35
Speaker 1: I don't think that the ICE agent belongs in jail. However,
16:40
Speaker 1: I don't think the ICE agent belongs working in the field.
16:44
Speaker 1: I'm not one hundred percent sure they belong in Ice
16:47
Speaker 1: at all. I think they should probably at least be
16:50
Speaker 1: considered for termination because I don't think they handle this properly.
16:56
Speaker 1: There has to be some level of discretion, and no
17:01
Speaker 1: discretion was used here. Yes, Renee Good committed what was
17:06
Speaker 1: probably a crime, but she did not commit a crime
17:10
Speaker 1: that was worthy of an instantaneous death penalty without even
17:14
Speaker 1: a goddamn trial. And that's what she got because of
17:19
Speaker 1: what I perceive as a panicked reaction from the ICE
17:25
Speaker 1: officer or Race agent. And this is where we learned
17:30
Speaker 1: two more things that we did not know immediately when
17:33
Speaker 1: we saw the video. The first thing that is startling.
17:38
Speaker 1: And this has not been one hundred percent verified, but
17:42
Speaker 1: I've not seen anything that contradicts it in a way
17:46
Speaker 1: that I find particularly compelling. But it appears as if
17:51
Speaker 1: you can hear the Ice agent referring to Renee Good
17:57
Speaker 1: as a fucking bitch moments after having shot her. Not
18:03
Speaker 1: only did he shoot her, but he had to know
18:06
Speaker 1: that she was probably dead, not just because of the
18:09
Speaker 1: point blank range, but also because by the time he
18:13
Speaker 1: says that her car, clearly she has no control over,
18:18
Speaker 1: rams into another car, and you hear the words fucking bitch.
18:23
Speaker 1: Now why is that significant? And one of the most
18:28
Speaker 1: depressing and also weirdly interesting elements of this whole case.
18:32
Speaker 1: It's been watching people's reactions online, especially, you know, obviously
18:38
Speaker 1: when I'm online, I'm seeing people reacting to things that
18:41
Speaker 1: I say, And when I reference the fucking bitch thing,
18:45
Speaker 1: I got overwhelmed. I mean, dozens and dozens of people saying, well,
18:52
Speaker 1: what do you expect him to say? She just ran
18:55
Speaker 1: over him with her car, which is a bit of
18:57
Speaker 1: an exaggeration, but I get that. I get that if
19:02
Speaker 1: in an isolated situation, if someone you're telling to you
19:07
Speaker 1: to not do what they're doing to get out of
19:09
Speaker 1: the car, and instead they keep the car going forward,
19:13
Speaker 1: and even though they might have been trying to turn
19:15
Speaker 1: away from you, based upon the video, they do strike you. Yes,
19:19
Speaker 1: I would at least be thinking what a fucking bitch,
19:24
Speaker 1: unless I just shot them dead, in which case I
19:30
Speaker 1: might not be calling them a fucking bitch. And he
19:35
Speaker 1: had to know at the very least, and she was
19:37
Speaker 1: probably dead, if not assuredly dead when he said that,
19:43
Speaker 1: So that to me at the very least, raises significant
19:46
Speaker 1: questions about his mindset that for him after I can't
19:52
Speaker 1: just I cannot tell you how stupefying it was to
19:55
Speaker 1: see so many people online not get the context of
20:00
Speaker 1: this was after he shot her probably dead. That you
20:05
Speaker 1: must you must interpret fucking bitch through the prism of
20:11
Speaker 1: that reality, which completely changes everything. Again, Yeah, if she
20:17
Speaker 1: had run him over to the even to the minor
20:19
Speaker 1: extent that she did, and he didn't shoot her, fucking
20:23
Speaker 1: bitch might be totally appropriate. But not when you've probably
20:27
Speaker 1: killed her. To me, this is self evident. But then similarly,
20:33
Speaker 1: there's another thing that we learn, which is that six
20:37
Speaker 1: months prior to this, this same ice agent was involved
20:43
Speaker 1: in what sounds like a horrific episode that was remarkably
20:48
Speaker 1: similar where they got dragged by a car and had
20:52
Speaker 1: significant injuries. And even jd Vance, who you're gonna hear
20:58
Speaker 1: from in just a minute, Vice President of the United States,
21:02
Speaker 1: was one of those who referenced this as somehow a
21:07
Speaker 1: mitigating factor or context that somehow helps the case of
21:13
Speaker 1: the ice agent, and folks, I gotta tell you, I
21:17
Speaker 1: don't understand this even a little bit. I totally get
21:23
Speaker 1: that from the ice agent's perspective, that would one hundred
21:28
Speaker 1: percent impact how I was perceiving what was happening, and
21:34
Speaker 1: therefore would create a trigger happy situation where I would
21:39
Speaker 1: be almost like I had PTSD, where I would be
21:43
Speaker 1: far more likely to over react to a situation like this.
21:49
Speaker 1: I get it psychologically, but you're making the wrong argument.
21:54
Speaker 1: You're actually arguing, in my opinion, that he overreacted. You're
22:00
Speaker 1: you're making him more culpable if you use basic logic. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 1: you're making it understandable from a human perspective, but you're
22:08
Speaker 1: actually one raising questions as to why the fuck this
22:12
Speaker 1: guy was out in the field, if he if he
22:15
Speaker 1: apparently had PTSD from this prior episode. But you're also
22:20
Speaker 1: giving extremely strong evidence that the ICE Agent did exactly
22:28
Speaker 1: as liberals are saying, which is they overreacted, and the
22:33
Speaker 1: reason they overreacted is because they were reliving a horrific
22:37
Speaker 1: experience that they had had six months prior. So I
22:42
Speaker 1: in my argument here the way I'm interpreting all this,
22:48
Speaker 1: when you when you have the fucking bitch thing being
22:50
Speaker 1: completely misinterpreted in one hundred and eighty degrees and the
22:54
Speaker 1: prior episode being used I believe in one hundred and
22:59
Speaker 1: eighty degrees the wrong direction. Yes, I believe most people
23:03
Speaker 1: are stupid, but they're not this stupid. This is an
23:05
Speaker 1: indication that people are so set in their mindset that
23:11
Speaker 1: they are unable to think straight, even smart people like
23:17
Speaker 1: Vice President Jade Vance unable to think straight. Or they're
23:21
Speaker 1: just so desperate to make an argument and they know
23:24
Speaker 1: that their audience is already on their side. Everybody on
23:27
Speaker 1: the right desperately wants to defend the Ice Agent because
23:32
Speaker 1: why politics? Politics? This is all about politics. And yes,
23:38
Speaker 1: the left and the media has tried to claim that
23:41
Speaker 1: Renee Good was not an overtly political person. They have
23:47
Speaker 1: used ridiculously benign language to describe her. There's a CNN
23:52
Speaker 1: headline that went viral, where the headline was mother of
23:56
Speaker 1: three who loved to sing and write poetry and killed
24:01
Speaker 1: by ice in Minneapolis. I mean, come on, that's as
24:05
Speaker 1: loaded as it can possibly get. But as far as
24:08
Speaker 1: her politics is concerned, I don't even need a deep
24:11
Speaker 1: dive into her social media. All I need to know
24:14
Speaker 1: is she was once married to a man, had three kids,
24:18
Speaker 1: later turned into a lesbian, and had a wife or
24:21
Speaker 1: girlfriend who was there instigating a large part of this incident.
24:26
Speaker 1: That's all I need to know, because that is, in
24:29
Speaker 1: my view, one hundred percent proof that she's a full
24:33
Speaker 1: on liberal, that she is an activist liberal, because only
24:37
Speaker 1: an activist liberal could go from being married to a
24:41
Speaker 1: man with three kids in middle aged to being a lesbian.
24:45
Speaker 1: It's inso facto it's proof. Okay, So I don't need
24:48
Speaker 1: any more than that, And I'm hardly surprised that the
24:52
Speaker 1: liberal media is doing everything they possibly can to try
24:56
Speaker 1: to pretend to this woman was something that she was not.
25:00
Speaker 1: And I even saw early on that because she was
25:03
Speaker 1: Christian and a mother and a suburban and all this,
25:06
Speaker 1: that somehow the left was going to try to portray
25:09
Speaker 1: this as ice killing one of their own people there.
25:12
Speaker 1: You know, she sounds demographically like, almost like a Trump voter.
25:16
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? That's not going
25:19
Speaker 1: to fly here. But the left is seeing it through
25:23
Speaker 1: that prism. The right is seeing it through we've got
25:26
Speaker 1: to defend the Ice agent at all costs, even when
25:28
Speaker 1: we're making really really bad arguments, like with the fucking
25:32
Speaker 1: bitch and with the episode that occurred six months prior.
25:37
Speaker 1: I will obviously see that. And this is instinctual and
25:42
Speaker 1: certainly understandable, and as the host of the Death of
25:45
Speaker 1: Journalism podcast, I can't possibly criticize it. But in a
25:48
Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction, the right is always going to condemn
25:53
Speaker 1: the media for how they react in these situations. One
25:57
Speaker 1: hundred percent will almost one hundred percent true. The liberal
26:01
Speaker 1: media is gonna jump all over a situation like this,
26:05
Speaker 1: try to condemn the Ice agent, try to deify the victim,
26:10
Speaker 1: try to make this all about politics. I get it,
26:13
Speaker 1: one hundred percent get it. And jd. Vance went down
26:17
Speaker 1: that path immediately, and he did his best to try
26:21
Speaker 1: to eviscerate the media. He got a lot of applause
26:24
Speaker 1: for this, but here was his opening statement to the
26:28
Speaker 1: press before taking questions, which I didn't think was all
26:32
Speaker 1: that impressive. This got a lot of praise on social media,
26:35
Speaker 1: but he acknowledges whether he understands it or realizes it
26:39
Speaker 1: or not, this six months ago episode in a way
26:44
Speaker 1: that I just thought was really counterproductive, because how in
26:49
Speaker 1: the world was Renee Good supposed to know that she
26:52
Speaker 1: was dealing with an agent that had some form of PTSD.
26:56
Speaker 1: And it's just ridiculous on his face, But here was
26:59
Speaker 1: j Evans evisciating the news media coverage of this tragic incident.
27:05
Speaker 2: When I was actually walking out here, somebody sent me
27:09
Speaker 2: a photo of a CNN headline about what happened in Minneapolis,
27:14
Speaker 2: and this is the headline.
27:15
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read it, outrage.
