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Episode Two Hundred Twenty Three: The Blame Game · The Death Of Journalism

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and twenty three of the
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  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host on today's show. The blame Game. In the
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  Speaker 1: aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires gets more intense. The
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  Speaker 1: La Times abandons LA's Democratic mayor, Joe Biden goes out
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  Speaker 1: of office saying some particularly crazy things. Pete Hexas's confirmation
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  Speaker 1: hearing had some moments that should have been embarrassing to conservatives,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: but we're not. And the latest in what is going
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  Speaker 1: on in the fast changing world of football. As I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: take this podcast, we hear in southern California are still
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  Speaker 1: enduring rather strong Santa Anna wins. You might even be
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  Speaker 1: able to hear them in the background of this recording.
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  Speaker 1: Although we are hopeful that this is the last day
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  Speaker 1: in the immediate forecast where this will be the case,
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  Speaker 1: it appears appears as if the worst is over at
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  Speaker 1: least during this round of fires. We're still in a
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  Speaker 1: very very very dry situation with no rain in the forecast,
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  Speaker 1: so if we get more Santa Anna wins in the future,
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  Speaker 1: we could be going through a very similar cycle. So far,
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  Speaker 1: my neck of the Woods has been largely unscathed, although
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  Speaker 1: we had a scare on Monday night where not far
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  Speaker 1: from where I live, we had a rather daunting looking
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  Speaker 1: fire almost takeout and I was kind of surprised this
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  Speaker 1: did not get really any national news, but almost took
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  Speaker 1: out the Dallas Cowboys training facility. The Dallas Cowboys actually
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  Speaker 1: do most of their training camp here in southern California,
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  Speaker 1: in Ventura County, where I live, and there was a
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  Speaker 1: fire that broke out right along the golf course where
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  Speaker 1: that facility exists, in fact, right in between two golf
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  Speaker 1: courses that I'm quite familiar with, and I was amazed
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  Speaker 1: that it appears as if neither the training camp facility
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  Speaker 1: nor either the golf courses were damaged significantly by this fire,
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  Speaker 1: which almost assuredly was set by a homeless person given
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  Speaker 1: the location where this fire started. But the authorities did
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  Speaker 1: a great job in responding very quickly to that, and
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  Speaker 1: it appears as if that is not going to cause
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  Speaker 1: a massive problem here. But that's obviously not the case
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  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles itself, which is now only starting to
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  Speaker 1: recover from the most catastrophic fire in its history and
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  Speaker 1: probably the most dramatic loss of monetary value in the
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  Speaker 1: history of the country when it comes to so called
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  Speaker 1: natural disasters. This is a story that's going to be
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  Speaker 1: talked about for years to come. And really that's the
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  Speaker 1: big debate right now. Is this going to be on
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  Speaker 1: a track to recover in two or three years or
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  Speaker 1: two or three decades, And it's really all It's really
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  Speaker 1: going to come down to how much liberals are willing
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  Speaker 1: and able to get rid of their natural philosophy. That's
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  Speaker 1: been one of the most startling things that has occurred
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  Speaker 1: in the last several days. In fact, I saw it
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  Speaker 1: just this morning preparing for the podcast, where the Mayor
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  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, Karen Basses, once again basically said we've
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  Speaker 1: got to get rid of our normal bureaucracy problems without
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  Speaker 1: actually acknowledging that there's massive bureaucracy problems in Los Angeles
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  Speaker 1: in southern California, especially when it comes to building. But
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  Speaker 1: in order to be able to rise to this challenge,
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  Speaker 1: democrats are going to have to get rid of their
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  Speaker 1: normal level of insanity, especially when it comes to being
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  Speaker 1: anti capitalist and pro environmental wackoism. And we're seeing some
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  Speaker 1: signs that out of desperation, even the mayor of Los Angeles,
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  Speaker 1: even the governor California, Gavin Newsom, are going to be forced,
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  Speaker 1: at least at first to claim that that's what they're
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  Speaker 1: willing and able to do. Whether or not they're actually
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  Speaker 1: going to be able to pull that off is going
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  Speaker 1: to be the key question moving forward the next year's
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  Speaker 1: here in southern California. But there has been a lot
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  Speaker 1: of debate over the blame game and who should get
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  Speaker 1: the blame, who should get the most blame. Is this
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  Speaker 1: something that is mostly about misinformation when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: blaming democrats, or are Democrats in fact actually desperately trying
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  Speaker 1: to get out of responsibility by basically claiming, you know what,
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  Speaker 1: this is not the time, This is not the time
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  Speaker 1: or the place you must hold your fire, so to speak,
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  Speaker 1: as a delay tactic, because they know that everyone has
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  Speaker 1: a short attention span, especially the news media, and the
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  Speaker 1: news media, especially here in California, is very prone to
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  Speaker 1: being on their side. So if they need this delay,
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  Speaker 1: if they get out of this really particularly bad situation,
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  Speaker 1: kind of used the fire analogy, if they can just
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  Speaker 1: wait until it's no longer super hot, then maybe in
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  Speaker 1: the long run we can survive this. So it's not
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  Speaker 1: appropriate to lay any blame or to seek accountability or responsibility. Now, no,
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  Speaker 1: We've got to be focused on those that are suffering
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  Speaker 1: because of the fires, and then once that passes, hopefully
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  Speaker 1: the intensity of the criticism will have faded and we
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  Speaker 1: can survive this. That seems to be the strategy of
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  Speaker 1: the democratic establishment here in California, and that was really
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  Speaker 1: very evident when I made a television appearance on News
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  Speaker 1: Nation on Monday Night on Dan Abrams Show. If I
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: haven't mentioned this, or if you haven't heard me mention
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  Speaker 1: this before, Dan Abrams Show, on which I appear a
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  Speaker 1: couple times a month for the last several years, is
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  Speaker 1: going away in February, So I don't even know how
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  Speaker 1: many more times, or if at all, I'll ever be
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  Speaker 1: on this show again. I don't think this will be
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  Speaker 1: my last appearance, but it's possible that it is. But
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  Speaker 1: I was asked to lead off the show on Monday
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  Speaker 1: night and basically a debate with a guy by name
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  Speaker 1: of Ian Calderon, who is a former Majority Leader of
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  Speaker 1: the Assembly, the State Assembly here in California. He's basically
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  Speaker 1: a Nepo baby his entire family. It's basically a family
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  Speaker 1: business to be part of California government. It's really almost
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  Speaker 1: incredible how many Calderons have been involved in California politics.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously all on the Democratic side, and this was an
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  Speaker 1: interesting debate on a couple of different levels. You know.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously I despise Gavin Newsom, and the subject matter was,
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  Speaker 1: all right, how much blame does Gavin Newsom deserve for
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  Speaker 1: what happened here in California? And while I really loathe Newsome,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that he's the most to blame, but
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  Speaker 1: I do think he deserves a lot of responsibility. And
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  Speaker 1: I even reference the analogy of Katrina and George W.
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  Speaker 1: Bush during this appearance, which I think is very very relevant.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how you can blame George W. Bush
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  Speaker 1: for Katrina and not at least blame Gavin Newsom a
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  Speaker 1: little bit, who's been governor of California with a one
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  Speaker 1: party state and in total control of what happens here
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  Speaker 1: for six years. I don't know how you can possibly
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  Speaker 1: do that consistency wise. But I wanted to be as
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  Speaker 1: fair as possible. I am a true person. I believe
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  Speaker 1: in fairness, and you know, so I think I was
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  Speaker 1: pretty darn fair, more probably more fair than the Newsom deserves,
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  Speaker 1: and certainly more than my inclinations would have ordinarily dictated,
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  Speaker 1: because I really do not like the guy. I loathe
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  Speaker 1: him more than any other politician, mostly because of what
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  Speaker 1: happened during the COVID panic, which I also reference in
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  Speaker 1: this appearance. So we're going to play the entire appearance
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  Speaker 1: on news Nation because I think kill several birds with
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  Speaker 1: one stone. But this is a debate between me and
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  Speaker 1: a Democrat named being called Aroon on news Nation television
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  Speaker 1: on Dan Abrams Show on Monday Night, and I think
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  Speaker 1: it will encapsulate a lot of what's going on with
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  Speaker 1: regard to this debate over who is to blame regarding
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  Speaker 1: the California fires. And here's what that sounded like on
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  Speaker 1: Monday Night the Death.
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  Speaker 2: Of Journalism podcast. He is a California resident and has
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  Speaker 2: been very critical of Newsomb publicly and Ian Calderant. He's
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  Speaker 2: a former Democratic California Assembly member served.
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  Speaker 1: As the majority leader.
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  Speaker 2: He believes the criticism of Newsom has been unfair. Gentlemen,
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  Speaker 2: thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: Our John.
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  Speaker 2: Let me start with you lay out the case here
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  Speaker 2: of why you think the governor's responsible.
