Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Forty Seven: Exhibit #399

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Episode Two Hundred Forty Seven: Exhibit #399 · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and forty seven of the
0:02
Speaker 1: Death of Journalism Podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
0:05
Speaker 1: your host. In today's show, Trump surprises many observers, including me,
0:09
Speaker 1: by defying taco predictions and ordering an apparently successful US
0:15
Speaker 1: strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities. There is more evidence
0:19
Speaker 1: the so called immigration raids in California are mostly a mirage.
0:24
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Lakers get sold in dramatic fashion, Karen
0:29
Speaker 1: Reid gets away with some form of murder thanks mostly
0:32
Speaker 1: to social media, and we finally talk extensively to jfk
0:36
Speaker 1: assassination expert Gerald Posner for a historic debate over the
0:41
Speaker 1: single bullet theory that you will not want to miss.
0:46
Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with a programming note.
0:51
Speaker 1: For logistical reasons, I am taking a couple of days early.
0:55
Speaker 1: Normally I tape this podcast on Wednesday morning. I'm doing
0:58
Speaker 1: so on Sunday morning, which means, on the good side,
1:05
Speaker 1: I'm taping after the air strikes on Iran, which I'll
1:09
Speaker 1: get to momentarily, but before Game seven of the NBA
1:14
Speaker 1: Championship between Indiana and Oklahoma City, so I will not
1:18
Speaker 1: be able to discuss anything that happens after Sunday morning,
1:22
Speaker 1: and I'll certainly get to that in the next episode
1:24
Speaker 1: of the podcast once we return to our normal taping schedule.
1:28
Speaker 1: But obviously the fact that I'm taping on Sunday morning
1:31
Speaker 1: allows me to give some analysis of what occurred with
1:36
Speaker 1: regard to the United States air strikes on Iran, so
1:39
Speaker 1: called Operation Midnight Hammer. And the timing here is fortuitous
1:45
Speaker 1: for the podcast because had I tape before the air strikes,
1:51
Speaker 1: I would have looked probably like a complete idiot, because
1:55
Speaker 1: I did not believe that these strikes were going to happen,
1:59
Speaker 1: at least not when they did, because I was buying
2:03
Speaker 1: into the narrative that Trump was setting up, effectively a
2:09
Speaker 1: scenario for him to wimp out, and that this was
2:12
Speaker 1: going to be a taco situation. Trump always chickens out.
2:16
Speaker 1: This was particularly the case when Trump rather bizarrely put
2:21
Speaker 1: a two week time period on any decision that he
2:25
Speaker 1: would make. And I interpreted that and many others interpreted
2:31
Speaker 1: it the same way, especially in the mainstream news media,
2:34
Speaker 1: that this was classic Trump. I mean, Trump uses the
2:38
Speaker 1: two week timeframe on a consistent basis CNN and MSNBC,
2:43
Speaker 1: and I guess NBC put out video montages on major
2:48
Speaker 1: subjects where Trump continually uses two weeks effectively as a
2:55
Speaker 1: delay tactic. There's no magic to the two weeks. It's
2:58
Speaker 1: not like he's thinking, Okay, you know, this will happen
3:01
Speaker 1: in seven days, and then this will happen in nine
3:03
Speaker 1: or ten days, and then you know in fourteen days,
3:06
Speaker 1: I'll get back to you on that. No, he understands
3:10
Speaker 1: human condition. He understands the very very short attention span
3:15
Speaker 1: of both the American media as well as the American public.
3:18
Speaker 1: He's a master at that. This is his wheelhouse, mainly
3:21
Speaker 1: because his attention span is just as short as that
3:24
Speaker 1: of the media and the average American, which is I
3:26
Speaker 1: think part of why he is so successful politically. He
3:30
Speaker 1: gets that probably more than any other major political figure
3:34
Speaker 1: has in certainly modern American history. And so when he
3:38
Speaker 1: says two weeks, it's basically a delay tactic. It's basically saying, well,
3:42
Speaker 1: you know what, if I want to opt out of this,
3:45
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that in two weeks something big
3:48
Speaker 1: will happen that will distract people's attentions and I can
3:51
Speaker 1: just pretend this never really happened and we can just
3:54
Speaker 1: move on. We've seen this continually when it comes to
3:58
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and I figure that that's where we were
4:01
Speaker 1: headed with this as well. But I was wrong. Now,
4:04
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense of where I was
4:06
Speaker 1: before the airstrikes occurred, I was almost in lockstep with
4:12
Speaker 1: John Bolton. And now I know that a lot of
4:14
Speaker 1: people don't like John Bolton. He has a very very
4:17
Speaker 1: small fan club. I fully acknowledged that John Bolton former
4:20
Speaker 1: national security advisor to Donald Trump, but now you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: persona non grata within Trump world, like a lot of
4:27
Speaker 1: other people that once worked in the Trump administration. He's
4:30
Speaker 1: been wrong a lot. But you know, I don't know
4:33
Speaker 1: him well at all. I've had a couple of interactions
4:35
Speaker 1: with him. My sense of John Bolton is that he
4:38
Speaker 1: is smart and that he is sincere, which puts him
4:41
Speaker 1: way ahead of a lot of people in this realm.
4:44
Speaker 1: Like a lot of others, though he is wrong about
4:46
Speaker 1: a lot of things, hasn't always been right. He's probably
4:49
Speaker 1: more of a hawk than even I am on this
4:52
Speaker 1: particular topic. But I want to play a clip for
4:55
Speaker 1: you to start things off, for the context of how
4:59
Speaker 1: dramatic and surprising Trump's decision was to go ahead and
5:04
Speaker 1: not even wait the two weeks. It was barely two days.
5:06
Speaker 1: And when Trump said two weeks, it's obvious now in
5:10
Speaker 1: retrospect that he had already made some sort of a
5:12
Speaker 1: decision to go ahead and attack the Iranian nuclear facilities
5:18
Speaker 1: with US air strikes. But John Bolton did something kind
5:22
Speaker 1: of I thought interesting, at least the news media outlet did.
5:26
Speaker 1: They had John Bolton react to Trump describing where he
5:33
Speaker 1: was on this decision, and this was Trump basically saying,
5:37
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm gonna do. No one knows
5:38
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do, and almost giving kind of a
5:41
Speaker 1: reality TV show producer answer like stay tuned, it's gonna
5:45
Speaker 1: be dramatic, and what you're gonna hear is Trump's statement,
5:49
Speaker 1: and Bolton reacting to it live you'll hear him chuckling
5:53
Speaker 1: under Trump and then giving what was his analysis of that,
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Speaker 1: which was very much in keeping with what I thought
6:01
Speaker 1: was going to be the case where we could have
6:03
Speaker 1: a Taco situation where Trump is basically setting things up
6:08
Speaker 1: to not do this, even though Bolton clearly would be
6:12
Speaker 1: in favor of some sort of strike against Iran, and
6:16
Speaker 1: so for the context of just how quickly and how
6:20
Speaker 1: dramatically things shifted with regard to Trump's apparent decision making
6:25
Speaker 1: process on this whole situation. Here's that clip I referred
6:29
Speaker 1: to of John Bolton reacting to Donald Trump pretending at
6:34
Speaker 1: least now in retrospect, to be uncertain as to what
6:38
Speaker 1: he was going to do about Iran. I mean, you
6:41
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm going to even do it. You
6:43
Speaker 1: don't know. I may do it, I may not do it.
6:45
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.
6:46
Speaker 2: I can tell you this that.
6:49
Speaker 1: Iran's got a lot of trouble.
6:51
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't think he knows what to do as
6:53
Speaker 3: of the moment we speak. And he doesn't like to
6:57
Speaker 3: be in these kinds of situations where he has to
7:00
Speaker 3: make a choice that he can't reverse the next day.
7:03
Speaker 3: He'd much rather have room to maneuver, and he currently
7:08
Speaker 3: believes I think that if he threatens the use of
7:11
Speaker 3: force that this will finally induce the Iatolas to be
7:15
Speaker 3: serious about negotiating the end of the nuclear weapons program.
7:18
Speaker 1: He's wrong on that.
7:19
Speaker 3: Because they're not going to negotiate the end of the program.
7:23
Speaker 3: I think really the iotolers are waiting to see if
7:26
Speaker 3: this is a taco moment. The Trump chickens always chickens
7:31
Speaker 3: out line, and so he's waiting for them and they're
7:34
Speaker 3: waiting for him. I would have joined the Israelis in
7:38
Speaker 3: the attack initially, initially, and probably would have done it
7:41
Speaker 3: twenty years ago.
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Speaker 1: So, as it turns out, John Bolton was wrong. I
7:47
Speaker 1: was wrong. A lot of people were wrong because Donald
7:51
Speaker 1: Trump was seemingly acting strategically there. This was not something
7:57
Speaker 1: that I considered to be a likely scenario, because that
8:00
Speaker 1: is not normal Donald Trump. M I've always said that
8:05
Speaker 1: he is at best a checkers player, not a chess player.
8:09
Speaker 1: And for him, you know, the only way to rationally
8:11
Speaker 1: interpret this as based upon what we knowe as of
8:15
Speaker 1: this taping, it certainly appears as if Trump was bluffing.
8:20
Speaker 1: Trump was creating the impression that he didn't know what
8:23
Speaker 1: he was going to do, and then he gave the
8:24
Speaker 1: two week statement that was seen as an attempt, as
8:28
Speaker 1: Bolton described it, to get the Iranians to the negotiating table,
8:32
Speaker 1: which Bolton I think accurately described that as basically being futile.
8:37
Speaker 1: And obviously this operation was already in the planning stages
8:42
Speaker 1: and probably already approved of. I mean This was an
8:45
Speaker 1: extraordinary military effort, requiring over a hundred aircraft and you know,
8:53
Speaker 1: incredibly long flights and numerous bombing missions and three different targets,
8:59
Speaker 1: and from what we can tell, it was all executed
9:03
Speaker 1: essentially to perfection. Now we don't know for sure how
9:07
Speaker 1: effective it was. Trump's statements initially were that this was
9:13
Speaker 1: an extraordinary, historic, unprecedented, spectacular success. Maybe it was. As
9:20
Speaker 1: of this taping, I'm starting to see some background sourcing
9:25
Speaker 1: from the Trump administration that indicates that maybe it wasn't
9:29
Speaker 1: one hundred percent effective, that there may still have been
9:34
Speaker 1: some parts of the Iranian nuclear facilities that survived. I
9:37
Speaker 1: don't know how we could possibly know in either direction
9:40
Speaker 1: as of right now, But you know, you have to
9:43
Speaker 1: take what Trump says. In the context of Donald Trump.
9:46
Speaker 1: He is always going to put the very best spin
9:49
Speaker 1: on anything, especially when he's taking this big of a
9:52
Speaker 1: risk and rolling the dice on air strikes against Iran,
9:57
Speaker 1: when even much of his own political base, led by
10:00
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, were against this idea. So,
10:05
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not necessarily going to believe everything that
10:08
Speaker 1: Donald Trump says, especially when he couldn't possibly have all
10:12
Speaker 1: the information at his fingertips, but based upon what we
10:15
Speaker 1: currently know, it certainly appears as if it was a
10:18
Speaker 1: military success. And it's quite obvious that the whole two
10:22
Speaker 1: week narrative to get around to the negotiating table was
10:26
Speaker 1: a bluff to provide some sense of secrecy and surprise
10:31
Speaker 1: for this attack, and to Trump's credit, that appears to
10:35
Speaker 1: have worked, maybe in a rather spectacular fashion. Now, how
10:40
Speaker 1: did Trump get to this position after Originally, when Israel
10:47
Speaker 1: struck Iran, the first reaction from Trump and his administration
10:52
Speaker 1: and specifically Secretary of State Mark Rubio, was seemingly pretty
10:57
Speaker 1: hands off, almost trying to keep Israel at a distance.
11:01
Speaker 1: And then that changed remarkably fast and in a rather
11:07
Speaker 1: dramatic fashion. The New York Times, as I referenced in
11:10
Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast, had an article indicating
11:13
Speaker 1: that it was Fox News Channel that really changed Trump's
11:17
Speaker 1: mind because they were praising Israel's initial attack as being
11:21
Speaker 1: so incredibly successful and that Trump wanted in on that.
11:25
Speaker 1: That certainly tracks with what we know about Donald Trump.
11:29
Speaker 1: But to go from hey, we really had nothing to
11:32
Speaker 1: do with Israel's initial strike too, we actually did have
11:36
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. And oh, by the way,
11:38
Speaker 1: now we're considering and actually going to execute dramatic and
11:44
Speaker 1: seemingly spectacular air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities using our
11:49
Speaker 1: own military aircraft and our own bombs. That is a
11:54
Speaker 1: remarkable evolution in a very short period of time. Now,
11:58
Speaker 1: did Fox News Channel have a lot to do with it?
12:01
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, I think, frankly, the most
12:04
Speaker 1: important part of this was Israel's initial strike being perceived
12:10
Speaker 1: as being so remarkably successful. I think that is what
12:15
Speaker 1: probably changed the entire complexion of this. It certainly shifted
12:19
Speaker 1: the tide. It gave Trump a motivation to be part
12:23
Speaker 1: of the winning side. I think it also gave Trump
12:25
Speaker 1: confidence that the Iranians would be very vulnerable to whatever
12:30
Speaker 1: the attack plan was. So I think that all played
12:33
Speaker 1: a significant role here. I'm also going to say that
12:37
Speaker 1: I think that whoever came up with the name Operation
12:40
Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer, that was probably very, very conducive to Trump
12:47
Speaker 1: decided to go with this. I mean the name alone,
12:49
Speaker 1: I can almost imagine Trump hearing the name Operation Midnight
12:53
Speaker 1: Hammer and instantaneously deciding, you know what, let's do it.
12:57
Speaker 1: That's a go. I like that name. Operation Midnight Hammer.
13:01
Speaker 1: So if you give Trump to dame Operation Midnight Hammer,
13:05
Speaker 1: maybe show him the movie Top Gun Maverick, which has
13:09
Speaker 1: almost exactly the same plot as we're seeing turn out
13:13
Speaker 1: into real life here. I think that's probably enough to
13:16
Speaker 1: get Donald Trump to go along with this. So the
13:19
Speaker 1: success of the Iranian strike, the Fox News channel coverage
13:24
Speaker 1: of it, Operation Midnight Hammer, and maybe throw in a
13:27
Speaker 1: screening at the White House of Top Gun Maverick, and
13:30
Speaker 1: I think you got Donald Trump to the point where
13:32
Speaker 1: he was willing to go ahead and say, all right,
13:34
Speaker 1: let's do this. And look, I am not going to
13:38
Speaker 1: pretend that I know how this is all going to
13:40
Speaker 1: turn out, because I don't. I mean, on things I
13:44
Speaker 1: consider myself to be an expert on. I am much
13:47
Speaker 1: more willing to give a strong opinion on things that
13:50
Speaker 1: I am not an expert on. And I don't know
13:52
Speaker 1: that anybody's really an expert on this, but I'm certainly not.
13:55
Speaker 1: I'm much more hesitant, But I am very much a
13:59
Speaker 1: defender of Israel. I'm in favor of aggressive use of
14:02
Speaker 1: military force against a situation like we face here. I
14:07
Speaker 1: have no idea how close Iran was to getting a
14:12
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon before this attack. I do find it rather
14:16
Speaker 1: odd that we're in a somewhat similar situation to the
14:19
Speaker 1: Iraq War and WMDs, and where Tulsi Gabbard is being
14:23
Speaker 1: perceived as saying that Iran really wasn't that close, so
14:26
Speaker 1: that she's claiming that that's taken out of context. Trump
14:29
Speaker 1: himself said that Tulsi Gabbard was wrong and that actually
14:34
Speaker 1: Iran was very, very close. But you know, here Trump
14:36
Speaker 1: has created this narrative which I don't even think is
14:39
Speaker 1: based in reality. I think it's false. I think it's
14:41
Speaker 1: incredibly you know, retro so it's basically reverse engineered, which
14:48
Speaker 1: is going to be a word you're gonna hear later
14:49
Speaker 1: on in this podcast, where Trump in retrospect has rationalized
14:55
Speaker 1: that he was against the Iraq War from the beginning.
14:57
Speaker 1: I have never seen proof of that at all. The
15:00
Speaker 1: best I've ever seen is that he was ambiguous before
15:04
Speaker 1: the decision to go into Iraq, and then after the
15:08
Speaker 1: Iraq War was perceived as not being successful, he was
15:12
Speaker 1: able to use that politically to pretend that he was
15:15
Speaker 1: somehow Prussian and that he was always against the Iraq War.
15:18
Speaker 1: Well that's not the case. But obviously the similarity. At
15:21
Speaker 1: least in my view, it's not the case because I've
15:23
Speaker 1: never seen any evidence that Trump was really against the
15:26
Speaker 1: Iraq war when it mattered, and of course he wasn't
15:29
Speaker 1: really a political figure back then. But the reality here
15:34
Speaker 1: is that there is a parallel to be made, a
15:36
Speaker 1: comparison to be made between the issue of WMD's in
15:39
Speaker 1: Iraq and the issue of how close Iran was to
15:42
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, And it does seem to be rather
15:45
Speaker 1: hypocritical from Trump's perspective when his whole argument was I
15:50
Speaker 1: was right about Iraq because they didn't have WMDs, And
15:53
Speaker 1: here we are in a very similar situation saying, well, intelligence,
15:58
Speaker 1: although it's somewhat conflicting, Israeli intelligence is telling us that
16:03
Speaker 1: they are very close to getting one, even though Israeli
16:05
Speaker 1: intelligence has been saying this for literally decades. That doesn't
16:10
Speaker 1: mean it's not true this time. It's just it is
16:12
Speaker 1: a fact that this is something that Israel has been claiming,
16:15
Speaker 1: and Benjamin Netanya who has been claiming for a very
16:17
Speaker 1: very long time. So I do find that to be
16:20
Speaker 1: rather odd. I mean, it is strange, worl overlimited, but
16:24
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump to make that decision in a way
16:27
Speaker 1: that seems so similar to what happened with regard to
16:30
Speaker 1: Iraq and WMDs is at best ironic and maybe more
16:35
Speaker 1: than a little bit hypnocritical. And we'll see, of course,
16:38
Speaker 1: how that turns out. But I have to say I
16:41
Speaker 1: was in favor of the idea of trying to take
16:44
Speaker 1: out Iranian nuclear facilities because there's no way, shape or
16:49
Speaker 1: form that we should allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.
16:53
Speaker 1: I think everyone can agree that we cannot let a
16:56
Speaker 1: lunatic get a hold of a nuclear weapon, unless, of course,
17:01
Speaker 1: that lunatics name is Donald Trump. I mean, I think
17:03
Speaker 1: we can all agree only lunatics named Donald Trump should
17:08
Speaker 1: have control over massive nuclear arsenals, not a iatolas and
17:14
Speaker 1: mulas from Arah. I think you get my point, And
17:18
Speaker 1: so I am in favor of this in concept, and
17:21
Speaker 1: it certainly, as of right now, appears as if it
17:23
Speaker 1: was a great success. I also, by the way, think
17:26
Speaker 1: that there's a potential residual positive impact of this attack
17:31
Speaker 1: now that it has been perceived, at least initially of
17:35
Speaker 1: being very successful, and that is that I do think
17:39
Speaker 1: that there is a benefit to reminding the bad guys
17:42
Speaker 1: throughout the world, especially in the Middle East what American
17:47
Speaker 1: military power can do. I do think that there needs
17:51
Speaker 1: to be a reminder from time to time so that
17:54
Speaker 1: the bad guys go oh oh oh yeah, oh alrighty,
18:02
Speaker 1: then okay, yeah, I remember. Now you fuck around and
18:07
Speaker 1: you find out, and that needs to be for at
18:13
Speaker 1: the forefront of the minds of the bad guys. I
18:16
Speaker 1: know that sounds simplistic, but I think there's real value
18:20
Speaker 1: to that. That's the whole concept of the terrence, because
18:25
Speaker 1: I do think that in some ways the perception of
18:27
Speaker 1: American power has diminished. Certainly, our prestige is diminished in
18:32
Speaker 1: many parts of the world, especially Europe, partially because of
18:36
Speaker 1: the perception of Donald Trump. But when you remind the
18:40
Speaker 1: whole world why we are the superpower and the strength
18:46
Speaker 1: of our military, and that we are still capable of
18:48
Speaker 1: doing great things, I think there is value to that.
18:53
Speaker 1: I think there could potentially be great value to that
18:56
Speaker 1: way beyond what happened to Iran's cable abilities of making
19:01
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon. And I have to say, even though
19:05
Speaker 1: I'm obviously a Trump critic, I was proud to be
19:08
Speaker 1: an American when the results of this air strike became known.
19:13
Speaker 1: We are still capable of doing great and amazing things
19:18
Speaker 1: for the good. I mean, this was in protection of
19:21
Speaker 1: Israel and the safety of the world. And I don't
19:25
Speaker 1: know how it's all going to turn out yet, but
19:27
Speaker 1: as of right now, it was a success, maybe a
19:31
Speaker 1: resounding success. And there aren't that many reasons, at least
19:35
Speaker 1: there aren't as many reasons as there used to be
19:38
Speaker 1: to be proud to be an American, to be reminded
19:40
Speaker 1: that we are still capable of doing amazing things. And
19:45
Speaker 1: what we did here without any casualties at all, not
19:48
Speaker 1: even close to a casualty, is truly remarkable. Now what
19:53
Speaker 1: the ultimate impact of it's going to be, I don't
19:56
Speaker 1: think anybody knows. You know, Magaworld is still divided over
20:00
Speaker 1: one or not this was a good idea, although of course,
20:03
Speaker 1: once the cult leader has made the decision that this
20:06
Speaker 1: was the right thing to do, the vast majority of
20:09
Speaker 1: Magaworld is going to say, I don't care what I
20:11
Speaker 1: said last week, this was the right decision because our
20:15
Speaker 1: dear leader Donald Trump said so. But there's still going
20:18
Speaker 1: to be parts of Magaworld that are concerned about this,
20:22
Speaker 1: that this is not what they voted for, that Trump
20:25
Speaker 1: was supposed to keep peace not start World War three.
20:28
Speaker 1: Democrats are mostly although not totally, John Fetterman being a
20:32
Speaker 1: very notable example of a Democrat who is on board
20:37
Speaker 1: with this. But even Van Jones of CNN, I think smartly,
20:42
Speaker 1: has been suddenly supportive of this whole idea of trying
20:46
Speaker 1: to make sure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
20:49
Speaker 1: But by and large, the Left and the Democrats are
20:52
Speaker 1: on the other side here because they just can't help themselves.
20:55
Speaker 1: It's Trump derangement syndrome. By the way, what happened to
20:57
Speaker 1: my Trump arrangement syndrome? When I just that I was
21:00
Speaker 1: proud to be an American and I totally support what
21:02
Speaker 1: Trump did, and so far I applaud him having the
21:05
Speaker 1: courage to do so against my own predictions. That doesn't
21:08
Speaker 1: sound like Trump arrangement syndrome to me, because I've never
21:11
Speaker 1: really had Trump derangement syndrome, despite what many, many, many
21:15
Speaker 1: people have claimed over the years. I am wrong. I
21:18
Speaker 1: was wrong about Trump wimping out on this, and I'm
21:23
Speaker 1: glad at least right now. I'm glad that he didn't
21:26
Speaker 1: wimp out on this, But I also fully acknowledge that
21:29
Speaker 1: there are going to be problems in the future regarding
21:33
Speaker 1: this situation, This is not going to be a one
21:35
Speaker 1: and done and we never have to worry about this again. Already,
21:39
Speaker 1: the Iranians are saying that they're cutting off the strait
21:43
Speaker 1: of our muse to oil travel, which is going to
21:47
Speaker 1: be a massive deal of that actually sticks. Who knows
21:51
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to the price of oil. And
21:54
Speaker 1: the reality is that Trump now owns this issue. That's
21:59
Speaker 1: the downside of it. He gets the upside of a
22:02
Speaker 1: successful military strike that the vast majority of Americans are
22:07
Speaker 1: at least going to be in favor of at first,
22:09
Speaker 1: especially since there wasn't anything close to an American casualty.
22:13
Speaker 1: But anything that now happens going forward, Trump owns it.
22:18
Speaker 1: There's no question about that. Now what does that mean.
22:21
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody knows. We don't know. I mean,
22:23
Speaker 1: if the price of gasoline skyrockets and stays that way,
22:27
Speaker 1: that's on Trump. You know, if there's some sort of
22:30
Speaker 1: retaliation or if war breaks out beyond Iran and Israel,
22:35
Speaker 1: which I don't think is going to happen, that's going
22:37
Speaker 1: to be on Trump. So Trump owns this, And did
22:41
Speaker 1: he open up a Pandora's box that is going to
22:44
Speaker 1: have ramifications that we can't possibly fully understand or predict
22:49
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, that's possible. But as of right now,
22:54
Speaker 1: this is perceived as a success. Of course, the history
22:56
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing, and Iraq is not a
22:58
Speaker 1: bad example, is actually a very good example. At first,
23:02
Speaker 1: everybody thought a Rock was a huge success too. Obviously
23:06
Speaker 1: there are differences. You know, we had boots on the
23:08
Speaker 1: ground in a rock and we were trying regime change
23:11
Speaker 1: in a rock. Right now, there's no sign that we're
23:14
Speaker 1: attempting to create regime change in Iran, although that's the
23:18
Speaker 1: only way you're going to get a long term solution
23:20
Speaker 1: to this is if that happens either by design or
23:24
Speaker 1: by accident or somewhere in between. So there's still a
23:28
Speaker 1: lot to be done here. I gave Trump credit for
23:32
Speaker 1: strategic thinking when it came to the bluff, apparent bluff
23:35
Speaker 1: that he put out there that he was going to
23:37
Speaker 1: wait two weeks and maybe went out before making a
23:40
Speaker 1: decision here. But I don't know if I can give
23:43
Speaker 1: him credit again for having thought through exactly all the
23:48
Speaker 1: machinations of what is going to happen from here, because
23:51
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody knows what's going to happen from here.
23:54
Speaker 1: So bottom line, I was surprised by the strikes, not shocked,
23:58
Speaker 1: but surprised. I thought that they were well executed. I
24:02
Speaker 1: give Trump total credit for this. I'm glad they were successful.
24:05
Speaker 1: I'm glad it was done. As of right now, I'm
24:08
Speaker 1: hesitant about where this is all going to end up.