27:17
Speaker 2: After ice officer kills US citizen in Minneapolis. Well, that's
27:22
Speaker 2: one way to put it, and that is the way
27:24
Speaker 2: that many people in the corporate media have put this
27:27
Speaker 2: attack over the last twenty four hours. And I say
27:29
Speaker 2: attack very very intentionally, because this was an attack on
27:33
Speaker 2: federal law enforcement, This was an attack on law and order,
27:36
Speaker 2: This was an attack on the American people. The way
27:39
Speaker 2: that the media by and large has reported this story
27:42
Speaker 2: has been an absolute disgrace, and it puts our law
27:46
Speaker 2: enforcement officers at risk every single day. What that headline
27:50
Speaker 2: leaves out is the fact that that very ice officer
27:53
Speaker 2: nearly had his life ended dragged by a car six
27:57
Speaker 2: months ago, thirty three stitches in his life, So you
28:00
Speaker 2: think maybe he's a little bit sensitive about somebody ramming
28:03
Speaker 2: him with an automobile. What that headline leaves out is
28:06
Speaker 2: that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate
28:09
Speaker 2: law enforcement operation in the United States of America. What
28:12
Speaker 2: that headline leaves out is that that woman has is
28:15
Speaker 2: part of a broader left wing network to attack, to docks,
28:19
Speaker 2: to assault, and to make it impossible for our ice
28:22
Speaker 2: officers to do their job. If the media wants to
28:24
Speaker 2: tell the truth, they ought to tell the truth that
28:27
Speaker 2: a group of left wing radicals have been working tiresly,
28:31
Speaker 2: sometimes using domestic terror techniques to try to make it
28:34
Speaker 2: impossible for the President of the United States to do
28:37
Speaker 2: what the American people elected him to do, which is
28:40
Speaker 2: enforce our immigration laws. The President stands with ICE, I
28:43
Speaker 2: stand with ICE, We stand with all of our law
28:46
Speaker 2: enforcement officers, and part of that is recognizing that you
28:49
Speaker 2: people in the media not everybody in this room. But
28:52
Speaker 2: many people in this room have been lying.
28:54
Speaker 1: About this attack.
28:56
Speaker 2: She was trying to ram this guy with his car.
29:00
Speaker 2: He shot back, he defended himself. He's already been seriously
29:04
Speaker 2: wounded in law enforcement operations before. And everybody who's been
29:08
Speaker 2: repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who
29:11
Speaker 2: was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law
29:13
Speaker 2: enforcement officer shot at her. You should be ashamed of yourselves,
29:16
Speaker 2: every single one of you, questions.
29:19
Speaker 1: You now, folks, I'm sorry, but two things can be
29:24
Speaker 1: true at once. The news media can be biased to
29:29
Speaker 1: an extreme degree, and the ICE agent can still be
29:34
Speaker 1: morally wrong in what they did. And it's my view
29:40
Speaker 1: that every single person that has been integral to this
29:43
Speaker 1: episode was at least partially, if not mostly wrong. I
29:48
Speaker 1: can't find anything close to a hero in any of this. Weirdly,
29:53
Speaker 1: the only person that might come close to qualifying is
29:58
Speaker 1: podcasting legend Joe Rowe, who is the only commentator I've
30:02
Speaker 1: seen who has gone against the bulk of their audience
30:06
Speaker 1: because he has essentially said effectively what I have said.
30:11
Speaker 1: That folks, it certainly seems as if the ICE agent
30:14
Speaker 1: didn't need to do this, and it did seem as
30:17
Speaker 1: if while she shouldn't have been driving the car at all,
30:22
Speaker 1: and she certainly shouldn't have been ramming it into the
30:24
Speaker 1: Ice agent, that she was turning away from the Ice agent,
30:28
Speaker 1: and that this shooting was unnecessary. Other than Joe Rogan,
30:32
Speaker 1: I have not found any major commentator on either side
30:35
Speaker 1: that has been willing to challenge their own audience. Because
30:39
Speaker 1: we don't live in that world anymore. We have to
30:41
Speaker 1: immediately go into our silos. We need to immediately go
30:44
Speaker 1: into combat. The other side is wrong, our side is right,
30:49
Speaker 1: and in this particular situation, it's been extreme. I mean
30:54
Speaker 1: even on the left. A guy who I have praised
30:57
Speaker 1: at times because I think he's level headed, general and
31:01
Speaker 1: sometimes funny, John Stewart of The Daily Show. Sometimes I
31:06
Speaker 1: like what he does. Sometimes we even played clips from
31:09
Speaker 1: John Stewart on this podcast. I think we did so.
31:12
Speaker 1: Last week he was completely out to lunch on this
31:16
Speaker 1: particular topic. Most ridiculously, he did an entire commentary trying
31:23
Speaker 1: to expose the hypocrisy of Trumpsters when it comes to
31:27
Speaker 1: how protesters should be treated, using January sixth. January sixth
31:33
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one as this great example of the
31:38
Speaker 1: proof of Trump supporting hypocrisy, and I just couldn't believe
31:45
Speaker 1: my own eyes and ears because I'm like, does he
31:49
Speaker 1: not know? And I'm sincerely asking this question, does he
31:53
Speaker 1: not know the Ashley Babbitt story. I mean, I've said
31:57
Speaker 1: a dozen times at least on this podcast that the
32:00
Speaker 1: only person that was actually killed killed on January sixth
32:06
Speaker 1: was Trump supporter protester Ashley Babbitt, who was killed by
32:12
Speaker 1: a law enforcement officer at the Capitol unarmed, and she
32:17
Speaker 1: didn't even drive a truck into the guy. She was
32:20
Speaker 1: in no way, shape or form physically threatening that person,
32:25
Speaker 1: and she was shot and killed in cold blood, in
32:29
Speaker 1: my opinion, a way worse situation than what happened with
32:32
Speaker 1: Renee Good. Now, some people might argue, well, Ashley Babbitt
32:37
Speaker 1: was I guess trespassing what she wasn't where she was
32:40
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Okay, fine, I'm not saying that Ashley
32:43
Speaker 1: Babbitt was one thousand percent innocent, but she was more
32:48
Speaker 1: innocent in my opinion than Renee Good and she did
32:50
Speaker 1: not pose any physical threat to the officer who ended
32:54
Speaker 1: up killing her. Yeah. John Stewart honestly either has forgotten
33:00
Speaker 1: appears to be totally unaware, or even worse, is just
33:03
Speaker 1: flat out lying through a mission by not acknowledging that
33:08
Speaker 1: the only person actually died that day was actually Babbitt
33:12
Speaker 1: in a situation that's somewhat analogous to what happened with
33:16
Speaker 1: the Ice shooting. And so I'd say, a po's on
33:21
Speaker 1: all their houses. Everybody is wrong on this, even traditionally
33:26
Speaker 1: somewhat rational people like John Stewart. Every single person is wrong,
33:33
Speaker 1: and there's a ton of blame to go around here,
33:37
Speaker 1: a ton, But none of this happens. We're not talking
33:42
Speaker 1: about this. No one dies if the Ice agent doesn't,
33:46
Speaker 1: in my opinion, overreact. Again legally probably justifiable. However, even
33:54
Speaker 1: in the legal realm, we're seeing politics dominate everything. Because
34:02
Speaker 1: they're a federal agent, they appear to be immune from
34:07
Speaker 1: any sort of local or state prosecutions. Here. I'm not
34:11
Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure that that's going to hold, because
34:13
Speaker 1: I'm thinking there's going to be some way, shape or form,
34:16
Speaker 1: because there's going to be so much desire for some
34:18
Speaker 1: sort of a criminal prosecution that somebody's going to come
34:22
Speaker 1: up with some effort to do this. But from a
34:25
Speaker 1: federal perspective. It is made clear that the Feds, because
34:31
Speaker 1: this is a political issue and because ICE is so
34:35
Speaker 1: integral to what the Trump administration sees as probably its
34:39
Speaker 1: greatest achievement, which is closing the border, and in the
34:43
Speaker 1: perceptions of many Trump supporters trying to fight the issue
34:47
Speaker 1: of illegal immigration, they're backing ICE one thousand percent, which
34:52
Speaker 1: I get. I get. You got to protect and defend
34:55
Speaker 1: your people. They have to be able to have some
34:57
Speaker 1: semblance of security when they're out in the field. I
35:01
Speaker 1: get it again. I'm a defender of law enforcement in general,
35:05
Speaker 1: and I fully understand that in the heat of battle,
35:07
Speaker 1: people have to have some protection otherwise they're not going
35:11
Speaker 1: to be able to function. But we also cannot be
35:14
Speaker 1: living in a world where an ICE agent or any
35:18
Speaker 1: other federal law enforcement agent feels as if they can
35:23
Speaker 1: just kill somebody in cold blood if they're at all threatened.
35:29
Speaker 1: You have to be able to gauge these things. There
35:31
Speaker 1: has to be discretion, and that's where I make the
35:35
Speaker 1: distinction between the legal and the moral. But there's apparently
35:39
Speaker 1: been several resignations among federal prosecutors who are pissed off
35:44
Speaker 1: that there's not even going to be an investigation. That's ridiculous.
35:47
Speaker 1: I mean, at the very least there ought to be
35:49
Speaker 1: an investigation. I mean, we have on video someone being
35:54
Speaker 1: killed because they disobeyed in order and struck an an
36:00
Speaker 1: ICE agent with a car at an incredibly low rate
36:03
Speaker 1: of speed. That ought to at least be investigated. And
36:07
Speaker 1: I can understand those that have resigned because there isn't
36:11
Speaker 1: apparently even going to be an investigation. But morally, that's
36:17
Speaker 1: the bigger question. To me, I do not And I
36:20
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are probably pissed at me
36:22
Speaker 1: for say this, because I've seen it already online when
36:25
Speaker 1: I have made this suggestion, I don't think this shooting
36:28
Speaker 1: was necessary in fact, I mean it seems to me
36:32
Speaker 1: again twenty twenty hindsight, I hate twenty twenty hindsight. I
36:36
Speaker 1: hate it, and these things are happening incredibly fast and
36:39
Speaker 1: people are having to make knee jerk decisions that could
36:43
Speaker 1: be life and death. But it seemed to me is
36:46
Speaker 1: if the shooting actually occurred after whatever damage had already
36:52
Speaker 1: been done. I mean, so, in other words, it wasn't
36:54
Speaker 1: as if he was in a greater threat that in
37:01
Speaker 1: order for his shooting to be justified, morally, there has
37:04
Speaker 1: to be a threat in the future that is being
37:08
Speaker 1: mitigated or terminated. That's not the way I perceived the video.