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  Speaker 1: Well, first, of all, I just can't wait for the
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  Speaker 1: independent investigation that Newsomb is calling for. I'm sure that
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  Speaker 1: that is really going to get to the bottom of
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  Speaker 1: the issue here, and I'm sure he is going to
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  Speaker 1: be absolved of ball blame. Are probably gonna hear that
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  Speaker 1: this is all about global warming, which it is most
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  Speaker 1: certainly not to be very fair, and I try to
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  Speaker 1: be very fair with Governor Newsom as much as I
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  Speaker 1: can be, even though my children refer to him as
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  Speaker 1: Governor Pousam. Ever since the COVID panic, I actually blame
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  Speaker 1: the mayor of Los Angeles more than I blame Governor Newsom.
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  Speaker 1: And I also blame the freak of no rain in
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  Speaker 1: December and record wins in January. That's why this particular
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  Speaker 1: fire happened. But let's be clear, as Governor Newsom said,
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  Speaker 1: he's been governored for six years, this is a one
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  Speaker 1: party state. There's not been a legitimate news media in
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  Speaker 1: this state. He owns it, he breaks it, he owns it,
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  Speaker 1: and so when you have the results as catastrophic as
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  Speaker 1: these results are, there needs to be some responsibility. I'm
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  Speaker 1: old enough to remember during Hurricane Katrina, which I think
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  Speaker 1: is a pretty good analogy to a ticking time bomb
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  Speaker 1: situation like the one we had here in southern California.
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  Speaker 1: Somehow George W. Bush got blamed for Hurricane Katrina and
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  Speaker 1: New Orleans flooding, which was always inevitable. So using that standard,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think think it's irrational to blame Governor Newsom
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  Speaker 1: since he's the guy at the top of this food chain.
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  Speaker 3: Ian, thank you for having me. I really appreciate your
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  Speaker 3: time and having a part of the program tonight. And
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  Speaker 3: let me say that my heart goes out to all
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  Speaker 3: the people that are being impacted and everybody that's on
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  Speaker 3: the ground responding. I have friends that have lost their homes.
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  Speaker 3: I have a friend that I'm currently trying to find
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  Speaker 3: a place for an event that he needs to evacuate
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  Speaker 3: his home, which is increasingly looking likely like that's going
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  Speaker 3: to happen. So from my family to yours, my heart
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  Speaker 3: goes out to you. I certainly understand where everybody where
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  Speaker 3: John is coming from, but I just don't understand how
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  Speaker 3: that's helping the situation.
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  Speaker 1: You have people that have.
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  Speaker 3: Lost everything, and all we're seeing is finger pointing, trying
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  Speaker 3: to blame whoever, the governor, the mayor for being responsible
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  Speaker 3: for what is happening. But at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 3: you have the governor on the ground who's doing all
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  Speaker 3: that he can to try to get resources to people.
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  Speaker 1: You have first responders that.
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  Speaker 3: Are on the ground doing everything they can to fight
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  Speaker 3: these fires. You have National guardsmen a thousand of them,
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  Speaker 3: which the governor called in to protect from looting. And
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  Speaker 3: I just don't understand the logic behind how this is
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  Speaker 3: helping people become whole again. You know, this is a
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  Speaker 3: catastrophic event, and by making it political it solves no problems.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't help anybody, And I think we need to
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  Speaker 3: focus on getting whatever we can to the people that
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  Speaker 3: need it, and the leaders that are on the ground
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  Speaker 3: in charge of handling the situation the resources that they
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  Speaker 3: need to help these folks.
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  Speaker 2: And John, to be very clear, you have been very
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  Speaker 2: critical publicly on X and elsewhere of Gavin Newsom, So
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  Speaker 2: go ahead and respond.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this sounds like an excuse to me. Dan,
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  Speaker 1: this whole idea which the Mirror of Los Angeles has
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: also used. We have to focus on the response, as
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  Speaker 1: if we can't do two things at once, there can't
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  Speaker 1: be any sort of responsibility or accountability while we're also
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  Speaker 1: responding to these fires. And you know, as critical as
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  Speaker 1: I've been a Governor Newsom, I've also praised him for
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  Speaker 1: effectively becoming a Republican overnight. When it comes to the
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  Speaker 1: issue of rebuild and trying to get rid of some
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of these absolutely insane environmental restrictions. It'll be very interesting
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  Speaker 1: to see whether or not he holds to that. But basically,
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  Speaker 1: we're saying now that all of a sudden, the crazy
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  Speaker 1: environmental restrictions that have prevented building in the past in
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  Speaker 1: southern California, oh, we're going to get rid of those
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  Speaker 1: because we're in a situation where they're not politically tenable. Look,
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  Speaker 1: you lose the benefit of the doubt when you have
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  Speaker 1: a one party state, when you are entirely full of
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  Speaker 1: the philosophy is entirely based in progressive politics, in DEI,
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  Speaker 1: in virtue signaling, in environmental wackoism. When results come out
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  Speaker 1: like this, you must take some responsibility for that, and
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  Speaker 1: I wish Governor Newsom would do that. That would be
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  Speaker 1: real leadership, instead of trying to pass the buck and
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  Speaker 1: delay any sort of accountability, which your guest seems to
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  Speaker 1: be all in favor of happening.
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  Speaker 2: In is the change in policies that Gavin Newsom is
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  Speaker 2: talking about, a concession that his policies were wrong or outdated.
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  Speaker 3: I think what the governor's doing is he's taken in
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  Speaker 3: an information that's coming at him and he's making whatever
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  Speaker 3: decisions he needs to make to try to solve for
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  Speaker 3: the problems that are presenting themselves. I mean, the reality
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  Speaker 3: is here, guys, is that there's going to be a
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  Speaker 3: time where we're going to know the facts. We don't
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  Speaker 3: know the facts right now. We don't know everything that's happening.
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  Speaker 3: We have a lot of recency bias where everybody's repeating
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  Speaker 3: the last thing that they heard and accepting it as fact.
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  Speaker 3: But the reality is that we don't know. We don't
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  Speaker 3: know the facts, and we have to dispassionately and objectively
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  Speaker 3: analyze everything that happened. And if there's blame to go around,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's the governor or the LA mayor, they're going
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  Speaker 3: to face the criticism for that and they're going to
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  Speaker 3: have to accept responsibility for that. But right now, the
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  Speaker 3: most important thing isn't to come on TV and point
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  Speaker 3: fingers or to go on X and spread misinformation. It's
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  Speaker 3: to help people that are suffering, and that's what I
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: see the governor doing right now.
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  Speaker 1: Go ahead, John, I think Governor Newsom actually has a
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  Speaker 1: remarkable opportunity here if he is able to do as
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  Speaker 1: he is saying and to get rid of some of
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  Speaker 1: this liberal progressive insanity and virtue signaling and environmental wackoism.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: With the Olympics coming to Los Angeles in twenty twenty eight,
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  Speaker 1: with him probably running for president at least in his dreams,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, the World Cup, the super Bowl,
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  Speaker 1: there is an enormous political incentive to actually use common
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: sense solutions to try to fix an incredibly difficult problem. John,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: if he's able to rise to that occasion, he can
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  Speaker 1: prove a lot of conservatives wrong. I actually hope we're
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  Speaker 1: wrong about governor nations. So, John, let me ask you this.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that when Donald Trump gets into office
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  Speaker 2: and immediately we start talking about federal aid, that he
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  Speaker 2: is going to condition federal aid on Newsom and Mayor
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  Speaker 2: Bass resigning And as a Republican conservative California resident, would
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you think that that's a bad idea.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's completely unrealistic and it's absurd. I don't
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: think it's productive I also hopen to believe that Donald
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Trump's incentive structure here is a little bit different than
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  Speaker 1: people realize. He owns a golf course in Palace Verdes.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: He has a huge self interest in Los Angeles getting
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: back on its feet. So it wouldn't surprise me if
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you see Donald Trump actually step to the plate and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: try to be part of the heroes here. We shall see.
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  Speaker 2: John and Ian thank you both.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Now, that last point about Donald Trump is something that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: no one knows for sure exactly how Trump is going
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: to respond to this a little bit, I'm gonna get
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to how Jimmy Kimmel and some others are attacking Donald
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Trump as a bashed in the last resort because they
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: have nowhere else to go to defend. They can't defend
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: their own side in what has transpired here in southern California,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: so somehow they're gonna blame Donald Trump and his rhetoric.