24:11
Speaker 1: And the reality is that for better or worse, politically,
24:15
Speaker 1: at least Donald Trump owns whatever happens from here when
24:20
Speaker 1: it comes to the Iranian Israel war, and that comes
24:25
Speaker 1: with a lot of risks. So we'll see what happens
24:27
Speaker 1: with that, and obviously we'll continue to watch it in
24:30
Speaker 1: future episodes of the podcast. Now, another issue, obviously that
24:34
Speaker 1: has been dominating the news that is clearly directly related
24:39
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump is the topic of immigration enforcement and
24:44
Speaker 1: the so called ice raids across the country, especially here
24:48
Speaker 1: in southern California, which I have been on the record
24:53
Speaker 1: probably more so than anybody else that I've heard, saying
24:56
Speaker 1: that I think that these ice raids have been vastly overstated,
25:01
Speaker 1: dramatically overrated, that in large part they are effectively a
25:07
Speaker 1: social contagion that are not all too much different than
25:12
Speaker 1: what was going on late last year with regard to
25:16
Speaker 1: the whole drones over New Jersey situation, Remember that social
25:21
Speaker 1: contagion that just disappeared, you know by the way. You know,
25:24
Speaker 1: Trump claimed he was going to get to the bottom
25:26
Speaker 1: of that when he got back into the White House,
25:29
Speaker 1: and we've never really got an answer as to what
25:31
Speaker 1: the hell was going on there. I think mostly because
25:33
Speaker 1: nothing was really going on. There might have been something happening,
25:37
Speaker 1: but it wasn't nefarious, it wasn't aliens, it wasn't some
25:40
Speaker 1: massive government conspiracy. But the news surrounding it was effectively
25:47
Speaker 1: a social contagion because once people started to believe there
25:50
Speaker 1: were drones over New Jersey, people saw drones over New
25:53
Speaker 1: Jersey all over the place, well here in southern California.
25:56
Speaker 1: Once people fought there were dramatic and significants, people started
26:01
Speaker 1: to see ice everywhere, even when it really wasn't there.
26:07
Speaker 1: And I am more confident in that assessment and belief
26:12
Speaker 1: today than I was in the last episode of the podcast,
26:15
Speaker 1: partly because I referenced the fact that a lot of
26:19
Speaker 1: the videos here in southern California, including in my neck
26:22
Speaker 1: of the woods in Ventura County, which is where all
26:24
Speaker 1: the farms are. We have fantastic weather where I live,
26:27
Speaker 1: one of the best micro climates in the world, which
26:29
Speaker 1: is why I can put up with living in California.
26:32
Speaker 1: But we have great farming weather here, and obviously we
26:35
Speaker 1: have a lot of illegal immigrants and undocumented migrants who
26:39
Speaker 1: work in the fields. And I've referenced that a lot
26:42
Speaker 1: of the videos that have been going viral online, whether
26:46
Speaker 1: it's on Twitter or on TikTok, that have allegedly been
26:50
Speaker 1: evidence of massive ice raids felt very much like Bigfoot
26:56
Speaker 1: videos to me. You may recall that my now thirteen
26:59
Speaker 1: year old daughter used to be really into Bigfoot. She
27:02
Speaker 1: and I used to research Bigfoot videos all the time.
27:05
Speaker 1: She doesn't really do that anymore, although I think she
27:08
Speaker 1: still claims to believe that Bigfoot might be real. It's
27:12
Speaker 1: another story for another day. But the point is I
27:14
Speaker 1: am very very well acquainted with the phenomenon of the
27:19
Speaker 1: bigfoot video. In other words, the video is always very
27:23
Speaker 1: very far away from the subject. Everything is nebulous, you're
27:27
Speaker 1: not really sure what you're seeing, and it's all basically
27:31
Speaker 1: a way of fooling people into thinking that you're seeing
27:34
Speaker 1: something that you're not. And there was one video in particular,
27:38
Speaker 1: which was taken not at all far from where I live,
27:42
Speaker 1: that got a lot of play because it pretended to
27:46
Speaker 1: be or pretended depending on your perspective. It was portrayed
27:51
Speaker 1: as two ice guys running in a field after an
27:56
Speaker 1: illegal immigrant. That's how it was portrayed. And this went everywhere.
28:03
Speaker 1: And when I saw that video, I'm like, this is
28:05
Speaker 1: all we got. This is the evidence of massive ice raiates.
28:09
Speaker 1: One guy from a distance running through a field, and
28:12
Speaker 1: it was almost comical by the way I mean, And
28:15
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell for sure what government agency these two
28:18
Speaker 1: guys running after the alleged illegal immigrants were from. And
28:23
Speaker 1: so to me, I'm a big believer that if something
28:25
Speaker 1: is real, if it's actually happening, you should expect a
28:31
Speaker 1: level of evidence that is consistent with that reality. And
28:36
Speaker 1: I never saw anything with regard to videos or interviews
28:41
Speaker 1: with actual people, or names or numbers of people who
28:44
Speaker 1: are actually being detained and deported. It just never added
28:48
Speaker 1: up to me that this was evidence of significant ice
28:52
Speaker 1: raids in an area of the country where there are
28:55
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in southern California. Well,
29:01
Speaker 1: it turns out through a strange coincidence that and I
29:06
Speaker 1: know this is a whisper down the lane situation, but
29:08
Speaker 1: this felt pretty solid to me that I have a
29:12
Speaker 1: connection to somebody who was actually there and had direct
29:17
Speaker 1: knowledge of this event, and not shockingly at all. And
29:21
Speaker 1: I'll acknowledge that I was very willing to believe this
29:25
Speaker 1: scenario because it made a hell of a lot more
29:27
Speaker 1: sense than the idea that this was the only evidence
29:30
Speaker 1: that's gone viral that I've seen in our area indicating
29:34
Speaker 1: some sort of illegal immigration round up by ice. Is
29:38
Speaker 1: that that episode had absolutely positively nothing to do with
29:41
Speaker 1: illegal immigration, and that the person running to the field
29:44
Speaker 1: had been pulled over by some law enforcement agency for
29:49
Speaker 1: driving drunk. They ran out of their car and tried
29:52
Speaker 1: to escape through the field, and that was what the
29:55
Speaker 1: video was of. Had nothing to do at all with
29:58
Speaker 1: illegal immigration. Now I can't vouch for that one hundred percent,
30:02
Speaker 1: but that story makes a hell lot more sense than
30:04
Speaker 1: the one that people bought into because of this social contagion,
30:10
Speaker 1: And in my view, we had a major news story
30:13
Speaker 1: that fits one hundred percent with my view of what
30:18
Speaker 1: has actually been transpiring, or more appropriately not actually transpiring
30:24
Speaker 1: here in at least southern California when it comes to
30:26
Speaker 1: these so called ice rays, I'm referencing a situation involving
30:30
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now, the Dodgers are particularly interesting
30:35
Speaker 1: on this subject because, as I referenced in the last
30:38
Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, they had a singer of the
30:42
Speaker 1: national anthem at a home game and Dodger Stadium be
30:48
Speaker 1: a female be told, Hey, we're going to be doing
30:51
Speaker 1: this in English. I think they must have had some
30:54
Speaker 1: inkling that this person might try to do the national
30:57
Speaker 1: anthem in Spanish, and she went ahead and did the
31:00
Speaker 1: national anthem of the United States of America in Spanish
31:04
Speaker 1: at the Dodger game, and the crowd reaction was mostly
31:09
Speaker 1: positive for reasons I think are obvious. I mean, those
31:12
Speaker 1: that are Spanish speaking are going to be thrilled, and
31:16
Speaker 1: those that are two PC or maybe even just so liberal,
31:20
Speaker 1: they're in favor of this, they're going to cheer. If
31:23
Speaker 1: you have any sort of concerns about this, you're not
31:25
Speaker 1: going to voice them at a Dodger game. So at
31:28
Speaker 1: best you're just going to be silent, and you're never
31:30
Speaker 1: gonna boo because boeing would be considered racist. So it
31:34
Speaker 1: didn't surprise me at all that the general reaction to
31:37
Speaker 1: this was positive. But the Dodgers, weirdly, because we're living
31:40
Speaker 1: in an upside down world, seemingly got more criticism from
31:45
Speaker 1: what I could tell, at least, criticism that they cared
31:47
Speaker 1: about that they weren't strongly enough in favor of illegal immigrants,
31:54
Speaker 1: and that they were actually they were even being perceived
31:57
Speaker 1: as being unfair to this single of the national anthem.
32:01
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of that online that somehow it
32:04
Speaker 1: was inappropriate or wrong for the Dodgers to one tell
32:08
Speaker 1: her that she needs to do this in English and
32:11
Speaker 1: then two not publicly support her actor she defied their
32:14
Speaker 1: wishes and sang the national anthem in Spanish. So of
32:18
Speaker 1: anything in this Alison Wonderland situation we have here in
32:23
Speaker 1: southern California, where everything is upside down, especially when it
32:25
Speaker 1: comes to illegal immigration, you have the Dodgers actually feeling
32:29
Speaker 1: defensive that they're being attacked from the left. They didn't
32:35
Speaker 1: really seem to give damn about the outrage that may
32:37
Speaker 1: have existed online on the right. They were concerned about
32:41
Speaker 1: being attacked on the left over this issue that they
32:44
Speaker 1: weren't strongly supportive enough of illegal immigrants, and they weren't
32:49
Speaker 1: against the ICE raids enough. Well, then all of a sudden,
32:55
Speaker 1: a couple days ago, the Dodgers posted on Twitter that
32:59
Speaker 1: they had effectively rebuffed an effort by ICE to conduct
33:06
Speaker 1: a raid at Dodger Stadium. And when I saw this tweet,
33:12
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, this has bullshit written all over it,
33:16
Speaker 1: because first of all, you have an entity, the Dodgers,
33:20
Speaker 1: that is incentivized, clearly incentivized to come up with a
33:26
Speaker 1: way to virtue signal on this issue. And we all
33:30
Speaker 1: know from COVID, especially how liberal massive corporate organizations love
33:37
Speaker 1: to virtue signal. It doesn't matter what the truth is,
33:41
Speaker 1: there's a benefit to virtue signaling, and the Dodgers needed
33:45
Speaker 1: a virtue signal. So I was immediately highly suspicious that
33:49
Speaker 1: this was real, especially when you consider this doesn't make
33:52
Speaker 1: any goddamn sense. I mean, if you believed that there
33:56
Speaker 1: really were massive illegal immigration rates by ICE across southern California,
34:01
Speaker 1: then okay, it might make some sense. But I had
34:03
Speaker 1: already concluded that that wasn't really happening, that that was
34:06
Speaker 1: essentially a social contagion. So the idea that ICE would
34:10
Speaker 1: be conducting raids at Thatcher Stadium just seemed insane. Well,
34:16
Speaker 1: as it turns out, my instincts were I think one
34:18
Speaker 1: hundred percent right, because not just Ice, but virtually every
34:23
Speaker 1: border enforcement agency almost immediately responded to the Los Angeles
34:29
Speaker 1: Dodgers' social media post and to their tweet their post
34:34
Speaker 1: on X by saying, no, this never happened. You're completely
34:40
Speaker 1: misinterpreting what actually transpired. One agency acknowledged being there, but
34:46
Speaker 1: it had absolutely, according to them, nothing to do with
34:50
Speaker 1: illegal immigration rates. Now, they didn't explain what it was about,
34:54
Speaker 1: but there's no evidence that I've seen that this was
34:57
Speaker 1: part of a raid on illegal immigrants or that there
35:01
Speaker 1: was even a massive amount of manpower there. But that
35:04
Speaker 1: didn't stop liberal media outlets from immediately jumping on the
35:09
Speaker 1: Dodger's side of this and promoting their virtue signal and
35:13
Speaker 1: making it seem as if these raids are real and
35:17
Speaker 1: continuing this narrative, the narrative that caused the riots in
35:20
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I mean, this is not a theoretical discussion.
35:24
Speaker 1: There was a lot of property damage that was done
35:27
Speaker 1: and lives that were greatly harmed because of this misperception
35:32
Speaker 1: that somehow there's widespread illegal immigration raids being conducted by ice,
35:38
Speaker 1: which I don't think was actually ever happening effectively here
35:42
Speaker 1: in southern California. And so you have this narrative being promoted,
35:47
Speaker 1: this very damaging narrative, this inaccurate narrative that is really
35:51
Speaker 1: just fitting with the left's view of the world that
35:55
Speaker 1: you know, Trump is the boogie monster, and now everyone
35:57
Speaker 1: has to be afraid if they're in this country illegally.
36:00
Speaker 1: By the way, when I say people's lives have been damaged,
36:03
Speaker 1: I guarantee you I don't know what the percentage is,
36:05
Speaker 1: but there is a percentage of people who are illegal
36:08
Speaker 1: immigrants in southern California whose lives over the last couple
36:11
Speaker 1: of weeks have been way more tension filled and way worse,
36:16
Speaker 1: and they probably haven't even going to work. There's been
36:18
Speaker 1: some antidultal reports of that. I think that's probably real
36:21
Speaker 1: to some degree, but their lives have been dramatically negatively
36:25
Speaker 1: impacted in ways that probably wouldn't be the case if
36:29
Speaker 1: they've fully realized how minor whatever ice raids are going
36:34
Speaker 1: on actually are. So that's the most ironic and bizarre
36:39
Speaker 1: part of this whole thing. The liberal media is actually
36:41
Speaker 1: scaring the living crap out of illegal immigrants and making
36:46
Speaker 1: their lives worse the people that they're pretending to defend.
36:49
Speaker 1: But let me give you an example of a major
36:53
Speaker 1: liberal media outlet, ABC's World News tonight doing a rather
36:57
Speaker 1: short story on the supposed Ice raids on Dodger Stadium
37:03
Speaker 1: that they do acknowledge here that Ice denied that this
37:06
Speaker 1: was happening, but they go along with the Dodger narrative
37:09
Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent. Hilariously, by the way, you'll hear
37:13
Speaker 1: them reference the fact that these the raiders, the federal
37:18
Speaker 1: government raiders against illegal migration, were wearing masks. Oh my god,
37:22
Speaker 1: that's scary, right, my god, how quickly we forget mask mandates.
37:27
Speaker 1: But somehow masks are now an inherent sign that something
37:30
Speaker 1: really nefarious is going on. You won't be able to
37:33
Speaker 1: hear it. But the video they have of the people
37:36
Speaker 1: on the other side of this debate, the counter protesters,
37:40
Speaker 1: if you will, almost all of them actually are wearing masks,
37:44
Speaker 1: probably still for some COVID related reasons or some liberal stupidity,
37:49
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. But here, just to give you a
37:52
Speaker 1: sense of how much the liberal mainstream media bought into
37:56
Speaker 1: the Dodger's narrative on this situation is the story from
37:59
Speaker 1: ABC News World News tonight ten.
38:03
Speaker 4: Scene outside Dodgers Stadium in LA. Dozens of federal officers
38:06
Speaker 4: and masks and tactical gear positioned right outside the gates.
38:09
Speaker 4: The La Dodgers tonight saying they deny the officer's entry.
38:13
Speaker 1: Trevorol is thereforce Tonight ten Scenes at Dodger Stadium.
38:18
Speaker 5: Dozens of federal officers in nasks and tactical gears seen
38:21
Speaker 5: right outside the gates.
38:22
Speaker 1: Protesters quickly gathering as well. The LAPD called.
38:28
Speaker 5: To the scene, the Dodgers saying in a statement those
38:30
Speaker 5: agents requested permission to access the parking lots. They were
38:33
Speaker 5: denied entry to the grounds by the organization, but DHS
38:37
Speaker 5: responding saying this had nothing to do with the Dodgers.
38:40
Speaker 5: Customs and Border Protection vehicles were in the stadium parking
38:43
Speaker 5: lot very briefly unrelated to any operation or enforcement. It
38:48
Speaker 5: follows days of heated clashes between law enforcement and protesters,
38:52
Speaker 5: with President Trump sending in hundreds of marines, ICE continuing
38:56
Speaker 5: to ramp up operations across Los Angeles County. Video today
39:00
Speaker 5: showing an agent chasing a man down near a home depot,
39:03
Speaker 5: detaining him, and agents also rating this car washing Glendale
39:07
Speaker 5: as the administration vows they will increase deportations undeterred by protests, David,
39:14
Speaker 5: the Dodgers have drawn criticism for remaining silent during these
39:17
Speaker 5: escalating ice rays, but the organization is reportedly planning to
39:20
Speaker 5: announce initiatives supporting impacted immigrant communities.
39:24
Speaker 1: David, all Right, Trevoroll on this Force to Night. Trevor,
39:26
Speaker 1: thank you. So, what we have here is the news
39:29
Speaker 1: media promoting a narrative, accepting a narrative that one actually
39:35
Speaker 1: harms the people that they claim to be defending by
39:38
Speaker 1: I believe, spreading fear in the illegal immigration community. I'm
39:43
Speaker 1: sure they're not even thinking about that, but is also
39:47
Speaker 1: creating a perception that is not accurate in my view.
39:51
Speaker 1: I am still of the belief that there is no
39:54
Speaker 1: hard evidence that widespread federal government led illegal immigration raids
40:01
Speaker 1: are a real thing. I would love to know the
40:03
Speaker 1: actual numbers of people who have been detained and deported
40:08
Speaker 1: simply because of their status as illegal immigrants or undocumented migrants,
40:13
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call them. My guess is,
40:16
Speaker 1: it's more than a guess, is that those numbers would
40:18
Speaker 1: be shockingly small. Shockingly small, now is it? You know
40:23
Speaker 1: something has happened. They referenced in that ABC story, you know,
40:26
Speaker 1: a car wash in Glendale where my wife grew up.
40:30
Speaker 1: And I know there was a situation in a meat
40:33
Speaker 1: packing plant in Omaha, Nebraska, but that's not southern California.
40:37
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about what I know about, and I
40:39
Speaker 1: just I know how the liberal media works in general,
40:43
Speaker 1: and how it works here in Los Angeles, and if
40:46
Speaker 1: this was really happening, there would be a hell of
40:49
Speaker 1: a lot more evidence of it, and it would be
40:51
Speaker 1: a lot better evidence. And in this particular case, I
40:54
Speaker 1: think absence of evidence really is evidence of absence. Not
40:59
Speaker 1: that there's nothing going on, but I think that this
41:02
Speaker 1: has been mostly a gross overreaction, and the Dodgers clearly
41:08
Speaker 1: were virtue signaling. They were thrilled to be able to
41:11
Speaker 1: say that they kicked Ice out of Dodger Stadium, even
41:15
Speaker 1: though that's not really what happened. They wanted a virtue signal.
41:19
Speaker 1: And now, by the way, two days later, they have
41:23
Speaker 1: announced the program where they have a million dollars to
41:27
Speaker 1: support the families of those who have been impacted by
41:31
Speaker 1: the anti illegal immigration raids in southern California, to which
41:34
Speaker 1: I responded, let me do the math on this. You
41:37
Speaker 1: got a million dollars to support these families that have
41:40
Speaker 1: been impacted. Based upon my perception of how many people
41:43
Speaker 1: have been impacted, we're talking about tens of thousands of
41:46
Speaker 1: dollars per person, maybe more than that, because I'm not
41:49
Speaker 1: sure how many people have been really impacted. Now, some
41:53
Speaker 1: have been impacted by the social contagion, which is keeping
41:56
Speaker 1: them from going to work and having them maybe be
41:59
Speaker 1: way more fright and then they should be. But the
42:02
Speaker 1: Dodgers are just looking for a virtue signal. They just
42:06
Speaker 1: want out of this because they know that they are
42:09
Speaker 1: vulnerable and they have a very large contingent of fans
42:13
Speaker 1: who are one are Hispanic and two many in that
42:16
Speaker 1: population in southern California Los Angeles are not here legally,
42:21
Speaker 1: and so the Dodgers are not acting based on good
42:24
Speaker 1: faith or what the truth is. They're just virtue signaling. Now,
42:29
Speaker 1: the Dodgers became part of another major news story, and
42:33
Speaker 1: that is one that I've already alluded to earlier in
42:36
Speaker 1: the podcast, the shocking sale of the Los Angeles Lakers.
42:41
Speaker 1: The Bus family led originally by Jerry Buss. Doctor Jerry
42:45
Speaker 1: Buss have been owners of the Los Angeles Lakers since
42:49
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and are really given the credit for
42:53
Speaker 1: turning the Lakers, the modern Lakers, into the Showtime Lakers,
42:57
Speaker 1: the Magic Johnson Lakers, the Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal Lakers,
43:03
Speaker 1: and then eventually the Lebron James Lakers, making the Lakers
43:08
Speaker 1: maybe the most preeminent franchise in all of the NBA
43:12
Speaker 1: and maybe even one of the top four or five
43:13
Speaker 1: franchises in all the sports. And effectively the Dodgers bought
43:18
Speaker 1: the Lakers. That technically is not the case, but for
43:22
Speaker 1: all intentsive purposes, the Dodgers bought the Lakers for an
43:26
Speaker 1: evaluation evaluation of ten billion dollars ten billion dollar valuation. Now,
43:35
Speaker 1: I've not seen any good reporting on how much of
43:39
Speaker 1: the Lakers the Dodgers owner was able to purchase. It
43:44
Speaker 1: was a majority share, so seemingly over fifty one percent.
43:49
Speaker 1: But the Bus family is apparently still going to own
43:52
Speaker 1: part of the Lakers. They're just not going to have
43:55
Speaker 1: managing control. Although Jenie Bus, the daughter of Jerry Buddy,
44:00
Speaker 1: is still going to have some sort of ceremonial position,
44:02
Speaker 1: but for all intents and purposes, the Bus family has
44:06
Speaker 1: sold the Los Angeles Lakers, something that Genie Bush said
44:10
Speaker 1: that she would never do, for a valuation of ten
44:13
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Now, this was shocking because it came out
44:17
Speaker 1: of nowhere. There were no rumors of this, which I've
44:19
Speaker 1: always maintained is the only way, especially in the modern world,
44:22
Speaker 1: that a massive news story or a huge deal like
44:26
Speaker 1: this can be done because it doesn't become public and
44:30
Speaker 1: then there's nobody screaming and yelling as to why this
44:33
Speaker 1: shouldn't happen. But in my opinion, I don't claim to
44:36
Speaker 1: be an expert, but I have a good enough, I think,
44:39
Speaker 1: level of knowledge to provide an opinion on this, and
44:42
Speaker 1: it's not an unusual opinion. I think the Lakers were vastly,
44:47
Speaker 1: vastly overvalued in this deal. Maybe not as overestimated as
44:53
Speaker 1: the level of ice raids in southern California, but someone
44:57
Speaker 1: in that ballpark there's no way that the Lakers, who
45:00
Speaker 1: don't even own their own stadium or their own arena,
45:04
Speaker 1: are actually worth ten billion dollars. I mean, just use
45:09
Speaker 1: some financials. That is twenty times yearly revenue. That's about
45:16
Speaker 1: fifty times yearly profit. And that's in a good year.
45:21
Speaker 1: I mean, And in my opinion, the NBA is headed
45:24
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. The television ratings of the NBA
45:27
Speaker 1: are headed in the wrong direction. I think the NBA
45:30
Speaker 1: has huge problems going forward for all sorts of different reasons.
45:36
Speaker 1: I think Los Angeles has problems for all sorts of
45:38
Speaker 1: different reasons. So I don't believe that the Los Angeles
45:42
Speaker 1: Lakers are really worth ten billion dollars. But I find
45:46
Speaker 1: this story to be interesting on a couple of different levels,
45:50
Speaker 1: not just because that it supports my surprise theory as too.
45:54
Speaker 1: The only way you can get something done is by
45:56
Speaker 1: keeping it totally secret. But for perspective, I guess the
46:02
Speaker 1: thinking here is that the Dodgers now own a monopoly
46:06
Speaker 1: on major Los Angeles sports and that they're going to
46:09
Speaker 1: try to leverage that. That's the theory behind paying so
46:12
Speaker 1: much for the Lakers. But in reality, it's a prestige
46:16
Speaker 1: by you know, it's an ego move, and that's why
46:21
Speaker 1: they ended up overpaying for the Lakers. I don't think
46:25
Speaker 1: this is a deal. This is just my gut instinct.
46:27
Speaker 1: Having lived in Los Angeles unbelievably for twenty two years
46:32
Speaker 1: now about which is something I never considered as even
46:35
Speaker 1: a possibility. But I am guessing that if Kobe Bryant
46:40
Speaker 1: had never died in that tragic helicopter accident, I don't
46:45
Speaker 1: believe Genie Buss ever sells the team. I just don't
46:47
Speaker 1: think she was so close to Kobe and respected him
46:51
Speaker 1: so much. I just find it hard to believe that
46:53
Speaker 1: if Kobe was still alive, that she would have been
46:55
Speaker 1: able to look Kobe in the eye. And I could
46:59
Speaker 1: be wrong about that, but that's just a sense I get.
47:02
Speaker 1: It's you know, how does someone change their mind from
47:06
Speaker 1: We're never going to sell this team to oh, ten
47:08
Speaker 1: billion dollar valuation? Okay, where do I sign? To me?
47:14
Speaker 1: If Kobe was still alive, there's a pretty good chance
47:16
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen. Somewhat related to that belief, there's a
47:22
Speaker 1: perception here, and I think it makes sense that this
47:25
Speaker 1: could end up providing Magic Johnson with his ultimate revenge.
47:29
Speaker 1: He was somewhat forced out of the Laker organization, but
47:33
Speaker 1: he is part of the Dodger ownership group, and it
47:37
Speaker 1: would not shock anybody if now that the Dodgers are
47:40
Speaker 1: going to effectively have managing control over the Lakers. Then
47:44
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson ends up in a prominent position within management
47:49
Speaker 1: of the Los Angeles Lakers, his former team. So I
47:52
Speaker 1: find out all that to be pretty interesting and potentially
47:55
Speaker 1: significant here. I also think, by the way, this is
47:57
Speaker 1: a loss for lebron James. James has been acting like
48:01
Speaker 1: he literally owns the place because Genie Buss was so
48:06
Speaker 1: afraid of him, and so much so that she even
48:09
Speaker 1: drafted his son, Brownie, who had absolutely no business being
48:12
Speaker 1: in the in the NBA. I think those days are
48:16
Speaker 1: over now. I could be wrong, but I sense that
48:19
Speaker 1: that Lebron is no longer in nearly the leverage position
48:22
Speaker 1: that he is, especially as he's getting into his forties
48:26
Speaker 1: and everyone knows the end is near, and he hasn't
48:29
Speaker 1: been able to produce a championship in the last couple
48:31
Speaker 1: of years, or even anything close to a championship in
48:33
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, so you know, they're pretty
48:37
Speaker 1: good chance Bronnie James ends up losing his job because
48:39
Speaker 1: the Dodgers are now owners of the Los Angeles Lakers.