37:13
Speaker 1: To me, he got hit, you might say nudged. I mean,
37:17
Speaker 1: it was a significant collision, but it was in no way,
37:20
Speaker 1: shape or form life threatening, and it was to me
37:25
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was a reaction, kind of like
37:28
Speaker 1: the PTSD theory, because he was thinking back to what
37:31
Speaker 1: happened six months ago, and he lost his mind and
37:34
Speaker 1: he immediately fired three times from point blank range, killing
37:40
Speaker 1: this woman who was seemingly turning her car away from him.
37:45
Speaker 1: And I did not see that a future threat to
37:49
Speaker 1: him had been dealt with because of the shooting. It
37:54
Speaker 1: felt like it was retribution, or that might be too
37:58
Speaker 1: strong of a word, but it felt to me as
38:01
Speaker 1: if he was reacting almost as punishment for what she
38:05
Speaker 1: had done to him, maybe because of what had happened
38:09
Speaker 1: six months prior. And so you know, in retrospect, obviously,
38:14
Speaker 1: again twenty twenty is hindsight, it seems to me as
38:17
Speaker 1: if this guy should not have been out in the field.
38:19
Speaker 1: If this incident from six months ago had been impacting
38:23
Speaker 1: him that much, then he clearly was not prepared to
38:26
Speaker 1: be able to make these kind of difficult decisions in
38:31
Speaker 1: the heat of battle where you need discretion, and so
38:35
Speaker 1: you don't create an international incident and you have someone
38:39
Speaker 1: be killed for a fairly minor transgression. And I'm not
38:46
Speaker 1: defending Renee Good. She should have handled the whole thing differently.
38:49
Speaker 1: I'm not defending the liberal activist. They escalated the whole situation.
38:54
Speaker 1: Like I said, everyone is to blame here, everybody. But
38:58
Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem I have in all this
39:03
Speaker 1: is the deep, deep, deep divide that this exposes and
39:08
Speaker 1: exacerbates within our entire nation. I've already mentioned that I
39:14
Speaker 1: can only find one major commentator, Joe Rogan, who has
39:19
Speaker 1: even been willing to go against what they must perceive
39:24
Speaker 1: would be the majority opinion of their audience. Everybody else
39:29
Speaker 1: immediately went into providing therapy for their target demographic, the
39:35
Speaker 1: left and the right. There's nothing, no truth, the truth.
39:41
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, truth doesn't matter. This is all about therapy.
39:45
Speaker 1: We're on our sides, we're in a war footing, and
39:50
Speaker 1: we're just gonna provide our audience with what they want
39:53
Speaker 1: to hear. If you're on the right, the Ice agent
39:56
Speaker 1: did know wrong? The media is lying the left. I've
40:00
Speaker 1: provoked this and this woman deserved it. I mean, I
40:04
Speaker 1: can't believe we got to that point, but it did
40:08
Speaker 1: feel as if I had. This is a weird analogy
40:12
Speaker 1: and it's not perfect, but you remember last year during
40:16
Speaker 1: the Phillies baseball game. One of the strangest things that
40:19
Speaker 1: happened last year, in my opinion, was that home run
40:22
Speaker 1: baseball controversy where the so called Phillies Baseball Karen thought
40:28
Speaker 1: she had the baseball stolen from her by the dad.
40:31
Speaker 1: She went over to the dad, the dad gave her
40:33
Speaker 1: back the baseball. Most amazing thing that happened in twenty
40:36
Speaker 1: twenty five was, to my knowledge, she never got identified
40:39
Speaker 1: her actual identity. I don't know how the hell she
40:42
Speaker 1: avoided being identified, but for several days she was a
40:46
Speaker 1: viral sensation, and she was referred to as the Phillies
40:49
Speaker 1: baseball Karen, all because of the way she looked and
40:53
Speaker 1: because of her haircut, and she seemed like an Elizabeth
40:56
Speaker 1: Warren type figure, and that drove so much of the
41:01
Speaker 1: narrative around that situation. People on the right hated her,
41:06
Speaker 1: not just because of her actions, which I can understand
41:09
Speaker 1: why you would disagree with her actions on the video,
41:12
Speaker 1: but because of the way she looked, they perceived her
41:15
Speaker 1: as this liberal Karen, and that drove so much of
41:20
Speaker 1: the passion in that particular situation. I truly believe that
41:25
Speaker 1: some people, and it's not a small amount of people,
41:28
Speaker 1: are so sick in the head that they perceive Renee
41:33
Speaker 1: Good in a certain way similar to the Phillies Baseball Karen,
41:38
Speaker 1: and that therefore they either don't care what happened to her,
41:42
Speaker 1: or they actually think she deserved it. And that's batshit
41:46
Speaker 1: fucking crazy, regardless of what your political beliefs are. But
41:52
Speaker 1: on the other side, it's the same way. Ice is
41:55
Speaker 1: inherently bad. The Trump administration is inherently bad, you know,
41:59
Speaker 1: fighting you legal immigration is inherently bad. And therefore we're
42:02
Speaker 1: gonna lie about every element of this to try to
42:05
Speaker 1: take full political advantage. And that's wrong too. But a
42:11
Speaker 1: largely innocent person was killed here and that's tragic. But
42:16
Speaker 1: even worse than that is what this situation revealed about
42:20
Speaker 1: where we are in America, because it is terrible. We
42:24
Speaker 1: are so divided to call us the United States of
42:28
Speaker 1: America in this our two hundred and fiftieth year is
42:31
Speaker 1: almost a bad joke because we're not united about anything here.
42:36
Speaker 1: We have an unprecedented amount of video of this horrible episode,
42:43
Speaker 1: and we can't agree on anything, and it's just so
42:47
Speaker 1: incredibly depressing. So my view is everybody was wrong. This
42:54
Speaker 1: was a perfect storm of horrendous circumstances. You almost couldn't create.
43:00
Speaker 1: If you were trying to concoct a scenario that would
43:05
Speaker 1: both illustrate and exacerbate the political divide in America, it
43:12
Speaker 1: would have been difficult to do it, more so than
43:15
Speaker 1: this situation provided. And to me, well, it's not clear cut.
43:22
Speaker 1: I think the essence of this is, Yeah, legally the
43:28
Speaker 1: shooting was probably not criminal. I'd like to find out
43:33
Speaker 1: some more information, But morally I don't think it was justified.
43:39
Speaker 1: That's my opinion, and you can do with it what
43:42
Speaker 1: you want. Now, I want to revisit what I talked
43:46
Speaker 1: about quite a bit in the last episode of the podcast,
43:49
Speaker 1: where in reaction to what the United States did in
43:54
Speaker 1: Venezuela taking out the Venezuelan leader, the president and his wife,
44:00
Speaker 1: bringing them to America for criminal prosecution, and essentially, in
44:05
Speaker 1: the words of President Trump, taking over Venezuela, I proposed
44:11
Speaker 1: that there were three scenarios regarding Trump's motivation and plan
44:18
Speaker 1: and and or potential strategy here. And the three scenarios
44:23
Speaker 1: were Trump's playing chess, Trump's playing checkers, or Trump is
44:29
Speaker 1: playing Candyland. And I put out all three of those scenarios,
44:35
Speaker 1: and I think I said that they in my mind,
44:38
Speaker 1: they all three are of a similar probability that there's
44:42
Speaker 1: basically a I don't know if I said this exactly,
44:45
Speaker 1: but I certainly intended to portray that in my mind,
44:50
Speaker 1: there's a thirty three percent chance that either of those
44:53
Speaker 1: scenarios is the one that is actually true. And the
44:57
Speaker 1: one that probably surprised the most U surprised people the
45:00
Speaker 1: most was the Trump playing chess, because I don't believe
45:04
Speaker 1: that Trump is a chess player. I've never believed that
45:06
Speaker 1: Trump is a chess player. I've always believed that best
45:10
Speaker 1: he's a checkers player. And sometimes I think he's playing Candyland,
45:13
Speaker 1: which is basically just completely haphazard, and you know, there's
45:17
Speaker 1: no rhyme or reason, there is no plan to what
45:20
Speaker 1: he's doing. But I propose the possibility underlying possibility that
45:26
Speaker 1: in this particular situation, when you put together this dramatic
45:31
Speaker 1: change in philosophy with regard to foreign intervention, and the
45:37
Speaker 1: dramatic actions in Venezuela, and the renewal, the dramatic renewal
45:42
Speaker 1: of the effort to try to take over Greenland, and
45:46
Speaker 1: the talk about regime change in Cuba, and what's going
45:50
Speaker 1: on in Iran, which is really quite amazing and highly
45:55
Speaker 1: underreported right now, where protesters are coming close to toppling
46:01
Speaker 1: the regime there and seemingly many of them are thirsting
46:06
Speaker 1: for the son of the Shaw of Iran to come
46:10
Speaker 1: back into power. The son of the Shaw of Iran
46:12
Speaker 1: is apparently here in America, which is just mind blowing
46:17
Speaker 1: to me, since the Shaw hasn't been in power for
46:19
Speaker 1: fifty years and their son in America has protesters that
46:26
Speaker 1: seemingly want the monarchy back. But you know, there's a
46:29
Speaker 1: lot going on with Iran, a lot of tough talk
46:32
Speaker 1: from Trump about how he's going to deal with the
46:35
Speaker 1: Iranian regime. And so when you put all of this together,
46:39
Speaker 1: I thought there was at least the theoretical possibility that
46:43
Speaker 1: maybe Trump is playing chess here. And the basic argument
46:48
Speaker 1: was that the world is going to change in dramatic fashion,
46:53
Speaker 1: whether it's because of AI or other related issues, and
46:59
Speaker 1: that we have power now and that maybe we need
47:02
Speaker 1: to use the power now to shape the world before
47:06
Speaker 1: the deck gets reshuffled, is how I phrased it, And
47:10
Speaker 1: that when you reshuffle the deck and AI could be
47:12
Speaker 1: a massive reshuffling of the deck of everything we know
47:16
Speaker 1: about reality, then there could be an argument to be
47:20
Speaker 1: made that maybe you do things you wouldn't ordinarily do.