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  Speaker 1: I really do believe that when it push comes to shove,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: that Trump is going to be helpful here, and it's
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: not just because he owns a golf course in Lost Angels.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's Trump's normal m especially if he comes
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: out here and sees the damage Gavenussom, I think is
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: smart to try to get that to happen. I think
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: he understands Trump's psychology because Trump really does have a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: soft spot. I think Trump, when you know he's behind
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: his phone and you know, I think he's much more
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of a of a hard ass warrior than if you
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: get him to an actual location and he sees the
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: damage and all of a sudden, the different kind of
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump comes out. I'm guessing that that's what Gaven
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Newsom is trying to do here and playing Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: But I also really do believe that Trump has a
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: self interest here, not just because he owns a golf
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: course in Los Angeles, but also because you know, he
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: can take a lot of credit for the recovery here.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Plus he has the self interest to the fact that
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: we are hosting the Olympic Games. Although some Republicans are
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: trying to change that. I don't think that's realistic. But
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  Speaker 1: the Olympic Games are coming here in twenty twenty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is going to be the host of those
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  Speaker 1: Olympic Games. From a national perspective, and I don't think
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: he would want to have the Olympic Games being hosted
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  Speaker 1: by a city that looked like a war zone, and
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: so I think he can potentially get credit if he
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: helps out in the recovery efforts here. But that's just
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  Speaker 1: my guess as to what role Donald Trump is going
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to play in the rebuilding of Los Angeles. From a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: media perspective, by far, the most interesting thing that has
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: happened since these fires devastated Los Angeles is that the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: LA Times has made it very clear that something has changed.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And I am very hesitant to be optimistic in all areas,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but I am usually very loath to conclude, Okay, wow,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: you know these people are finally going to get it.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: We're finally in a new day. There's something really different
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: going on here, and I don't want to exaggerate it,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I don't want to overplay it, but it is obvious.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: It is obvious that something has happened at the very
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: liberal LA Times. And in the last episode of the podcast,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the special bonus episode that we put out in the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: aftermath of the fires, episode two twenty two, I played
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a clip from the owner of the Los Angeles Times,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: a guy the name of doctor Pat Sun Sheung, who
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: is a very rational guy, seems to be very common
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: sense oriented, where you know, basically he was making the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: argument that we need to stop being partisan, we need
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: common sense solutions. Ironically, en he said that on News Nation,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: which that's basically News Nation's entire philosophy. I'm going to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: play another clip from the owner of the La Times
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: here in just a moment. But it has been rather
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: amazing and frankly remarkable to see how the La Times
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: has shifted their tone in some very significant ways that
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: are obviously coming from the top, either from direct orders
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: or from the rank and file at the La Times,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: which is realizing, Okay, wait a minute, our owner has
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: made it clear we're to knock the crap off. Enough
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: is enough. That seems to be what's happening here. Let
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: me give you a couple of examples. This would seem
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to be an innocuous headline in most newspapers, but in
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the La Times this actually was the almost earthquake level
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: different than normal. The La Times put out an article
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: yesterday Kenneth Fire person of interest is a convicted felon
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and entered country illegally. Ice says, now again that shouldn't
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: be that big of a deal. That's a factual statement.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: We don't even know for sure, they're not this person
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: had anything to do with the starting the Kenneth fire.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But the fact that the LA Times is not holding
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: back in one reporting who this person is, two that
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: they're a convicted felon, and three that they entered the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: country illegally is kind of extraordinary. If you've followed as
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I have the Los Angeles Times, I don't believe that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: even a few weeks ago, or certainly before Donald Trump's election,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that the LA Times would have even bothered to report this,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: certainly not the part about entering the country illegally. Now,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: if they start calling them an illegal alien, we'll really
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: know that things have changed at the LA Times. They
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: haven't gotten completely crazy from their standards there yet, but
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this is not a one off. We are now seeing
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stories, specifically involving Karen Bass, the mayor
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, that indicate to me that she is
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: no longer a protected person in the mafia that is
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: democratic politics and the liberal establishment here in Los Angeles.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: She may be done, and the LA Times is leading
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the charge. They have an article out about the lack
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of preparation that Los Angeles had for these fires. They
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: have another article out about how Bass was at a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: party in Africa while this fire started, with all sorts
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of very embarrassing pictures of her celebrating as the city burned.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, they are going after her. And I referenced
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the owner of the newspaper, doctor Pat Soon. She young.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And here is a rather an extraordinary interview that he
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: gave where he acknowledges making a mistake in endorsing Bass
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to be the mayor of Los Angeles when she was
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: running against Rick Caruso, a guy I mentioned in the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: last episode of the podcast who really should have won
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and would have won because he put millions and millions
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in commercials into that race. I mean,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Rick Crusoe spent so much money on ad time on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: television that you know, we live in Ventura County. We're
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: not even in the county of Los Angeles, forget about
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the city of Los Angeles, but we're in the Los
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Angeles television market, and he spent so much money on
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: ads that my then I guess ten year old daughter
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Grace was a huge Rick crusive ad. She could quote
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: his commercials even though we couldn't come close to actually
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: voting for him. She was desponded when he lost. And
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: so you know, this is a situation where if Crusoe
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: had been given a fair shape by the democratic establishment,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: by the liberal media establishment, he would have won. He
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: lost by a small margin because entities like the La
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Times and Barack Obama and the woke liberal establishment said,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you know what, we can't go up against. We can't
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: vote against a black female. That's really what it came
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: down to. You had a straight, white, rich male against
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the black female. They're both Democrats, but we got to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: go our rules indicate, our religion dictates that we go
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: with the black female. So that's what they did. And here,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the owner of the Los Angeles Times, which to me
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: is absolutely extraordinary on so many levels, is openly admitting
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in a video interview that that was a mistake, which
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: is furthering my theory that Karen Bass, the mayor of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, is no longer a protected person within the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: liberal media mafia of Los Angeles. But here's what that
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: sounded like. And I found this to be absolutely amazing.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: We'll accept comblain right. So at the early Times we
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Endoscaren Bass. I think right now in front that's a
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: mistake and we admit that. So I thought it was
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: very early important early on for me to come out,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: and I think we were want of a few to
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: say competence matters, maybe twenty twenty three million views to
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: show how that was really due to the heart of
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: most people, whether you right or left. And it's the
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: interesting thing is that maybe we should think about how
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: we elect people on the basis of did they actually
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: run a job, did they actually make a payroll? Do
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: they understand what it is? And rather than having professional
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: politicians whose only job is ready to run for office.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: There's nothing I'm trying to be disparaging, but I think
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: we are the stage now of the nation and the world.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: There's many things we'll talk about, even in healthcare, that
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: you really need people to understand, well, how to affects
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: a man in the street, you know, how it affects
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: the working type of person. And I think President Trump
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: in this election has understood that and has become true
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: the other public competies. She said, He's become the democratic
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: body in terms of addressing the problems of the men
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: in the street. So competence absolutely, Matt is and I'm
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: glad that that's been taken up as almost a meme.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: No that competence matters.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: It's really hard for me to see how Karen Bass
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: survives this. Now, what does that mean. I don't think
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that she's going to be forced to resign, although that's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: certainly possible. My guess is that she's not going to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: run for reelection, and you know, then Rick Cruso will
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: be the favorite to run in twenty twenty six, next
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: year when this office is up for reelection, the mayor
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. I'm actually a little bit concerned. I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: don't want her to be ousted right away, because I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: don't want some other democratic hack to have the position
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: and therefore have a huge advantage over Rick Cruso. If
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Cruso decides to run in twenty twenty six, I think
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the best scenario is for her to be just completely
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: impotent and ostracized and diminished by elements like the La Times,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: but to keep her office. And then she either decides
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: not to run for reelection, or she is stupid enough
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to run for reelection, and if nothing dramatic happens between
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: now and then, she'll get crushed by Rick Caruso. I
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: would love to see it. I gotta believe I have
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to believe somebody is going to do a poll here
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, so that it might be difficult given
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the current circumstances, but somebody's going to do a poll
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: shortly with Rick Caruso versus Karen Bass or rematch of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: what happened in twenty twenty two. And I would be
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: stunned if Rick Cruso doesn't crush her in any such poll,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: which would really be significant with regard to House She's
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: going to be treated moving forward. But the Los Angeles Times,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: among others, has made it very clear she is no
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: longer in the class of protected politicians in Los Angeles.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, that's a good development. Now, does she
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: deserve all the blame. No, but I think she certainly
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: deserves as much blame, if not more so, than any
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: other human being that we know of so far. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: so this is, you know, a good development. This is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: this is what happens when you have actual, real media coverage,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: which we normally do not have here in California or
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: specifically in Los Angeles. Now, that doesn't mean that there
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: aren't still members of the liberal media establishment that are
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: doing their best to try to pretend that this was
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: not a democratic disaster that somehow, you know, the criticisms
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: against democratic politicians are illegitimate. Foremost among those is Jimmy Kimmel,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: who hosts a late night talk show for ABC here
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. And I mean Jimmy Kimmel has gone
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: off the deep end a long long time ago when
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it comes to liberal politics. I mean, he obviously hosted
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a major event for Joe Biden. He was actively politicking
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden and then for Kamala Harris. How he
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: still has his position as a late night host on
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: a major network is beyond me. He is a professional
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: virtue signaler when it comes to crises and anything that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: is remotely political, and he once again proved that when
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: he did his first show after the fires, and of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: course he cried, I don't have a problem with I mean,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: this is a huge deal here in Los Angeles. If
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: it's sincere, this is certainly the type of event that
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: would warrant such an emotional reaction. But I don't trust it.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I think Jimmy Kimmel is mostly virtue signaling, and he
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: proved that when actor he got through who with the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: crying element of his opening statement. He went after Donald
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Trump and Donald Trump's supporters claiming ridiculously falsely that somehow
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the main gripe of the right wing when it comes
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to the response here, was that the firefighters were not
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: white enough. That's a direct quote from Jimmy Kimmel. And
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like on ABC.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: Everyone who lives in the city knows someone most of us,
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: multiple people, families, friends, colleagues, neighbors whose house is burned down.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: And the truth is, we don't even know if it's over.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: We had one hundred mile per hour winds fueling this nightmare.