48:45
Speaker 1: In the bigger picture, I do find this story to
48:48
Speaker 1: be emblematic of a reality that I think has been
48:54
Speaker 1: unfortunately the case for quite some time in which I've
48:56
Speaker 1: experienced in my own life on a much much, much
48:59
Speaker 1: much small level, and that is that it has now
49:02
Speaker 1: almost become impossible for a highly successful family run business
49:10
Speaker 1: to make it all the way to a third generation.
49:13
Speaker 1: It's almost impossible, now, you know. My own experience was
49:19
Speaker 1: watching what happened to my grandfather and his generation when
49:22
Speaker 1: they owned a company called the Roller Bearing Company of America.
49:25
Speaker 1: It's an incredibly long, but fascinating story, maybe I'll tell
49:28
Speaker 1: you someday where the generation, the second generation, basically kicked
49:34
Speaker 1: them out and then everything ended up disintegrating after that
49:37
Speaker 1: because their generation, my grandfather's generation, had a very different
49:42
Speaker 1: view of principle and character and truth and what really
49:48
Speaker 1: mattered and the importance of a family run business and
49:52
Speaker 1: all those things ruled the day. That was the coin
49:55
Speaker 1: of the realm in their generation. It was not the
49:59
Speaker 1: coin of the realm in the generation that was handed
50:02
Speaker 1: the company. The spoiled generation, the generation that really didn't
50:06
Speaker 1: work for it. It didn't create it, they just inherited it,
50:11
Speaker 1: and so that never made it to a third generation.
50:16
Speaker 1: The Lakers, obviously, on a much much higher level, and
50:20
Speaker 1: went a lot more money, a lot more notoriety, but it's,
50:24
Speaker 1: you know, an incredibly successful family run business. When you
50:28
Speaker 1: consider the valuation of the team went from something like
50:32
Speaker 1: sixty some million to now allegedly ten billion. That's an
50:37
Speaker 1: historically unbelievably successful family run business that's not going to
50:42
Speaker 1: make it past the second generation. And I think that
50:47
Speaker 1: the dynamic is pretty darn familiar. I mean, even Genie Buss,
50:51
Speaker 1: who reveres her father and revers the Laker history, she
50:56
Speaker 1: was not able to resist the temptation of being paid
50:59
Speaker 1: out at a ten billion dollar valuation. And I find
51:04
Speaker 1: it interesting and telling and depressing that the public reaction
51:11
Speaker 1: I see. And this is so similar to what happened
51:14
Speaker 1: when all of the Live golfers sold out the PGA
51:18
Speaker 1: tour to take millions and millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia.
51:23
Speaker 1: You know, I hated that still due always will to me.
51:26
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how much money they offered. But one
51:29
Speaker 1: of the things I learned from Live and it's a
51:32
Speaker 1: very similar situation going on with how people have evaluated
51:35
Speaker 1: the Lakers sale. There's been no blowback that I've seen,
51:40
Speaker 1: even among Laker fans towards Genie Buss, going against her
51:45
Speaker 1: own word, going against what her father would have wanted
51:48
Speaker 1: to sell the team. Why will One because there's a
51:51
Speaker 1: lot of Laker fans that don't think the Bus family
51:53
Speaker 1: does a great job of running the team, especially in
51:55
Speaker 1: recent years. But two, because of how much money they got.
52:00
Speaker 1: And this is just so difficult for me to comprehend.
52:04
Speaker 1: This is just not work, This is not math. In
52:06
Speaker 1: my brain. I do not understand how it is that
52:10
Speaker 1: the amount of money is so instrumental in people's evaluation
52:17
Speaker 1: of the sellout. I mean very much. Reminds me of
52:20
Speaker 1: you know, the old story of the man trying to
52:23
Speaker 1: convince a woman to have sex with him, and he
52:25
Speaker 1: offers her a very low amount of money, and she says,
52:28
Speaker 1: of course, now what do you think I am? And
52:30
Speaker 1: then he offers a much larger amount of money and
52:32
Speaker 1: she says yes, and he says, well, if we figured
52:34
Speaker 1: out what you are, now we're just negotiating over the price.
52:37
Speaker 1: I mean, to paraphrase the joke, I mean, you're a whore.
52:41
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of whether or not your price
52:42
Speaker 1: gets met. Well, I guess this is the same thing
52:46
Speaker 1: happening here that whether it's live golf or the Lakers
52:50
Speaker 1: being sold as a family business. Oh you got a
52:53
Speaker 1: ten billion dollar valuation, that's fine, because I would do
52:57
Speaker 1: that too. I guess that's really the key will interpret
53:01
Speaker 1: it through whether or not they themselves would sell out,
53:04
Speaker 1: And so it's it's an act of betrayal if you
53:08
Speaker 1: do so at a low amount, but if you do
53:10
Speaker 1: so at a really high amount, more power to you.
53:13
Speaker 1: I guess that's the way people think of it, and
53:15
Speaker 1: to me, that's just never worked that way. It's a sellout.
53:18
Speaker 1: It's a sellout. It doesn't matter what price you're going
53:21
Speaker 1: to offer me, unless there were extraordinary circumstances where for
53:26
Speaker 1: some reason I needed the billion dollars to save my
53:30
Speaker 1: child from a hostage situation or something, or imminent death
53:34
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, without the extreme circumstances, obviously the
53:38
Speaker 1: Bus family was doing just fine. It's a sellout. You
53:42
Speaker 1: sold out. You're gonna be able to pretend that you
53:44
Speaker 1: didn't because you'll have some sort of ceremonial possession and
53:47
Speaker 1: still have a stake and the team and all that.
53:49
Speaker 1: But you sold out. And this is a very troubling
53:53
Speaker 1: trend in all of sports. Sooner or later, they're not
53:56
Speaker 1: going to be families running any of these teams. All
53:59
Speaker 1: these major teams, especially in the NFL, used to be
54:02
Speaker 1: run by families. Now it's all going to be private
54:04
Speaker 1: equity for all intensive purposes. And that's the end of
54:08
Speaker 1: sports being fun that you know, you want an organization
54:12
Speaker 1: like the Dodgers that virtue signals over illegal immigration because
54:16
Speaker 1: their run as a corporation and there's not one person
54:20
Speaker 1: that's really in charge, and they have to worry about
54:22
Speaker 1: shareholders and you know growth, I mean, all these things
54:28
Speaker 1: that corporations care about the bottom line, that's all they
54:32
Speaker 1: care about. And so when private equity overtakes, by the way,
54:37
Speaker 1: not just pro football, but college football, even they're college
54:40
Speaker 1: teams that are being overtaken by private equity, you can
54:44
Speaker 1: kiss fun goodbye. You can kiss all the things that
54:48
Speaker 1: you used to love about sports goodbye, because it becomes antiseptic.
54:54
Speaker 1: It becomes incredibly risk averse, incredibly risk averse. That's the
54:59
Speaker 1: way that Dodgers are now. The Dodgers are very successful
55:03
Speaker 1: as an organization. They may be very successful on the
55:05
Speaker 1: field or on the court with the Lakers, but it's
55:09
Speaker 1: not the same thing as being run by the family
55:12
Speaker 1: that built the franchise into what it currently was, with
55:16
Speaker 1: real human beings making decisions based upon what they personally
55:21
Speaker 1: think is right and wrong without necessarily having to worry
55:25
Speaker 1: about shareholders or the bottom line, and potentially even doing
55:29
Speaker 1: something that seemed outside the box. There's no outside the
55:32
Speaker 1: box thinking in corporations because there's too much risk aversion.
55:37
Speaker 1: So look, I'm not even a Laker fan. I'm just
55:40
Speaker 1: evaluating this as being symbolic of a lot of other
55:43
Speaker 1: things that's happening in our society, and one of them
55:47
Speaker 1: definitely is what happens with that next generation that gets
55:50
Speaker 1: handed the riches. They will always always sell out, especially
55:55
Speaker 1: before they're too old to be able to enjoy the sellout.
55:58
Speaker 1: And that's what Genie Bus and the Bus family has done,
56:01
Speaker 1: in my opinion, with the Lakers. What other story before
56:05
Speaker 1: we get to our I think incredible interview with Gerald
56:09
Speaker 1: Posner about the jfk assassination. Is that not totally unrelated.
56:15
Speaker 1: There was a major verdict in a high profile case
56:19
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts a couple of days ago. This was last week.
56:23
Speaker 1: As you're now listening to this podcast, I'm referring to
56:26
Speaker 1: the case of Karen Reid Now, Karen Reid case is
56:30
Speaker 1: a little bit hard to talk about because generally people
56:34
Speaker 1: either know nothing about the case, or they know or
56:38
Speaker 1: they think they know tons about the case. And Karen
56:42
Speaker 1: Reid is a woman who was accused of effectively murdering
56:47
Speaker 1: her policeman boyfriend. And this was a situation where and
56:52
Speaker 1: I don't want to get involved too deeply in the details,
56:54
Speaker 1: but here's how I view this whole situation. So, for
56:59
Speaker 1: some bizarre reason, Karen Reid and her side of this
57:03
Speaker 1: whole thing got a fan base, like a rabid cult
57:07
Speaker 1: like fan base, largely because of the existence of social media.
57:11
Speaker 1: Without social media, I think Karen Reid probably gets convicted
57:16
Speaker 1: of something some level of murder, probably second degree murder,
57:20
Speaker 1: because there's evidence that may not have been premeditated, maybe
57:23
Speaker 1: even manslaughter whatever I mean, running over somebody with their
57:27
Speaker 1: their car. You know, it's difficult to prove that that's
57:30
Speaker 1: actually first degree murder. But to me, it's very obvious
57:35
Speaker 1: that she did this, she caused the man to die,
57:40
Speaker 1: because there's no plausible alternative scenario here, I you know,
57:45
Speaker 1: and in order to try to come up with one,
57:48
Speaker 1: the Karen Reid fans have lost all sense of rationality.
57:52
Speaker 1: They're spinning a web of bizarre conspiracies that's even worse
57:56
Speaker 1: than the jfk assassination that make no sense for which
58:00
Speaker 1: there's no evidence whatsoever. And what ends up happening is
58:04
Speaker 1: that in her first trial there's a mistrial and in
58:08
Speaker 1: the second trial she effectively gets acquitted. There was a
58:11
Speaker 1: one charge involving driving well intoxicated that she was convicted of,
58:16
Speaker 1: but that's not going to really impact her all that
58:18
Speaker 1: much in comparison to what a murder charge or a
58:22
Speaker 1: manslaughter charge would have meant to her. And of course
58:26
Speaker 1: her fans were cheering. And because she had a fan
58:30
Speaker 1: base in this situation, this is why it relates to
58:34
Speaker 1: the news media. Because Karen Reid got a rabid fan base,
58:39
Speaker 1: she got a significant amount of support in the media,
58:43
Speaker 1: depending on how you define media. I'm telling you, folks,
58:48
Speaker 1: this was a little bit of a very very very
58:51
Speaker 1: minor Taylor Swift situation where there were media outlets that
58:57
Speaker 1: one wanted to glom on to Karen Reid's cult. So
59:03
Speaker 1: they knew that if they did something positive towards Karen
59:06
Speaker 1: Reid or anti prosecution, and unfortunately, the prosecution made some
59:11
Speaker 1: mistakes which allowed there to be some legitimate criticism of
59:15
Speaker 1: them and allowed allegations of corruption and conspiracy to get
59:21
Speaker 1: way more traction than they should have. So I'm not
59:23
Speaker 1: claiming that the case against her is remotely perfect. I'm
59:26
Speaker 1: not even claiming, by the way, that it's not somewhat
59:29
Speaker 1: rational to at least make the argument that it wasn't
59:32
Speaker 1: proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she was guilty of,
59:36
Speaker 1: for instance, first or second degree murder. I think she
59:39
Speaker 1: was guilty of that, but I'm at least open minded
59:43
Speaker 1: enough to say, Okay, that's not a completely irrational view.
59:46
Speaker 1: What is it? Her irrational view is that she wasn't
59:50
Speaker 1: the cause of the death. Okay, she caused the death,
59:53
Speaker 1: because there is overwhelming evidence of that and there's no
59:56
Speaker 1: plausible alternative scenario. But because she got a cult like following,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: there were media outlets, especially in liberal Massachusetts, because you
1:00:06
Speaker 1: got a police officer there, it wasn't getting nearly the
1:00:09
Speaker 1: type of support that they should have. In fact, the
1:00:11
Speaker 1: reality that this was a police officer that died probably
1:00:14
Speaker 1: worked in Karen Reid's favor, believe it or not, because
1:00:17
Speaker 1: it helped manifest these conspiracy theories. It gave some sort
1:00:22
Speaker 1: of incentive for why you know, there would be this
1:00:25
Speaker 1: conspiracy to protect what really happened if he wasn't a
1:00:29
Speaker 1: police officer. I'm not sure that that crazy theory or
1:00:33
Speaker 1: any of these crazy theories would have gained traction. But
1:00:36
Speaker 1: because she got a cult like following, the media wanted
1:00:39
Speaker 1: to appeal to that cult like following. Now, in a
1:00:43
Speaker 1: non fragmented world, the cult wouldn't have been large enough
1:00:47
Speaker 1: for real media outlets to give a damn. But we're
1:00:50
Speaker 1: now in such a situation where I talk all the time.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: We've gone from broadcasting to narrow casting, to cult casting
1:00:59
Speaker 1: to micro cult casting as there's been more fragmentation and
1:01:03
Speaker 1: audiences have gotten smaller and smaller, especially among news outlets. Well,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: now micro cult casting can work for a news media outlet,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: and so if you can appeal and do a sympathetic
1:01:16
Speaker 1: story towards Karen Reid, you're going to get that cult
1:01:21
Speaker 1: to consume your product. And conversely, you might be less
1:01:28
Speaker 1: likely to do a story on what bullshit Karen Reid's
1:01:32
Speaker 1: defense really is because much like with the Taylor swift
1:01:35
Speaker 1: the fact you don't want to piss off the Swifties.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: Now again the Swifties are a much larger group than
1:01:41
Speaker 1: the Karen Reid group, but I'm just using that as
1:01:43
Speaker 1: a comparison. So there was a fear among media outlets
1:01:48
Speaker 1: to tell the full truth about what bullshit her case
1:01:51
Speaker 1: was because they didn't want to deal with these crazy
1:01:54
Speaker 1: people that support Karen Reid. And they had an incentive
1:01:58
Speaker 1: to actually be sympathetic to her case because they would
1:02:02
Speaker 1: get a larger audience for a story like that, because
1:02:05
Speaker 1: the Karen Reid cult would consume that kind of content.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: And this matters because guess what happens to the cult.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: It grows, It feels like it is gaining traction, it
1:02:20
Speaker 1: feels like it's on the right side. See, this is
1:02:24
Speaker 1: one of the worst things about social media. It is
1:02:26
Speaker 1: not a coincidence that people become far, far more conspiratorial
1:02:30
Speaker 1: in their mindset in the social media age because in
1:02:33
Speaker 1: the olden days, like the nineteen nineties, not that conspiracies
1:02:38
Speaker 1: didn't exist, but in the olden days, you had a
1:02:41
Speaker 1: situation where you might believe in a conspiracy, but it
1:02:45
Speaker 1: was much more difficult for you to get any sort
1:02:49
Speaker 1: of support for that belief. You thought you were alone. Well,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: in this particular situation, you're not only not alone, you're
1:02:57
Speaker 1: feeling a sense of community, and you're fighting for justice
1:03:01
Speaker 1: and you're on the side of right. And the news
1:03:03
Speaker 1: meeting is actually enabling this because it's in their incentive
1:03:06
Speaker 1: structure to do that. And all of this ends up
1:03:10
Speaker 1: manifesting itself in the very strange situation as described by
1:03:14
Speaker 1: my friend Dan Abrams from ABC News They're Legal corresponded.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: You know. Dan's view of this was the prosecution case
1:03:20
Speaker 1: in the second trial was actually better than the prosecution
1:03:24
Speaker 1: case in the first trial that ended up in a mistrial,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: but this one ended up in an acquittal, which shows
1:03:30
Speaker 1: just these are my words, shows just how strong those
1:03:34
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories have been able to become embedded in the
1:03:38
Speaker 1: public consciousness. And based upon some of the interviews with
1:03:42
Speaker 1: the jurors, it's obvious that these idiots, and I do
1:03:46
Speaker 1: believe they were idiots, because most people on juries these
1:03:49
Speaker 1: days are idiots. Because you can't get off of jury,
1:03:51
Speaker 1: you're probably a moron. But the reality of the situation
1:03:56
Speaker 1: is that they were using reasonable doubt in it completely
1:04:00
Speaker 1: least screwed up fashion. They were using reasonable doubt based
1:04:04
Speaker 1: upon micro pieces of evidence like this one piece of evidence.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: I had a little bit of doubt about, like, you know,
1:04:13
Speaker 1: the broken headlight. It just didn't feel right to me that,
1:04:18
Speaker 1: you know, some of the testimony seemed inconsistent with the
1:04:21
Speaker 1: light being broken. I'm like, that's not how you determine
1:04:25
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. You have to look at the totality of
1:04:28
Speaker 1: the entire case and is there reasonable doubt that this
1:04:32
Speaker 1: is the basic scenario of what occurred. And as I
1:04:37
Speaker 1: said several times, but it bears repeating, in this particular situation,
1:04:41
Speaker 1: there is no plausible alternative scenario. So, you know, if
1:04:47
Speaker 1: you argued reasonable doubt, I think she didn't. But they
1:04:51
Speaker 1: just didn't prove their case. I can live with that.
1:04:54
Speaker 1: I would disagree with it, but it would at least
1:04:56
Speaker 1: be rational. But it appears as if this churry believed
1:04:59
Speaker 1: she was actually innocent for all sorts of crazy reasons,
1:05:02
Speaker 1: which she very clearly was not. So apparently no one
1:05:06
Speaker 1: killed her boyfriend. He just he just I don't know.
1:05:11
Speaker 1: There's no actual perpetrator of this murder. It's a little
1:05:14
Speaker 1: bit like Ojay Sibson. Gee, I wonder who actually committed
1:05:18
Speaker 1: the murders. It was Karen Reid, but she's a free
1:05:21
Speaker 1: woman today. Largely because of the existence of social media
1:05:26
Speaker 1: and the fact that the news media has lost their
1:05:29
Speaker 1: influence and lost their journalistic standards, and this was a
1:05:33
Speaker 1: case that I think proved that in spades. Of course,
1:05:36
Speaker 1: when you talk conspiracies, there's no case that is more
1:05:41
Speaker 1: deeply embedded in the entire realm of conspiracies and the
1:05:46
Speaker 1: JFK assassination. I myself, many many years ago, when I
1:05:51
Speaker 1: was a young lad in my early twenties and started
1:05:53
Speaker 1: to get deeply into the JFK assassination, believed in a conspiracy.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: I believe that I thought that the mob New Orleans
1:06:04
Speaker 1: Oswald connection was the most logical conspiracy. I didn't believe
1:06:09
Speaker 1: in the single bullet theory, and I went on for
1:06:13
Speaker 1: years believing in some sort of JFK conspiracy theory. But
1:06:19
Speaker 1: I was young and dumb then, and I eventually got
1:06:23
Speaker 1: educated in a large part of how I got educated
1:06:26
Speaker 1: was I read a book, very long and very detailed
1:06:29
Speaker 1: book called Case Closed. I'm not much of a reader
1:06:32
Speaker 1: because reading is difficult for me, but I read that
1:06:34
Speaker 1: book in like two or three days, and then I
1:06:37
Speaker 1: read it again. And that book is by a guy
1:06:40
Speaker 1: name of Gerald Posner, who we've had on the podcast before.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: Over the years, I have interviewed Gerald Posner several times.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: I have thanked him for convincing me that indeed Lee
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: over time I have to a different theory about the
1:07:03
Speaker 1: logistics behind how Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK, a theory
1:07:09
Speaker 1: on which Gerald Posner and I disagree, and so I
1:07:13
Speaker 1: have been efforting for quite a long time having Gerald
1:07:17
Speaker 1: come back on the podcast. Because you may recall the
1:07:19
Speaker 1: last time that we interviewed Jerald Posner, which was around
1:07:23
Speaker 1: the sixtieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, we did not
1:07:30
Speaker 1: have nearly enough time. We barely broke the surface of
1:07:34
Speaker 1: our major disagreement, and our major disagreement is in how
1:07:38
Speaker 1: this happened. Gerald Posner's view is that the Warrant Commission
1:07:43
Speaker 1: was correct. Now you may recall, and I urge you
1:07:46
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to this if you have
1:07:48
Speaker 1: any interest in the subject at all, that in episode
1:07:51
Speaker 1: seventy one of the Death of Journalism podcast, I went
1:07:54
Speaker 1: through an incredible detail my theory for about two hours long,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: going through the tiredy of what the Warren Commission believes happened,
1:08:03
Speaker 1: and what Gerald Posner believes happened, and what I have
1:08:07
Speaker 1: a strong suspicion may have happened. To be clear, to
1:08:11
Speaker 1: this moment, I'm not positive. However, I keep moving in
1:08:15
Speaker 1: the direction that is opposite. I guess you would call
1:08:18
Speaker 1: it of Gerald Posner and the Warren Commission and more
1:08:21
Speaker 1: towards my own theory. So just to be clear and
1:08:25
Speaker 1: use this as a primer for what you're about to hear,
1:08:27
Speaker 1: because what you're about to hear, I believe is an
1:08:31
Speaker 1: historic interview. There has never been. I don't think this
1:08:34
Speaker 1: is an exaggeration. I don't believe there's ever been a
1:08:38
Speaker 1: more educated interview slash debate ever done about the single
1:08:44
Speaker 1: bullet theory and the JKA assassination than what I did
1:08:48
Speaker 1: with Gerald Posner a couple of days ago, in which
1:08:50
Speaker 1: you were about to hear. And I don't think that's
1:08:53
Speaker 1: remotely hyperbole. I think that is one hundred percent true,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: and it's probably not even close. So there's this interview
1:08:59
Speaker 1: you're about to here is many, many years in the making.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: I've interviewed Posner. I don't know four or five times
1:09:06
Speaker 1: over my career on different subjects. We've always discussed JFK,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: but we've never gotten into the single bullet theory the
1:09:14
Speaker 1: way that we just did and that you're about to hear.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: So here's the primer so you can understand both sides
1:09:21
Speaker 1: of this argument. The Warren Commission Gerald Posner view of
1:09:25
Speaker 1: how Lee Harvey Oswald committed the assassination of JFK is
1:09:30
Speaker 1: as follows three shots. The first shot misses everything, which
1:09:36
Speaker 1: is a big problem for me, which you'll hear in
1:09:38
Speaker 1: the interview with Jerald Posner. First shot seemingly the easiest
1:09:42
Speaker 1: shot from the standpoint of nobody is reacting to a shot.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: The limo driver isn't speeding up or slowing down. The
1:09:50
Speaker 1: limo is the closest to him, because as this shooting
1:09:53
Speaker 1: goes on, he's the limo is actually driving further and
1:09:56
Speaker 1: further away from Lee Harvey oswelld first shot not just
1:10:00
Speaker 1: missus Kennedy, missus the limo, missus the street. Allegedly it
1:10:04
Speaker 1: might have hit the pavement, but there's no evidence of that.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: I mean, it barely hits fort Worth. It's in Dallas,
1:10:09
Speaker 1: it barely hits fort Worth. It misses everything. And it
1:10:14
Speaker 1: then some sort of fragment hits a guy by the
1:10:17
Speaker 1: name of James Tigue, who I deal with in the
1:10:20
Speaker 1: interview that you're about to hear it with Posner, and
1:10:22
Speaker 1: that story just never sat right with me for reasons
1:10:26
Speaker 1: that I will make very clear in our discussion with Posner,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: in which I've done so in the past. The second shot,
1:10:33
Speaker 1: according to Posner and the Warrant Commission, is the so
1:10:37
Speaker 1: called single bullet. That's the bullet that goes through allegedly
1:10:42
Speaker 1: Kennedy's back or neck, goes out his throat, then enters
1:10:47
Speaker 1: Connelly in his shoulder, comes out his chest, goes then
1:10:51
Speaker 1: into his wrist, then out of his wrist, and then
1:10:54
Speaker 1: lodges in his right thigh. So that's a hell of
1:10:57
Speaker 1: a lot for a bullet to do. This is why
1:11:00
Speaker 1: it's been called the magic bullet. And Oliver Stone mocks
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the magic bullet in the famous movie JFK. Even a
1:11:08
Speaker 1: Seinfeld episode involving Keith Hernandez mocks the so called magic
1:11:13
Speaker 1: bullet and references Oliver Stone's movie with back and to
1:11:17
Speaker 1: the left, back and to the left and then the
1:11:22
Speaker 1: third shot is the one that blows off JFK's head
1:11:25
Speaker 1: and is obviously the fatal shot. So three shots. First
1:11:28
Speaker 1: one misses badly catastrophically. Second one is the so called
1:11:32
Speaker 1: magic bullet, goes through Kennedy and Connolly but somehow comes
1:11:36
Speaker 1: out almost pristine, although not nearly totally pristine. Posner takes
1:11:41
Speaker 1: issue with this. This description is pristine, but in comparison
1:11:45
Speaker 1: to the other bullet, the bullet that hits JK the head,
1:11:48
Speaker 1: which is doesn't even look like a bullet anymore. It's
1:11:51
Speaker 1: in two massive chunks of lead that in no way,
1:11:56
Speaker 1: shape or form resemble the so called single bullet or
1:12:00
Speaker 1: magic bullet, something I will reference in this interview you're
1:12:02
Speaker 1: about to hear. You know, Posner does not accept this,
1:12:07
Speaker 1: this description, and I get it, because there is some
1:12:09
Speaker 1: damage to the bullet, but nowhere near what an average
1:12:12
Speaker 1: person would expect given all the damage and all the
1:12:16
Speaker 1: bones that that bullet went through. And so that theory,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: which I want to make clear, I think is possible.
1:12:25
Speaker 1: I think it is possible that that's what happened. I
1:12:27
Speaker 1: still think it is possible that that's what happened. But
1:12:31
Speaker 1: to me, that's that is not the most likely scenario.