47:23
Speaker 1: And I went into great detail about what the theory
47:26
Speaker 1: behind Trump playing chess would be. I'm not going to
47:30
Speaker 1: revisit it now, but I'm sure that there were people
47:34
Speaker 1: like Zig, You've got to be crazy. This is not
47:36
Speaker 1: who Trump is. There's nothing in his history that would
47:39
Speaker 1: suggest that this is the way he thinks. And I
47:41
Speaker 1: totally get it. But the way my brain works is
47:46
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to explore all possibilities, especially when a
47:50
Speaker 1: story is at its beginning and we don't have all
47:54
Speaker 1: the facts. Yet, we don't have all the information, and
47:57
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out, Okay, what's really going on here?
48:00
Speaker 1: So I explore all options in all scenarios, and so
48:05
Speaker 1: I thought I put out a fairly logical possible scenario
48:11
Speaker 1: of Trump playing chess However, I'm pretty much concluded already
48:18
Speaker 1: just a week later that Trump is not playing chess. Here,
48:22
Speaker 1: I am essentially taking Trump playing chess off the table.
48:28
Speaker 1: And the reason why I did this, there's there's several
48:31
Speaker 1: The first fish this is gonna sound counterintuitive, or maybe
48:35
Speaker 1: it won't. The first thing that made me think I'm
48:38
Speaker 1: wrong to give that possibility credibility is that Tucker Carlson
48:44
Speaker 1: and Glenn Beck both seem to be making similar arguments
48:49
Speaker 1: of Trump playing chess in this brand new world. And
48:54
Speaker 1: by the way, they were weren't one hundred percent in
48:56
Speaker 1: agreement with what Trump was doing, but they seemed to
48:59
Speaker 1: be making a similar argument to the one that I
49:02
Speaker 1: proposed regarding the possibility that Trump is playing chess in
49:08
Speaker 1: all this, And because I no longer consider Tucker Carlson
49:11
Speaker 1: and sadly my former friend Glenn Beck to be credible people,
49:16
Speaker 1: that to me was a big red flag, a huge
49:19
Speaker 1: red flag that, Okay, this is probably a situation where
49:24
Speaker 1: Trump is not playing chess because Tucker Carlson and Glenn
49:27
Speaker 1: Beck are not decided that I should be on because
49:31
Speaker 1: their thinking isn't clear anymore. But that wasn't the main
49:34
Speaker 1: reason why I've taken Trump playing chess off the table.
49:38
Speaker 1: The main reason is that had this been a situation
49:44
Speaker 1: similar to what I proposed as a possibility, I think
49:48
Speaker 1: we would have seen somebody. Now this is not one
49:53
Speaker 1: hundred percent because of the deep divide we have in
49:56
Speaker 1: the country. In a normal rational world of ten years ago,
50:01
Speaker 1: this would have been one hundred certainty to prove to
50:05
Speaker 1: either prove or disprove the chess theory. But I'm a
50:09
Speaker 1: big believer in the absence of evidence is oftentimes evidence
50:14
Speaker 1: of absence, And what I'm referring to here is these
50:18
Speaker 1: intelligence briefings that Democrats and Congress got about what happened
50:25
Speaker 1: in Venezuela. And had this been a chess situation similar
50:31
Speaker 1: to the scenario that I outline, I think we would
50:36
Speaker 1: have seen at least one Democrat, maybe John Fetterman, who
50:41
Speaker 1: has actually been fairly rational on the whole Venezuela thing.
50:45
Speaker 1: We would have seen one Democrat come out and at
50:51
Speaker 1: least give a hint that there was more to this story,
50:55
Speaker 1: that there was a plan, that there was a strategy,
50:59
Speaker 1: that there were stakes here much larger than the narco
51:06
Speaker 1: terrorism and Venezuela and oil and minerals, and and you know,
51:12
Speaker 1: whether or not the regime in Venezuela was legitimate, I
51:17
Speaker 1: think we would have seen that, and we didn't get
51:19
Speaker 1: any of that. Nobody that I saw, and I'm sure
51:23
Speaker 1: we would have heard about this had had occurred. Nobody
51:26
Speaker 1: on the Democratic side or even the Republican side that
51:29
Speaker 1: I saw, came out and gave any sign that this
51:35
Speaker 1: was a game of chess. In fact, it was quite
51:39
Speaker 1: the opposite. Now, you know, a lot of Democrats I'm
51:42
Speaker 1: not going to give a lot of credibility to because
51:45
Speaker 1: they have no incentive to say anything that gives Trump
51:49
Speaker 1: any credit. I get that. So I'm not judging this
51:53
Speaker 1: based upon the fact that the vast majority of Democrats
51:55
Speaker 1: came out and said I'm more confused than I was before.
51:59
Speaker 1: That didn't have a lot of impact on me. It
52:01
Speaker 1: was the fact that nobody, nobody came out and said, well,
52:05
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on here, and I think we
52:07
Speaker 1: have to, you know, support the president something to that degree.
52:12
Speaker 1: It did not happen. And then there was this frankly
52:18
Speaker 1: bizarre oil summit I'll call it that President Trump and
52:23
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio hosted with all the oil executives about what
52:28
Speaker 1: they're going to do in Venezuela, and much to many
52:34
Speaker 1: people's surprise, including Donald Trump himself, the executive from Exon
52:41
Speaker 1: came out and said that Venezuela is currently uninvestible now.
52:47
Speaker 1: To be fair, if you listen to the full statement
52:52
Speaker 1: from the Exon CEO, I think he was CEO that
52:57
Speaker 1: he was also saying that it's possible that the Trump
53:01
Speaker 1: administration could make it investible. So it wasn't a fully
53:06
Speaker 1: negative statement by Exon, although Trump perceived it that way,
53:11
Speaker 1: because later on Trump threatened to basically keep Exon out
53:16
Speaker 1: of the fold when it came to reaping the rewards
53:19
Speaker 1: whatever they might be from our quote unquote takeover of Venezuela.
53:24
Speaker 1: But the point here was that this got a lot
53:26
Speaker 1: of publicity that essentially the oil companies and it wasn't
53:30
Speaker 1: just Exxon, were essentially saying, you know, this really isn't
53:35
Speaker 1: all that great a situation for us, that this might
53:38
Speaker 1: not be a circumstance that we're interested in, which of
53:42
Speaker 1: course blows up an enormous part of Trump's plan. I mean,
53:47
Speaker 1: Trump went out of his way, to the shock of
53:49
Speaker 1: many people, including John Stewart. We played a whole clip
53:53
Speaker 1: from John Stewart in the last week's show about him
53:56
Speaker 1: joking about Trump bragging about what was going to happen
53:59
Speaker 1: with regard to venezs whale and oil. Well, a huge
54:02
Speaker 1: part of this plan is that this is going to
54:04
Speaker 1: benefit the United States, and American oil companies are integral
54:08
Speaker 1: to that scenario occurring, but they don't seem to be
54:11
Speaker 1: interested for various reasons, including the infrastructure in Venezuela being
54:16
Speaker 1: years from being able to be resuscitated to the level
54:20
Speaker 1: where this can be economically feasible. Well, to me, that
54:26
Speaker 1: made it very clear that there's no grand plan here,
54:31
Speaker 1: that there's not a tremendous amount of strategy at work,
54:37
Speaker 1: that this is not Trump playing chess, because if Trump
54:40
Speaker 1: had been playing chess, somebody would have at least consulted
54:47
Speaker 1: with the oil companies before we did this, And instead,
54:53
Speaker 1: what I'm left with reminds me of the movie Monty
54:57
Speaker 1: Python's Holy Grail, where one of the characters says he's
55:03
Speaker 1: making it up as he goes along, and that's what's
55:07
Speaker 1: happening here. I think Trump is, as is often the case,
55:11
Speaker 1: is making it up as he goes along. There is
55:15
Speaker 1: no rhyme or reason, there is no plan, there is
55:18
Speaker 1: no grand strategy. Trump is not playing chess. So unless
55:25
Speaker 1: we get more information, which I'm always open to, I'm
55:28
Speaker 1: taking the Trump chess scenario off the table. I still
55:33
Speaker 1: think it's possible he's playing checkers. I'd like to give
55:37
Speaker 1: him the benefit of the doubt. And when I say checkers,
55:40
Speaker 1: what I mean is he saw the opportunity in Venezuela.
55:44
Speaker 1: The military told him this could be done. You have
55:47
Speaker 1: the justification because of the narco terrorism and the illegitimate government.
55:53
Speaker 1: In Trump's mind, he was going to get an advantage
55:56
Speaker 1: with regard to oil, and that's related to his affordability
56:01
Speaker 1: strategy and goals with regard to the US economy and
56:05
Speaker 1: the price of gasoline obviously is a huge, huge, huge
56:09
Speaker 1: part of affordability in all areas of American life. And
56:14
Speaker 1: also by pulling off this operation on the heels of
56:18
Speaker 1: what happened last year with the Iranian nuclear facilities, this
56:22
Speaker 1: is Trump establishing for all the world, hey, look, don't
56:27
Speaker 1: fuck with us. We can do whatever we want. And
56:29
Speaker 1: therefore this would give him more leverage in dealing with
56:33
Speaker 1: other countries like, for instance, the Greenland situation, or maybe
56:38
Speaker 1: Cuba or maybe Iran. That would be the Checkers theory,
56:43
Speaker 1: which isn't the worst situation in the world. I mean,
56:46
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made still that in a
56:49
Speaker 1: checkers game, that this was a good move, it could
56:53
Speaker 1: also turn out to be a bad move because you
56:56
Speaker 1: know what happens next in Venezuela, And did we just
57:00
Speaker 1: create this vacuum and this headache and this problem for
57:03
Speaker 1: very little of any actual economic gain. If, as Exxon says,
57:09
Speaker 1: Venezuela is uninvestable, I don't know. I mean, there's still
57:14
Speaker 1: like in a game of checkers, because you didn't think
57:17
Speaker 1: more than one or two moves ahead, this could all
57:20
Speaker 1: still work out very very badly. So we don't know
57:24
Speaker 1: how it's all going to work out. But there's also
57:29
Speaker 1: the scenario that this isn't even Checkers, that this is Candyland,
57:33
Speaker 1: that this is Trump just being spastic, being drunk on power,
57:40
Speaker 1: being somebody who wants to change the subject. Maybe he's
57:45
Speaker 1: frustrated with domestic policy where he can't really get much done.