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: As of tonight, their winds are back. I think I
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: speak for all of us when I say it has
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: been sickening, shocking, awful experience, but has also been in
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: a lot of ways a beautiful experience, because once again
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: we see we are fellow men and women coming together
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: to support each other, people who lost their own homes
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: or help, volunteering in parking lots, helping others who lost theirs.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And tonight I'm you know, I don't want.
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: To get into all the vile and irresponsible and stupid
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: things our alleged future president and his gaggle of scumbags
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: chose to say during our darkest and most terrifying hour.
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: The fact that they chose to attack our firefighters, who
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: apparently aren't white enough to be out there risking their
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: lives on our behalf is It's disgusting, but it's not surprising. Instead,
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: I want to focus on thanking those men and women.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Bet Now, that is, even for a comedian like Jimmy Kimmel,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: really infuriating, because that's not at all what Donald Trump
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: or his supporters have said. That's not even close to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: what the point is. This really is the last bastion
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of scoundrels. When you have absolutely nothing else to use
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: to try to defend your side, that's the type of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: thing that you're going to resort to, and you know,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: just to be factual about it, I feel almost stupid
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: even addressing this idiotic assertion that somehow right wingers are
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: upset that the firefighters weren't white enough. That's not the issue.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: The issue, quite obviously, is that when you have a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: fire department that is so obsessed with DEI diversity, equity
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and inclusion that your head administrator, the person who's in
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: charge of the Los Angeles Fire Department, has their job
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: even though they might be a good person, they might
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: be an experienced person, but they clearly have their job
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: because of their sexual preference of being a lesbian. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: it's not a one off, because there are three lesbians
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: at the top of the hierarchy of the Los Angeles
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Fire Department. I'm sorry that brings everything into suspicion, because
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: if you're hiring people based upon DEI, you're not hiring
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: people based upon whether or not they're the most qualified
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: for the position. It also goes to their priorities. There's
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: all sorts of evidence now that no one cared about
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: last week, that that's where the priorities of all the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: top administrators were in Los Angeles. It wasn't about fighting fires,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: are being prepared for fires. It was about DEI and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: virtue signaling and basically this entire Wote philosophy. It pervaded
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: everything and that has an impact. And as I said
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: in the last episode of the podcast, DEI is a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: luxury and when things go wrong, when you live by DEI,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you must die by DEI because you lose and I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: referenced this in the appearance on News Nation. You lose
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: all benefit of the doubt, at least in a rational world,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you must lose all benefit of the doubt, because the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: reason behind that is you told us your priorities were
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: not about getting the job done. So when you don't
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: get the job done, when you fail catastrophically, then we must,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: in a logical world, conclude that at least part of
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the reason that's the case is that you did not
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: take this seriously. Your priorities were all out of whack.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: If you're going to prioritize who gets an important position
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: because of their sexual preference, then I'm sorry that opens
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: you to very logical criticism when things go wrong, and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: things went as wrong as they possibly could here, and
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: nobody has said they cared about the color of the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: skin of the people who were fighting the fires, and
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: nobody criticized the firefires. The idea that somehow there were
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: people upset and the right because we weren't enough white
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: He doesn't say men, but that's certainly the implication here,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that there weren't enough white men fighting the fire is
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: completely absurd. No one would have cared about the color
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: of the skin of the firefighters. Now you might care
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: about the gender. I don't have a problem with people
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: caring about the gender because guess what. I know. This
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is a radical idea, but physical strength matters in fighting fires,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and men are physically stronger than women. Wow, there I
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: said it. I'm sorry. Wow. Oh wow, that was so controversial.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: But in a law in the Los Angeles WOK world,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that's actually a controversial statement. Oh my gosh, you want
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: more men fighting fires than than women? How dare you? Well,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that's absurd, it's it's ridiculous. It's obviously ridiculous. And and
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: no one is criticizing the firefighters. Nobody is criticizing the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: color of the firefighters fighters, none of that. It's about priorities.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And to me, Jimmy Kimmel's response is so ridiculous, so pathetic,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: so wrong that it really shows the weakness of the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: liberal argument here. They have nothing else, They have nothing
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: else other than to attack erroneously Donald Trump was not
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: even in office yet and claim that his supporters said
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: things that they didn't come close to saying. So yeah, Look,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I think the left has further exposed themselves in this
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: whole situation, and I don't think it's currently working. I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: don't know how long this is going to last, for
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: we have incredibly short attention spans. But this story is
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: clearly not going away, partially because of all the celebrities
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: that have been impacted in this whole situation, and it
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: will be fascinating to see where it goes from here.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Because I referenced this metaphor before, but I think it's
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: worth doing so again. We really kind of have a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: situation where we have the unstoppable force of the huge
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: self interest in political motivation to try to fix this
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: situation as quickly as possible, running right into the immovable
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: object that is liberal insanity here in southern California. And
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: it will be really interesting to see which side wins there,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the unstoppable force or the immovable object. And I'm a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: big believer in self interest. I laid out a fairly
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: optimistic view, not totally optimistic, because this is going to
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: be a shit show, there's no question about that, but
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a fairly optimistic view of how Los Angeles can recover
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: from all of this in at least the next couple
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: of years. In the last episode of the podcast, that
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: would be the unstoppable force. But there's no question that
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: this immovable object of liberal insanity still exists. And you know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: even though Karen Bass might be in political desperation talking
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a good game right now, and Gavin Newsom may be
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Until I actually see results, I'm
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: not going to come to any conclusions that that immovable
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: object can actually be overcome. So that'll be the real
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: challenge moving forward, and obviously we'll continue to cover it
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: here on the podcast. I want to shift slightly to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, who's in his last days as President of
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: the United States, but specifically to something he's said which
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: directly relates or at least somewhat directly relates to what's
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: been going on in southern California, at least in his
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: own very distorted mind. He's made a couple of statements
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: over the last several days that are just absolutely bonkers
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: even by his standards, and I really have to address this.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: First one deals with the issue of global warming, climate change,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: and while he wasn't directly referencing the California fires, it
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: was obvious that this was the implication, and he was
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: attacking the incoming Trump administration because, in his words, a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: lot of them don't even believe that climate change is real.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: They're dead wrong. You know, obviously it's real, and that
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: they not only is it real, but it is the
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: greatest existential threat to humanity. That's a quote from the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: current president of the United State. And this is just
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: crazy stuff on so many different levels. Of course, the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: news media doesn't portray it that way. But here was
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: still President Joe Biden going off on the issue of
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: climate change in the aftermath of the California wildfires.
• 39:18
  Speaker 8: I know some incoming administration, some in the incoming administration
• 39:23
  Speaker 8: are skeptical about the need for clean energy. They don't
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: even believe climate chain is real. I think they come
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: from a different century. They're wrong, They are dead wrong.
• 39:38
  Speaker 8: It's the single greatest existential threat to humanity. The clean
• 39:43
  Speaker 8: energy transition is already happening. China is trying to dominate
• 39:49
  Speaker 8: the clean energy manufacturing critical material supply chains. They want
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: to capture the market in the future and create new dependencies.