1:12:35
Speaker 1: That's not not Okham's Rasor Oakham's raiser the simplest explanation.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: I think there's a simpler way of describing what happened,
1:12:42
Speaker 1: and I think unfortunately, the single bullet theory has allowed
1:12:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people to come to a false conclusion
1:12:50
Speaker 1: that the Warrant Commission was wrong and that there must
1:12:52
Speaker 1: have been some sort of massive conspiracy here. If it
1:12:55
Speaker 1: wasn't for the fact that the magic bullet doesn't seem
1:12:58
Speaker 1: to make sense that a gut life, I think that
1:13:01
Speaker 1: far more people would accept that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
1:13:06
Speaker 1: And after researching this for an extended period of time
1:13:10
Speaker 1: and thinking about it for a very long period of time,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: I came up with an alternative scenario. I've talked in
1:13:16
Speaker 1: the Karen Reid case there's no plausible alternative scenario. Well,
1:13:20
Speaker 1: I believe I have an extremely plausible alternative scenario. And
1:13:24
Speaker 1: my alternative scenario is three shots. First shot hits Kennedy
1:13:29
Speaker 1: in the back, and that's it. It was described by
1:13:33
Speaker 1: Secret Servants agents as a misfire or a backfire. I
1:13:37
Speaker 1: believe that there was something wrong with the firing of
1:13:40
Speaker 1: that bullet. It didn't have the same velocity. It dips
1:13:44
Speaker 1: below Kennedy's head, hits him in the back, lodges there
1:13:47
Speaker 1: and at some point comes out of his body, drops
1:13:50
Speaker 1: out and is largely pristine. The second shot, I believe
1:13:54
Speaker 1: hits Connolly all on its own. The third shot hits
1:13:58
Speaker 1: Kennedy in the head and kills him. Now you might think,
1:14:03
Speaker 1: say that sounds pretty plausible. Why having people accepted that
1:14:08
Speaker 1: as the reality. Well, because the single bullet theory was
1:14:11
Speaker 1: created by a guy the name of Arlen Spector who
1:14:14
Speaker 1: would end up becoming my senator from Pennsylvania. I remember
1:14:17
Speaker 1: very well when he was elected the Senator from Pennsylvania
1:14:21
Speaker 1: along with Ron Reagan's election, and he came up as
1:14:25
Speaker 1: a lawyer on the Warrant Commission with this idea that
1:14:28
Speaker 1: I think was manifest from the standpoint that he thought
1:14:32
Speaker 1: he had a timing problem he I think he had.
1:14:35
Speaker 1: I believe that he thought he had a problem that
1:14:38
Speaker 1: he really didn't have. And I've explained in episode seventy
1:14:41
Speaker 1: one of the podcast in extensive detail why he thought
1:14:44
Speaker 1: he had a problem that he didn't really have. So
1:14:45
Speaker 1: I'm not going to labor it now, but it has
1:14:48
Speaker 1: to do with the timing of the shots and the
1:14:51
Speaker 1: number of bullets that were found. And you know, a
1:14:54
Speaker 1: key part of my theory is that when Kennedy is
1:14:57
Speaker 1: hit in the back, he has a del a neuromuscular
1:15:02
Speaker 1: involuntary neuromuscular reaction, something which I was astonished Gerald Posner
1:15:08
Speaker 1: agrees with you're about to hear in this interview. I've
1:15:11
Speaker 1: never heard Posner say this before, and unfortunately we didn't
1:15:14
Speaker 1: have the time to really get into the impact the
1:15:17
Speaker 1: implications of that. But to me, that was a Eureka
1:15:21
Speaker 1: moment in this interview You're about to hear because Posner
1:15:24
Speaker 1: is so close to getting it, he doesn't acknowledge, and
1:15:28
Speaker 1: I didn't have time to force him to acknowledge that
1:15:31
Speaker 1: an involuntary neuromuscular reaction doesn't happen instantaneously. By the way,
1:15:36
Speaker 1: if you're a football fan, you may recall that I
1:15:40
Speaker 1: believe something very similar happened to Tuwa Taka Baloa, the
1:15:44
Speaker 1: quarterback of the Miami Dolphins. He's been having issues with concussions,
1:15:48
Speaker 1: and it was a couple of years ago where a
1:15:51
Speaker 1: video of him went viral because after he collapsed to
1:15:54
Speaker 1: the field on the field after being tackled and experiencing
1:15:58
Speaker 1: another concussion, he had what is called a fencing reaction, where,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: in my view, very similar to what happens with Kennedy.
1:16:07
Speaker 1: Andy is hit by that first shot where Kennedy's elbows
1:16:10
Speaker 1: jet out and his fifth clinch. Takabola has his hands,
1:16:16
Speaker 1: they don't piss, don't clinch, but they extend. His hands
1:16:21
Speaker 1: extend in a way that he clearly does not have
1:16:24
Speaker 1: control over them, and his elbows jet out, not dissimilar
1:16:29
Speaker 1: to what happened with JFK. And So the key to
1:16:32
Speaker 1: my theory is that the timing problem that Arlen Spector
1:16:35
Speaker 1: thought he had is taken care of by the fact
1:16:38
Speaker 1: that Kennedy's reaction is actually significantly delayed. Now how much
1:16:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. It only takes two two and a half,
1:16:46
Speaker 1: maybe three seconds at most for the timing to work
1:16:50
Speaker 1: out here. And I think that there's evidence of a
1:16:53
Speaker 1: delay reaction, some of which we're going to get to
1:16:57
Speaker 1: or at least allude to in this interview with pot.
1:17:00
Speaker 1: So that is the key to my theory. Now, my
1:17:03
Speaker 1: theory has a couple of problems, and I've always acknowledged
1:17:08
Speaker 1: that my theory has a couple of problems, which is
1:17:10
Speaker 1: why I've always been somewhat on the fence. However, something
1:17:15
Speaker 1: remarkable happened almost right after I articulated my theory in detail,
1:17:21
Speaker 1: the likes of which I'd never done before, in episode
1:17:23
Speaker 1: seventy one of this podcast. And that is that just
1:17:26
Speaker 1: before the sixtieth anniversary of the JFK assassination. By the way,
1:17:30
Speaker 1: just to show you how old I am, in this
1:17:32
Speaker 1: interview with Posner, I believe I incorrectly referenced this is
1:17:36
Speaker 1: fifty at the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination. It's
1:17:40
Speaker 1: actually the sixtieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, which is
1:17:44
Speaker 1: mind blowing that people are still around and writing books.
1:17:47
Speaker 1: But there was a secret Service agent by the name
1:17:49
Speaker 1: of Paul Landis right after I did episode seventy one,
1:17:53
Speaker 1: and I'm not suggesting that that had anything to do
1:17:55
Speaker 1: with Landis's book whatsoever. But quite remarkably, Paul Landis wrote
1:18:01
Speaker 1: a book and he devulged something that he had never
1:18:05
Speaker 1: said publicly before, and that is that he found what
1:18:10
Speaker 1: seems to have been the so called magic Pristine bullet
1:18:13
Speaker 1: in the limo, and not, as the Warrant Commission believed,
1:18:19
Speaker 1: on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, and that the reason
1:18:23
Speaker 1: why it got to a stretcher in Parkland Hospital and
1:18:26
Speaker 1: was misidentified as a stretcher belonging to Connolly when it
1:18:31
Speaker 1: may have been belonging to Kennedy or even somebody else.
1:18:35
Speaker 1: But the key part of this is where Landis found
1:18:38
Speaker 1: this bullet. He found this bullet in the back of
1:18:42
Speaker 1: the limousine where JFK was sitting, which is a thousand
1:18:48
Speaker 1: percent consistent with my theory that that famous bullet simply
1:18:53
Speaker 1: fell out of JFK's back. And I had always had
1:18:56
Speaker 1: a problem where Okay, so how do I explain this
1:19:01
Speaker 1: pristine bullet or the magic bullet or Exhibit three ninety
1:19:04
Speaker 1: nine being found on this stretcher at Parkland that was
1:19:07
Speaker 1: identified I believe without real strong evidence that it belonged
1:19:12
Speaker 1: to John Connolly, the governor of Texas, who was sitting
1:19:17
Speaker 1: in front of JFK and was the person that was
1:19:19
Speaker 1: also hit by a bullet that day. And Landis solved
1:19:25
Speaker 1: several problems instantaneously. He solved the stretcher problem because he
1:19:32
Speaker 1: made it very clear that he kind of panicked, brought
1:19:35
Speaker 1: the bullet into the hospital and placed it what he
1:19:37
Speaker 1: thought on the gurney next to JFK. But more importantly,
1:19:42
Speaker 1: again just to be clear, where he finds that bullet
1:19:45
Speaker 1: is one thousand percent consistent with my entire theory that
1:19:49
Speaker 1: the bullet actually just fell out of JFK's back. Now
1:19:53
Speaker 1: does it prove it?
1:19:54
Speaker 2: No?
1:19:54
Speaker 1: Is it possible Landis is not telling the truth ories
1:19:57
Speaker 1: he is misremembering or you know, just wrong whatever. Yeah,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: that's possible. But one of the more interesting elements of
1:20:05
Speaker 1: this interview is that Gerald Posner has dramatically changed his
1:20:11
Speaker 1: view of whether or not he believes land is the story.
1:20:15
Speaker 1: At first, he did not believe land Is the story
1:20:17
Speaker 1: because it does not help with the single bullet theory
1:20:20
Speaker 1: at all, to you know, which it's very clear, uh
1:20:23
Speaker 1: Posner in the everyone that is in favor of the
1:20:26
Speaker 1: warrant Commission has deeply invested in that theory. But now
1:20:30
Speaker 1: Posner explains in this interview that he believes Landis, but
1:20:34
Speaker 1: that he has come up with in what is in
1:20:37
Speaker 1: my view and absolutely absurd and totally made up, speculative
1:20:43
Speaker 1: scenario for how the bullet ends up in the back
1:20:47
Speaker 1: of the limo after having gone through JFK's body and
1:20:51
Speaker 1: Connolly's body and being in Connelly's thigh. I'll let Posner
1:20:55
Speaker 1: himself explain it to you, but I hope, I hope
1:20:59
Speaker 1: that it's not too much information before you hear this interview,
1:21:03
Speaker 1: but it's important for context. So we have two people
1:21:06
Speaker 1: who are highly educated on this subject agree in the
1:21:10
Speaker 1: big picture that Lee rb Oswald was the loan ass
1:21:13
Speaker 1: assassin of JFK, but have a remarkably strong disagreement over
1:21:19
Speaker 1: how this happened. And at times this interview gets way
1:21:22
Speaker 1: more heated than I thought that it would. Now there's
1:21:25
Speaker 1: a little bit of talking over each other, which I
1:21:27
Speaker 1: think we're going to try to figure out a way
1:21:29
Speaker 1: to make it as clear as possible. I was stunned
1:21:33
Speaker 1: that the interview it didn't go totally sideways, but that
1:21:37
Speaker 1: it got as confrontational and as heated as it did.
1:21:41
Speaker 1: But I stand by the assessment that this is an
1:21:44
Speaker 1: historic interview. You are never gonna hear a more educated
1:21:49
Speaker 1: and I'll call this more of a debate than an interview,
1:21:53
Speaker 1: a more educated debate over whether or not the single
1:21:56
Speaker 1: bullet theory, which is at the center of so much
1:21:58
Speaker 1: controversy surround the JFK assassination, Whether or not that theory
1:22:03
Speaker 1: is real, or whether or not there is as I
1:22:06
Speaker 1: have strongly suspected for a long time, and after Paul
1:22:09
Speaker 1: Landers's book, I started to think, Oh my gosh, this
1:22:12
Speaker 1: must really be the way things happened. I may really
1:22:15
Speaker 1: be onto something here. This is just a possibility, This
1:22:18
Speaker 1: is a probability, and it is indeed a plausible alternative
1:22:22
Speaker 1: scenario to the conventional wisdom of the warrant commission and
1:22:25
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory than what you're about to hear
1:22:29
Speaker 1: right now. When I interviewed Gerald Posner just a couple
1:22:33
Speaker 1: of days ago, joining us now is, in my opinion,
1:22:36
Speaker 1: the world's foremost expert on the JK assassination. He is
1:22:40
Speaker 1: the author of the pre eminent book on the subject,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: Case Closed. He is Gerald Posner. Gerald, Welcome back to
1:22:47
Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism podcast.
1:22:49
Speaker 2: John, great to be with you again.
1:22:51
Speaker 1: I have been waiting for this for a very long time.
1:22:54
Speaker 1: You and I last spoke around the fiftieth anniversary of
1:22:56
Speaker 1: the JKA assassination, and due to a several scheduling issues,
1:23:01
Speaker 1: we've never been able to put it together. But now
1:23:03
Speaker 1: we have and hopefully have a little bit of time
1:23:05
Speaker 1: to get into some of the topics that I want
1:23:07
Speaker 1: to discuss. But first before I get into some of
1:23:10
Speaker 1: the stuff that we may disagree on, I want to
1:23:12
Speaker 1: talk about what we agree on, and specifically the most
1:23:15
Speaker 1: recent developments with regard to the unveiling I guess of
1:23:19
Speaker 1: the so called JFK files, and it's I'm pretty confident
1:23:23
Speaker 1: that you and I are on the same page here
1:23:26
Speaker 1: that we believed that this would be a big nothing burger,
1:23:29
Speaker 1: and that what was really motivating this was a deep desire,
1:23:33
Speaker 1: especially among MAGA world and Trump fans, to prove the
1:23:37
Speaker 1: existence of a deep state, and that if a deep
1:23:40
Speaker 1: state had in fact assassinated JFK, then it was far
1:23:44
Speaker 1: easier for people to believe that they had stolen an
1:23:46
Speaker 1: election from Donald Trump in twenty twenty, Now that we
1:23:50
Speaker 1: know what is allegedly in these files, where we correct
1:23:54
Speaker 1: in that assessment.
1:23:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's still a of
1:24:00
Speaker 2: a view on the hard MAGA group that there is
1:24:04
Speaker 2: a conspiracy here. Representative Luna, who ran the Select Committee hearings,
1:24:11
Speaker 2: you know, certainly believes that. I think she's representative of
1:24:14
Speaker 2: the view that and I'm using an overgeneralization here, but
1:24:18
Speaker 2: a lot of hardcore Trump supporters just don't Trump trust
1:24:22
Speaker 2: the deep state. And that doesn't just go for Trump voters,
1:24:24
Speaker 2: it goes, you know, extends out to the middle and
1:24:27
Speaker 2: to the left as well. They believe that that election
1:24:30
Speaker 2: was stolen and as a result, You're absolutely right. They're
1:24:33
Speaker 2: looking for the early evidence to be able to say,
1:24:35
Speaker 2: look at the deep state. They're reading the faeryas they're terrible.
1:24:39
Speaker 2: So a matter of fact, they're always working against the
1:24:41
Speaker 2: best interests of the country. They even assassinated the president
1:24:44
Speaker 2: back in nineteen sixty three, So how can we expect
1:24:47
Speaker 2: anything different along this way? And I think that that's
1:24:50
Speaker 2: why there was such an effort to make something out
1:24:52
Speaker 2: of the files. In the end, the files been through,
1:24:57
Speaker 2: all of them, and I know that some decent journalists
1:25:01
Speaker 2: who should know better have tried their very very best
1:25:04
Speaker 2: to make the most out of them, to sort of
1:25:06
Speaker 2: put a square peg into a round hole and say
1:25:09
Speaker 2: there's really something here. I smell the CIA on Oswald's trail.
1:25:14
Speaker 2: I think they might be using him and manipulating him.
1:25:17
Speaker 2: None of the files, and I think that you'll agree
1:25:20
Speaker 2: on this. John changed the conclusion that Oswald was the
1:25:24
Speaker 2: person on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book depository.
1:25:27
Speaker 2: He was the one who carried out the assassination. He
1:25:29
Speaker 2: was doing it front his own warped motivations, not for
1:25:33
Speaker 2: any intelligence agency or anything else. So that you know,
1:25:36
Speaker 2: we have a lot of smoke and there's distractions and
1:25:39
Speaker 2: everything else, but there's nothing in those files the fundamentally
1:25:42
Speaker 2: changes the conclusion about the case of Oswald having killed
1:25:46
Speaker 2: the president.
1:25:48
Speaker 1: And I agree with you in one hundred percent that
1:25:50
Speaker 1: Learvy Oswald was the assassin of JFK. It was your
1:25:53
Speaker 1: book case closed, which firmly convinced me of that many
1:25:57
Speaker 1: years ago. However, we have a potential disagreement on how
1:26:03
Speaker 1: Oswald actually committed this crime or the logistics of this crime.
1:26:08
Speaker 1: And before we get into the specifics of our disagreements
1:26:12
Speaker 1: on the single bullet theory, I want to just kind
1:26:16
Speaker 1: of pick your brain a little bit on whether or
1:26:18
Speaker 1: not you agree with my assessment as to why the
1:26:22
Speaker 1: single bullet theory is so important. It's not just about
1:26:26
Speaker 1: proving that Oswald was in fact the assassin. It is
1:26:30
Speaker 1: my strong opinion Gerald that the main reason, there are
1:26:33
Speaker 1: many others, but the main reason why conspiracy theories run
1:26:37
Speaker 1: so rampant in this case is the single bullet theory,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: regardless of whether or not it's true, whether or not,
1:26:44
Speaker 1: that's the right way to explain how Oswald did it.
1:26:47
Speaker 1: Do you agree Gerald that the single bullet theory has
1:26:50
Speaker 1: been an epic failure with regard to preventing conspiracy theories
1:26:55
Speaker 1: from cropping up in the JFK assassination.
1:26:58
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that's right. The only thing that I
1:27:00
Speaker 2: think has contributed more to conspiracy fervor and speculation and
1:27:05
Speaker 2: lack of belief is Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald. So
1:27:10
Speaker 2: you know, take away Ruby's murder of Oswell, you have
1:27:12
Speaker 2: the person who's arrested for killing the president killed two
1:27:15
Speaker 2: days later by a guy who looks like he's out
1:27:17
Speaker 2: of central casting for the mafia. So you're often running
1:27:20
Speaker 2: on conspiracies. And then you have the Warrant Commission. Really,
1:27:23
Speaker 2: as you know so well, they can't figure it out
1:27:26
Speaker 2: any other way. So David Bellin comes up with a theory,
1:27:29
Speaker 2: and it was only a theory because they couldn't prove
1:27:31
Speaker 2: it that this one bullet inflictes, you know, the same
1:27:34
Speaker 2: set of wounds on the governor and the president, and
1:27:38
Speaker 2: that's been ridiculed over the years. Oliver Stone does the
1:27:41
Speaker 2: best possible job of ridiculing it in JFK is the
1:27:45
Speaker 2: bullet does a somersault, takes a left turn, takes a
1:27:47
Speaker 2: right turn, takes a vacation for a few seconds, and
1:27:49
Speaker 2: then goes on to hit the governor. And so you know,
1:27:53
Speaker 2: I think, and we will talk about our difference on this,
1:27:56
Speaker 2: but I've always said that I I make the case
1:28:01
Speaker 2: for why I believe ballistics have established this single bullet
1:28:06
Speaker 2: as a fact. But even if I'm right, assume for
1:28:09
Speaker 2: a second that I was right on this, and that
1:28:11
Speaker 2: one bullet inflicted those wounds and it happened as the
1:28:13
Speaker 2: Warrant Commission thought. Doesn't tell you what happened in the assassination.
1:28:17
Speaker 2: It just tells you that one shot fired from behind
1:28:21
Speaker 2: Kennedy that day inflicted that set of wounds on those
1:28:24
Speaker 2: two men. Now, you don't know how many other shots
1:28:26
Speaker 2: were fired. You don't know when the fatal shot was fired.
1:28:28
Speaker 2: You don't know the direction of it, You don't know
1:28:30
Speaker 2: if there was one or two assassins. You don't know
1:28:32
Speaker 2: who the assassin was, you don't know if there was
1:28:34
Speaker 2: a conspiracy. But so many people invest all their time
1:28:38
Speaker 2: into the single bullet. They think that if I make
1:28:40
Speaker 2: the case that the single bullet was right. I'm therefore
1:28:43
Speaker 2: making the case for a single assassin, and I'm not.
1:28:46
Speaker 2: You have to go much further. That's the first step.
1:28:49
Speaker 2: I always thought that if the single bullet was false,
1:28:52
Speaker 2: if I was able to establish that it was false
1:28:54
Speaker 2: at Dale Plaza, then you had very strong evidence of
1:28:58
Speaker 2: a conspiracy us all three shots hit the men, which
1:29:02
Speaker 2: I don't think they did.
1:29:03
Speaker 1: So see see that's where you and I. That's where
1:29:05
Speaker 1: you and I differ because I don't think you need
1:29:07
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory to prove that Lee Harvey Olswald
1:29:10
Speaker 1: acted alone. And you said something just now that really
1:29:14
Speaker 1: surprised me, And I want to get more information on
1:29:17
Speaker 1: this because you're giving the single bullet theory credit to
1:29:21
Speaker 1: someone other than Arlen Spector. And I'm curious as to
1:29:24
Speaker 1: why you're not giving Specter the credit because history seemingly
1:29:28
Speaker 1: has has said that Arlen Spector, who would end up
1:29:31
Speaker 1: being a senator from Pennsylvania, who was a lawyer on
1:29:34
Speaker 1: the Warrant Commission, was the guy who came up with
1:29:37
Speaker 1: that theory. So why why not Arlen Spector? What am
1:29:40
Speaker 1: I missing here?
1:29:41
Speaker 2: You know it is Specter you're you know you're right.
1:29:43
Speaker 2: Spector is the one who comes up with it. But
1:29:44
Speaker 2: it's a theory, okay, But.
1:29:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask Gerald. I don't mean to interrupt you,
1:29:49
Speaker 1: but we have a limited time, so I want to
1:29:51
Speaker 1: make sure I get to as many of these points
1:29:52
Speaker 1: as possible. I'm going to braisee an issue. I'm going
1:29:56
Speaker 1: to bet, and you can tell me if I'm wrong.
1:29:58
Speaker 1: No one has ever raised with you in all the
1:30:00
Speaker 1: thousands of interviews that you have done about this situation.
1:30:04
Speaker 1: The first time I started to seriously question the single
1:30:07
Speaker 1: bullet theory, because I attributed to Arlen Spector, came during
1:30:13
Speaker 1: the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, when Arlin Spector, you
1:30:18
Speaker 1: probably remember this, somehow figured out a way to vote
1:30:23
Speaker 1: not proven citing Scottish law. Now, that to me was
1:30:30
Speaker 1: so absurd and so idiotic, But more importantly than being idiotic,
1:30:35
Speaker 1: it was an indication of a brain that Arlen Spector
1:30:39
Speaker 1: has that he was very prone to reverse engineering his
1:30:44
Speaker 1: thinking that he has a conclusion he needs to get to,
1:30:49
Speaker 1: and he thinks he's the smartest man in the room,
1:30:51
Speaker 1: and he's going to contrive a way to get to
1:30:55
Speaker 1: that conclusion and he's willing to do absurd things like
1:31:00
Speaker 1: site Scottish law to vote Bill Clinton not proven in
1:31:05
Speaker 1: an impeachment trial. At that moment, I lost all faith
1:31:10
Speaker 1: in Arle Inspector because the single bullet theory felt reverse
1:31:14
Speaker 1: engineered to me as an investigator, What is your assessment
1:31:18
Speaker 1: of whether that's a legitimate way of thinking about arl Inspector.
1:31:23
Speaker 2: I'd forgotten that about the Clinton impeachment. You could absolutely
1:31:26
Speaker 2: be right on that, John, And so you know, here's
1:31:28
Speaker 2: my view on Spector in the single bullet. He could
1:31:31
Speaker 2: have reverse engineered it. He could have been on a
1:31:34
Speaker 2: binge drunk spell. He wasn't a drinker, but let's say
1:31:37
Speaker 2: he was and come up with a single bullet one
1:31:39
Speaker 2: night because he thought it was a clever idea. No
1:31:41
Speaker 2: matter how baseless his idea was about the single bullet,
1:31:45
Speaker 2: the real question is whether it's right or wrong. And
1:31:48
Speaker 2: it takes failure analysis and ballistics experts thirty years right
1:31:52
Speaker 2: before they do it the year before. No luck of mind,
1:31:56
Speaker 2: that happened, but it was done before I published case closes.
1:32:00
Speaker 2: Their work is what convinced me. They guess what the
1:32:03
Speaker 2: FBI inspector, they didn't know what was going on because
1:32:05
Speaker 2: they didn't realize how the bullets slowed up as they
1:32:07
Speaker 2: went through the men. They just thought it was at
1:32:09
Speaker 2: full speed, and so Specter got lucky. No question about it.
1:32:13
Speaker 2: Single bullet theory could have been false, and if it
1:32:15
Speaker 2: was false, then we'd be saying, Okay, what else happened.
1:32:19
Speaker 2: I'm convinced that single bullet theory becomes a fact based
1:32:22
Speaker 2: upon the nineteen ninety two ballistics and figure analysis work.
1:32:26
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's get into the actual details of this.
1:32:30
Speaker 1: So the last time I doubt you remember this because
1:32:32
Speaker 1: you do so many interviews, But the last time we
1:32:34
Speaker 1: spoke on the record, I put forward my theory, which frankly,
1:32:39
Speaker 1: is a lot more consistent with the Ockham's razor. It's
1:32:43
Speaker 1: much simpler. My theory is that JFK gets hit in
1:32:47
Speaker 1: the back with the now referred to as pristine magic bullet,
1:32:52
Speaker 1: Connley gets hit with the second shot, and the third
1:32:54
Speaker 1: shot blows off Kennedy's head, and I have explanations for
1:32:58
Speaker 1: everything I believe related to that. You said, I believe
1:33:03
Speaker 1: almost a direct quote that your major problem with my
1:33:06
Speaker 1: theory is James Tig. James Tig is the person who
1:33:11
Speaker 1: was cited by the Warrant Commission as having been hit
1:33:14
Speaker 1: by a fragment from the first shot.
1:33:19
Speaker 2: So if I said that when we talked last time
1:33:21
Speaker 2: on the record, then I'm going to modify it this
1:33:23
Speaker 2: time because my major problem with your layout is that
1:33:27
Speaker 2: the reaction time for Kennedy and Conley when they're struck
1:33:30
Speaker 2: by a bullet is at eighteenth of a second. And
1:33:32
Speaker 2: that's not just me saying it's the enhancement. The digital
1:33:35
Speaker 2: enhancement is a proud from now. I don't believe.
1:33:37
Speaker 1: I don't believe that. I mean, I don't believe. I
1:33:40
Speaker 1: don't believe that, and I would like to address that.