57:49
Speaker 1: He's not really even bothering to go through Congress. I
57:52
Speaker 1: know there's people who bizarrely think this was all about
57:55
Speaker 1: distracting from the Epstein files. Which I don't believe, but
57:58
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, Trump is enamor with using his toys
58:02
Speaker 1: in the military realm. And let's face it, the US
58:07
Speaker 1: military is probably by far the most functional form of
58:12
Speaker 1: the US government that currently exists. So if you're used
58:16
Speaker 1: to dealing with total and complete dysfunction, actually succeeding, at
58:22
Speaker 1: least in the short run is an enticing scenario. So
58:26
Speaker 1: I can understand why Trump would like playing with his
58:29
Speaker 1: military toys, especially when you've had these two major operations
58:33
Speaker 1: that have been successful and hasn't even been an American
58:36
Speaker 1: death in either of these operations. So I can see
58:39
Speaker 1: why this would appeal to Trump's psychology, even though it
58:43
Speaker 1: goes directly against his entire political philosophy, which is to
58:48
Speaker 1: not be a neocon, to not be an interventionist, to
58:51
Speaker 1: not do nation building that seems to have all been
58:53
Speaker 1: tossed aside. MAGA doesn't seem to care because they're not
58:57
Speaker 1: based in any sort of political philosophy. It's mostly a cult.
59:03
Speaker 1: But I'm now leaning towards the Candyland scenario to explain
59:08
Speaker 1: what's really going on here, which is very concerning and
59:11
Speaker 1: part of why I'm leaning towards the Candyland scenario is
59:16
Speaker 1: because of a remarkable interview that Donald Trump did with
59:20
Speaker 1: the New York Times. Now, this was extraordinary, and in
59:24
Speaker 1: some ways I give Trump credit for this, because certainly
59:27
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was never going to do this. In fact,
59:29
Speaker 1: I'm not sure any president in my lifetime would have
59:33
Speaker 1: done this. But Trump sat for multiple hours with numerous
59:37
Speaker 1: New York Times reporters essentially alone in the Oval office,
59:42
Speaker 1: and just said, come at me with whatever you want,
59:45
Speaker 1: whatever you got. So I give Trump credit for that.
59:48
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a remarkable thing that he's willing and
59:51
Speaker 1: able to be that transparent. But what he said, what
59:56
Speaker 1: he said at times was for any other president, would
1:00:01
Speaker 1: have been totally shocking. And the fact that we're so
1:00:04
Speaker 1: desensitized that it didn't create nearly the earthquake that it
1:00:08
Speaker 1: should have is actually a bit disturbing. But what I'm
1:00:13
Speaker 1: referring to here is the headline from this extraordinary interview
1:00:18
Speaker 1: that Trump did with the New York Times is that
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Trump was asked whether or not there is any check
1:00:24
Speaker 1: on his power when it comes to foreign affairs or intervention.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: This is my paraphrase, and Trump's response was stunning. It
1:00:36
Speaker 1: would be stunning if he was the leader of any
1:00:39
Speaker 1: country in the world, but particularly when he's the president
1:00:45
Speaker 1: of the United States, and particularly as we are heading
1:00:48
Speaker 1: into this our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
1:00:52
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence, where we are celebrating our separation from
1:00:58
Speaker 1: Great Britain because we didn't believe in kings. And here
1:01:02
Speaker 1: we have a president who is now acting as king
1:01:07
Speaker 1: like as any US president ever has, and now, when
1:01:12
Speaker 1: asked to respond to this questions to whether or not
1:01:15
Speaker 1: he has any restrictions on his power, provides the most
1:01:20
Speaker 1: batshit crazy answer you could possibly conceive of, which is
1:01:25
Speaker 1: the only restriction is his own morality. His own morality.
1:01:32
Speaker 1: And I'm not making it up and I'm not exaggerating.
1:01:35
Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like.
1:01:37
Speaker 3: Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to? Yeah,
1:01:39
Speaker 3: there's one thing, my own morality, my own mind. It's
1:01:45
Speaker 3: the only thing that can stop. And that's good. I
1:01:49
Speaker 3: don't need international I'm not looking to hurt people.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: Do you feel your administration needs to abide by international
1:01:55
Speaker 1: law and the global statis I do?
1:01:58
Speaker 3: You know, I do, but it it depends what your
1:02:01
Speaker 3: definition of international law is.
1:02:03
Speaker 4: You mean in Greenland we had In Greenland, we had
1:02:06
Speaker 4: because in the nineteen fifty one agreement, though it says
1:02:11
Speaker 4: the United States can reopen these bases anytime you want.
1:02:14
Speaker 4: You could send as many troops as you want. And
1:02:16
Speaker 4: you haven't done it.
1:02:17
Speaker 3: How come because I want to do it properly.
1:02:20
Speaker 4: And properly means own it.
1:02:22
Speaker 3: Really it is. To me, it's ownership. Ownership is very important.
1:02:26
Speaker 4: You know why is ownership important here?
1:02:28
Speaker 3: Because that's what I feel is psychologically needed for success.
1:02:34
Speaker 3: I think that ownership gives you a thing that you
1:02:36
Speaker 3: can't do, whether you're talking about elise or a treaty,
1:02:40
Speaker 3: Ownership gives you things and elements that you can't get from.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: Just now, if Donald Trump was even a marginally moral person,
1:02:51
Speaker 1: that would be still a very troubling statement from the
1:02:56
Speaker 1: President of the United States, because that's not the way
1:03:01
Speaker 1: our system is set up. That's a monarchy. When you
1:03:07
Speaker 1: claim that you have total and complete power and the
1:03:09
Speaker 1: only restriction on your power is your own morality, it
1:03:14
Speaker 1: can't get any more troubling than that. And I'm actually
1:03:19
Speaker 1: as desensitized as we are and as depressed as I
1:03:23
Speaker 1: am about the nature of our public discourse, even I'm
1:03:27
Speaker 1: a bit shocked that here we are, four or five
1:03:30
Speaker 1: days whatever it's been since that interview was given, and
1:03:34
Speaker 1: it had no impact. My guess is that eighty to
1:03:39
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the American public isn't even aware that
1:03:42
Speaker 1: Trump said this. But Trump's not a moral person. Trump
1:03:49
Speaker 1: is an a moral person. He's a moral I don't
1:03:53
Speaker 1: think he's immoral. I don't think he gives a fuck
1:03:57
Speaker 1: about morality. I think he sees good and bad almost
1:04:03
Speaker 1: entirely through the prism of whether or not a particular
1:04:08
Speaker 1: entity thinks good or bad in that moment of him.
1:04:14
Speaker 1: And that's not an exaggeration. That's what drives Donald Trump.
1:04:19
Speaker 1: We've seen it hundreds and hundreds of times. It doesn't
1:04:23
Speaker 1: matter if you're a third world brutal dictator. If you
1:04:28
Speaker 1: say something nice about Donald Trump, He's not gonna think
1:04:32
Speaker 1: that ill of you. He really truly believes. And it's
1:04:36
Speaker 1: not just stroking his ego, Folks. If it was stroking
1:04:41
Speaker 1: the ego, that would be one thing. I perceive it
1:04:45
Speaker 1: to be way worse than that. I think that's how
1:04:48
Speaker 1: Trump views whether or not a person or an entity
1:04:54
Speaker 1: is good or bad, what their view of him is,
1:05:00
Speaker 1: and it's not an exaggeration to say that there have
1:05:03
Speaker 1: been dozens and dozens and dozens of examples of this.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: We've seen it in every element of his life. And
1:05:12
Speaker 1: that is an a moral point of view. He is
1:05:16
Speaker 1: not a moral person. I would like to think he's
1:05:19
Speaker 1: not immoral. I think there's some semblance of goodness in there.
1:05:24
Speaker 1: People who have known him claim that he's at times
1:05:28
Speaker 1: a good guy and does good things. And so I'm
1:05:32
Speaker 1: not in the camp that thinks that he is inherently evil.
1:05:36
Speaker 1: I don't. I think that the results in the in
1:05:39
Speaker 1: the end are probably gonna end up being very very bad,
1:05:42
Speaker 1: one for the Republican Party and two for the country.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: When it comes to everything that has transpired over the
1:05:48
Speaker 1: last ten years, that's a story still yet to be told.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: And I still hope I'm wrong about that. But if
1:05:55
Speaker 1: we're gonna rely if the one thing we had to
1:05:58
Speaker 1: rely on where they go to restricting Donald Trump's power
1:06:02
Speaker 1: is his own morality. If there is a God, God
1:06:07
Speaker 1: help us all, because he's not a moral person, and
1:06:11
Speaker 1: that's not the way this system is remotely designed. That's
1:06:15
Speaker 1: a monarchy, and that's always been my number one concern
1:06:21
Speaker 1: about Trump. Two point zero was especially coming off of
1:06:24
Speaker 1: the assassination attempt, that this was going to be a monarchy,
1:06:28
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that has happened more dramatically than even I
1:06:33
Speaker 1: ever thought was possible, and we saw it in a
1:06:37
Speaker 1: couple of different ways. Regarding domestic policy. In the last
1:06:40
Speaker 1: few days, Trump is issuing these edicts left and right
1:06:44
Speaker 1: that frankly, if Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Kamala
1:06:48
Speaker 1: Harris proposed them, MAGA would be melting down, saying that
1:06:52
Speaker 1: we're heading towards socialism, restricting or preventing corporations from buying
1:07:01
Speaker 1: family single family housing, capping credit card interest rates at
1:07:06
Speaker 1: ten percent. By the way, there's zero evidence that Trump
1:07:11
Speaker 1: has any authority to do any of this or that
1:07:14
Speaker 1: any of this will actually ever get done. And somewhat
1:07:17
Speaker 1: in Trump's defense, Trump does have this nasty habit of issuing,
1:07:24
Speaker 1: usually on social media, these edicts that sound like their
1:07:28
Speaker 1: executive orders or you know, king like declarations, as if
1:07:33
Speaker 1: they have some sort of power, because he does in
1:07:36
Speaker 1: his phrasing, he makes it sound as if this is
1:07:40
Speaker 1: actually happening because I said it's gonna happen, when in
1:07:46
Speaker 1: reality he means, well, I'm gonna, you know, have this
1:07:51
Speaker 1: be proposed in Congress and hopefully it'll pass and I'll
1:07:54
Speaker 1: sign it, which has not happened by and large. So
1:08:00
Speaker 1: we're in this very strange world where Trump issues these edicts. Again,
1:08:05
Speaker 1: most of them are socialistic in nature. And I'm not
1:08:07
Speaker 1: even going to go through why these are bad or
1:08:10
Speaker 1: dangerous ideas because I don't take them that seriously. But
1:08:14
Speaker 1: his base thinks that their law. And maybe this is
1:08:19
Speaker 1: if there's a strategy here, maybe that's it. His base
1:08:22
Speaker 1: thinks that stuff's actually happening and or they will forget,
1:08:27
Speaker 1: you know, down the road when it never actually transpires.