• 39:58
  Speaker 8: The United States must win that content. We will shape
• 40:02
  Speaker 8: the global economy of planning for decades to come.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Now, first of all, I thought that white supremacy was
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the greatest existential threat that we faced. In fact, I
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: was told that by Joe Biden himself. Of course, white
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: supremacy isn't our greatest existential threat, and climate change is
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: definitely not our greatest existential threat. And these wildfires, as
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I said in my New Nation appearance, have absolutely nothing
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to do with climate change or global warming if they did,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: if they did, and there's I could talk for an
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: hour about why wildfires in southern California have absolutely nothing
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to do with climate change, global warming, even if climate
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: change global warming is real, which I am not convinced
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that man made global warming or climate change is actually real.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that it's catastrophic. I'm not convinced we
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: could do anything about it if it is real. But
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: I'm also very very sure that wildfires are not increasing
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: because of climate change globe warming. And as I said,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I could talk a long time about why I know
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that to be the case. But you know, we allegedly
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: just had the last you know, a couple of years,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the warmest years on record. I remember that we've been
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: bombarded with alleged data showing that here in the United
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: States and around the world, we've had the warmest years
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: on record. Okay, Well, if there's a correlation and a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: causation between increased warming and wildfires, why is it that
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. Here in California, we had a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: record low year, low year for wildfires, basically no wildfires
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, similar data in twenty twenty three,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: normal year of wildfires in twenty twenty four, and now
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: obviously twenty two twenty five is off to a horrific
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and historically bad start. Why is that, Well, it's not
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: because of increased warming. It's because of cycles dealing with
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the rainy season during the winter, and because of man
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: made causes. Almost all of these fires, in fact, the
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: ones that have made so much news over the last
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a week or so have man made causes. Whether that's
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: because of a homeless person, because of arson, because of negligence,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: because of electrical wires being knocked down in heavy winds.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: That's not global warming, that's not climate change. That is
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: because of man made problems. That would not be the
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: case if we didn't exist here, If this was just
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you know, before man existed, we would not have had
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: these wildfires. We certainly wouldn't add obviously, with no man
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: we opn't have houses. But part of the problem also
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: is man deciding to live in places where we shouldn't
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: be living. All this is man caused. And then there's
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the issue of the lack of preparation for these fires,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: which seems to have been rather dramatic and obvious. So
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: it's just so frustrating to me when the President of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the United States, with very little media blowback, can say
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: ridiculous things that are contradicting his own statements about, you
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: know what the greatest existential threat to humanity is, but
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: are just not factually accurate, are not logical at all,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and aren't even consistent with what the experts have said
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: on this topic. I've mentioned this many times on the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: podcast before, but I've got to do it again. You know,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago. It was probably I don't know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: ten years ago when I would read articles about wildfires.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: And I've lived here in southern California for over twenty years,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: so I've been following this very very closely, and inevitably
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: somebody would reference climate change, global warming whenever a wildfire
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: came around, and it used to be normal for mainstream
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: news articles to say, well, experts don't actually connect wildfires
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: with global warming or something to that effect, and generally
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: they would even have an expert quote, you know, so
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: called expert as well. You know, we understand I'm paraphrasing
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: in my memory, but it would basically be, you know,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: something very gentle and benign. You know, they don't want to,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you know, they don't want to make people think think
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: seem to be stupid. They don't want to call their readers,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: their liberal readers, stupid. But they basically say, well, we
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: understand why people think this, but generally there's really no
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: causation between global warming and wildfires, which is one hundred
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: percent accurate. That's when experts still had some semblance of credibility.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: They weren't over pertly politicized, they weren't activists from a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: political perspective. And at a certain point, again in my experience,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: this is about ten years ago, and certainly about five
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: years ago, and once COVID hit you know, Katie bar
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: the door, there was no such thing as experts. They're
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: all activists and they're never gonna say anything that goes
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: against the narrative because they want to keep being treated
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: by the media as experts. Something dramatically changed and they
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: stopped pushing back on this idea that wildfires had no
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: connection or vice versa to global warming. And I really
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: do believe it's because those that were trying to promote
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the global warming agenda just couldn't resist the pictures in
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the video of fire, especially at night. Fire at night
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is just too cool to resist. I mean, there's way way,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: way more coverage of wild traditionally, even before this last
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: week here in southern California at night than there is
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: during the day, because during the day all you see
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: is smoke, and it's not that scary, but at night
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: it's really scary and it really pops on the screen. Well,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to scare people about global warming, one
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of the best pictures you can possibly have is of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: stuff burning, especially at night, and this was a weapon
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: that they wanted to put in their arsenal. So at
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: a certain point, I'm not suggesting a conspiracy. I'm just
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: saying this is normal human nature. The media just decided
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: we're just going to ignore any so called expert that
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: tells us that there's no connection between wildfires and global warming.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: And by the way, you know, experts are going to
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: figure this out, and they're going to get the memo,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: even if there isn't an actual memo, and they're going
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: to start to change their tune, and now all of
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: a sudden it's accepted in the mind, the decrepit mind
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: of the president of the United States, somehow wildfires are
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: not just connected to global warming, that their proof of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: global warming and climate change. And then if you don't
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: accept this reality, you're dead wrong and you're ignoring the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: greatest existential threat to humanity. It's complete garbage, total absurdity.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: And just a few years ago, any so called expert
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: worth their salt would have told you so. You can
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: probably still looking up for yourself on Google. It's really
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: a remarkable thing. And I truly believe it's because the
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: media just really wanted to be able to use those pictures,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: you know, to add in wildfires into the quiver of
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the of the weapons that they have to try to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: promote the global warming climate change agenda. Was just irresistible,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and so the liberal establishment, the so called experts, decided
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: to cave in, gave up even more of their credibility.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: And of course, you know again post COVID, they have
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: no credibility any of these experts, because they're all activists.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And here we have the outgoing president the United States
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: seemingly totally convinced that he's right, and then everyone that
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: disagrees with him as an idiot when he's totally wrong,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: he's completely and totally and obviously wrong. And that's how
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: broken everything is in the United States of America. And
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: that's just how frankly, how dumb Joe Biden is, even
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: on his best days. And you know, one of the
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: elements of what Biden said that that really ticked me
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: off is and I realize that they're not directly connected,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm sorry that there is absolutely a connection when
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about, you know, in the realm of science,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to say that the other side is
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: anti science, and you know, you're the party of science,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: and if they don't accept your version of what science says,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: with the so called experts say they're dead wrong. I'm sorry.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: It's not difficult at all to be able to relate
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: that to what we just experienced with the COVID panic.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: And I am not going to take scientific counsel from
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: an old man who's totally wrong about wildfires in their
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: connection to global warming, but who also just told us
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: that an experimental vaccine was going to keep us from
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: getting COVID mandated. That vaccine and was totally wrong mandated
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: masks on federal property for an extended period of time,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: even though they have absolutely no medical benefit to stopping
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: COVID whatsoever. So I am not going to take scientific
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Council from somebody who was totally wrong about vaccine mandates
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: and mask mandates and so much else when it came
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to COVID. I'm not. And that goes not just for Biden,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: but the so called scientific experts and most of the
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: mainstream news media. They were totally wrong, completely wrong, and
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: not just a little bit wrong. They went so far
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: over the top when it came especially to the vaccine mandates.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is absolutely amazing, especially in retrospect, so
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: many of the things that occurred when it came to
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: the vaccine mandates. And I'm not even an anti vaccine
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: person at all. I took the vaccine. I convinced my
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: wife to do so, and she has, you know, ridiculed
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: me about many times before. But the idea that we
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: mandated this experimental vaccine that didn't do anything when it
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: came to stopping the transmission of the virus, even though
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: they claimed that it did, and that there's been almost
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: no accountability for them being totally wrong is really just stupefying.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: It just absolutely astoted, and it didn't stop there. We
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: now know that the Biden administration was censoring people, censoring
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: actively censoring people, specifically through social media. Companies like Facebook
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: are now meta and Mark Zuckerberg, who has suddenly become
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: a pseudo conservative and a somewhat of a Trump supporter,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: is going to be attending the inauguration sitting next to
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Elon Moskin, has now said that they're going to get
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: rid of liberal fact checkers and seemingly getting rid of DEI. Well.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: He did an interview with Joe Rogan where he went
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: into greater detail than ever before about the lens to
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: which the Biden administration went when it came to intimidating
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and censoring or forcing Facebook to censor their users when
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: it came to COVID related mandates, specifically the vaccines. And
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: here was Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan's podcast.
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: At the beginning, it kind of seemed like, Okay, we
• 52:08
  Speaker 9: should give a little bit of deference to the government
• 52:11
  Speaker 9: and the health authorities on how we should play this.
• 52:14
  Speaker 9: But when it went from you know, two weeks to
• 52:17
  Speaker 9: flatten the curve to you know, and like in the
• 52:20
  Speaker 9: beginning it was like, Okay, there aren't enough masks. Masks
• 52:22
  Speaker 9: aren't that important to then it's like, oh no, you
• 52:24
  Speaker 9: have to wear a mask, and you know, like everything
• 52:27
  Speaker 9: was shifting around, it should become very difficult to kind
• 52:31
  Speaker 9: of follow. And this really hit the most extreme, i'd
• 52:36
  Speaker 9: say during it was during the Biden administration when they
• 52:40
  Speaker 9: were trying to roll out the vaccine program. And now
• 52:46
  Speaker 9: I'm generally like pretty pro rolling out vaccines. I think
• 52:49
  Speaker 9: on balance the vaccines are more positive than negative. But
• 52:53
  Speaker 9: I think that while they're trying to push that program,
• 52:58
  Speaker 9: they also tried to censor anyone who who is basically
• 53:00
  Speaker 9: arguing against it, and they pushed us super hard to
• 53:04
  Speaker 9: take down things that were honestly were true, right, I
• 53:08
  Speaker 9: mean they basically pushed us and said, you know, anything
• 53:12
  Speaker 9: that says that vaccines might have side effects you basically
• 53:18
  Speaker 9: need to take down. And I was just like, we're
• 53:22
  Speaker 9: not going to do that, Like we're clearly not going
• 53:24
  Speaker 9: to do that. I mean that that that is kind
• 53:26
  Speaker 9: of inarguably they who's telling you to take down things?
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.