1:33:43
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, because I'm going to
1:33:45
Speaker 1: get to all of it as long as we can do
1:33:47
Speaker 1: it in the time we have allotted, I want to
1:33:50
Speaker 1: talk about James Teague first, because I am astonished forget
1:33:54
Speaker 1: about I want to make very clear you may be
1:33:57
Speaker 1: right about the second this single bullet theory, Okay, I
1:33:59
Speaker 1: am not one hundred percent committed to any theory. I'm
1:34:02
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the truth is, and I
1:34:03
Speaker 1: think you're the best guy to talk to to try
1:34:05
Speaker 1: to figure out the truth. And I even have a
1:34:07
Speaker 1: solution which I'm going to pose to you at the
1:34:09
Speaker 1: end of this interview. But the James Tigue aspect of this,
1:34:14
Speaker 1: to me is absolutely mind blowing that the Warrant Commission
1:34:19
Speaker 1: claims that a guy who was not even in the
1:34:23
Speaker 1: newspaper the next day, who was never in any of
1:34:26
Speaker 1: the initial reports, who only had a cut on his cheek,
1:34:31
Speaker 1: who was located nowhere near where the limo was when
1:34:34
Speaker 1: that first shot was fired, whenever it was, and frankly
1:34:38
Speaker 1: to me, was far closer to the limousine when the
1:34:41
Speaker 1: third shot was fired than the first shot. You would
1:34:46
Speaker 1: you would would you agree Gerald that at the very least,
1:34:50
Speaker 1: the evidence that James Digue was shot by or was
1:34:54
Speaker 1: hit by a fragment of a bullet is remarkably weak
1:34:58
Speaker 1: considering the amount of investigation into this case.
1:35:01
Speaker 2: Would you acknowledge that you don't know what happened to
1:35:03
Speaker 2: that bullet? You're absolutely right, Just as let's say for
1:35:06
Speaker 2: a second, both of these ways, John, If I'm writing,
1:35:09
Speaker 2: the first bullet misses, so it's the sharpest angle, it
1:35:13
Speaker 2: gets deflected by something, maybe maybe the tree. We don't know,
1:35:16
Speaker 2: I'm speculating, because they never set a cherry picker up there.
1:35:18
Speaker 2: And went through that tree to look at it. It
1:35:20
Speaker 2: goes out somewhere in the depository and we lose that
1:35:23
Speaker 2: bullet essentially. But the same thing happens if you're right.
1:35:27
Speaker 2: And Kennedy's you know, struck by the first bullet you
1:35:30
Speaker 2: know what you call CE three ninety nine found in
1:35:33
Speaker 2: the stretcher at Parkland, and Connley's hit by another bullet.
1:35:36
Speaker 2: Where's that bullet that's the real magic bullet?
1:35:38
Speaker 1: Well, Conny Connolly has fragments in his body, as you knows,
1:35:42
Speaker 1: are a fraction of Okay, let me just take this
1:35:46
Speaker 1: one step at a time. So so, in my opinion,
1:35:49
Speaker 1: what we're being asked to believe by the Warring Commission.
1:35:52
Speaker 1: And this is a key part of the single bullet
1:35:54
Speaker 1: theory because you have to explain because you're only explaining
1:35:57
Speaker 1: two shots in a single bullet theory, the one that
1:35:59
Speaker 1: goes through JFK and it's kindly in the one that
1:36:02
Speaker 1: blows off JFK's head. So you need a misshot. And
1:36:04
Speaker 1: this is where I go to our own inspector contriving
1:36:07
Speaker 1: this reverse engineered situation. I am not convinced that there's
1:36:12
Speaker 1: enough evidence that Tigue wasn't just hit with maybe debris
1:36:15
Speaker 1: from the third shot, maybe even a bone fragment. You
1:36:17
Speaker 1: acknowledge that that's possible, right, Okay, Okay, So there's all
1:36:21
Speaker 1: sorts of reasons why Tigue would have had a cut
1:36:23
Speaker 1: on his face. I mean, just he just experienced the
1:36:26
Speaker 1: most traumatic event of his lifetime. And there's no evidence
1:36:30
Speaker 1: that he immediately says, oh my god, I've been shot.
1:36:33
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing like that it was.
1:36:35
Speaker 2: And even if he was hit by a piece of flank,
1:36:38
Speaker 2: little spec of concrete that cut his face, he wasn't shot.
1:36:41
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, But he's not part of the initial reporting
1:36:45
Speaker 1: in the case. And so, but I also want to
1:36:48
Speaker 1: take this from Oswald's perspective. Gerald, and you, I think
1:36:51
Speaker 1: understand Oswald better than anybody else who studied this case.
1:36:54
Speaker 1: So I want your opinion on the psychology of this.
1:36:57
Speaker 1: This has always very much bothered me from a human standpoint.
1:37:02
Speaker 1: So Oswald earlier that year, tries to assassinate General Walker.
1:37:06
Speaker 1: He fires one shot and misses and runs away like
1:37:09
Speaker 1: a scared little schoolgirl. Okay, that's that's a fair assessment, correct.
1:37:13
Speaker 2: He hit him, runs away in victory, thinks he hit
1:37:16
Speaker 2: him right, walkers down, Okay, but take another shot.
1:37:22
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're being asked to Here's what we're
1:37:24
Speaker 1: being asked to believe about Aleswald. He's sitting up there
1:37:28
Speaker 1: in the sixth floor of the school book Depository building,
1:37:31
Speaker 1: and he waits and he waits and he wait. He
1:37:32
Speaker 1: waits for the limbousine to turn the corner, and he
1:37:36
Speaker 1: fires that first shot. And he doesn't just miss JFK.
1:37:41
Speaker 1: He doesn't just miss the limo. He doesn't just miss
1:37:44
Speaker 1: the street. Allegedly, he hits the pavement. Although there's no
1:37:48
Speaker 1: evidence in the Zubbruder film of a payment being hit.
1:37:52
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that I've seen that's conclusive that the
1:37:54
Speaker 1: payment was pavement was ever hit. That is a catastrophic
1:37:59
Speaker 1: miss by any imagination, right, that was a catastrophic mess.
1:38:03
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable mess.
1:38:05
Speaker 2: John, You're making a big assumption though. You're assuming that
1:38:09
Speaker 2: Oswald knows he missed the car. You're assuming that he
1:38:13
Speaker 2: realized missed entirely. How would he know that? Bear with
1:38:15
Speaker 2: me a second. Think of this. This twenty three, just
1:38:18
Speaker 2: turned twenty four year old kid has to decide how
1:38:20
Speaker 2: he's going to take the shops. So he's going to
1:38:21
Speaker 2: take the shots as the cars coming toward him. No,
1:38:24
Speaker 2: he decides not to do that because of course that
1:38:25
Speaker 2: would expose him to all the buildings, including the dow
1:38:28
Speaker 2: text to the left of him. So he decides to
1:38:29
Speaker 2: take it after it's made its turn. Now think, I mean,
1:38:32
Speaker 2: everybody forgets about this. He is shooting at the President
1:38:35
Speaker 2: of the United States and a moving motorcate with Jackie
1:38:37
Speaker 2: Kennedy next to Secret Service there calmly with his Texas
1:38:40
Speaker 2: that you know they that cowboy had miss is coming
1:38:44
Speaker 2: next to him. His heart has to be the adrenaline
1:38:46
Speaker 2: has to be pumping.
1:38:47
Speaker 1: Now.
1:38:48
Speaker 2: He takes not a practice shot. This isn't a shot
1:38:50
Speaker 2: that he's ever taken before. It's the sharpest angle. It's
1:38:53
Speaker 2: at a sharp one hundred and twenty degrees down. He's
1:38:55
Speaker 2: holding that rifle down because that's where the car is
1:38:58
Speaker 2: when it first passes through. And he makes that shot.
1:39:00
Speaker 2: His heart has to be beating through And he doesn't
1:39:03
Speaker 2: hit Kennedy as far as he can see, but he
1:39:05
Speaker 2: doesn't know if he's hit somebody else in the car.
1:39:07
Speaker 1: That is a catastrophic miss Gerald is that missus target.
1:39:12
Speaker 2: But then he has three and a half seconds and
1:39:14
Speaker 2: he's got to recock, aim again and take the next shot,
1:39:18
Speaker 2: which he does. He could have just fled, like he said, Gerald,
1:39:21
Speaker 2: Walker could have thrown the rifle down the left, but
1:39:24
Speaker 2: he takes it and guess what, it's not fatal again.
1:39:28
Speaker 2: He hits his target. But Kennedy's going to survive that
1:39:31
Speaker 2: now the entire assassination is going to go down the drain,
1:39:33
Speaker 2: except Lee is able to take the next five seconds
1:39:36
Speaker 2: and the driver of the car slows it up enough
1:39:38
Speaker 2: for me to be able to get the shot that
1:39:40
Speaker 2: almost misses entirety, but hits a high rear right portion
1:39:44
Speaker 2: of the skull at echine a quarter higher and misses entirely.
1:39:47
Speaker 2: But he pulls it off by that matter. And that's
1:39:49
Speaker 2: how close that assassination is to failing the Walker assassination.
1:39:52
Speaker 1: But but Gerald, I actually think you're making my argument
1:39:55
Speaker 1: for me, because you are making an argument that seems
1:39:59
Speaker 1: so counter to common sense in the way human beings
1:40:03
Speaker 1: would respond. How is the first shot a catastrophic miss?
1:40:08
Speaker 1: But he gathers himself to fire two shots, one that hits,
1:40:12
Speaker 1: in your view, Kennedy in the neck, and the next
1:40:15
Speaker 1: blows off his head. All in the midst of this
1:40:18
Speaker 1: chaos going on that seems incomprehensible from a human stamp.
1:40:22
Speaker 2: And John, I have a question for you. Where please
1:40:24
Speaker 2: your bullet of your second shot that is coming.
1:40:27
Speaker 1: I've already hold on a second, I've already I've already
1:40:31
Speaker 1: I've already known. Well, there's first of all, bullets disappear
1:40:37
Speaker 1: all the time, Gerald, not in cases, you know that.
1:40:40
Speaker 1: But there are there are fragments within Connelly's body.
1:40:45
Speaker 2: Fragments are less than the amount missing from the Christine bullet,
1:40:48
Speaker 2: by the way, which is a misnomer, as you know,
1:40:51
Speaker 2: to call it the pristine bullet, it's like saying somebody's
1:40:53
Speaker 2: almost pregnant. Woman's either pregnant or she's not that bullet.
1:40:55
Speaker 2: I've examined it in person, the actual C. Three ninety
1:40:58
Speaker 2: nine in Washington. It's not a pristine bullet, okay, but.
1:41:03
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like it's gone through several bones. It
1:41:06
Speaker 1: does not look that way, Gerald, You know that.
1:41:08
Speaker 2: Actually, like the way that failure analysis and other ballistics
1:41:12
Speaker 2: experts now have reproduced you've seen, John. In my book,
1:41:16
Speaker 2: I reproduce a bullet that's fired into two carcasses, the
1:41:19
Speaker 2: size and weight of the governor and the president from the.
1:41:23
Speaker 1: Does it look like the bullet that hit Kennedy in
1:41:24
Speaker 1: the head.
1:41:25
Speaker 2: Jerald, it looks exactly like a second bullet.
1:41:28
Speaker 1: No, Gerald answered my question. Does the does three ninety
1:41:32
Speaker 1: nine look anything like the bullet that hit Kennedy in
1:41:34
Speaker 1: the head.
1:41:35
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the direct skull shot, of course not. It
1:41:37
Speaker 2: looks like it should. Three ninety nine looks like the
1:41:40
Speaker 2: bullet that's now reproduced all day long because it hits
1:41:43
Speaker 2: Kennedy without hitting any.
1:41:44
Speaker 1: Bone, which is not possible.
1:41:47
Speaker 2: But you're you're okay, So John, I respect you on
1:41:51
Speaker 2: a lot of things at a Kennedy assassination, and I am
1:41:54
Speaker 2: willing to look at evidence to change my mind. But
1:41:56
Speaker 2: your mind is closed when it comes.
1:41:57
Speaker 1: To no no hold on, hold on. My mind is
1:42:00
Speaker 1: incredibly open.
1:42:01
Speaker 2: We can have and it's entertaining. It's like a food,
1:42:06
Speaker 2: and it's great and everything else. But I'm not going
1:42:08
Speaker 2: to change your mind because Gerald changed.
1:42:10
Speaker 1: Gerald. You can absolutely change my mind, but you just
1:42:14
Speaker 1: you absolutely can't. Let me prove it to you. Let me.
1:42:18
Speaker 2: Growing up, John, let me ask you about that.
1:42:21
Speaker 1: You don't believe that, don't believe what.
1:42:24
Speaker 2: The what I have as the when I show that
1:42:27
Speaker 2: from failure analysis, you don't believe that that bullet slowed
1:42:30
Speaker 2: up as it went through the two men. One thing
1:42:34
Speaker 2: is how much?
1:42:35
Speaker 1: How much could a bullet slow down and still go
1:42:39
Speaker 1: through in hold On and still go through numerous points
1:42:43
Speaker 1: of Connelly's body ending up in his thigh. How could
1:42:45
Speaker 1: that possibly even work? If the bullet slowed down, it
1:42:48
Speaker 1: wouldn't get through Connelly's body.
1:42:50
Speaker 2: Now that's wrong. Eleven to twelve hundred feet a second.
1:42:52
Speaker 2: It hits the rip, it's to the side. That's what
1:42:54
Speaker 2: flattens the bullet out and when it goes through the risk. John,
1:42:57
Speaker 2: This isn't a theory. This is what they reproduce in
1:42:59
Speaker 2: terms of ballistics all day long. Now, nine hundred feet
1:43:02
Speaker 2: a second enough to shatter the bone, it doesn't affect
1:43:05
Speaker 2: the bullet. Four.
1:43:06
Speaker 1: Why would shattering a bone not impact the bullet? Jerald?
1:43:09
Speaker 2: Explain nine hundred and fifty feet with that one hundred
1:43:11
Speaker 2: and sixty five grain bullet, metal jacketed bullet. When fired
1:43:16
Speaker 2: at a lower load of nine hundred and fifty feet,
1:43:18
Speaker 2: it breaks bone consistently and comes out unscathed. Nine hundred
1:43:22
Speaker 2: and fifty feet enough to break the bone, not to
1:43:24
Speaker 2: perform the bullet.
1:43:25
Speaker 1: You said something in your description there of where you
1:43:29
Speaker 1: believe the so called magic bullet hit Kennedy, which is
1:43:32
Speaker 1: one of my many major problems with the single bullet theory.
1:43:36
Speaker 1: And you pointed to the back of your neck and
1:43:38
Speaker 1: you you there's two problems with what I believe you
1:43:43
Speaker 1: just did, because your theory seems to be that the
1:43:45
Speaker 1: bullet hits Kennedy in the neck kind of from the side,
1:43:49
Speaker 1: so which somehow misses his vertebrae, it goes through the throat,
1:43:53
Speaker 1: which if that's the case, in order to get that
1:43:55
Speaker 1: kind of an angle, that is going as far away
1:43:58
Speaker 1: from Connolly as you can pop get. It's going way
1:44:01
Speaker 1: to the left of Connolly, given where the limousine was
1:44:05
Speaker 1: positioned at that time. You you disagree with that.
1:44:09
Speaker 2: No, with all due respect. As a matter of fact,
1:44:11
Speaker 2: that's what convinced me of the fact that this single
1:44:14
Speaker 2: bullet happened, just it's.
1:44:15
Speaker 1: Way too far to the left of Common at that point. Gerald,
1:44:18
Speaker 1: the direction of the bullet.
1:44:20
Speaker 2: We know where they're hit now because of something that
1:44:22
Speaker 2: happened on Comedy And I don't know if you've seen this,
1:44:26
Speaker 2: and that is a discovered hell needs the hell flies
1:44:29
Speaker 2: out and you go back and you check his suit
1:44:32
Speaker 2: and guess what that's where the bullet hole is on him.
1:44:34
Speaker 2: Whether do you think it's yours a single bullet that
1:44:37
Speaker 2: hit him, Whether it's the single bullet that I'm talking about.
1:44:40
Speaker 2: So now you know when Comedy's hit, When Kennedy's hitting
1:44:43
Speaker 2: eighteenth of a second before, that's the speed of the
1:44:45
Speaker 2: bullet twenty four, twenty five. You know where they are
1:44:49
Speaker 2: in the car. Comedy's lower. You recreate with the computer
1:44:51
Speaker 2: whether it's a straight line or not. If it's not
1:44:53
Speaker 2: a straight line, guess what, Case Closed. No single bullet.
1:44:56
Speaker 2: It's a straight line. That doesn't tell you that that's
1:44:58
Speaker 2: how it happened, but it tells you that that at
1:45:00
Speaker 2: that point there's no zogs, no turn, nothing else. That's
1:45:04
Speaker 2: just the crate, the straight evidence of it.
1:45:07
Speaker 1: Well other except that it contradicts John Connolly's own testimony
1:45:10
Speaker 1: and the test of that as well.
1:45:12
Speaker 2: We talked about this. Comedy had my manuscript, and I
1:45:15
Speaker 2: was hopeful that Comedy was going to change his mind.
1:45:17
Speaker 2: The big headline coming out of the publication of Case
1:45:19
Speaker 2: Closed that John Connley was going to say, after thirty
1:45:23
Speaker 2: years that I've changed my mind on the bullet that
1:45:26
Speaker 2: hit me that was going to be the headline news.
1:45:28
Speaker 2: He died. That manuscript was in his case. His secretary
1:45:31
Speaker 2: told me he was reading that manuscript. He got into
1:45:33
Speaker 2: the hospital. He was sick. He never made it back
1:45:36
Speaker 2: with a blurb, but we were hoping from Random House.
1:45:39
Speaker 2: But it Comedy was actually going to endorse that book.
1:45:41
Speaker 2: And that's for the record.
1:45:42
Speaker 1: It did not happen. And I'm that's not your fault,
1:45:45
Speaker 1: but it didn't happen. But I want to go back
1:45:47
Speaker 1: to the position. The positioning of the so called neck
1:45:50
Speaker 1: wound is incredibly important to me because not only do
1:45:53
Speaker 1: I have a problem with the direction that you're because
1:45:55
Speaker 1: you have a problem. The problem is that there's no
1:45:57
Speaker 1: damage to Kennedy's vertebrae, and so therefore it has to
1:46:01
Speaker 1: somehow miss his vertebrae and then go through the throat.
1:46:05
Speaker 1: And but that to me creates a very problematic angle.
1:46:07
Speaker 1: But there's a bigger problem at all. Bigger problem is
1:46:10
Speaker 1: we have the autopsy photos, we have the autopsy sketch,
1:46:14
Speaker 1: and we have Kennedy's shirt and jacket, and as you
1:46:18
Speaker 1: well know, but I'm very eager to hear your explanation
1:46:22
Speaker 1: for it. All of those things I just cited indicate
1:46:25
Speaker 1: that the hole from behind Kennedy is nowhere near his neck.
1:46:30
Speaker 1: It's in his back. It's absolutely, unambiguously in his back,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: his upper right portion of his back. So how do
1:46:39
Speaker 1: you get all this evidence that shows that the first hole,
1:46:43
Speaker 1: the hole in Kennedy's back, is not in the neck
1:46:45
Speaker 1: where you need it to be. How do you explain that?
1:46:48
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because I'm a lawyer, so I look at
1:46:50
Speaker 2: what's the best evidence. I don't look at all the
1:46:52
Speaker 2: evidence it get confused by it and run down one
1:46:54
Speaker 2: path and then another path, and then down this alley
1:46:57
Speaker 2: and then hit myself against the wall. I look for
1:46:58
Speaker 2: the best evidence. So the only evidence that was available,
1:47:01
Speaker 2: we had nothing else at all but Kennedy's clothing, then
1:47:06
Speaker 2: we would all say, gee, that bullet hole was lower
1:47:08
Speaker 2: because we don't realize that he had a back brace
1:47:11
Speaker 2: on and that you could see where the jacket is
1:47:12
Speaker 2: bunched up and the jacket and shirt a bunched up.
1:47:15
Speaker 2: So that's not necessarily the best evidence, But if it
1:47:17
Speaker 2: was the only evidence, that's what we'd have to rely on.
1:47:19
Speaker 2: Then guess what we have it drawing from the autopsy
1:47:22
Speaker 2: that take it by memory and put down on a
1:47:24
Speaker 2: piece of paper. If that was the only evidence we had,
1:47:27
Speaker 2: or if the evidence combined with the clothing, we'd say
1:47:29
Speaker 2: that bullet hole was lower. But guess what the best
1:47:32
Speaker 2: evidence is is a lawyer, I know this. You have
1:47:34
Speaker 2: an accident, ten people are witnessing it. They describe different colors,
1:47:37
Speaker 2: different speeds, who was driving, in everything else. I don't
1:47:40
Speaker 2: care if they all say the car was red. If
1:47:42
Speaker 2: you have a video of that accident and the car
1:47:44
Speaker 2: was blue, I'm going to go with the best evidence
1:47:46
Speaker 2: and say that's that car was blue. In this case,
1:47:49
Speaker 2: the autopsy photos are the best evidence.
1:47:51
Speaker 1: But the photo shows a hole where the autopsy cat
1:47:55
Speaker 1: shows there was a hole.
1:47:56
Speaker 2: Maybe photos that you've seen on the internet, maybe photos
1:48:00
Speaker 2: you've seen reproduced in book. But if you get access
1:48:02
Speaker 2: to the National Archives to see those photos in person,
1:48:05
Speaker 2: you examine them as I have. Right with a forensic
1:48:08
Speaker 2: pathologist like Michael Botton, they will show you exactly that whole.
1:48:12
Speaker 2: Leaves no doubt that the bunch clothing is a waste
1:48:15
Speaker 2: of time, as is the drawing. The photo shows where
1:48:19
Speaker 2: that bullet is, and it's not a lower it's exactly
1:48:23
Speaker 2: where you expect that line to be if you're able
1:48:25
Speaker 2: to match it up to where comedy is as he's
1:48:27
Speaker 2: turning around and it enters into by the way it's tumbling,
1:48:30
Speaker 2: what it hits comedy? You know you say that Commy
1:48:32
Speaker 2: was hit by a separate bullet from oswel The interesting
1:48:35
Speaker 2: thing about that job the entrance comedy. You know what
1:48:38
Speaker 2: that entrance hall was.
1:48:40
Speaker 1: I've heard the tumbling theory, but that's engineered to me.
1:48:44
Speaker 2: But you think the bullet just what started to spin
1:48:48
Speaker 2: on its own because it decided to do so.
1:48:50
Speaker 1: No, I want to go I want to go back
1:48:51
Speaker 1: to what are you citing? You citing Gerald. I want
1:48:57
Speaker 1: to make sure we nail down this this autopsy.
1:49:00
Speaker 2: Issue, the idea that Conmedy was hit by anything but
1:49:03
Speaker 2: a bullet that had already struck something else.
1:49:05
Speaker 1: Well, again, I'm open to that possibility, despite what you
1:49:09
Speaker 1: have already assessed my open minded in this or lack
1:49:11
Speaker 1: thereof to be. But I want to I want to
1:49:13
Speaker 1: go back because when you cite Michael Boden, that to
1:49:16
Speaker 1: me is a no win situation because Michael Boden has
1:49:20
Speaker 1: returned out to be even worse than our ow inspector.
1:49:23
Speaker 1: He's a complete fraud, he's a whore, He's not a
1:49:26
Speaker 1: reliable person. I think you would be willing you acknowledge that.
1:49:29
Speaker 2: But why his reading of all top photo? No?
1:49:33
Speaker 1: But I have never Gerald, I have never seen. I
1:49:36
Speaker 1: have never seen a photo that indicates a hole in
1:49:39
Speaker 1: the back of Kennedy's neck. And I've seen I've seen
1:49:42
Speaker 1: autopsy photos that indicates something different. And I've certainly seen
1:49:46
Speaker 1: the holes in the back of the shirt and the
1:49:48
Speaker 1: and the and the jacket, and I've certainly seen the
1:49:51
Speaker 1: autopsy sketch. All of that. You're consistent with the same thing.
1:49:54
Speaker 2: The issue for you? Have you examined have you requested
1:49:56
Speaker 2: to examine ever? Have you made a request for that?
1:49:59
Speaker 2: Archives never help?
1:50:00
Speaker 1: But I would love to see it. I would love
1:50:02
Speaker 1: to see it. But here's the But here's here's another.
1:50:04
Speaker 1: Because because you've already done all the work, Gerald.
1:50:07
Speaker 2: You need to do it because it might change your view.
1:50:09
Speaker 1: Why I would I would love I would love to
1:50:12
Speaker 1: see a photograph as you described it. But you mentioned
1:50:16
Speaker 1: the video. But Gerald, you mentioned the video. We have
1:50:18
Speaker 1: a video, and that is another problem with this entire
1:50:23
Speaker 1: neck throat wound situation. Do you believe that the zer
1:50:27
Speaker 1: Bruder film shows JFK, as was widely perceived, especially considering
1:50:32
Speaker 1: the fact that the first photographs that the public saw
1:50:35
Speaker 1: of this event was not a film. It was in
1:50:38
Speaker 1: Time Life magazine, where there was still photographs, which is
1:50:42
Speaker 1: very different than seeing a film. As you know, do
1:50:44
Speaker 1: you believe that the Zerbruder film shows JFK grabbing his throat?
1:50:49
Speaker 2: Do you believe that he's having a neurological response to
1:50:53
Speaker 2: trauma the bullet having passed through his neck, Whether he's
1:50:56
Speaker 2: grabbing his throat and his arms are going up and
1:50:58
Speaker 2: they're locked into this position. We know that they're locked
1:51:00
Speaker 2: because when Jackie Kennedy next to him, to the left
1:51:03
Speaker 2: of him, pushes down on his elbow, it doesn't go
1:51:05
Speaker 2: down easily. So he's having some form of a neurological response.
1:51:09
Speaker 1: So you acknowledge he does not grab his throat.
1:51:13
Speaker 2: I'm saying that it's a neurological response. I don't know.
1:51:17
Speaker 2: I'm not in front of there, and I've never been
1:51:19
Speaker 2: able to We only looking at the subcruiter film from
1:51:21
Speaker 2: an angle that's very difficult to tell. So I've never
1:51:24
Speaker 2: said that he's grabbing his.
1:51:25
Speaker 1: Throat because he doesn't grab his throat. He clinches his fists,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: and what I agree with you is a neurological reaction,
1:51:31
Speaker 1: but I believe it's a delayed neurological reaction from being
1:51:35
Speaker 1: hit in the back a couple inches from his spine.
1:51:38
Speaker 1: You believe that that's somehow a neurological reaction from somehow
1:51:42
Speaker 1: missing the spinal cord going through the throat, And yet
1:51:46
Speaker 1: he does not, as is widely perceived at the time
1:51:48
Speaker 1: because of the photographs, he does not grab his throat.
1:51:52
Speaker 1: That's an important point, Gerald, because the the perception of
1:51:55
Speaker 1: the grabbing of the throat is a huge part of
1:51:58
Speaker 1: how people interpret the womb that Parkland that gets made
1:52:01
Speaker 1: into the tracheotomy. Do you would not agree with that perception.
1:52:04
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine, as we're talking about this, how
1:52:06
Speaker 2: this issue so critical to you is one where you
1:52:10
Speaker 2: have just talked about it, speculated about it, but haven't
1:52:14
Speaker 2: done the actual last bit of legwork to go and
1:52:16
Speaker 2: examine those autopsy photos yourself.