1:08:31
Speaker 1: The people who are serious, like for instance, the stock market,
1:08:36
Speaker 1: seems to have gotten to the point where they're so
1:08:39
Speaker 1: desensitized that they don't really pay much attention to anything
1:08:42
Speaker 1: that Trump says. So his base takes it as gospel
1:08:45
Speaker 1: that this is an edict from the King that's going
1:08:48
Speaker 1: to happen. The people that actually matter are now just
1:08:51
Speaker 1: shrugging this all off because we've been through this enough
1:08:55
Speaker 1: times and for some reason, you know, the mag or
1:09:00
Speaker 1: right wing commentators aren't attacking any of this because they
1:09:04
Speaker 1: don't want to be seen as disloyal to the King
1:09:07
Speaker 1: when most of this stuff is just socialist crap. And
1:09:12
Speaker 1: then we have maybe the worst thing from a domestic
1:09:15
Speaker 1: perspective that has transpired that is certainly king like, and
1:09:19
Speaker 1: that is what appears to be an attempt. And with
1:09:23
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, you never know for sure did Trump
1:09:27
Speaker 1: want this to happen or did somebody in his administration
1:09:30
Speaker 1: decide they're going to be a hero because they're predicting
1:09:33
Speaker 1: that Trump wants this and they're going to give the
1:09:35
Speaker 1: King what he wants. And what I'm referring to is
1:09:37
Speaker 1: the apparent attempt to try to effectively indict FED Chairman
1:09:44
Speaker 1: Jerome Powell on perjury charges. Now we're not there yet,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: but but this is just so badshit crazy, and it's
1:09:54
Speaker 1: so overtly transparently a retribution. It's the weaponizing of the DOJ.
1:10:02
Speaker 1: You know, the Biden administration weaponized the DJ but the
1:10:06
Speaker 1: Trump administration two point zero has turned that into child's play.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: I mean, going actor James call me and John Bolton
1:10:15
Speaker 1: and you know a bunch of other people under suspicious
1:10:20
Speaker 1: and dubious circumstances that I don't think are ever going
1:10:25
Speaker 1: to result in convictions. And now we have because Trump
1:10:29
Speaker 1: doesn't like Poal, who we by the way he hired.
1:10:31
Speaker 1: It's important to point that out. I cannot say that enough.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: Powell has his position because of Donald Trump, but he
1:10:39
Speaker 1: wants Pal to further reduce interest rates. Pell has been
1:10:43
Speaker 1: unwilling to do that to the extent that Trump wants it,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: although he has reduced interest rates a couple of times recently.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: So I'm not really sure. I understand the level of
1:10:54
Speaker 1: anger that Trump has towards Powell, but they think they
1:10:57
Speaker 1: have him on this issue of the rents to the
1:11:01
Speaker 1: FED and the amount of money that's being spent. Now. Thankfully,
1:11:05
Speaker 1: Pal has some support in the US Senate, which I
1:11:09
Speaker 1: think maybe Trump either didn't think about or underestimated. So
1:11:13
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that this effort is going to be successful.
1:11:18
Speaker 1: But Pale took the unprecedented, unprecedented step of issuing a
1:11:25
Speaker 1: rather dramatic statement which was posted on social media, in
1:11:31
Speaker 1: response to what appears to be this effort by the
1:11:35
Speaker 1: Trump DOJ to essentially entrap him on a perjury charge
1:11:41
Speaker 1: so they can indict him and discredit him and get
1:11:44
Speaker 1: rid of him, which is obviously what those in the
1:11:48
Speaker 1: DJ think Trump wants because he's made it very clear
1:11:51
Speaker 1: he doesn't like Pal and he wants to somehow get
1:11:54
Speaker 1: rid of him. But there's been questions about whether or
1:11:56
Speaker 1: not Trump really has the authority to do that. So
1:11:59
Speaker 1: this it would be the next you know, in theory,
1:12:01
Speaker 1: this is it's not a stretch for people to interpret
1:12:05
Speaker 1: and I think properly so that this is a way
1:12:08
Speaker 1: of getting around the restrictions on Trump getting rid of
1:12:11
Speaker 1: Pal the old fashioned way. Now they're going to get
1:12:14
Speaker 1: rid of Pal by indicting him. And here was Pal's
1:12:19
Speaker 1: unprecedented response to what he sees as a threat that
1:12:24
Speaker 1: goes way beyond just him being the Fed chairman. Good evening.
1:12:31
Speaker 5: On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve
1:12:34
Speaker 5: with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal indictment related to
1:12:38
Speaker 5: my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That
1:12:43
Speaker 5: testimony concerned, in part, a multi year project to renovate
1:12:47
Speaker 5: historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect for
1:12:52
Speaker 5: the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.
1:12:56
Speaker 5: No one, certainly not the Chair of the Federal Reserve,
1:12:59
Speaker 5: is above law. But this unprecedented action should be seen
1:13:03
Speaker 5: in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure.
1:13:08
Speaker 5: This new threat is not about my testimony last June
1:13:12
Speaker 5: or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It
1:13:15
Speaker 5: is not about Congress's oversight role. The FED, through testimony
1:13:19
Speaker 5: and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress
1:13:22
Speaker 5: informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat
1:13:28
Speaker 5: of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve
1:13:31
Speaker 5: setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what
1:13:35
Speaker 5: will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of
1:13:38
Speaker 5: the President. This is about whether the Fed will be
1:13:42
Speaker 5: able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence
1:13:44
Speaker 5: and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be
1:13:48
Speaker 5: directed by political pressure or intimidation. I have served at
1:13:53
Speaker 5: the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike.
1:13:59
Speaker 5: In every case, I have carried out my duties without
1:14:01
Speaker 5: political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of
1:14:05
Speaker 5: price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing
1:14:12
Speaker 5: firm in the face of threats. I will continue to
1:14:15
Speaker 5: do the job the Senate confirmed me to do with
1:14:18
Speaker 5: integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: Thank you, now, look, I don't like the Federal Reserve.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: I'm not that huge fan of Palell, though I think
1:14:30
Speaker 1: that he seems to be a good faith actor. He
1:14:34
Speaker 1: seems to be a smart guy. I don't think he's
1:14:38
Speaker 1: a bad person. I would be shocked if he ever
1:14:42
Speaker 1: did anything purposely wrong that is being implied here. There
1:14:48
Speaker 1: are Republican members of the Senate who agree with me
1:14:52
Speaker 1: on this, and it's not just Lisa Murkowski and Tom Tillis,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: who is on his way out of North Carolina. John
1:14:59
Speaker 1: kenn of Louisiana, who is both incredibly intelligent and totally hilarious,
1:15:05
Speaker 1: has been very, very, very outspoken in defense of Chairman Powell,
1:15:12
Speaker 1: and I think if you're interested in the subject, I
1:15:15
Speaker 1: would urge you to listen to some of the things
1:15:17
Speaker 1: that he has said. And so that's somebody I will
1:15:21
Speaker 1: one trust on this topic because he's certainly in the
1:15:25
Speaker 1: MAGA fold, but he also is a smart guy, and
1:15:30
Speaker 1: as long as he's willing to strongly defend pal then
1:15:33
Speaker 1: I will presume that this entire effort is total bullshit
1:15:37
Speaker 1: and really a classic example of weaponizing the DOJ in
1:15:42
Speaker 1: a way that it's actually worse than anything the Biden
1:15:45
Speaker 1: administration did. But thankfully on the positive side, One, there's
1:15:50
Speaker 1: enough support right now for pal in the Senate where
1:15:53
Speaker 1: I don't think that this is going to go anywhere.
1:15:57
Speaker 1: But two, the markets are so desensitized to this insanity
1:16:03
Speaker 1: that there doesn't seem to have been much impact. Now.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: Stock market's gone down for the last couple of days
1:16:08
Speaker 1: after being hot at the beginning of the year. But
1:16:11
Speaker 1: in a prior administration, if you had the President issuing
1:16:17
Speaker 1: edicts on banning corporate ownership of single family homes and
1:16:24
Speaker 1: capping credit card interest rates at ten percent, and I'm
1:16:28
Speaker 1: actually not even mentioning several other crazy proposals that Trump
1:16:32
Speaker 1: has pretended he's going to put into law simply by
1:16:36
Speaker 1: his king like edict, and then you have him, or
1:16:40
Speaker 1: at least his doj trying to get rid of the
1:16:43
Speaker 1: of a fairly popular in monetary circles, chairman of the
1:16:47
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve. You would see a collapse in the stock market,
1:16:52
Speaker 1: there would be panic, there would be all sorts of chaos,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: and we've not seen that. So I guess everyone's become
1:17:02
Speaker 1: so desensitized to Trump's insanity that it really doesn't have
1:17:07
Speaker 1: nearly the impact that it used to. Of Course, there's
1:17:10
Speaker 1: the downside of that, and that is that when you
1:17:13
Speaker 1: become so desensitized, eventually you lose the ability to stay
1:17:19
Speaker 1: on edge and fight back against this kind of stuff,
1:17:22
Speaker 1: and then he takes you by surprise, and by then
1:17:24
Speaker 1: it's too late. So I don't want to be too
1:17:26
Speaker 1: overly optimistic, but I do think there's a positive side
1:17:29
Speaker 1: in all this that after ten years of seeing the
1:17:33
Speaker 1: way Trump acts, a lot of people just don't take
1:17:36
Speaker 1: it that seriously anymore again until maybe it's too late.