• 53:31
  Speaker 9: It was to talk about vaccine side effects it was
• 53:33
  Speaker 9: people in the in the Biden administration.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: So for Joe Biden to have the audacity to claim
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the moral and scientific and intellectual high ground to condemn
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: others who dare not accept the global warming climate change religion,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: especially in light of what's happened in southern California, is
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: just particularly rich because not only was he wrong about
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: the COVID vaccines, and wrong about the COVID masks, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: wrong about as most Democrats were in the Blue States,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: wrong about school closings, and so much else. I mean,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: so much of it was just total and utter bullshit, unscientific.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: But not only was he wrong, he tried to and
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: successfully did, use the power of the United States government
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: to censor people who were trying to simply give their opinion,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: opinions it turned out, in many cases to be correct
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: about what the government was doing. I mean, he doesn't
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: get more on American than that, doesn't get more anti
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: First Amendment than that. And even Mark Zuckerberg, a former
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: member of the liberal elite, is now willing to publicly
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: discuss and condemn the absurdity of what was happening there.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: It's one thing to be wrong, but then to censor
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: people who were mostly right about what was actually transpiring.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Is is really amazing and has not gotten nearly, not
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: nearly enough attention, especially in the mainstream news media. Now,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: speaking of Joe Biden making absolutely stupid statements. I've been
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: hesitant to discuss this over the last several episodes of
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the podcast for a number of reasons, but one of
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: which was I wanted to wait until he actually said
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: this on video, partially because I wanted to play it,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: and two because I wasn't one hundred percent sure that
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: what he was saying was being properly interpreted. Well, it
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: turns out that it effectively was being properly interpreted. And
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: what I'm referring to here is Biden's declaration that he
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: still believes that had he stayed in the race for president,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: that he would have won. And I mean, this is bonker.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: This is the stuff of a senile old man. This
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody who is delusional. And you know, as crazy
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: as it is that Joe Biden was still the Democratic
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: nominee when he had a debate with Donald Trump in
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: June of last year, it might be even nuttier that
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: he remained president, because this guy is completely and totally
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: out of touch even you know, if you disregard his
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: obvious mental degradation, the degrading of his mental capacities, he
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: is completely delusional. Obviously there may be a connection between
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: those two things. But here was Biden at the White
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: House being asked about whether he regrets dropping out. Actually
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: was asked whether he regrets running in the first which
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: is really the best question here because if you're a Democrat,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: you know that's probably where they went wrong, which was
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: not getting Biden out of the race to begin with.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: But Biden not only pushes back on that but claims
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: that he would have won, and then very strangely, says
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: he still thinks that Harris would have or could have
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: or should have won without any sort of explanation or
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: even and he proved that he's one hundred percent aware
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: that she didn't win. I would like to believe that
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: he understands that, and he just spoke in an awkward fashion.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: But here's what that sounded like. When Biden was publicly
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: asked about the issue of whether or not he should
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: have run to begin with, and whether or not he
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: would have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race, President,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: do you regret your decision to run into a re election.
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: Do you think that that made it easier for your
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: predecess search and now become very successful.
• 57:52
  Speaker 8: I don't think so. I think I would have beaten Trump,
• 57:57
  Speaker 8: could have beaten Trump. And I think that I'm could
• 58:00
  Speaker 8: have beaten Trump.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Would have beaten Trump. It wasn't about.
• 58:06
  Speaker 8: I thought it was important to unify the party, and
• 58:09
  Speaker 8: when the party was worried about whether or not I
• 58:11
  Speaker 8: was going to be able to move, I thought, even
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: though I thought I could win again, I thought it
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: was better to unify the party. And it was the
• 58:21
  Speaker 8: greatest honor in my life to be president United States.
• 58:24
  Speaker 8: But I didn't want to be one who caused a
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: party that wasn't unified to lose an election, and that's
• 58:32
  Speaker 8: why I stepped aside. But I was confident she could win.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's just crazy. And you know, again, going back,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want to belabor this, but this is a
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: guy who claims to be all about science, right it
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: is he's lecturing us about being totally wrong about climate
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: change and global warming and its existential threat to humanity. Well,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: if you're a data person, and that's certainly a form
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: of science, there is political science. It's not a perfect science,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: but very few sciences are, and certainly climaging global warming
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: is not a perfect science either, But if you really
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: believe in data, there's no argument to be made here. None.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: And I was somebody who was as objective as I
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: could possibly be as a conservative, obviously an anti Trump conservative.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: When Biden got out of the race, I was pretty
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: convinced that he had no chance of winning, and that
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: was confirmed obviously by the results of Kamala Harris, who
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: did not have to worry about the mental acuity issue
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that was effectively taken off the table, and the amount
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of positive media coverage she got was almost unprecedented, and
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: yet she still lost as well, by a fairly significant margin.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: So there's no logical or data based argument whatsoever that
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden would have actually won. He seems to really
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: believe that, which is an indication of his extreme ego
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and delusion and how out of touch he is and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: how degraded his mental faculties are, and how this guy
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: should not be president. And I don't even understand what
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: he meant about Harris there. I'm not even going to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: try to interpret that. But the bottom line reality is
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: for the last several months, if not longer than that,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: we have had a president of the United States who
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: is completely delusional and has no business being in the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: position whatsoever. And he has proven that in multiple ways
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: in just the last several days, including the two clips
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that I played for you right there. Now. Obviously, Biden's
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: down to his last few days in office. Donald Trump
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: will be officially inaugurated next week, and as part of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: the preparation for the Trump administration, there have begun confirmation
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: hearings for several of the key positions in Trump's administration,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: and the first high profile person to go through a
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: confirmation hearing was Pete Hegstaff, who is up for Defense Secretary. Now,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about Pete Hegseth and his attempt
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: to become the Defense Secretary. I have been kind of
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: in the middle on this topic. I like Pete headset
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: I think that Pete Hegseth would be a fantastic spokesperson
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: for the Defense Department. I'm not one hundred percent sold
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: that he's the most qualified person to be Defense Secretary.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I think that he has been accused of things that
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: were not true, specifically by NBC with regard to their
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: allegation of rampant drinking well on the set of Fox
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: News Channel. I also believe that he was falsely accused
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: of a sexual assault in a situation though that I
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: do think he handled very, very poorly. I have said
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: that I think that if you use the John Tower
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: president that hexset probably should be disqualified because John Tower,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: who was nominated to be Defense Secretary by George Bush
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: forty one and did not get confirmed even though he
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: was a former senator, which was basically unheard of at
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: the time. It was essentially because of allegations of infidelity
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and alcohol use, which were not nearly as dramatic as
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: some of the stuff that's on the record. When it
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: comes to Pete Hegseth. And I'm a big believer in
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: holding the standards because you know, eventually you're not going
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: to be in power and the other side is going
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: to get to choose who they want, and you know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: are we continuing to go down this downward spiral of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: where okay, it's okay for our guy, then guess what's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: gonna happen? Then the other side is going to push
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: that standard even further, and things that used to be
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: disqualifying are no longer going to be disqualifying. And so,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I realized that I'm in a very, very
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: very unpopular place when it comes to Pete Hexeth because
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: he has done and his people have done a masterful job,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: a masterful job of navigating from a pr perspective, this
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: challenge of getting confirmed when he has two major strikes
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: against him, the issue of infidelity and a sexual assault
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: allegation where he paid off a woman with a non
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: disclosure agreement and then did not apparently tell the Trump
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: transition team about this at first. I mean, that's, you know,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: in any other situation right there, that should have been
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the end of the game in the past.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: But Trump is a different animal, for better and for worse.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: And you know, Megan Kelly did an interview, I think
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: hypocritically helping Hegseet through this, helping her buddy out. She's
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: been fanboing all over Hegstep very much in contradiction to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: her normal position when it comes to issues of allegations
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of sexual abuse or sexual assault. And again I want
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: to make clear, I don't think Hegset committed a sexual assault,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: but he did pay off a woman, not his wife