1:52:18
Speaker 1: I saw he doesn't grab his throat.
1:52:22
Speaker 2: They turned you down. They wouldn't give you ass you've
1:52:25
Speaker 2: been applying, you've appealed, that would be different.
1:52:28
Speaker 1: But I would be happy to look at anything you
1:52:31
Speaker 1: have that want to show me.
1:52:32
Speaker 2: I don't have that shows.
1:52:34
Speaker 1: Okay, but you acknowledge, you acknowledge that Jka does not
1:52:38
Speaker 1: grab his throat, and you acknowledge that.
1:52:41
Speaker 2: I don't acknowledge that because I don't know. I'm just
1:52:43
Speaker 2: saying he has a neurological response. His arms come up,
1:52:46
Speaker 2: he's grabbing his throat. Maybe I don't know, but I'm
1:52:49
Speaker 2: not saying he is. I'm not saying he's not. I
1:52:51
Speaker 2: just know his response belt he's where the arms come
1:52:53
Speaker 2: up and they're locked, right.
1:52:54
Speaker 1: And because it's a neurological response that's delayed from in
1:52:58
Speaker 1: my opinion, potentially the back wound that just lodges there
1:53:01
Speaker 1: and falls out, and which Paul Landis's testimony is consistent with,
1:53:05
Speaker 1: which I want to get to in just a second.
1:53:07
Speaker 1: But I don't want to leave the throat wound yet, Okay,
1:53:10
Speaker 1: because there's another piece of evidence that I've never heard
1:53:13
Speaker 1: you speak about. But as you know, there are many
1:53:16
Speaker 1: photographs of the assassination as it is happening, and maybe
1:53:21
Speaker 1: one of the most important is one that is from
1:53:23
Speaker 1: the perspective of being in front of the limousine, pointing
1:53:27
Speaker 1: back towards the school book depository. Building the assass the
1:53:30
Speaker 1: first shots have clearly already been fired. There's chaos in
1:53:34
Speaker 1: the limousine. And one of the many reasons that this
1:53:37
Speaker 1: photograph is important. By the way, do you know the
1:53:39
Speaker 1: photograph I'm referring to this is a photograph that does
1:53:41
Speaker 1: not show a crack in the windshield yet, which is,
1:53:44
Speaker 1: as you know, very very important because it proves, in
1:53:48
Speaker 1: my opinion, and I think you agree with this, the
1:53:50
Speaker 1: direction of the third shot because the windshield.
1:53:54
Speaker 2: By the way, do you know Roseberry Willis?
1:53:56
Speaker 1: I know, I do not know Rosemary Willis.
1:53:58
Speaker 2: Why I think that rose Mary Willis is a witness
1:54:01
Speaker 2: that you would enjoy reading about because she is your
1:54:04
Speaker 2: visual marker on the supruter film that they first shot,
1:54:07
Speaker 2: which you think hit Kennedy, actually missed entirely because she
1:54:12
Speaker 2: starts to turn around and react to that bullet at
1:54:14
Speaker 2: around frames one sixty, about sixty frames before me.
1:54:18
Speaker 1: The little girl, Yeah, the little You and I agree
1:54:21
Speaker 1: that she is the marker for when the first shot
1:54:23
Speaker 1: was fired. I one hundred percent agree with you one
1:54:26
Speaker 1: hundred percent, But that doesn't indicate that the shot was missed.
1:54:29
Speaker 1: That just means that it hit Kennedy sooner than we thought.
1:54:32
Speaker 1: There's no evidence that she saw a missed shot, so she.
1:54:36
Speaker 2: But I don't understand then, So if you go for
1:54:38
Speaker 2: some frames.
1:54:39
Speaker 1: Can I go back to the photograph of Gerald, because
1:54:41
Speaker 1: you didn't let me finish the point.
1:54:42
Speaker 2: I mean that Kennedy just sits in the car John
1:54:45
Speaker 2: for four seconds.
1:54:46
Speaker 1: It's not for second yet.
1:54:48
Speaker 2: It is frames one sixty to twenty four we're talking about.
1:54:51
Speaker 1: Now, because because Kennedy goes as you know, Kennedy is
1:54:54
Speaker 1: blocked by a road sign as he starts to react.
1:54:57
Speaker 2: And so he goes into the roadside, just sitting there
1:55:00
Speaker 2: and and waving. So I guess he's been hit by
1:55:02
Speaker 2: bullet but doesn't respond.
1:55:03
Speaker 1: You gets hit, well, I believe there was a delayed reaction.
1:55:07
Speaker 1: Now I don't want to We can argue about how
1:55:09
Speaker 1: long that delayed reaction is, but I want to go
1:55:11
Speaker 1: back to that photograph because this is critical to the
1:55:13
Speaker 1: throat wound situation. That photograph that shows no crack in
1:55:17
Speaker 1: the windshield, which is I think very important to proving
1:55:19
Speaker 1: that Oswald or at least someone from the sixth floor
1:55:22
Speaker 1: of the school book Depository building fired the shot. It
1:55:25
Speaker 1: shows Kennedy and you know what, it doesn't show, Gerald,
1:55:29
Speaker 1: it doesn't show any sort of a wound from in
1:55:32
Speaker 1: his throat. There's no throat wound at that time. And
1:55:37
Speaker 1: based on your.
1:55:38
Speaker 2: Tie on chom the bullet went for the shirt, have
1:55:42
Speaker 2: you examined the clothing?
1:55:44
Speaker 1: Why is it? Why is it? I really want to
1:55:46
Speaker 1: understand from your why Gerald, Gerald? I'm well aware, Gerald,
1:55:53
Speaker 1: Please please, I'm on your side.
1:55:54
Speaker 2: Gerald, you're not because you're on the side of speculation.
1:56:00
Speaker 1: You mentioned the holes in the tie and the shirt.
1:56:03
Speaker 1: Why are they so small? Why are they so incredibly small?
1:56:07
Speaker 2: Because have you held that actual carcano bullet?
1:56:10
Speaker 1: That metal bullet is way larger than the holes in
1:56:12
Speaker 1: the pie. You're way way larger.
1:56:15
Speaker 2: No, no, no, that bullet has a pinpoint edge. Guess what.
1:56:19
Speaker 2: It's not a blood hit. It's not a point, it's
1:56:22
Speaker 2: a and you know what those you know what it leaves.
1:56:24
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, it's meant to go through
1:56:26
Speaker 2: somebody exactly like it does. Because that's why they can't.
1:56:29
Speaker 1: It can't make a microscopic hole in a pie.
1:56:33
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it leaves exactly what you would expect as
1:56:36
Speaker 2: a bullet of that size passing through with that point.
1:56:39
Speaker 2: And guess what that's why you don't see the wound
1:56:41
Speaker 2: John because he has a eye.
1:56:43
Speaker 1: But there's another there's a there's another, there's another part
1:56:46
Speaker 1: of that story of that photograph. And that gets me
1:56:50
Speaker 1: to the testimony of the people that were either in
1:56:52
Speaker 1: the limo or just near the limo, which is I
1:56:56
Speaker 1: believe very problematic for the single bullet theory. The first person,
1:57:00
Speaker 1: I want a reference since we're talking about the throat wound,
1:57:03
Speaker 1: and I'm very curious and very open minded to the
1:57:06
Speaker 1: explanation for this. I've never heard you speak about the
1:57:09
Speaker 1: testimony of Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, and Roy Kellerman
1:57:13
Speaker 1: had been assigned to JFK for the entire three years
1:57:17
Speaker 1: of his presidency, and three or four days after the assassination,
1:57:21
Speaker 1: he testified to the FBI that he was positive that
1:57:25
Speaker 1: he heard Kennedy respond verbally verbally to being hit. Now,
1:57:32
Speaker 1: how does that possibly even knew what he said? He said,
1:57:35
Speaker 1: my god, I've been hit, which I think is interesting
1:57:38
Speaker 1: from a substance standpoint, given my theory. What is your
1:57:41
Speaker 1: explanation for how that is possible? If JFK has already
1:57:45
Speaker 1: been hit through the throat, how is that possible?
1:57:48
Speaker 2: I don't know how Kellerman comes up with that three
1:57:50
Speaker 2: or four days later. But I do know this. Jackie
1:57:52
Speaker 2: Kennedy confirmed that. Oh no, hold on a second, she didn't.
1:57:56
Speaker 2: I'm sorry she didn't, but you know who did was
1:58:00
Speaker 2: So you think Kellerman no, Connedy confirmed that. No, he
1:58:04
Speaker 2: was wrong on other things. He was in shock, missus
1:58:06
Speaker 2: Conley Nelly must have confirmed that. No, no, no, no,
1:58:09
Speaker 2: she didn't either. Well, guess what. William Greer, the driver
1:58:12
Speaker 2: of the car, must to confirm that, but he didn't
1:58:14
Speaker 2: confirm it.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: No.
1:58:15
Speaker 2: I think Kellerman, in his own shock, is he making
1:58:18
Speaker 2: up to cover for the fact that he says he
1:58:20
Speaker 2: heard Kennedy say that he was shot? And what was
1:58:24
Speaker 2: Kellerman's reaction? He's the lead Secret Service agent that day
1:58:26
Speaker 2: in Dallas shop. Does he jump over his seat onto
1:58:29
Speaker 2: the back of the car and throw his body on
1:58:31
Speaker 2: top of the president to save his life? Does he
1:58:34
Speaker 2: do everything possible that later happens when you should be
1:58:37
Speaker 2: trying to save the president. No, he doesn't get out
1:58:40
Speaker 2: of that seat, and he must have held his head
1:58:43
Speaker 2: in shame for a number of years over the fact
1:58:45
Speaker 2: that he doesn't react to actually try to get into
1:58:48
Speaker 2: the back to save the president. So his testimony is
1:58:52
Speaker 2: the testimony of an agent who didn't do what he
1:58:54
Speaker 2: was supposed to do. Did you hear it?
1:58:56
Speaker 1: Look, I am more than willing Gerald, I am more
1:58:59
Speaker 1: than willing to accept. And someone may be grossly mistaken
1:59:03
Speaker 1: and or lying, but you but you acknowledge that he
1:59:06
Speaker 1: has to be grossly mistaken and or lying for the
1:59:09
Speaker 1: single pullet theory to still work.
1:59:11
Speaker 2: Lying, he just has to be mistaken. And again, Johnny
1:59:13
Speaker 2: was grossly mistaken. Everybody in the car. Everybody in the
1:59:17
Speaker 2: car said, by the way Jack Kennedy said when he
1:59:21
Speaker 2: was struck, oh my god, I can't believe they're shooting
1:59:23
Speaker 2: at me here in Dallas. I wonder why they're doing that,
1:59:25
Speaker 2: A long sentence like that.
1:59:27
Speaker 1: And then later what he said, that's not what Kellerman
1:59:30
Speaker 1: justified gave that testimony.
1:59:32
Speaker 2: Then the question is, you know, did he say that
1:59:35
Speaker 2: or is it possible with the bullet that went through
1:59:38
Speaker 2: his you know, high necked throat and through his throat,
1:59:42
Speaker 2: with the neurological response that he had, he's his head's
1:59:46
Speaker 2: blown out five seconds later, So he's got to say
1:59:48
Speaker 2: it somewhere in there, But I don't know, you know,
1:59:51
Speaker 2: nobody else says the same thing that Kelorman does. Kellerman
1:59:55
Speaker 2: heard that. I'm sure he's telling the truth. I don't
1:59:57
Speaker 2: think he's lying. I don't think any of those ages,
2:00:00
Speaker 2: even when they were wrong. Serainnie Conley, who I think
2:00:02
Speaker 2: was wrong. He's about sequence of shots, but he wasn't lying.
2:00:06
Speaker 2: He was telling it as he saw it.
2:00:08
Speaker 1: Okay. So just to be clear, you need Connolly to
2:00:11
Speaker 1: be wrong and his wife to be wrong about the
2:00:14
Speaker 1: fact that in their estimation, their strong estimation, that the
2:00:19
Speaker 1: first shot was fired, and that they believed that Kennedy
2:00:22
Speaker 1: and he were hit with different shots. You need Kellerman
2:00:25
Speaker 1: to be grossly mistaken about hearing Kennedy verbally respond to
2:00:30
Speaker 1: being shot. I'm also curious about your opinion of Clint Hill,
2:00:33
Speaker 1: a guy I know you have a lot of respect for.
2:00:36
Speaker 1: Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent who famously jumped
2:00:39
Speaker 1: on the back of the limousine to try to bring
2:00:42
Speaker 1: Jackie back into the limo, and he was always very
2:00:47
Speaker 1: very clear that he associated the sound of the first
2:00:50
Speaker 1: shot with looking at the president seeing JFK react. There
2:00:57
Speaker 1: was never any question in interpreting Clint hills testimony that
2:01:01
Speaker 1: the first shot hits JFK. That's a problem for you.
2:01:06
Speaker 1: You need him to be wrong too, don't you. Gerald.
2:01:09
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting is your relying on people who
2:01:13
Speaker 2: are reacting to the assassination of the President of the
2:01:15
Speaker 2: United States in real time. Is it possible that it's
2:01:18
Speaker 2: supposed to be absolutely accurate in everything that they recall
2:01:22
Speaker 2: at that moment of trauma. There could be some mistakes.
2:01:25
Speaker 1: I say, sure, there could be.
2:01:27
Speaker 2: What's the best evidence?
2:01:28
Speaker 1: You need everyone to be mistaken? No, you need everyone.
2:01:31
Speaker 1: You need Bill Kellerman, you need both conys to be wrong.
2:01:37
Speaker 2: Thank goodness for the secruiter film and thank goodness for
2:01:40
Speaker 2: the autopsy photos and X rays. Without that, we would
2:01:43
Speaker 2: have to go with their testimony. If the best evidence
2:01:46
Speaker 2: John was Kellerman's testimony and Hill's testimony, I'm.
2:01:50
Speaker 1: Not saying that's the best I'm saying it needs to
2:01:51
Speaker 1: be explained.
2:01:53
Speaker 2: It's not that it's explained. It's trumped by better evidence,
2:01:57
Speaker 2: which is the autopsy photos, X rays and the upruiter film. Now,
2:02:03
Speaker 2: if somebody thinks that the X rays and photos have
2:02:05
Speaker 2: been faked, then they need to prove that. But the
2:02:08
Speaker 2: House Select Committee looked at whether they were tempered positive
2:02:12
Speaker 2: in this case.
2:02:13
Speaker 1: Okay, so just to be to review. You need the
2:02:15
Speaker 1: person who drew way.
2:02:17
Speaker 2: One thing to know that. Even though the autopsy, X
2:02:20
Speaker 2: rays and photos show you that Kennedy was only struck
2:02:24
Speaker 2: from behind that day, okay, doesn't tell you if there
2:02:27
Speaker 2: was a single assassin, could have been two. There could
2:02:30
Speaker 2: have been an assassin on the grassy knoll who fired
2:02:31
Speaker 2: and missed. It just tells you where the body was
2:02:34
Speaker 2: hit from that date. Doesn't tell you whether there was
2:02:36
Speaker 2: a conspiracy, multiple assassins, who was involved. People think often
2:02:41
Speaker 2: if you say that Kennedy was only hit from behind,
2:02:43
Speaker 2: you say it was a single bullet, as I believe,
2:02:45
Speaker 2: and then a head shot, you're saying it's Oswald alone.
2:02:48
Speaker 2: That's not true at all. You just established where the
2:02:50
Speaker 2: shooter was who was successful. Now you have to determine
2:02:53
Speaker 2: who the shooter was and if there were other shooters there.
2:02:55
Speaker 1: Okay, I just want to review, so because we're running
2:02:57
Speaker 1: out of time and you've been very patient with me.
2:02:59
Speaker 1: I a shit, very much. But but you need the
2:03:02
Speaker 1: person who drew the autopsy sketch to be wrong. You
2:03:06
Speaker 1: need the shirt and the jacket to be bunched. You
2:03:09
Speaker 1: need you need, you need Kellerman, you need hold on,
2:03:12
Speaker 1: hold on, you need Kellerman to be greatly mistaken, you
2:03:15
Speaker 1: need Clint Hill to be greatly mistaken, you need both
2:03:18
Speaker 1: Connolly's to be greatly mistaken. So let's go to Paul Landers.
2:03:22
Speaker 2: So, Paul, when you say that, when you leave out
2:03:25
Speaker 2: at the end, it's not just a matter of going
2:03:27
Speaker 2: through that evidence if that's the only evidence.
2:03:30
Speaker 1: But I'm not suggesting you're I'm not saying you're wrong.
2:03:33
Speaker 1: I'm saying that's what you need to be right.
2:03:35
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm asking not that I'm right. Is there
2:03:38
Speaker 2: better evidence? Go with the best evidence, And that's what
2:03:41
Speaker 2: you have to do is an investigate.
2:03:43
Speaker 1: And I've looked at the zerverta from a thousand times
2:03:45
Speaker 1: because it's the best evidence. And I am not convinced
2:03:48
Speaker 1: that Connolly's reaction is not after JFK's.
2:03:51
Speaker 2: Which is archives to look at the X races.
2:03:56
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I've not been to the National Archives. I
2:03:59
Speaker 1: would love to see whatever photos convinced you and Michael
2:04:01
Speaker 1: Boden that there was a shot that hit JFK in
2:04:05
Speaker 1: the neck that somehow the guy who wrote the sketch
2:04:08
Speaker 1: completely missed. But let's talk about Paul Landis, because this
2:04:12
Speaker 1: to me was you know, up until the Paul Landers
2:04:15
Speaker 1: book just before the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination. I
2:04:18
Speaker 1: was not I was no better than fifty to fifty
2:04:22
Speaker 1: on whether your theory or my theory carried more weight.
2:04:25
Speaker 1: I would go back and forth, you know, maybe sixty forty,
2:04:28
Speaker 1: depending on my mood. But when Paul Landis comes forward
2:04:32
Speaker 1: and it's a weird story, I fully acknowledge this. But
2:04:36
Speaker 1: when he says he found three ninety nine the so
2:04:40
Speaker 1: called single bullet in the back of the limo where
2:04:44
Speaker 1: JFK was sitting, which is way more consistent with my
2:04:48
Speaker 1: theory of that bullet falling out of JFK's back than
2:04:51
Speaker 1: it is coming to rest in John Connelly's thigh, I'm
2:04:55
Speaker 1: sorry that that, to me is significant and pushes the
2:05:01
Speaker 1: preponderance of evidence in my direction. What is your way
2:05:05
Speaker 1: of interpreting Paul Landis that is still consistent with the
2:05:08
Speaker 1: single bullet theory?
2:05:10
Speaker 2: Now, John, you're asking that is sort of a rhetorical question.
2:05:13
Speaker 1: Oh God, no, what I mean.
2:05:14
Speaker 2: No, what I mean is, have you read my update
2:05:17
Speaker 2: for the sixtieth anniversary editor?
2:05:19
Speaker 1: I have heard you talk. I've heard you talk about
2:05:22
Speaker 1: your interpretation of Landa's story, which I don't find that convincing,
2:05:26
Speaker 1: but I want to hear it from you directly.
2:05:28
Speaker 2: Landis is the key to see three ninety nine in
2:05:30
Speaker 2: a single bullet. I explained in my chapter.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: Man, when you tell us your version of how that.
2:05:35
Speaker 2: Happens, I rely upon what he said. He did find
2:05:38
Speaker 2: that bullet. We now know how it ended up on
2:05:39
Speaker 2: a stretcher at parked On the hospital. And I'm surprised
2:05:42
Speaker 2: you haven't read it, because I go through this in detail,
2:05:44
Speaker 2: line by line of what he said, as a matter
2:05:46
Speaker 2: of fact, can compare it to other witnesses. He did,
2:05:48
Speaker 2: in fact find the bullet. We now know that. I
2:05:51
Speaker 2: believe that it was not a story that he made
2:05:53
Speaker 2: up all of a sudden sixty years later, because Clent
2:05:55
Speaker 2: Hill told me that he had talked to other agents
2:05:57
Speaker 2: about that beforehand. And as a matter of fact, when
2:06:00
Speaker 2: comedy is taken out of the car, should look I
2:06:03
Speaker 2: cite those photographs as a matter of fact from the
2:06:05
Speaker 2: Dallas reporters who are around there. When they take Commedy out,
2:06:08
Speaker 2: they go up to him at Parkland Hospital, the emergency
2:06:10
Speaker 2: crew gets who they're worried about. They're worried about the President.
2:06:14
Speaker 2: That's what they want to get out. Commedy's a big,
2:06:15
Speaker 2: tall guy. He's in that front little seat, and you
2:06:18
Speaker 2: know how they get him out to see some of
2:06:19
Speaker 2: those pictures. They turn Commedy around. They've got legs up
2:06:22
Speaker 2: like this. The bullet that we all thought popped out
2:06:26
Speaker 2: on the stretcher when Comedy was brought into the emergency
2:06:29
Speaker 2: room pops out in that car and Paul Landis's young
2:06:33
Speaker 2: secret Service agent finds it and he makes the fatal
2:06:35
Speaker 2: mistake of putting it in his pocket and then going
2:06:38
Speaker 2: into the emergency room and he's watching Kennedy being worked on,
2:06:41
Speaker 2: where Landis later says, I put it at the feet
2:06:44
Speaker 2: of the president. He didn't because the president at that
2:06:47
Speaker 2: point was not left alone. But what he did do
2:06:50
Speaker 2: as he was leading that and when he told Clint
2:06:51
Speaker 2: Hill and he told other agents, and I report that
2:06:54
Speaker 2: in my update is is he was leaving the hospital,
2:06:57
Speaker 2: he panicked and he didn't know what they were going
2:06:58
Speaker 2: to do, and he dropped it on his stretcher in
2:07:00
Speaker 2: that hallway. And guess what. There were two stretchers we
2:07:03
Speaker 2: now know one of them was the stretcher Comedy was
2:07:06
Speaker 2: brought in on whuld S They brought down and left
2:07:08
Speaker 2: in the hallway. The other stretcher was a fourteen year
2:07:10
Speaker 2: old kid who had been involved in an accident who
2:07:12
Speaker 2: arrived there at an emergency and they put that stretcher
2:07:15
Speaker 2: over the side. You know, the warrant Commission made a mistake.
2:07:18
Speaker 2: They said afterwards, Gee, when the head of maintenance bumped
2:07:21
Speaker 2: into one of those into the stretcher and the bullet
2:07:23
Speaker 2: fell on the floor and that turned out to be
2:07:25
Speaker 2: CE three ninety nine. They looked at the two stretchers
2:07:28
Speaker 2: and they said, well, one of them is Conley's, so
2:07:30
Speaker 2: it must have been on Connedy's that must have poppedut
2:07:31
Speaker 2: where they were working on and they took them off
2:07:33
Speaker 2: the stretcher to the emergency room hospital bed. Guess what,
2:07:37
Speaker 2: we don't know that as a matter of fact, it's
2:07:38
Speaker 2: possible that Land has just plopped it on the stretcher
2:07:41
Speaker 2: without knowing that the fourteen year old kid who'd been
2:07:43
Speaker 2: brought in. But what we know for sure is that
2:07:46
Speaker 2: we have now a chain of custody as flawed as
2:07:48
Speaker 2: it is, that would have been attacked inside the courtroom,
2:07:51
Speaker 2: and that is a Paul Landers has finally explained how
2:07:54
Speaker 2: that bullet ended up on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital
2:07:56
Speaker 2: didn't pop out of Conley's eigh. It popped out essentially
2:07:59
Speaker 2: when he was being wrestled out of the car. Was
2:08:02
Speaker 2: found by Landis, who made the mistake of putting it
2:08:04
Speaker 2: on a stretcher, and there it was found afterwards when
2:08:07
Speaker 2: the head of maintenance bumps into it. Landis's testimony is
2:08:11
Speaker 2: the final bit of evidence to figure out how the
2:08:13
Speaker 2: single bullet ended up as CE three ninety nine.
2:08:16
Speaker 1: Gerald. I think this is the weakest part of your
2:08:18
Speaker 1: argument because hold on, hold on, hold on a second.
2:08:21
Speaker 1: This is what you're asking us to believe. So instead
2:08:25
Speaker 1: of Okham's razor where the bullet is found in the
2:08:28
Speaker 1: back of the limousine, that they're falling out of JFK's back,
2:08:31
Speaker 1: where the autopsy sketch indicates there was there was a.
2:08:35
Speaker 2: Photos show You're out of date. You're sixty years out of.
2:08:38
Speaker 1: Hold Gerald, Gerald, Jerald, would you let me just finish
2:08:41
Speaker 1: what you're This is important because this is what you're
2:08:43
Speaker 1: asking us to believe. You're asking us lit Jerald.
2:08:48
Speaker 2: But you know what, you are smarter than this. You're
2:08:51
Speaker 2: smarter enough to follow the evidence. You're smarter, Erald.
2:08:53
Speaker 1: I'm following you. I want people to understand what you're
2:08:58
Speaker 1: asking us to believe.
2:08:59
Speaker 2: You're as Gerald, autopsy showed that is not the case.
2:09:06
Speaker 2: It's like saying, by the way, I looked at the
2:09:08
Speaker 2: World Trade Center, it was up and then after nine
2:09:10
Speaker 2: eleven was down, and you're saying, no, I think it's
2:09:12
Speaker 2: still up.
2:09:12
Speaker 1: No, because we have video of that.
2:09:15
Speaker 2: Hold on, we got autopsy photos here.
2:09:17
Speaker 1: Okay, Gerald, I want people to understand, and I want
2:09:20
Speaker 1: you to fully acknowledge what you're asking people to believe
2:09:23
Speaker 1: with regard to the Paul Landis testimony. So you believe Landis,
2:09:27
Speaker 1: But this is what happens. So the so called magic
2:09:31
Speaker 1: Pristine bullet is in Connolly. It drops out in the
2:09:35
Speaker 1: back of the limousine where Kennedy was sitting because they're
2:09:38
Speaker 1: dragging Connolly's body out and it just happens to fall
2:09:42
Speaker 1: out of his thigh right where Kennedy was. Then it
2:09:45
Speaker 1: gets home. Hold on a second, it then gets picked.
2:09:48
Speaker 2: Do you know what the speed was when it went
2:09:50
Speaker 2: into Comedy sty It doesn't matter.
2:09:52
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what because what you're asking your company, second, Gerald,
2:09:57
Speaker 1: what you're asking hold on, Gerald.
2:09:59
Speaker 2: Please, you don't know the facts on this, John, This
2:10:01
Speaker 2: is why.
2:10:02
Speaker 1: Gerald the bullet. I'm granting you all sorts of benefit
2:10:09
Speaker 1: of the doubt. I just want people to understand what
2:10:10
Speaker 1: you're saying. So the bullet falls out right where JFK was.