1:17:40
Speaker 1: But that's where we are with regard to Trump the King,
1:17:43
Speaker 1: and obviously this will continue to be a weekly topic
1:17:47
Speaker 1: on the Death of Journalism podcast. I want to shift
1:17:50
Speaker 1: now before we get to our Bob Costas interview, which
1:17:52
Speaker 1: I really hope you'll stick around and listen to because
1:17:55
Speaker 1: it's really an extraordinary conversation. There's a couple of sports
1:18:00
Speaker 1: related issues I wanted to talk about first to set
1:18:03
Speaker 1: up the Bob Costas interview. The first is I got
1:18:06
Speaker 1: to at least mention a development in the war between
1:18:09
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour and Live Golf. I've talked extensively about
1:18:14
Speaker 1: this in the past, very briefly, there's a new development
1:18:17
Speaker 1: that is that the first live player to have laughed
1:18:21
Speaker 1: from the PGA Tour has now returned. That's brooks Kopka,
1:18:25
Speaker 1: who has won several major championships, although I think he's
1:18:28
Speaker 1: passed his prime and I'm not sure he's going to
1:18:31
Speaker 1: be that big of a factor on the PGA Tour,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: But he has decided to come back to the PGA Tour,
1:18:36
Speaker 1: and the PGA Tour has accepted him under circumstances that
1:18:40
Speaker 1: I don't think are fair. I don't think they're ideal.
1:18:43
Speaker 1: I think that they aren't nearly the punishment enough for
1:18:47
Speaker 1: the betrayal that brooks Kopka committed against the PGA Tour.
1:18:51
Speaker 1: But from a political, from a pr perspective, I totally
1:18:55
Speaker 1: get it and what the PGA Tour basically did, and
1:18:58
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into the weeds, and they
1:19:01
Speaker 1: basically created a set of rules to allow brooks Kopka
1:19:06
Speaker 1: and maybe three other guys to come back, even though
1:19:11
Speaker 1: there's no indication the three other guys, most prominently among
1:19:15
Speaker 1: them Bryson D. Chambeau and John Rahm, are gonna come back.
1:19:20
Speaker 1: But the funny part and the interesting part of this
1:19:22
Speaker 1: is they contrived the criteria to allow Brooks to come back,
1:19:28
Speaker 1: but to not allow Phil Mickelson to come back. You
1:19:32
Speaker 1: might call this the fuck you Phil Mickelson Act that
1:19:36
Speaker 1: has been issued by the PGA Tour, because they created
1:19:39
Speaker 1: the criteria in such a way that Phil Mickelson would
1:19:42
Speaker 1: barely not qualify. Now, my perception is that this is
1:19:46
Speaker 1: almost entirely a pr move because I don't think any
1:19:50
Speaker 1: other live players of note are gonna come back to
1:19:52
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour. Bryson d Chambeau would be huge if
1:19:56
Speaker 1: he did, but I don't think that's gonna happen just yet.
1:19:59
Speaker 1: But I do that this may pave the way for
1:20:02
Speaker 1: that eventually happening. I am pleasantly surprised that the PGA
1:20:06
Speaker 1: Tour has been able to withstand the Kami Kazi attack
1:20:09
Speaker 1: by live golf. But we're not out of the woods yet,
1:20:13
Speaker 1: and I don't think that this act that the PGA
1:20:18
Speaker 1: Tour has put out there, essentially, what they've done is
1:20:21
Speaker 1: they've given Brooks Kopka a sweetheart deal because he's the
1:20:25
Speaker 1: first of the live golfers to plea bargain. You know,
1:20:28
Speaker 1: if you think about it from in a criminal sense,
1:20:31
Speaker 1: you know, the first one to turn state's evidence gets
1:20:34
Speaker 1: the best deal, and that's essentially what brooks Kepka is doing.
1:20:38
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure we're going to see the floodgates open.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: But since I've discussed this fairly extensively, I thought it
1:20:43
Speaker 1: was at least worthy of mentioned on this episode of
1:20:46
Speaker 1: the podcast. Turning now to the college football playoffs, and
1:20:52
Speaker 1: you know, we now have the final game. It's going
1:20:54
Speaker 1: to be Indiana Miami. Indiana has been playing extraordinarily well.
1:20:59
Speaker 1: You would think that they're probably gonna beat Miami the
1:21:03
Speaker 1: way that they have dominated in the playoffs, and after
1:21:06
Speaker 1: having been undefeated and won the Big Ten championship, obviously,
1:21:10
Speaker 1: I'm probably more interested. Even though the Indiana story is great,
1:21:13
Speaker 1: But every great story in college football now is at
1:21:18
Speaker 1: the very least diminished, if not destroyed, because of the
1:21:21
Speaker 1: entire change in the ecosystem. I mean, I'm suspicious of everything.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: I mean, even Fernando Mendoza a fantastic, amazing story. I
1:21:30
Speaker 1: can't get over the fact that, you know, he transferred
1:21:32
Speaker 1: from Cal this last year and after having beaten Stanford,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: gave this incredibly emotional speech where he ended it by saying,
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Bears forever, Cal forever. I can't remember which one and
1:21:44
Speaker 1: then of course he immediately transferred to Indiana. So even
1:21:48
Speaker 1: what's great about college sports in my mind, has been
1:21:51
Speaker 1: greatly diminished, if not totally discredited, by all the insanity
1:21:57
Speaker 1: that surrounds it. But as far as the twelve team
1:22:01
Speaker 1: playoffs system, to me, the most interesting thing is, first
1:22:06
Speaker 1: of all, we've now had ten games, six of which
1:22:10
Speaker 1: have been crap, six of which have been total crap.
1:22:13
Speaker 1: There are six teams that had performances in this playoff
1:22:19
Speaker 1: that indicated that they didn't even belong in the playoff.
1:22:21
Speaker 1: They shit the bed that badly, six six out of
1:22:26
Speaker 1: twelve teams. That should not be an argument for expanding
1:22:30
Speaker 1: the playoffs. That should be an argument for reducing the playoffs.
1:22:34
Speaker 1: But of course we live in an upside down world.
1:22:36
Speaker 1: So they're going to expand the playoffs, and next week
1:22:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to go into because by that time we'll
1:22:41
Speaker 1: have a champion and the playoffs will be over. Next
1:22:44
Speaker 1: week I'm going to go into what I believe is
1:22:46
Speaker 1: going to be the new college football playoff system and
1:22:50
Speaker 1: why it's going to be even worse than this current
1:22:53
Speaker 1: twelve team playoff system. But not only have we had
1:22:57
Speaker 1: six terrible games out of ten. The ratings are continuing
1:23:04
Speaker 1: to be rather baffling because the ratings for the quarterfinal
1:23:10
Speaker 1: games were actually quite good, with the rose ball being
1:23:13
Speaker 1: significantly better than it was even last year during the
1:23:16
Speaker 1: first iteration of the playoff. Even though the rose ball
1:23:19
Speaker 1: game was terrible between Indiana and Alabama, Alabama just completely
1:23:24
Speaker 1: shit the bed. It was non competitive, and it was
1:23:28
Speaker 1: just it was a terrible game, yet the ratings were fantastic. Well,
1:23:32
Speaker 1: fast forward to the semi finals and the ratings were
1:23:36
Speaker 1: significantly down from last year, even though the ratings system
1:23:41
Speaker 1: is actually benefiting sporting events. This year, I mean, the
1:23:44
Speaker 1: NFL ratings are ridiculously off the charts under this new
1:23:49
Speaker 1: system for how they're determining how many people are watching
1:23:53
Speaker 1: these contests, and so down by double digit percentage points,
1:23:58
Speaker 1: even though there was a very competitive semi final game
1:24:04
Speaker 1: involving Miami and Old Miss that had the added aspect
1:24:09
Speaker 1: of the whole Lane Kiffin drama that the Lane kiffen
1:24:12
Speaker 1: and former head coach at Old Miss is not there,
1:24:15
Speaker 1: and Miami's a well known program and you have the
1:24:18
Speaker 1: Cinderella Old Miss team, and yet the raid it was
1:24:21
Speaker 1: a very good game, competitive to the end, and yet
1:24:24
Speaker 1: the ratings were much below what they were last year
1:24:27
Speaker 1: for both semi finals, and now the other semi final
1:24:30
Speaker 1: was a terrible game between Indiana and Oregon. But I'm
1:24:33
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's really going on here, and
1:24:38
Speaker 1: I don't have one hundred explanation, but I have a theory,
1:24:43
Speaker 1: and I talk all the time about institutional memory and
1:24:49
Speaker 1: how one of the problems that college football is going
1:24:51
Speaker 1: to have eventually is that the institutional memory is going
1:24:55
Speaker 1: to fade, and that right now, during this dramatic change
1:24:59
Speaker 1: in the entire way that college football exists, they're benefiting
1:25:05
Speaker 1: from the fact that older fans like myself still have
1:25:08
Speaker 1: an institutional memory of what it used to be and
1:25:11
Speaker 1: we don't have, you know, anything else to replace it with,
1:25:14
Speaker 1: and we love it so much, so we're just gonna
1:25:16
Speaker 1: on memory. We're just going to continue to go along
1:25:19
Speaker 1: with this, and the new fans find that, you know,
1:25:22
Speaker 1: find this new system at least somewhat or the younger
1:25:25
Speaker 1: fans find this at least somewhat exciting and it's new
1:25:28
Speaker 1: and what's this going to be all about? And so
1:25:32
Speaker 1: that's what's been holding things together. Even though the essence
1:25:36
Speaker 1: of college football has been lost by nil and instant
1:25:39
Speaker 1: transfers and everything else, some radical realignment that is, in
1:25:44
Speaker 1: my view, completely destroyed what made college football great to
1:25:48
Speaker 1: begin with. So what's going on with these ratings? How
1:25:52
Speaker 1: is it possible that the quarterfinals are getting better numbers,
1:25:56
Speaker 1: significantly better numbers than the semi final And I actually
1:26:01
Speaker 1: go to accham's razor. I think the simplest and probably
1:26:06
Speaker 1: the most logical scenario here is and this seems weird
1:26:10
Speaker 1: for people who follow this on a very daily basis
1:26:15
Speaker 1: and in very close order that this is a huge
1:26:19
Speaker 1: part of our lives. I think that there's a significant
1:26:23
Speaker 1: number of fans who don't even fully understand. It's gonna
1:26:27
Speaker 1: sound stupid. I think there's a significant number of fans
1:26:30
Speaker 1: who don't even fully understand the current system, and that
1:26:33
Speaker 1: to them, January first is still college Football's day, and
1:26:38
Speaker 1: that the Rose Bowl for some reason. And I say
1:26:41
Speaker 1: this as someone who goes to the Rose Parade every
1:26:43
Speaker 1: other year, has been the multiple Rose Bowls myself, and
1:26:46
Speaker 1: so the Rose Bowl is a huge part of my
1:26:49
Speaker 1: fandoms as a college football observer. The Rose Bowl still
1:26:54
Speaker 1: has cachet in the minds of millions of viewers and
1:26:58
Speaker 1: January first still, and then anything that happens after January first,
1:27:03
Speaker 1: once the NFL Playoffs starts, they're like, wait, wait, what's this?