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: who made an allegation against him. I think she made
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: a false allegation. But you know, there's a lot of
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: smoke there, and he was cheating on one wife and
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: cheating on another woman with whom he just had a child.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: And I mean there's a lot of stuff here that
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: conservatives normally would be very, very troubled by, but are
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: not with hegg step because Hegseet and his supporters have
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: basically changed the question here. Basically, they have made it
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: so that if you're not in favor of hegset that
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: you're somehow you know, against Donald Trump, and you're in
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: favor of false allegations. And you know, they have they've
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: very successfully put Republican senators essentially in an impossible position
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: where it is not feasible to vote against Pete Hegseth,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: especially if he did well in his confirmation hearing, and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: doing well in the confirmation hearing to me was basically
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: not backing down and keep fighting and you know, drop
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: the mic a few times and have your Democratic questioners
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: not come off perfectly. I mean, one of the best
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: things Hexseth has going for him is that his opposition
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: is awful and there are very few of any Democrats
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: on the Senate side who have the credibility, especially in
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: conservative circles, to attack Hegseeth in a way that will
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: actually leave a mark on him. And so I want
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: to preface where I'm going with this by saying Hegseth
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: is going to be confirmed, and I'm hopeful that that's
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: not going to be a bad thing. I'm hopeful that
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth is going to do a good job. I
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: agree with him philosophically on a lot of stuff. I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: think it's possible that he he stirs up the entire Pentagon,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: the entire uh you know, industrial military military industrial complex,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: which clearly needs stirring up. There's a lot to like
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: in theory about Pete hegset So I don't think this
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: is a terrible thing necessarily that Hexseth is going to
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: be confirmed. But I'm a big believer in consistency. I'm
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: a big believer in standards, and there are at least
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: two moments, maybe more than that. But I'm only going
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to deal with two moments from his confirmation hearing, which
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: have had everything been revert had he been a Democrat.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Hegseth was a Democrat, and the questioners were Republican senators,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: the very same people, especially in the right wing media
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: and right wing pro Trump influencers on Twitter. They would
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: have been going apoplectic in criticizing a Democratic nominee to
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: be Defense Secretary who did the exact same things and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: said the exact same things that Pete Hegseth did, And specifically,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I'm referring to how he refused to answer I think
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: legitimate questions first on the sexual assault allegation and second
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: on the issue of drinking. Now I've posted my opinions
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: on this on Twitter, and I've gotten some pushback from
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: people saying, John, these are illegitimate questions. These are gotcha
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: questions from Democratic senators who are trying to Pete hegset
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: in a trap. I get that. I am hardly naive.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I understand that one hundred percent. However, that's the price
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you pay for being Pete Hegstaf and having paid off
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: a woman who made a sexual assault rate claim against you.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, there's a price to be paid for that.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: And there's also a price to be paid when you
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: have a drinking issue that is significant enough that you
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: have pledged. You have pledged that you are not going
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: to drink anymore. Now, if you don't have a drinking problem,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: you don't have to make that pledge. But it was
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: heag Set who decided he needed to make that pledge.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: And so when you have that issue, that's the price
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you pay. You now have to answer questions that might
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: seem as if they're gotcha questions, and I'm not Again
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I understand, I'm not naive these are gotcha questions, but
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: they're gotcha questions that are legitimate because of the circumstances
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: had Set himself created. He created the situation involving the
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: sexual assault allegation, even if, as I believe it is
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a false allegation, because he's acknowledged he had sex for
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: the woman he never should have had sex with in
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: a situation where he never should have had sex with her,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: and because he is acknowledged he's had a drinking issue
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: enough to where he is pledged he's going to stop
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: drinking if he is confirmed as Defense Secretary. So it
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: is in my view, very legitimate. And the Senator from Virginia,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Tim Kane, Democrat, goes after hegseet on the issue of
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: sexual assault, and asks him what I think is again,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: it's a gotcha question, but it's legitimate, it's basic, and
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: it's something that I think Hegset should have been forced
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: to answer. And if he was a Democrat and he
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: didn't answer this, Republicans would be going rightfully crazy. And
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: that question is, all right, is it disqualifying as Secretary
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: of Defense to have committed sexual assault on a woman?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: That's not a complex question, and yet Hegset refused to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: answer it. In this exchange with Democratic Senator Tim Kane, you.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 10: Have admitted that you had sex while you were married
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 10: to wife two, if you just had fathered a child
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 10: by wife three, you've admitted that. Now, if it had
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 10: been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 10: Secretary Defense.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 11: Wouldn't it. If it's a false claim, then in a
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 11: false claim, now, if.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 10: It had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 10: to be a Secretary of Defense, wouldn't it?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 11: That was a false claim. So you're talking about a hypothetical.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 10: So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 10: a sexual assault is disqualified from being a Secretary of Defense.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 11: Senator, I know.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 12: In my instance, and I'm talking about my instance only
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 12: it was a false claim.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 10: But you acknowledged it was fullwedge that you cheated on
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 10: your wife, and that you cheated on the woman who
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 10: by whom you had just fathered a child.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: You have admitted that.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 11: I will allow your words to speak for them. You're
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 11: not retracting that today. That's good.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 10: I assume that in each of your weddings you've pledged
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 10: to be faithful to your wife.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: You've taken an oath to do that.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 12: Haven't you, Senator, As I've acknowledged to everyone in this committee,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 12: not a perfect person, not claiming to.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 13: But no.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 11: I just asked the simple question.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 10: You've taken an oath like you would take an oath
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 10: to be Secretary of Defense and all of your weddings
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 10: to be faithful to your wife.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 12: I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 12: I'm redeemed by my Lord and Savior Jesus.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 10: In finalizing divorces from your first and second wives, where
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 10: their non disclosure agreements in connection with those divorces.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 11: Senator, not that I'm aware of now.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: I fully understand why heg seth punted on that, why
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: he took a knee, because from a strategic standpoint, if
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: he says it's disqualifying. Then that means that if they
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: can somehow prove that he committed sexual assault, then he
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: would be disqualified. I get that, But if you didn't
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: commit the sexual assault, and I don't believe that he did,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: then what are you worried about? To me? That is
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: a Again, I cannot emphasize this enough. The reason why
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: it's a legitimate question, even though it's a gotcha question
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: is because of the fact that he paid the woman off.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: There's a price to be paid for that. You don't
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: get to just say, oh, you know, that's a hypothetical
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: and you know I didn't commit sexual assault. This was
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: a false allegation against me. Okay, fine, but you paid
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: the woman off. So can you at least say what
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: is obviously the truth that if in fact someone has
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: committed sexual assault on a woman, that would be disqualifying
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: to be the defense secretary. That shouldn't be complicated, that
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be difficult. Yet hegseeth punted on that. And I truly,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: with one hundred percent of my being, believed that if
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: you reverse everything, Republicans would be incensed, and rightfully so.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: If a Democratic nominee refused to answer that question, especially
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: under these circumstances. And then there was a similar situation
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: with regard to the issue of drinking. Now, this was
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: in a question and answer situation involving the senator from Hawaii,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Mazi Hirana, who is an absolute moron. I mean, I
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: will acknowledge that she is a very, very dumb person
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: and a lot of her questioning was idiotic. But in
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: this particular situation, she asked, Okay, I'm paraphrasing here, but
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: you'll hear it for yourself in a second. Okay, you
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: have said that you are not going to drink anymore
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: if you are confirmed as Defense secretary. If you do
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: start drinking, is that disqualifying? That's essentially what she asked,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: And once again hag Seth took a knee and refused
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: to answer that. And here's what that sounded like.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 13: You recently promised some of my Republican colleagues that you
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 13: stopped drinking and won't drink if confirmed.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 11: Correct, absolutely, Will you.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 13: Resign Secretary of Defense if you drink on the job,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 13: which is a twenty four to seven position.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 11: I've made this commitment on behalf of will.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 13: You resign a Secretary of Defense?