2:10:15
Speaker 1: It gets picked up by landis Landis brings it into
2:10:18
Speaker 1: the operating room of JFK because he's presuming, because he
2:10:22
Speaker 1: found it in the back of the limo, that this
2:10:23
Speaker 1: was a bullet that hit JFK. He tries to leave
2:10:26
Speaker 1: it with on JFK stretcher, but accidentally leaves it on
2:10:30
Speaker 1: a stretcher that would later be determined to be Connelly Stretcher. Therefore,
2:10:35
Speaker 1: somehow coming back full circle to the guy who whose
2:10:39
Speaker 1: body the bullet was in to begin with, That is
2:10:41
Speaker 1: a bonker's story.
2:10:42
Speaker 2: John, you missed my point. It wasn't Comedy stretcher the stretcher,
2:10:46
Speaker 2: but it.
2:10:47
Speaker 1: Was, so it was a mistake in his Connolly stretcher.
2:10:50
Speaker 2: A comedy stretcher was in that hallway, and the warrant
2:10:53
Speaker 2: Commission made the mistake of assuming it had to come
2:10:55
Speaker 2: from Comedy stretcher K. They could never have imagined that
2:10:57
Speaker 2: a secret service agent had picked up the bullet and
2:11:00
Speaker 2: then dropped.
2:11:00
Speaker 1: In a well. But Gerald, forgive me if for years
2:11:04
Speaker 1: I have always theorized that they screwed up on whose
2:11:06
Speaker 1: stretcher that was, and so forgive me. When Landis's story
2:11:09
Speaker 1: comes out and he finds a bullet exactly where JFK is,
2:11:12
Speaker 1: and it's consistent with my theory that they didn't really
2:11:15
Speaker 1: know who stretcher that bullet was found on, that I
2:11:17
Speaker 1: somehow look at this and go, wait a minute, that's
2:11:20
Speaker 1: way more consistent with my theory than when a single
2:11:22
Speaker 1: bullet theory. But look, I frankly, Gerald, I frankly, with
2:11:25
Speaker 1: all due respect, I think that your interpretation of Landis
2:11:28
Speaker 1: is the worst example of potential reversed engineered thinking, because
2:11:32
Speaker 1: you need, you need a result, and therefore you're coming
2:11:35
Speaker 1: up with this contrived You talk about speculation. This is
2:11:39
Speaker 1: pure speculation about what they did with Connley's body and
2:11:41
Speaker 1: how the bullet dropped out of him.
2:11:43
Speaker 2: I wrote a substecond issue. You have to be willing
2:11:45
Speaker 2: to always say follows.
2:11:46
Speaker 1: I'm happy to look at whatever you want me to
2:11:48
Speaker 1: look at. I'm happy to look at it. Whatever happened.
2:11:50
Speaker 2: Last question about Landis, I thought that he was not credible.
2:11:55
Speaker 2: I wrote a substack that questioned why he was coming
2:11:57
Speaker 2: out so late with this story. I didn't think it
2:11:59
Speaker 2: was right. It was own. After I spoke to Clint
2:12:02
Speaker 2: Hill and had conversations with him, and he explained to
2:12:05
Speaker 2: me Landis and I started to understand it, because initially
2:12:08
Speaker 2: I thought Landis was lying or false, and then I
2:12:11
Speaker 2: came to believe him, and that I'm John. All I
2:12:15
Speaker 2: can say is it's only a twelve or thirteen page
2:12:18
Speaker 2: section that I've added to the to case close. It's
2:12:21
Speaker 2: not that long, and if you read it, but Jared.
2:12:23
Speaker 1: I already I already know what your theory is. I
2:12:26
Speaker 1: already know what your theory is. Gerald. And frankly, I
2:12:29
Speaker 1: think you came to believe Landis because you came up
2:12:31
Speaker 1: with a scenario as creative as it is, that is
2:12:33
Speaker 1: consistent with your theory, which is the definition of reverse engineering.
2:12:38
Speaker 2: Is the way it happens. So let me ask you
2:12:41
Speaker 2: a question. If Landis had found that bullet in.
2:12:46
Speaker 1: Where Connley was, I would have said I'm wrong. No, No,
2:12:49
Speaker 1: I would have said I'm wrong. I would have see
2:12:51
Speaker 1: that's the difference between the two of us. Gerald. I
2:12:53
Speaker 1: would have said, I'm wrong.
2:12:54
Speaker 2: And an idea from the people that took onmny out
2:12:57
Speaker 2: how they handled him.
2:12:58
Speaker 1: No, No, although I woant this is a very important point.
2:13:00
Speaker 1: If Paul Landers had said, you know what, I found
2:13:02
Speaker 1: a bullet where Governor Connolly was and I and I
2:13:06
Speaker 1: brought it into the hospital, I would say, oh my god,
2:13:09
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory is correct. I'm wrong. Three ninety
2:13:12
Speaker 1: nine was found with Connolly, not with JFK.
2:13:15
Speaker 2: You have to read my you really have updates.
2:13:18
Speaker 1: Just I just heard. I just heard you talk about it.
2:13:20
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about it many times. My last
2:13:22
Speaker 1: question is Jerald Jerild want to I want to end
2:13:24
Speaker 1: on some common ground.
2:13:25
Speaker 2: Here because I'm surprised in some way, John, if you're
2:13:28
Speaker 2: asking me about that without having taken the ten minutes.
2:13:31
Speaker 1: To Creddit because I've seen you talk about it.
2:13:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that a little different than I mean, it's
2:13:37
Speaker 2: just you know.
2:13:38
Speaker 1: You're the real McCoy. I'm asking you about it right now.
2:13:41
Speaker 1: It can't change the nature.
2:13:43
Speaker 2: Of your theory questions.
2:13:44
Speaker 1: Okay, last question, because I really believe there's a solution
2:13:49
Speaker 1: to this, and I want to understand from you why
2:13:51
Speaker 1: this has not happened yet or maybe it could actually
2:13:54
Speaker 1: still happen in the future, because you're the one guy
2:13:56
Speaker 1: I think it might have the influence to make it happen.
2:13:59
Speaker 1: It's fair, very simple. Why has there never been legitimate
2:14:04
Speaker 1: DNA testing on three ninety nine? Because in my view,
2:14:08
Speaker 1: we're only going to find JFK's DNA on three ninety
2:14:12
Speaker 1: nine and not Commony's. If we find both, the entire
2:14:16
Speaker 1: case is cracked. Why can't we get DNA testing with
2:14:19
Speaker 1: the advent advances in DNA testing and trace DNA on
2:14:23
Speaker 1: three ninety nine.
2:14:25
Speaker 2: To see every form of test to fight I'd love
2:14:27
Speaker 2: to see DNA testing a flight. And I guarantee you
2:14:29
Speaker 2: John if DNA testing was done and tomorrow show Kennedy's
2:14:33
Speaker 2: blud in Comedy's But it's not going to change the
2:14:36
Speaker 2: mind of it.
2:14:36
Speaker 1: It would change my mind. It would change my mind in.
2:14:38
Speaker 2: A heartbeat, but you know change They would all think
2:14:41
Speaker 2: it's planted, but all think that was done. Rest assured
2:14:45
Speaker 2: if you had a video of Oswald doing the shitty?
2:14:47
Speaker 1: Have you ever come out in favor of DNA testing
2:14:48
Speaker 1: for three ninety nine.
2:14:49
Speaker 2: All the time? I want every form of testing, So why.
2:14:52
Speaker 1: Hasn't it been done? Why hasn't it been done?
2:14:55
Speaker 2: You'll have to ask the government why they held on
2:14:57
Speaker 2: the documents for sixty years that should have been released
2:15:00
Speaker 2: forty years ago. The government has been its own worst
2:15:03
Speaker 2: enemy on this case time and again for lack of transparency.
2:15:06
Speaker 1: Okay, but would you agree that if there was DNA
2:15:08
Speaker 1: testing on three ninety nine, the so called magic bullet,
2:15:11
Speaker 1: that based upon modern technology, we should be able to
2:15:14
Speaker 1: discern whether or not JFK and or Connolly's DNA is
2:15:18
Speaker 1: on there. Do you agree with that?
2:15:20
Speaker 2: So I handled that bullet, and I'm just one of
2:15:23
Speaker 2: dozens of histori researches have handed over time gloves. That's
2:15:27
Speaker 2: held by the National Archives. They take it out.
2:15:29
Speaker 1: You weren't wearing gloves, by the way, you weren't wearing.
2:15:31
Speaker 2: You weren't able to hold it. It's held by somebody
2:15:33
Speaker 2: at the Archives.
2:15:34
Speaker 1: Okay, they hold it for they have gloves on, right,
2:15:37
Speaker 1: they have.
2:15:38
Speaker 2: Gloves on and everything else that's right. So are we
2:15:40
Speaker 2: to believe that after sixty years that chain of custody
2:15:43
Speaker 2: is good enough, let's do the DNA testing and find out.
2:15:46
Speaker 1: Well, I would be thrilled. And I have to tell
2:15:49
Speaker 1: you Gerald, despite the fact that you think I'm not
2:15:51
Speaker 1: open minded, I would be the first person if there
2:15:54
Speaker 1: was Connolly's DNA on that bullet to say I am wrong.
2:15:58
Speaker 1: The single bullet theory is Gerald Posner deserves even more
2:16:02
Speaker 1: credit that he already got for case Clothes, which you
2:16:04
Speaker 1: already know, I believe is the preeminent book on the assassination.
2:16:08
Speaker 1: I would be thrilled because then this would be finally
2:16:10
Speaker 1: put the bad and we would know the truth of it.
2:16:12
Speaker 1: And to me, this is an incredibly simple solution that
2:16:14
Speaker 1: ought to happen.
2:16:15
Speaker 2: You know the truth of it without the DNA testing.
2:16:18
Speaker 2: But if it's going to take DNA testing to bring
2:16:20
Speaker 2: you over, let's do it.
2:16:21
Speaker 1: Well. Can you please try to make this happen.
2:16:23
Speaker 2: I wish I had that power. I can't even get
2:16:26
Speaker 2: documents released that I keep applying for all the time.
2:16:29
Speaker 2: I'm in line with everybody else.
2:16:31
Speaker 1: Okay, Gerald, I really appreciate your time. I'm sorry that
2:16:34
Speaker 1: you think that somehow I'm not open minded, or that
2:16:36
Speaker 1: I'm I am being cross with you, because I'm really
2:16:39
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out the truth.
2:16:41
Speaker 2: Being cross with me. I like a good discussion. You're
2:16:43
Speaker 2: always good, John for a good discussion. You argue, you
2:16:47
Speaker 2: know your point of view very very well, and you
2:16:49
Speaker 2: have a strong enough viewpoint and understanding of the issues
2:16:53
Speaker 2: that when I come back hard on you year, you
2:16:55
Speaker 2: don't back off. You know, you give me the discussion.
2:16:57
Speaker 1: I like that.
2:16:58
Speaker 2: You know, people nowadays assume if you have a hard
2:17:02
Speaker 2: debate one way or the other, they think you're being
2:17:04
Speaker 2: rouge with each other because they're not used to hard debates.
2:17:06
Speaker 2: This is the way that real discussions are. You've got
2:17:09
Speaker 2: a position, I've got a position. We argue it hard,
2:17:11
Speaker 2: we each advocate for it. I'm telling you should look
2:17:13
Speaker 2: at this, and you're telling me we should do the
2:17:15
Speaker 2: DNA testing. But that's what I enjoy about a good
2:17:17
Speaker 2: discussion because it's done respectfully on both sides. So I
2:17:21
Speaker 2: have no problem with having that debate with you.
2:17:23
Speaker 1: Well, I'm very glad to hear that, because I think
2:17:25
Speaker 1: you know I have enormous respect for your research, not
2:17:27
Speaker 1: just on JFK, but on other subjects as well, and
2:17:30
Speaker 1: I will always have reverence for case closed. And so
2:17:34
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time. It's always great
2:17:35
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Gerald.
2:17:36
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, it's great to talk to you,
2:17:38
Speaker 2: and I should be so lucky to be able to
2:17:40
Speaker 2: talk to people about the JFK assassination.
2:17:43
Speaker 1: Now, unfortunately, as you heard there at the very very
2:17:47
Speaker 1: end of my interview with Posner, that was not a
2:17:50
Speaker 1: technical error in editing that Posner got cut off. That
2:17:55
Speaker 1: happened because of me post error. I don't know why
2:17:59
Speaker 1: this happened. I think I was very concerned for Gerald's time,
2:18:04
Speaker 1: and I wanted to stop recording so that it could
2:18:07
Speaker 1: start uploading. I didn't know how long it was going
2:18:10
Speaker 1: to take to upload, and I knew he had to
2:18:11
Speaker 1: get going, so I jumped the gun when I stopped
2:18:15
Speaker 1: the recording. What he said afterwards, there was only one
2:18:18
Speaker 1: more sentence. He finished by saying, I should be so
2:18:22
Speaker 1: lucky as to have the only disagreement with the people
2:18:25
Speaker 1: who interview me be over the single bullet theory. And
2:18:29
Speaker 1: so we ended things amicably. However, I have to say
2:18:34
Speaker 1: I'll be very frank here. I was very surprised, almost shocked,
2:18:40
Speaker 1: and profoundly disappointed with a large part of the substance
2:18:48
Speaker 1: of Gerald Posner's responses. As you probably know, I do
2:18:53
Speaker 1: not have a lot of respect for most people in general.
2:18:57
Speaker 1: I have very little respect for hardly anybody in the media.
2:19:01
Speaker 1: I have a lot of respect for Gerald Posner. I mean,
2:19:03
Speaker 1: the guy changed my mind about the essence of the
2:19:07
Speaker 1: JFK assassination, and he's been right about a lot of
2:19:10
Speaker 1: different things. And so when I have a lot of
2:19:13
Speaker 1: respect for somebody, I guess it's more disappointing when it
2:19:17
Speaker 1: turns out that, for whatever reason, whether it's this particular subject,
2:19:23
Speaker 1: and he feels too invested in the single bullet theory
2:19:27
Speaker 1: to be truly open minded, that he could be wrong,
2:19:31
Speaker 1: which is, you know, kind of telling and ironic that
2:19:34
Speaker 1: it seems like he's projecting by claiming that I'm not
2:19:38
Speaker 1: open minded. I don't think there's any question that I'm
2:19:42
Speaker 1: way more open minded about this subject than Gerald Posner is.
2:19:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I proved that when we discussed
2:19:48
Speaker 1: at the end of that interview the issue of the
2:19:51
Speaker 1: DNA testing. I am positive that if, just like I said,
2:19:56
Speaker 1: if Paul Landis had found that bullet where K was sitting,
2:20:01
Speaker 1: I would have waved the white flag and said, you
2:20:03
Speaker 1: know what, my theory is wrong. The single bullet theory
2:20:06
Speaker 1: must be correct unless there's somebody else has a better idea.
2:20:10
Speaker 1: I would have done that in a heartbeat. And similarly,
2:20:13
Speaker 1: if there actually is ever DNA testing and it seemed
2:20:16
Speaker 1: to me as if Jerrold was a little tepid in
2:20:19
Speaker 1: his support of DNA testing. Maybe I'm misinterpreting that, but
2:20:23
Speaker 1: that was my impression that Gerald wasn't really fully on
2:20:26
Speaker 1: board with the idea of testing so called Exhibit three
2:20:30
Speaker 1: ninety nine the magic bullet for DNA, because if there's
2:20:33
Speaker 1: no John Connolly DNA on there and there is JFK DNA,
2:20:38
Speaker 1: then the single bullet theory is dead. And I'm right.
2:20:42
Speaker 1: But as I said to Gerald, I have zero doubt
2:20:46
Speaker 1: that if that bullet was ever tested for DNA and
2:20:50
Speaker 1: it came back with John Connolly's DNA on it, I
2:20:53
Speaker 1: would say, guess what, Especially if it came back with
2:20:56
Speaker 1: bot JFK and John Connolly's DNA, I would say, Okay, congratulations,
2:21:01
Speaker 1: single bullet theory is in fact correct. I had my
2:21:04
Speaker 1: concerns about it. I think I raised legitimate questions. There
2:21:07
Speaker 1: are still some significant problems, but it's clearly the way
2:21:11
Speaker 1: this actually happened. I don't believe after that interview that
2:21:15
Speaker 1: Gerald Posner would have the same reaction. I believe that
2:21:19
Speaker 1: if we only found JFK's DNA on that bullet and
2:21:22
Speaker 1: there was no John Connolly DNA that Gerald would come
2:21:24
Speaker 1: up with some sort of excuse and some other bizarre
2:21:28
Speaker 1: alternative scenario that was not really plausible, like he did
2:21:32
Speaker 1: trying to pigeonhole Paul Landis's new story into the single
2:21:36
Speaker 1: bullet theory. And that's disappointing to me because I've always
2:21:41
Speaker 1: had an enormous amount of respect for Posner. Now this
2:21:44
Speaker 1: may be an indication of just how difficult it is
2:21:48
Speaker 1: when someone becomes considered a world renowned expert on a
2:21:53
Speaker 1: subject as controversial as the jfk assassination. I mean, you know,
2:21:58
Speaker 1: we saw this during COVID. Experts are very defensive over
2:22:03
Speaker 1: their status as an expert, and it felt this whole
2:22:07
Speaker 1: thing feels in tone a little bit like not quite
2:22:10
Speaker 1: but a little bit like, you know, doctor Fauci defending masks.
2:22:14
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the reality is Fauci needs people
2:22:18
Speaker 1: to believe that masks actually work or have some level
2:22:22
Speaker 1: of effectiveness, otherwise he's a fraud. Well, I'm convinced that
2:22:26
Speaker 1: masks were always useless and that Fauci knew this, which
2:22:30
Speaker 1: is why he flip flopped on masks. But anyway, that's
2:22:33
Speaker 1: the feeling I got from the tone and the way
2:22:36
Speaker 1: that Posner reacted to me, because frankly, Posner didn't react
2:22:40
Speaker 1: in a substantive fashion through most of that interview. A
2:22:44
Speaker 1: lot of his defense or his attack was, well, you
2:22:47
Speaker 1: haven't been to the National Archives, and you haven't seen
2:22:49
Speaker 1: what I've seen, and you haven't read my substack. And
2:22:52
Speaker 1: I'm like, Gerald, I have you right here, explain it
2:22:55
Speaker 1: to me. Please tell me why I'm wrong. And you
2:22:59
Speaker 1: know there, I am more than willing to admit the
2:23:02
Speaker 1: weaknesses in my theory. My theory is not perfect, but
2:23:06
Speaker 1: my theory the most significant weaknesses have kind of been
2:23:12
Speaker 1: cleared up in just the last year or so. I mean,
2:23:16
Speaker 1: I already talked about my problem I had with the stretcher.
2:23:19
Speaker 1: I've always suspected that that single bullet was not or
2:23:23
Speaker 1: the magic bullet was not actually found on John Connolly's gurney,
2:23:28
Speaker 1: or at the very least the evidence that it was
2:23:30
Speaker 1: John Connolly's gurney, and the chaos of what was going
2:23:33
Speaker 1: on in Parkland Hospital is extremely weak. Well, the Paul
2:23:37
Speaker 1: Landis story has fixed that for me. Although I know,
2:23:40
Speaker 1: save this for later, but I have a new theory
2:23:43
Speaker 1: that I've put past Posner via a direct message that
2:23:46
Speaker 1: he as of this moment has not responded to, which
2:23:51
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised he hasn't responded to. But I
2:23:54
Speaker 1: promise to get to that in a little bit. But
2:23:56
Speaker 1: the point is that one of the weaknesses in my
2:23:58
Speaker 1: theory was, Okay, how do you prove that the Warrant
2:24:02
Speaker 1: Commission is wrong about which gurney or stretcher that so
2:24:07
Speaker 1: called pristine bullet was found on? And Paul Landis has
2:24:10
Speaker 1: provided an excellent explanation for that. The second part of
2:24:17
Speaker 1: the second part of my theory that is problematic, or
2:24:19
Speaker 1: has been without evidence, was the idea that James Tig
2:24:23
Speaker 1: wasn't really hit by shrapnel or debris from a catastrophically
2:24:28
Speaker 1: missed first shot. As I referenced in the interview, Posner
2:24:33
Speaker 1: at first, when we first talked about this back at
2:24:36
Speaker 1: the sixtieth anniversary, had stated he doesn't remember this, but
2:24:40
Speaker 1: he did that he would be with me on my
2:24:43
Speaker 1: general theory if not for James Tig. Well you heard
2:24:46
Speaker 1: him there, his pushback on James Tig and the idea
2:24:49
Speaker 1: that that's quite plausible that he could have been cut
2:24:52
Speaker 1: for any number of reasons, including debris from the third shot,
2:24:56
Speaker 1: not the first shot. The third shot, where the limo
2:24:59
Speaker 1: was far, far closer to where he was standing, was
2:25:03
Speaker 1: basically nonexistent, and so I perceived that Posner has basically
2:25:08
Speaker 1: waved the white flag on Tigue, or at least acknowledged
2:25:12
Speaker 1: that the evidence of a missed first shot is basically
2:25:15
Speaker 1: non existent, and it should be huge. There should be
2:25:19
Speaker 1: a massive amount of evidence. And I even thought that
2:25:23
Speaker 1: Posner's explanation for Oswald's thinking during the shooting, as I
2:25:27
Speaker 1: said in that interview, I think was making my argument
2:25:30
Speaker 1: for me, because he's asking us to believe that on
2:25:34
Speaker 1: the easiest shot, the one with the most preparation, Oswald
2:25:37
Speaker 1: catastrophically fails, and then he gathers himself and blows off
2:25:41
Speaker 1: Kennedy's head with a third shot in the middle of
2:25:44
Speaker 1: total chaos and a LIMO that's speeding up and slowing
2:25:47
Speaker 1: down and much further away from him than when the
2:25:50
Speaker 1: first shot was fired. So, you know, in many many ways,
2:25:56
Speaker 1: I felt as if you know, Posner, both in tone
2:26:00
Speaker 1: and in substance, was making me feel even more confident
2:26:04
Speaker 1: that my theory makes more sense than the single bullet theory.
2:26:08
Speaker 1: Now I will acknowledge and Posner did reference this and
2:26:11
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we didn't have time to get into it more deeply.
2:26:15
Speaker 1: But posnive referenced that I have a bullet problem. I
2:26:19
Speaker 1: have a missing bullet. Because his question is a legitimate one.
2:26:23
Speaker 1: So where's the bullet that hit Connolly and was lodged
2:26:27
Speaker 1: in his thigh that's thought to have been the so
2:26:31
Speaker 1: called magic pristine bullet Exhibit three ninety nine. In my view,
2:26:35
Speaker 1: that bullet never got to Connolly, that it lodged in
2:26:38
Speaker 1: Kennedy's back and fell out, Well, I'm more they willing
2:26:42
Speaker 1: to admit I have a problem there. Interestingly, Posner and
2:26:46
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory people don't admit that they have
2:26:49
Speaker 1: exactly the same problem. That's where James Tea comes in.
2:26:53
Speaker 1: James Teak was created because they have a missing bullet too.
2:26:57
Speaker 1: They only have two bullets. We need three bullets because
2:27:00
Speaker 1: there were three bullet casings in the sixth floor of
2:27:05
Speaker 1: the school Book Depository building in the Stiper's layer. So
2:27:08
Speaker 1: and the most witnesses said they heard three shots. So
2:27:11
Speaker 1: where's the third bullet? I am more than willing to
2:27:15
Speaker 1: admit I have a bullet problem. I have a theoretical
2:27:18
Speaker 1: explanation that I think is probably more plausible than the
2:27:22
Speaker 1: James tigue. One. My explanation is that I briefly referenced,
2:27:27
Speaker 1: is that there are fragments of a bullet throughout Connolly's body.
2:27:31
Speaker 1: I mean, he was hit in four or five different places,
2:27:35
Speaker 1: including multiple bones that were fractured, and it is not
2:27:40
Speaker 1: unheard of for bullets to effectively disintegrate. Now, Poster keeps
2:27:44
Speaker 1: saying that, yeah, there were fragments within Connolly. By the way,
2:27:49
Speaker 1: not all of them were removed. Some of them were
2:27:51
Speaker 1: just in Connolly's body shown by X ray. But he
2:27:55
Speaker 1: keeps saying that the mass of those fragments is less
2:28:01
Speaker 1: than the mass that was lost of the so called
2:28:05
Speaker 1: pristine bullet. In other words, you know the weight of
2:28:07
Speaker 1: the bullet as it normally would be before it was shot,
2:28:10
Speaker 1: and then you know the weight of the bullet as
2:28:11
Speaker 1: it exists now. And so three ninety nine the so
2:28:15
Speaker 1: called magic bullet lost some mass, and allegedly, according to Posner,
2:28:20
Speaker 1: the amount of fragments found in Connolly was less had
2:28:24
Speaker 1: less mass than what was lost by exhibit three ninety nine. Now,
2:28:29
Speaker 1: I have no idea how you can possibly know that
2:28:32
Speaker 1: when there are fragments clearly at least from my reading
2:28:36
Speaker 1: of Josiah Thompson's book Six Seconds in Dallas that the
2:28:39
Speaker 1: indications are that there's still there were still fragments in
2:28:42
Speaker 1: Connolly's body when he died, which is not unusual at all.
2:28:45
Speaker 1: But you know, the whole bullet fragment thing, and I
2:28:47
Speaker 1: wish I had had time to ask Posner about this
2:28:51
Speaker 1: has always been perplexing to me because three ninety nine
2:28:55
Speaker 1: is not fragmented. This is a key part of the problem,
2:28:59
Speaker 1: I think for the single bullet theory people. There are
2:29:02
Speaker 1: fragments within or were within Connolly's body, but what was
2:29:08
Speaker 1: lost in mass from three ninety nine is mostly like
2:29:13
Speaker 1: the internal stuff, like the lead inside of the bullet.
2:29:16
Speaker 1: The bullet lost some mass from the act of being
2:29:20
Speaker 1: fired from the manch or carcano rifle. That's natural. It's
2:29:23
Speaker 1: like it gets the scrapings of going through the rifle itself,
2:29:29
Speaker 1: and then the heat of the firing of the bullet.
2:29:33
Speaker 1: It loses some of the internal lead like the metal,
2:29:37
Speaker 1: almost like toothpaste coming out of a casing of toothpaste
2:29:42
Speaker 1: a tube, and so there is some loss of mass there.
2:29:46
Speaker 1: It's not much, but there's some scraping and there's some
2:29:49
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's the bullet is thinner than it
2:29:52
Speaker 1: was because it's lost some of its internal lead or toothpaste.