1:27:07
Speaker 1: What still the college football is still going on. I
1:27:11
Speaker 1: really think there's some of that because we saw that
1:27:15
Speaker 1: last year to some degree, where the National Championship ratings
1:27:19
Speaker 1: were considering it was Notre Dame in Ohio State, I mean,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: two massive programs. The ratings for that game were not
1:27:28
Speaker 1: very good at all. The Rose Bowl this year was
1:27:33
Speaker 1: better than the National Championship game last year, which is
1:27:37
Speaker 1: as crazy. So I actually think that from from the
1:27:42
Speaker 1: standpoint of people's habits and the way they still look
1:27:46
Speaker 1: at this and their memories of the way college football works,
1:27:51
Speaker 1: it's remarkable to me. But I think January first and
1:27:55
Speaker 1: the Rose Bowl in particular still has power, and then
1:27:59
Speaker 1: anything that what happens after that is confusing to people
1:28:02
Speaker 1: and I'm not buying. Well, you know these were Thursday
1:28:05
Speaker 1: and Friday games. Well, yeah, okay, but the Rose Bowl
1:28:10
Speaker 1: was in the middle of the day. Yes, it's a
1:28:11
Speaker 1: holiday January first, but Thursday night is generally a big
1:28:16
Speaker 1: night for television. It used to be back in the day.
1:28:18
Speaker 1: It used to be the biggest night for television. So
1:28:22
Speaker 1: to me, I'm seeing all sorts of different signs with
1:28:26
Speaker 1: regard to the ratings. ESPN has still got to be
1:28:30
Speaker 1: pretty happy with this boondoggle, considering the fact that six
1:28:34
Speaker 1: of these ten games have sucked ass. But I'll be
1:28:37
Speaker 1: very curious to see what ends up happening with the
1:28:39
Speaker 1: National Championship Game before I come to any final conclusions
1:28:42
Speaker 1: about what's really happening with the ratings. But in no way,
1:28:46
Speaker 1: shape or form is that any of us in argument
1:28:48
Speaker 1: for expanding the playoffs, which of course is exactly what
1:28:51
Speaker 1: they're gonna do, because everything's totally broken and we're living
1:28:54
Speaker 1: in a totally upside down world. Now I mentioned the
1:28:57
Speaker 1: NFL playoffs began and the NFL, of course, it's their world.
1:29:01
Speaker 1: We're just living in it. The ratings are ridiculous. The
1:29:04
Speaker 1: Eagles forty nine Ers game had forty one million people
1:29:10
Speaker 1: watching that, which is just insane to me for a
1:29:13
Speaker 1: wild card weekend. Almost all the games were highly competitive
1:29:18
Speaker 1: and high scoring, and you know, the NFL has completely
1:29:23
Speaker 1: gotten away with castrating the sport. I mean, That's how
1:29:27
Speaker 1: I'm gonna think of this NFL year. It didn't get
1:29:31
Speaker 1: really that much worse with regard to the wissification of
1:29:34
Speaker 1: the sport, but we just accepted it. This was the
1:29:38
Speaker 1: year it just got accepted. It no longer gets talked
1:29:41
Speaker 1: about on the broadcast, it doesn't get that much social
1:29:45
Speaker 1: media discussion. We've just accepted that the game has been
1:29:49
Speaker 1: chemically castrated. The sport is not the same. It's never
1:29:51
Speaker 1: going to be the same. And you know, look at
1:29:54
Speaker 1: the size of the shoulder pads. For God's sake, I mean,
1:29:57
Speaker 1: it's just not the same sport. I don't know how
1:29:59
Speaker 1: much much worse it's going to get. It does seem
1:30:02
Speaker 1: to have hit a point where it's not getting significantly worse,
1:30:06
Speaker 1: but it's certainly never going to go back in any way,
1:30:09
Speaker 1: shape or formed anything close to what it was. And
1:30:12
Speaker 1: by the way, that might be a good thing, because
1:30:14
Speaker 1: you're going to hear in the Bob Costas interview, which
1:30:16
Speaker 1: we discussed in great detail. You know, I do believe
1:30:19
Speaker 1: that football was probably too brutal in the seventies and
1:30:22
Speaker 1: maybe the eighties, but the pendulum has swung way, way
1:30:25
Speaker 1: too far in the other direction and now it's way
1:30:28
Speaker 1: too soft. But the NFL has figured out the secret
1:30:31
Speaker 1: sauce you know, the ratings are all that really matter,
1:30:35
Speaker 1: and the ratings were incredible for these wild card playoff games.
1:30:40
Speaker 1: But in the bigger picture, what we've seen the NFL
1:30:44
Speaker 1: since the Steelers Ravens game that decided the division championship
1:30:49
Speaker 1: and got the Steelers into the playoffs, the Ravens fired
1:30:52
Speaker 1: John Harbaugh, their longtime head coach, the Steelers got obliterated
1:30:57
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, and Mike Tomlin resigned as their longtime
1:31:01
Speaker 1: head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. It looks like Aaron
1:31:05
Speaker 1: Rodgers has played his last game in the NFL because
1:31:08
Speaker 1: he looked terrible in the playoff game for the Steelers.
1:31:12
Speaker 1: So you're losing Harbaugh, Tomlin, and Rogers all in one
1:31:16
Speaker 1: fell swoop. In the National Football League right now, the
1:31:21
Speaker 1: longest tenured head football coach is Andy Reid of the
1:31:27
Speaker 1: Kansas City Chiefs, which is not a big surprise. He's
1:31:31
Speaker 1: been the most successful coach in recent history, ever since
1:31:35
Speaker 1: the Patriot dynasty went away with Bill Belichick, so that's
1:31:39
Speaker 1: not a big surprise. The shocking part is the second
1:31:44
Speaker 1: most tenured coach in the National Football League right now
1:31:48
Speaker 1: is Sean McDermott with the Buffalo Bills, who began in
1:31:53
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen, the second longest tenured head coach.
1:32:01
Speaker 1: I talk all the time about the death of the
1:32:04
Speaker 1: godlike football coach. Well, it could not be more evident,
1:32:09
Speaker 1: And I referenced institutional memory a few minutes ago. Institutional
1:32:14
Speaker 1: memory in the National Football League is being lost at
1:32:19
Speaker 1: an alarming rate. When you lose Now Harbaugh will probably
1:32:23
Speaker 1: coach somewhere else. But Tomlin, I think, is probably going
1:32:26
Speaker 1: to go into television, and Rogers is going to retire.
1:32:29
Speaker 1: But for instance, that Steelers Ravens rivalry, which was probably
1:32:32
Speaker 1: the last great rivalry in the National Football League, has
1:32:35
Speaker 1: no institutional memory now because so much of it was
1:32:38
Speaker 1: wrapped up in the coaches. You know, when you have
1:32:42
Speaker 1: the same coach, they were part of all those rivalry
1:32:45
Speaker 1: games through two decades. They pass on the stories to
1:32:49
Speaker 1: all the new players, and the players that are there
1:32:51
Speaker 1: pass it on to the new players, and there's that
1:32:54
Speaker 1: institutional memory. Well, when you lose the head coach, invariably
1:32:57
Speaker 1: all sorts of other assistants go with them. That institutional
1:33:01
Speaker 1: memory is gone. So you're probably lost, you know, not
1:33:05
Speaker 1: the fans will still believe in the rivalry, but you're
1:33:07
Speaker 1: you've lost from a team perspective, one of the last
1:33:11
Speaker 1: great rivalries in the National Football League, and Aaron Rodgers
1:33:14
Speaker 1: is probably the last quarterback to have played in the
1:33:19
Speaker 1: real tackle football era. Of them of the NFL. You
1:33:23
Speaker 1: could argue maybe Matthew Stafford of the Rams played for
1:33:26
Speaker 1: a year or two in the in the real tackle
1:33:29
Speaker 1: football era of the NFL, but Aaron Rodgers, to me,
1:33:33
Speaker 1: it's a changing of the guard. Plus I found him
1:33:35
Speaker 1: to be an interesting guy. Not necessarily likable, but I
1:33:37
Speaker 1: found him to be interesting and generally fun to watch.
1:33:41
Speaker 1: So it's it's gonna be harder and harder and harder
1:33:44
Speaker 1: for an old guy like myself that's lost passion for
1:33:47
Speaker 1: the NFL a long time ago to still find excuses
1:33:51
Speaker 1: to be interested in anything that happens, especially when when
1:33:54
Speaker 1: anything remotely uh you know, consisting of somebody who's been
1:33:59
Speaker 1: around for a while and has a connection to when
1:34:02
Speaker 1: the NFL still was really tackle football. It's gonna be
1:34:06
Speaker 1: much more difficult in the future. I really don't know
1:34:08
Speaker 1: who that guy would even be interested in from an
1:34:10
Speaker 1: individual perspective, because Rogers and Tomlin were pretty much the
1:34:15
Speaker 1: two guys that I found to be most interesting. I
1:34:17
Speaker 1: like Mike Tomlin as a character, and I liked Aaron
1:34:20
Speaker 1: Rodgers as a character. And there's not too many of
1:34:23
Speaker 1: those of any of them still around in the Nasal
1:34:25
Speaker 1: Football League. But it doesn't seem to matter when it
1:34:27
Speaker 1: comes to the ratings, that's for sure, because the ratings
1:34:31
Speaker 1: are fantastic for the NFL, and that's all that's gonna matter.
1:34:34
Speaker 1: They're not going to change anything as long as the
1:34:37
Speaker 1: business model is working, and it certainly is for the
1:34:39
Speaker 1: NFL in virtually every possible way. Thanks for listening to
1:34:44
Speaker 1: today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested
1:34:47
Speaker 1: in listening to the entire show, you must become a patron.
1:34:51
Speaker 1: Please go to Patreon. That's p A t R e
1:34:56
Speaker 1: O N dot com. Patreon dot com slash the Death
1:35:02
Speaker 1: of Journalism with John Ziggler. My name is j H
1:35:06
Speaker 1: N z I E G L e R. That's patreon
1:35:10
Speaker 1: dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziggler.
1:35:16
Speaker 1: Good luck to you on that, But that's how you
1:35:19
Speaker 1: can subscribe