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 12: I've made these commitment off of the men and women
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 12: i'm service. I'm not because there's the most important deployment hearing.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 13: An answer to my question.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 11: So I'm going to move on now.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Again. I get why hag Set decided not to answer that,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: because if you take any sort of a drink whatsoever,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: or there's allegations that you do, then in theory, you're
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: forced to resign right or you have committed hypocrisy or
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: maybe even perjury, or you know, you have contradicted your
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: own testimony in your confirmation hearing, and you don't want
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: to set up that situation. But I'm sorry, that's not
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: that much to ask when you yourself have made the pledge.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: You know, one Republican senator in defense of hag Set
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: said how many Democratic senators have ever been drinking on
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: the job? And that sounded like, oh, it might drop
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: moment exposing democratic hypocrisy, except it's not. I mean, this
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: is using democratic lack of logic here, folks. I can't.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: This drives me crazy when Republicans act like Democrats, because
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: that's not a remotely legitimate analogy. The analogy would be
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: if you had a drinking problem, you were confronted about
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: it during your campaign to be US senator. By the way,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: I'm accepting the idea that US senator is a similar
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: job to being Secretary of Defense, which is not. Secretary
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: of Defense is a much bigger and much more significant
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: job than being one US senator. But for the sake
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: of argument, I'll accept that they're in the same realm.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: But the analogy only works if you had a drinking
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: problem that was so significant that you were during your
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: political campaign for senate to make a pledge that you
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: were never going to drink again, and then once you
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: got the job, you were drinking on the job, and
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: then you didn't suffer any repercussions or consequences or didn't
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: resign from office when that happened. That is not a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: situation that, to my knowledge, has actually occurred when it
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: involves any Democratic senator. So that is not exposing hypocrisy,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: that is not dropping the mic. But that's the situation
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: here with Hegset. He has said that he at least
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: obviously at some level, when you pledge you're not going
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: to drink anymore, if you're confirmed as Defense secretary, you're
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: effectively acknowledging you have some level of an alcohol problem.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Now to what degree, I don't know, And I don't
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: believe the NBC storyolving the frequent use of alcohol on
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: the set at Fox News Channel. I think that's a
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: bogus story. It's like I think that Hegset did not
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: commit a sexual assault in Monterey many years ago. But
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: those are legitimate questions that Hegset punted on, he took
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: a knee on, he refused to answer, and strategically that
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: was probably the smart way to do this, because I
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: think he knew that he was going to get enough
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: Republican votes to be confirmed. And if you go down
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: a particular path and something bad happens, and you know,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: you could open up a scenario where they've got you
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: because you have said that you know, drinking is disqualifying
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: or sexual assault is disqualifying, when those are not illegitimate questions.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Given the unique circumstances of this situation, and while I'm
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: fully aware that there are incredibly few numbers of people
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: who would agree with me, who are conservatives on this issue,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: I am positive that I'm right. And this is one
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: of those situations where I can't stand. You know, I
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: can't stand a lot of things about the format of
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: this podcast and the subscription model, and how everyone is
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: now forced to basically preach to the choir. There is
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: no choir for this, It's just the truth. And I
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: hope Hegseth is going to be great as Defense Secretary.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't have a drinking issue. I hope
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: he's gotten his infidelity issues under control. He says that
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: his penis found Jesus, which I'm very, very skeptical of,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: and I will acknowledge that that absolutely colors my view
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: of a lot of hex Set's testimony, and because I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: don't find him to be credible on that, I don't
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: believe that his penis found Jesus at all. I think
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: that's just the last excuse you can come up with
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: when you have no more excuses and you want to
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: keep your marriage intact and you want to be able
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: to get confirmed as Defense Secretary. But that being said,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I fully acknowledge he's going to get the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: position and that he might be great at it, and
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: I hope that he is. But his refusal to answer
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: those two questions was wrong, and it set a bad
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: precedent for the future. And Republicans joyfully went along with it.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: I mean they have been dunking on Democrats in the
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: right wing media and praising HEG says up and down,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: and I don't think it's warranted at all. His confirmation
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: hearing was a success when it comes to being confirmed,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: but it was not a success when it came to
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: answering legitimate questions and not creating bad precedents for the future.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Shifting now to something really extraordinary that happened last week,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and I'm referring to Jimmy Carter's funeral, And this is
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: always amazing to see all of the former presidents and
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: vice presidents and first ladies get together and what is
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: inevitably a very awkward situation. But there were a couple
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: noteworthy elements to what transpired that I want to mention,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: at least briefly. The first and most obvious is that
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Barack Obama not only sat next to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: each other, but were remarkably chummy. I mean, they looked
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: like old pals, to the extent that Donald Trump even
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: acknowledged this in a press conference afterwards, where he basically said,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I was watching this on television. I couldn't believe, you
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: know how chummy it looked. I mean even he was surprised,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: and he was the one obviously participating in the conversation
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: between Donald Trump and Barack Obama. And this became such
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: an interesting story to a lot of people, and such
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: an online meme with all sorts of AI generated theoretical
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: depictions of what was actually being said between Barack Obama
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump. And I can't even believe I'm saying
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: that this happened, but this is a real thing that
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: occurred in American life in twenty twenty five. But there
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: was one particular version of this AI generated conversation between
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: Obama and Trump that was so popular and that Trump
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: liked so much that he actually shared it on all
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: of his social media platforms. I mean, this is just
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: Bunker's stuff that the incoming president the United States without comment,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: without making it obvious that this was AI generated, certainly
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: allowing a lot of people to believe that at least
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: some of it was real. And this was extremely well done.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Some of it could have even been partially correct when
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: it came to the lip reading, but a lot of
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: it was clearly not accurate, and it was very self
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: serving towards Trump, and it allowed him to rip on Hillary,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: and it allowed Obama to rip on Harris who were
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: sitting nearby. Who was sitting nearby, But the idea that
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: the incoming president United States shared this AI generated version
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: of a conversation between Obama and Trump at Jimmy Carter's
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: funeral without comment. And you know, tens of millions of
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: people have seen this is it's just crazy. We are
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: living in the strangest time period in human history and
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: it's not even close. And you know what, we may
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: be headed towards oblivion the nation, but at least, thanks
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: to Trump, about half of us will be laughing all
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: the way to hell. Because even I found it to
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: be funny. I found it to be bizarre and a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: little bit troubling, but it's hilarious. I mean, not only
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump would ever even think about doing that sharing
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: this particular video. I do find it important and significant
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: that Obama and Trump got along so well. Part of
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: me thinks that's great. You know, there's nothing harmful in that.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: But the amazing part about it is the magic of
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, specifically when it comes to his cult leg following.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: Here's a guy who can get away with anything because
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: when he's chummy with Obama, you know, this woke swamp creature,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the ultimate woke swamp creature, and he's chummy with him.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: None of Trump's fans think, oh my god, why is
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: Trump acting so nice to Obama? Maybe he's, you know,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: really not who we think he is. Maybe he's part
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: of the swamp himself. Nobody thinks that. They all think
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: that he's effectively exerting his dominance over Obama. That's what
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: they think. Yet in reverse, hilariously, and I think tellingly,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: you know, Obama supporters are like, wait a minute, why
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: are you being so nice to Hitler? Which I do
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: think is an interesting point. I think that that has
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: validity that when Trump gets into these situations, why is Obama,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: you know, being so chummy with him, chuckling with him, laughing,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: clearly not thinking that he's dealing with Hitler. I mean,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's I think an important point of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: hypocrisy here. But it's it is, I think a remarkable
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: testament to Trump's magic with his base, that he can
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: get away with anything when it comes to the ass
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: of a Barack Obama, getting no blowback whatsoever. In fact,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: everyone always presumes that, wow, he's playing four d Chess.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: He's you know, he's manipulating to them to his gain
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: and our gain. And isn't that you know, he's clearly
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: the dominant figure here, and yet in the in the reverse,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work at all. I mean, we saw that
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: with the the Joe Scarborough and Mika Brazinski disaster when
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: they go to see Donald Trump at mer Lago after
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: the election. It's been basically a disaster for morning. Joe
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: didn't hurt Donald Trump at all. Nobody in Donald Trump's
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: face of support things, Oh why is he selling out
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brazinski. It's just an amazing phenomenon.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: And it's and I think it's at the essence of
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: Trump's magic. From a political perspective, I don't fully get it.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's it's consistent. I don't think it's
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: accurate because I think Trump is kissing their asses like
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: they're kissing his ass. And I think he's absolutely part
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: of the club, you know, and it's different for him
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: than it is with other elements. It's not like George W. Bush.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, George W. Bush, I think is viewed very
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: differently in that club than Donald Trump. Is, but it's
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: not to this to the extent that Trump creates the
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: impression that it is like he's this ultimate disruptor and
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: anti establishment and everyone's afraid of him. That's not the reality.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: And we saw that at Jimmy Carter's funeral. Now, one
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: of the things that we did not see at Jimmy
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Carter Carter's funeral is Michelle Obama. And I found this
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: to be absolutely astonishing and got very little media attention.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: That you know, Michelle Obama was unable to return from
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: a Hawaiian vacation to attend the funeral of a democratic
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: president where there was plenty of notice. I mean, this
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: funeral was weeks after Jimmy Carter actually died. But she
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: just decides to blow it off. And then that was
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: interesting and potentially hypocritical and bad enough on its face.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: But then when you add to it the news that
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: Michelle Obama is not going to be at Donald Trump's inauguration,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: I think this story has absolutely not gotten nearly enough attention.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: Now it's gotten a lot of attention on the right,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: but it has not gotten any mainstream news media attention,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: and I think it deserves some. I mean, here we
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: have a situation where Michelle Obama blows off Jimmy Carter's
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: funeral to stay on vacation, and then she's not attending
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: the inauguration of Donald Trump. And look, I've been very
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: critical of the fact that Donald Trump did not attend
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's inauguration. I think it was absolutely ridiculous, pathetic, childish,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: anti American, and I will never fully forgive Donald Trump
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: for not attending that inauguration, especially given the fact that
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: he was claiming that the election was illegitimate. I think
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: that was totally wrong, and in many ways, I think
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: that Trump not attending the inauguration for Joe Biden was
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: way worse than his actions on January sixth. It's not
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: even close. But the fact that Michelle Obama won't be
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: going to the inauguration, to me, goes beyond the hypocrisy issue,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: the inconsistency issue. Hey wait a minute. We thought that
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: it was a democratic tenant of promoting democracy and the
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: transition of power that you attend things like the inauguration
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: of an opposition president. But I think it's possible something
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: bigger is going on here. When you combine not going
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: to Jimmy Carter's funeral and the inauguration, and I don't
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: even know what it is. I mean, the most obvious
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: point of potential speculation is something's going on between Michelle
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Obama and Barack Obama. I mean, that's just to me,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: that's weird. That is too much of a coincidence. And
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna claim might have an answer here. I'm
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: just stating that there's something strange happening, and there's a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: remarkable lack of curiosity when it comes to the mainstream
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: news media as to what the hell's going on with
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Michelle Obama. For her to blow off two massive events
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: when you're a former first lady, it doesn't get bigger
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: than that, the death of a former Democratic president and
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: the inauguration of a new president, and you're not attending
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: either of those events, and no one seems at all
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: curious as to what the hell is really going on here. Again,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but something weird's happening
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: with Michelle Obama. In my opinion, Thanks for listening to
• 1:30:55
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