2:29:56
Speaker 1: But that's not fragments. It's it's in one piece. It
2:30:00
Speaker 1: couldn't be more clear that it's in one piece. So
2:30:03
Speaker 1: maybe it's a different definition of fragments. But to me,
2:30:07
Speaker 1: that's always been a problem, and I wish I had
2:30:09
Speaker 1: had more time to get Gerald Posner's view on that,
2:30:13
Speaker 1: because I think that's a key issue. How do you
2:30:16
Speaker 1: to me? You know, it doesn't explain where the rest
2:30:20
Speaker 1: of that bullet is, because there's clearly not enough fragments
2:30:23
Speaker 1: in Connolly that were found or would have been in
2:30:25
Speaker 1: his body to explain the existence of an entire bullet.
2:30:29
Speaker 1: But it is possible for a bullet to get lost,
2:30:32
Speaker 1: especially in all of the chaos that was ensuing, especially
2:30:35
Speaker 1: when a lot of it might be left in Connolly's body.
2:30:39
Speaker 1: But that is definitely an area where to me, there's
2:30:42
Speaker 1: a lot of ambiguity. I just to me, it's always
2:30:45
Speaker 1: been an important point that there is no fragmentation, at
2:30:49
Speaker 1: least as I understand the word fragmentation of Exhibit three
2:30:54
Speaker 1: ninety nine and the so called single bullet Speaking of
2:30:57
Speaker 1: issues related to the bullet. I want to address another
2:31:00
Speaker 1: thing that Posner said about the tumbling of the shot
2:31:03
Speaker 1: that hit Connolly in the back. Now, this has always
2:31:07
Speaker 1: felt to me like voodoo science, and I'm not going
2:31:10
Speaker 1: to claim that I am an expert in this area,
2:31:13
Speaker 1: but apparently the shape of the hole in Connolly's back
2:31:19
Speaker 1: allowed those who believe in the second bullet theory to say, Aha,
2:31:25
Speaker 1: that bullet is tumbling or spinning, as I think Posner
2:31:29
Speaker 1: referred to it in the interview, it's making an odd shape,
2:31:33
Speaker 1: and that this is evidence in their minds. And I'm
2:31:36
Speaker 1: not saying it's wrong. I'm just questioning if it's really
2:31:40
Speaker 1: as definitive as Posner seems to think that it is.
2:31:43
Speaker 1: This is evidence that that bullet must have hit something
2:31:46
Speaker 1: first for it to be spinning or tumbling. To me,
2:31:50
Speaker 1: I don't know how in the world you can possibly
2:31:52
Speaker 1: tell that from the shape of an entry wound, especially
2:31:57
Speaker 1: when to me it could have just entered kind only
2:32:00
Speaker 1: at a weird angle instead of directly behind him and
2:32:03
Speaker 1: from the side, which is one hundred percent consistent with
2:32:06
Speaker 1: where Connolly was and what his positioning was in relationship
2:32:09
Speaker 1: to the sixth floor of the school book depository building.
2:32:12
Speaker 1: But I want to acknowledge I don't have a great
2:32:15
Speaker 1: explanation for the alleged tumbling other than I don't have
2:32:18
Speaker 1: a lot of trust that that Trump tumbling issue is
2:32:22
Speaker 1: as legitimate as Posner claims that it is. And I
2:32:24
Speaker 1: don't have a full third bullet, but neither does he.
2:32:28
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a third bullet at all either. And
2:32:31
Speaker 1: I do want to revisit, and I did this pretty
2:32:35
Speaker 1: strongly in the interview, but it is rather remarkable to
2:32:39
Speaker 1: me that Gerald Posner has to believe that Clint Hill
2:32:43
Speaker 1: is wrong about the first shot hitting JFK, that the Connelly's,
2:32:48
Speaker 1: both of them, John and his wife are wrong about
2:32:51
Speaker 1: the first shot hitting JFK, that Secret Service Agent Kellerman
2:32:57
Speaker 1: is catastrophically mistake about having heard JFK speak after being
2:33:04
Speaker 1: hit the first time and say and saying, my god,
2:33:09
Speaker 1: I've been hit. I mean, to me, it is remarkable
2:33:13
Speaker 1: that Posner, and it's to me it's unbelievably weird that
2:33:17
Speaker 1: he's simultaneously saying, well, I don't think he's lying, I
2:33:20
Speaker 1: just think he's mistaken. I'm sorry. A couple of days
2:33:23
Speaker 1: after the assassination, you're testifying to the FBI. You're a
2:33:26
Speaker 1: secret service agent. You've been with JFK for three years.
2:33:32
Speaker 1: By your testimony, you can recognize his voice anywhere, anytime,
2:33:36
Speaker 1: any place. And you know the only person who also
2:33:40
Speaker 1: spoke allegedly during the shooting was John Connolly. You can't
2:33:44
Speaker 1: get two people from different more different parts of the
2:33:48
Speaker 1: country from a dialect perspective, from an accent standpoint than
2:33:52
Speaker 1: John Kennedy from Boston and John Connolly from Texas. So
2:33:57
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Kellerman is telling the truth or
2:34:00
Speaker 1: that his story is real. But to just say well
2:34:03
Speaker 1: he's mistaken, that to me is a is a is
2:34:07
Speaker 1: a tough one. Is it possible that you know he
2:34:11
Speaker 1: made up the story and told the FBI this. I
2:34:14
Speaker 1: guess that's possible. But this is if this was the
2:34:18
Speaker 1: only piece of evidence we had against the second, this
2:34:22
Speaker 1: single bullet theory, I'd be like, Okay, you know what,
2:34:25
Speaker 1: much like the bullet being found on Connolly's gurney, this
2:34:29
Speaker 1: is just one of those things that somehow got mistaken
2:34:32
Speaker 1: that Kellerman doesn't know what he's talking about. However, there's
2:34:36
Speaker 1: two other aspects of that that I've never talked about before.
2:34:39
Speaker 1: I think I may have mentioned one of these before,
2:34:41
Speaker 1: but I think are worthy of being referenced here. That
2:34:45
Speaker 1: if I had been able to do a two hour
2:34:46
Speaker 1: interview with Posner, I probably would have been able to
2:34:49
Speaker 1: bring up the first is the substance, and I did
2:34:51
Speaker 1: allude to this very very briefly in the interview with Posner.
2:34:55
Speaker 1: The substance of what Kellerman says. Kellerman claims that JFK,
2:34:59
Speaker 1: after having been hit the first time, which supposedly goes
2:35:02
Speaker 1: to the throat, where Posner himself begrudgingly. I think that
2:35:07
Speaker 1: was interesting. It was begrudgingly. He acknowledges that JK never
2:35:10
Speaker 1: grabs his throat, which is public perception, which is huge
2:35:14
Speaker 1: because he ends up with his throat wound at Parkland
2:35:16
Speaker 1: Hospital that gets turned into a tracheotomy. That Kellerman says,
2:35:21
Speaker 1: Kennedy says the words, my god, I have been hit again.
2:35:26
Speaker 1: I don't know that this actually happened, but the substance
2:35:31
Speaker 1: of those words makes sense in my theory, because in
2:35:36
Speaker 1: my theory, here's what happens. There's a gunshot. It sounded
2:35:41
Speaker 1: a little odd that had to send off alarm within
2:35:45
Speaker 1: the limo. Everyone had to at least had a feeling
2:35:48
Speaker 1: of like, what the fuck was that? And then there's
2:35:52
Speaker 1: a pause, and a pause in this kind of situation
2:35:56
Speaker 1: only takes half a second. A second, you know, a
2:35:59
Speaker 1: second and a half is an eternity in a situation
2:36:02
Speaker 1: like this where everyone's wondering what the fuck was that?
2:36:06
Speaker 1: Including JFK. Well, under my theory, he's hit in the
2:36:10
Speaker 1: back and it first doesn't even realize he's been hit
2:36:13
Speaker 1: until the involuntary neuromuscular reaction takes over and now he knows,
2:36:20
Speaker 1: my god, I've been hit again. It doesn't prove that
2:36:25
Speaker 1: that testimony is true, but it to me rings plausible
2:36:30
Speaker 1: because that's almost exactly what you would say if you
2:36:34
Speaker 1: were JFK under my scenario, because everyone's wondering, was that
2:36:40
Speaker 1: what I think it was? And then a second or
2:36:44
Speaker 1: two later, when he's reacting and he now feels the
2:36:48
Speaker 1: pain and he can't control his arms, he says that
2:36:52
Speaker 1: which he could not have said if the single bullet
2:36:55
Speaker 1: had already gone right through the middle of his throat.
2:36:57
Speaker 1: That's why that's so potentially significt. Now there's another aspect
2:37:02
Speaker 1: of this that I have never talked about before, and
2:37:05
Speaker 1: maybe me because I didn't think about it I'm not
2:37:07
Speaker 1: sure why never mentioned it in my two hour commentary
2:37:10
Speaker 1: in episode seventy one. But there's a historical problem at
2:37:14
Speaker 1: work here. There's the issue of JFK's last words. And
2:37:22
Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend that this is definitive or
2:37:26
Speaker 1: that this would have necessarily influenced the FBI or the
2:37:31
Speaker 1: Warrant Commission in how they interpreted Kellerman's testimony. But Jackie
2:37:38
Speaker 1: had already talked about what JFK's last words were, and
2:37:44
Speaker 1: given the nature of the time period, I think there
2:37:49
Speaker 1: would have been difference to Jackie in what JFK had
2:37:54
Speaker 1: said in his last words. You know, last words are
2:37:57
Speaker 1: probably not nearly as big a deal today as they
2:38:00
Speaker 1: once were, but last words were once a really big
2:38:04
Speaker 1: deal from a historical perspective. And I can see a
2:38:07
Speaker 1: scenario where Kellerman's testimony gets pushed to the side for
2:38:13
Speaker 1: two reasons. One, it's inconvenient to the what were Jk's
2:38:17
Speaker 1: last words narrative? And later on, once Arlen Spector comes
2:38:24
Speaker 1: up with a single bullet theory and we need a
2:38:27
Speaker 1: bullet to go through JK throat, now it's very inconvenient
2:38:33
Speaker 1: Kellerman's testimony. So that would give two really strong explanations
2:38:38
Speaker 1: for why the Warrant Commission just basically ignored Kellerman's testimony
2:38:43
Speaker 1: that wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with whether or
2:38:46
Speaker 1: not they believed him or if he had some sort
2:38:48
Speaker 1: of an incentive to lie. Again, just to be clear,
2:38:52
Speaker 1: I don't know that Kellerman was telling the truth of
2:38:55
Speaker 1: the FBI, but I do know that for Posner and
2:38:58
Speaker 1: the second Bullet theory people to be correct, they need
2:39:01
Speaker 1: Clint Hill to be wrong dramatically. They need the Connollies
2:39:04
Speaker 1: to be wrong dramatically. They need Kellerman to be wrong dramatically.
2:39:08
Speaker 1: They need the guy who drew the autopsy sketch to
2:39:13
Speaker 1: be catastrophically wrong about where the location of the back
2:39:18
Speaker 1: wound was. And for Positor that does willy nilly disregard
2:39:21
Speaker 1: that is just amazing to me. This is not a
2:39:25
Speaker 1: normal autopsy. This is not the guy doing this, and
2:39:28
Speaker 1: I don't know who it was, but whoever was drawing
2:39:30
Speaker 1: the sketch of the wounds on JFK's body knows that
2:39:34
Speaker 1: he's doing the autopsy sketch of the President of the
2:39:38
Speaker 1: United States. This is not some you know, John Doe
2:39:44
Speaker 1: where it doesn't matter if you're a couple of inches
2:39:46
Speaker 1: off in the location of a gunshot wound, and it
2:39:51
Speaker 1: just so happens that the location where that you wound
2:39:56
Speaker 1: in the back, that hole in the back, which is
2:39:57
Speaker 1: consistent with my theory of what happened in here, and
2:40:01
Speaker 1: very very inconsistent with the single bullet theory, because it's
2:40:04
Speaker 1: nowhere near the neck or the throat, just happens to
2:40:07
Speaker 1: coincide with the hole in JFK shirt and the hole
2:40:11
Speaker 1: in JFK jacket. Now, I fully acknowledge that the bunching
2:40:16
Speaker 1: issue issue, the bunching issue to which Posner alludes is
2:40:22
Speaker 1: potentially legitimate. That makes some sense to me. I'm not
2:40:25
Speaker 1: sure that it can account for five six seven inches,
2:40:28
Speaker 1: which is what would need to happen, But okay, yeah,
2:40:31
Speaker 1: maybe if the shirt and the and the jacket were
2:40:34
Speaker 1: bunched exactly the same amount, you could get closer to
2:40:37
Speaker 1: the neck. But when that happens to coincide exactly where
2:40:42
Speaker 1: on the autopsy sketch the bullet hall is I'm sorry
2:40:47
Speaker 1: to use Posner's own description, that's the best evidence to
2:40:52
Speaker 1: where this this shot hit him, and it's not the neck,
2:40:57
Speaker 1: and it's not anywhere close to where the throat wound
2:41:01
Speaker 1: could be an exit wound, for it's not even remotely close.
2:41:05
Speaker 1: I mean, every single part of the single bullet theory
2:41:09
Speaker 1: falls apart if that back wound is in inaccurate location,
2:41:12
Speaker 1: completely falls apart, and Posner knows it, which is why
2:41:16
Speaker 1: he needs to just disregard the autopsy sketch. And then
2:41:19
Speaker 1: he refers to some photographs that he claims he saw
2:41:22
Speaker 1: with Michael Boden, of all people, and Michael Boden, as
2:41:25
Speaker 1: you know, I believe to be a complete fraud and whore.
2:41:29
Speaker 1: But I don't know what photos Posner is referring to.
2:41:31
Speaker 1: I would love to see what those photos are. I
2:41:33
Speaker 1: have seen autopsy photos that are very public where it
2:41:37
Speaker 1: was exceedingly obvious to me that there was what seemed
2:41:41
Speaker 1: to be a bullet hole right where the autopsy sketch
2:41:43
Speaker 1: art has put it. So I don't know what he's
2:41:46
Speaker 1: referring to. He acknowledges that it's not public. He basically said,
2:41:50
Speaker 1: just trust me, I've seen it. I'm sorry. I'll tell
2:41:53
Speaker 1: you what. Before this interview, I might have just said, okay,
2:41:56
Speaker 1: I trust you. Now I don't, and it's not because
2:41:59
Speaker 1: I don't think he's a good faith actor. I think
2:42:01
Speaker 1: it's because he's so deeply invested in this theory that
2:42:05
Speaker 1: he's even willing to claim that I'm the one that's
2:42:07
Speaker 1: not open minded, when I think in reality, he's the
2:42:09
Speaker 1: one that's not open minded. Again, just be clear one
2:42:13
Speaker 1: more time. He could be right. But I think the
2:42:15
Speaker 1: chances are actually going down post that interview than they
2:42:19
Speaker 1: were before that interview. I was probably sixty forty that
2:42:23
Speaker 1: I was more likely right than the single bullet theory,
2:42:27
Speaker 1: or that that something along the lines of what I've
2:42:29
Speaker 1: been saying is true more so than the single bullet theory.
2:42:32
Speaker 1: Now I'm probably at least seventy thirty, maybe even eighty twenty,
2:42:36
Speaker 1: which is a surprise to me because I expected to
2:42:39
Speaker 1: go in the other direction because I have that much
2:42:41
Speaker 1: faith in Gerald Posner. And then finally, not only does
2:42:45
Speaker 1: Posner have to discount Hill and the Connolly's and Kellerman
2:42:48
Speaker 1: and the autopsy sketch guy, but he has to completely
2:42:51
Speaker 1: rationalize and create a fantasy surrounding Paul Landis's testimony, which
2:42:55
Speaker 1: I think you already heard me completely take a part
2:43:00
Speaker 1: at the end of that interview. I mean, that's just laughable.
2:43:02
Speaker 1: It is utterly laughable and below Posner's level of credibility
2:43:07
Speaker 1: for him to come up with a scenario like that
2:43:09
Speaker 1: simply because that's the only way he can get land
2:43:11
Speaker 1: as the story to conform with the single bullet theory.
2:43:16
Speaker 1: And I've already mentioned I found it fascinating that Posner
2:43:19
Speaker 1: acknowledges that JFK had an involuntary neurological reaction, which takes time.
2:43:23
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen instantaneously. And this isn't one more area
2:43:28
Speaker 1: where I wish I had more time with Posner. We
2:43:31
Speaker 1: talked briefly about there being a time lapse between JFK's
2:43:36
Speaker 1: initial reaction to being hit and John Connolly's initial reaction
2:43:39
Speaker 1: to being hit. And I don't think Posner is being
2:43:43
Speaker 1: totally honest when we talk about this issue, because if
2:43:48
Speaker 1: there's any time difference between when JFK reacts and John
2:43:52
Speaker 1: Connelly reacts, that's a massive problem for the single bullet
2:43:56
Speaker 1: theory because it needs to be instantaneous. I mean, he
2:43:59
Speaker 1: keeps talking about how the bullet it slowed down. The
2:44:01
Speaker 1: bullet didn't slow down in a way that somehow would
2:44:03
Speaker 1: change the when each of these two men would react.
2:44:07
Speaker 1: If the reaction was instantaneous to being hit. So any
2:44:11
Speaker 1: delay by Connolly to in relation to JFK's reaction to
2:44:17
Speaker 1: being hit is a massive problem for the single bullet theory.
2:44:20
Speaker 1: And even Posnor acknowledges that there is a delay, but
2:44:23
Speaker 1: I think he said it's way less than a second. Well,
2:44:26
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's still too much. The reaction has to
2:44:30
Speaker 1: be unless Connolly's reaction is delayed, which he's not even
2:44:36
Speaker 1: relying on Connolly's actual reaction for when he marks the
2:44:41
Speaker 1: time in which Connolly was hit, he was referring to
2:44:44
Speaker 1: the lapel allegedly coming out on the Zebruder film. I
2:44:48
Speaker 1: acknowledged there's something there on the Zeebriter film, but it's
2:44:51
Speaker 1: hard to say what because the Zabrida film is very,
2:44:53
Speaker 1: very blurry. But there are those, including Posner, who that
2:44:57
Speaker 1: believe that this is the evidence of the single bullet
2:45:01
Speaker 1: exiting Connolly's chess. Even if I accept that that is
2:45:06
Speaker 1: still after it's clear to me that Kennedy is reacting
2:45:11
Speaker 1: to being hit, which is very difficult to fully define
2:45:14
Speaker 1: because at the time that that's occurring, Kennedy is hidden
2:45:18
Speaker 1: from the Zerbruter lens by a road sign. But it's
2:45:23
Speaker 1: very obvious to me that Kennedy does react first, and
2:45:27
Speaker 1: even Posner to somewhat, to somewhat of a degree acknowledges
2:45:31
Speaker 1: that although he's trying to diminish that as much as possible,
2:45:35
Speaker 1: because they know that that is a catastrophic problem for
2:45:38
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory if Connolly really does react significantly
2:45:44
Speaker 1: after JFK. And I think here in lies why Arlen
2:45:47
Speaker 1: Spector felt like he needed that single bullet, because I
2:45:52
Speaker 1: think he felt like, if the reaction of JFK and
2:45:56
Speaker 1: Connelly is too close together, then that means we have
2:46:00
Speaker 1: more than one shooter, because it takes at least two
2:46:03
Speaker 1: and a half to three seconds to fire and then
2:46:06
Speaker 1: refire the Maglukuar Carkana rifle. So this is the problem
2:46:10
Speaker 1: that Specter thought he had. Oh my god, look at
2:46:13
Speaker 1: when JFK reacts. Look at when Connolly reacts. There's not
2:46:16
Speaker 1: enough time for Oswald to reload and fire, So that
2:46:21
Speaker 1: must be from the same bullet. Otherwise we're going to
2:46:23
Speaker 1: have a conspiracy here because there's more than one shooter.
2:46:27
Speaker 1: But that didn't consider the fact that JFK's reaction was
2:46:32
Speaker 1: actually significantly delayed how much I don't know it only
2:46:36
Speaker 1: takes two seconds two and a half tops, two and
2:46:40
Speaker 1: a half seconds tops, and everything lines up exactly right
2:46:45
Speaker 1: for my theory. So that's the essence of my reaction.
2:46:49
Speaker 1: I probably reacted with more time than we actually spent
2:46:53
Speaker 1: doing the interview with Gerald Posner, just about the same amount.
2:46:56
Speaker 1: I still like Posner. I still hope to have open
2:46:59
Speaker 1: commit unication with him. I was just disappointed. I was
2:47:02
Speaker 1: disappointed in tone and in substance, and I was even
2:47:06
Speaker 1: disappointed with the idea that, you know, he wasn't coming
2:47:09
Speaker 1: out more strongly in favor of getting DNA testing for
2:47:13
Speaker 1: Exhibit three ninety nine, the so called magic or single bullet,
2:47:17
Speaker 1: and that this is where I'll leave things, because I
2:47:20
Speaker 1: said that I have a new theory, and I thought
2:47:22
Speaker 1: about this after doing the interview with Posner, because I'm
2:47:26
Speaker 1: always thinking about these types of things, and I even
2:47:30
Speaker 1: messaged Posner about it because I thought, you know what,
2:47:33
Speaker 1: because I'm an outside the box kind of guy, is
2:47:36
Speaker 1: it possible that Landis was telling the truth that he
2:47:41
Speaker 1: found what looked like the now now known as the
2:47:44
Speaker 1: pristine magic bullet Exhibit three ninety nine in the back
2:47:47
Speaker 1: of the limo, but that it wasn't actually three ninety nine.
2:47:53
Speaker 1: That is it possible that it just happened to look
2:47:57
Speaker 1: a lot like three ninety nine, that he goes to
2:47:59
Speaker 1: the hospital, he puts it on the gurney, and that
2:48:02
Speaker 1: somehow it gets lost there, that just by this bizarre coincidence,
2:48:09
Speaker 1: that the bullet found on what was thought to be
2:48:12
Speaker 1: Connolly's gurney really was Connolly's gurney, that was the magic bullet.
2:48:16
Speaker 1: I'm actually weirdly trying to save part of positives theory
2:48:20
Speaker 1: here that three ninety nine really was found in Connolly.
2:48:24
Speaker 1: But is it at least theoretically possible, not plausible, not probable,
2:48:30
Speaker 1: But is it plausible possible that Landis is telling the
2:48:34
Speaker 1: truth but that's actually the missing bullet, because that would
2:48:38
Speaker 1: give us three bullets, because clearly landis dramatically altered the
2:48:45
Speaker 1: the you know, the chain of events here and the
2:48:49
Speaker 1: chain of evidence when he takes this bullet out of
2:48:52
Speaker 1: the limo and places it without telling anybody on what
2:48:56
Speaker 1: he thinks to be JFK. Streutcher, It's possible that that
2:49:00
Speaker 1: ends up getting lost somewhere. Again, I don't think this
2:49:03
Speaker 1: is the most likely scenario. I'm just trying to think
2:49:05
Speaker 1: outside the box here, because both my theory and the
2:49:10
Speaker 1: Posner weren't commissioned theory have a missing bullet. So I
2:49:14
Speaker 1: asked Posner this. I said, Gerald, thanks so much for
2:49:18
Speaker 1: your time yesterday. It was a very very interesting discussion.
2:49:20
Speaker 1: After thinking a bit about our interview, I wondered, if
2:49:24
Speaker 1: you have ever considered whether it is possible that Paul
2:49:27
Speaker 1: Landis did not actually find three ninety nine. Do you
2:49:30
Speaker 1: think that there's a chance that his bullet was disposed
2:49:33
Speaker 1: of accidentally after he left it at the hospital. This
2:49:36
Speaker 1: would obviously solve the missing bullet problem for each of
2:49:39
Speaker 1: our theories thoughts. And he responded to me in a
2:49:44
Speaker 1: way that once again was rather disappointing and I think
2:49:48
Speaker 1: rather telling. He says, it would solve quote unquote your
2:49:52
Speaker 1: missing bullet problem, John, and then he has some not
2:49:58
Speaker 1: really an emoji, but I'm not really sure whether this
2:50:00
Speaker 1: was a typo or whatever, so I don't even know
2:50:02
Speaker 1: how to interpret it. But I was kind of stunned
2:50:05
Speaker 1: by that because he's not acknowledging that his theory has
2:50:09
Speaker 1: a missing bullet too, which is why the whole James
2:50:12
Speaker 1: t thing was I believe concocted by Arlen Spector, because
2:50:16
Speaker 1: they don't have the third bullet, so they need an
2:50:19
Speaker 1: explanation from why that bullet disappeared in Bostner either doesn't
2:50:22
Speaker 1: seem to understand what I'm saying, or he's just so
2:50:25
Speaker 1: invested in the idea that there's nothing inherently wrong with
2:50:29
Speaker 1: the single bullet theory that he doesn't have a single
2:50:32
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a missing bullet problem either, to which
2:50:35
Speaker 1: I responded, Gerald, you have one too, which is why
2:50:38
Speaker 1: Specter concocted the tea theory. Do you think what I
2:50:42
Speaker 1: said is possible? And I have not yet received a response,
2:50:45
Speaker 1: but that to me was very very telling and disappointing
2:50:49
Speaker 1: that he's not even willing to acknowledge when he's saying, well, John,
2:50:53
Speaker 1: you have a missing bullet problem. Well, yeah, just like
2:50:56
Speaker 1: you guys do. The single bullet theory has a missing
2:50:59
Speaker 1: bullet problem. That's why they concocted, or smart Arlen Spector
2:51:02
Speaker 1: concct it the James Tigue scenario, which to me has
2:51:06
Speaker 1: absolutely no logic or evidence behind it and is in
2:51:10
Speaker 1: my view, very much contrived. It is reverse engineered, which
2:51:14
Speaker 1: is how I began that portion of the interview with
2:51:18
Speaker 1: Gerald Posner so that is way more than you ever
2:51:21
Speaker 1: needed to know about the JKA assassination, the single bullet theory,
2:51:24
Speaker 1: or my interview with Gerald Posner. Hopefully you'll get something
2:51:28
Speaker 1: out of it. I don't know what the real truth
2:51:29
Speaker 1: of this is, but I'm leaning more in my direction
2:51:31
Speaker 1: than Posner's than I was before the interview. Next time,
2:51:36
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll be able to do an episode of the
2:51:38
Speaker 1: podcast that is more contemporaneous to you actually listening to it.
2:51:42
Speaker 1: We'll certainly catch up on whatever news happens during this
2:51:45
Speaker 1: logistical hiatus that I will be taking over the next
2:51:49
Speaker 1: few days, as is always the case. Thanks so much
2:51:52
Speaker 1: for being a subscriber. Thanks for listening. This has been
2:51:54
Speaker 1: episode number two hundred and forty seven of the Death
2:51:56
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler.