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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks for listening to Breaking Points with Crystal

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Speaker 1: and Sager. We're going to be totally upfront with you.

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Speaker 1: We took a big risk going independent to make this work.

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Speaker 1: We need your support to beat the corporate media CNN, Fox, MSNBC.

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Speaker 1: They are ripping this country apart. They are making millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars doing it. To help support our mission of

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Speaker 1: making all of us hate each other, less hate the

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Speaker 1: hour early before everyone else. You get to hear our

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Speaker 1: reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate and

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Speaker 1: weekly ask me any things, and you don't need to

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Speaker 1: hear our annoying voices pitching you like I am right now,

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Speaker 1: com become a Premium member today, which is available in

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Speaker 1: the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys, Good morning, everybody,

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Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

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Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do many many

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Speaker 1: big stories that are breaking this morning on the foreign

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Speaker 1: policy front. We've got developments with regard to Ukraine. Actually

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Speaker 1: incredible moment that we have to show you rare instance

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Speaker 1: of a reporter in this guy is pretty consistent though,

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Speaker 1: actually pushing State Department's box asking for evidence of some

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Speaker 1: of the claims that they're making. So we'll show you that. Also,

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Speaker 1: some questionable claims about raid in Syria and exactly the

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Speaker 1: number of civilian casualties and what happened there. We've got

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Speaker 1: some updates on the mess going on the CNN and Disarray,

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Speaker 1: I guess is how we should tree yeah, Disarray Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And some big updates on what's going on with the

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Speaker 1: money that was raised for that Charker Convoy protest in Ottawa, Canada.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that. And guests, we're excited about

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Speaker 1: John Abramson. We've been working on Getwick on the show

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Speaker 1: for a while. He wrote a book called Sickening. We

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Speaker 1: both heard him on the Joe Rogan podcast podcast, which

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Speaker 1: is where we will start this morning. So there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of updates here, and I just want to go

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Speaker 1: through all the pieces of what has transpired since last

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Speaker 1: week spoke you guys. Remember there was a whole controversy

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Speaker 1: over to guests that Rogan had on doctor Robert Malone,

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Speaker 1: doctor Peter McCullough. There was, you know, he was accused

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Speaker 1: of spreading misinformation and there was a lot of concern

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Speaker 1: around his take on vaccine. So that was the initial Foray,

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Speaker 1: the initial tax on Rogan. He then comes out essentially apologize, says, look,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna have people on with

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Speaker 1: a variety of views. I'm going to try to be

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Speaker 1: better prepared. I hear your criticism. I'm going to try

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Speaker 1: to do better. So that sort of starts to die down.

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Speaker 1: It basically is dead after he puts out the video

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Speaker 1: and he has been compile thing where he goes, well,

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Speaker 1: this was misinformation that destroys their narrative in a single video. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so then they've got to try another tactic because they've

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Speaker 1: sensed like a little bit of blood in the water

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Speaker 1: and a little bit of concern from Spotify, who of

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Speaker 1: course had decided to put labels on any of his

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Speaker 1: podcasts that have COVID information. So then this video compilation

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Speaker 1: emerges of Rogan over years of his podcast and these

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Speaker 1: all came from years in the past saying the N

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Speaker 1: word and it's just him saying the word there's no

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Speaker 1: context around us. You have no idea what context and

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Speaker 1: when she said it. Of course we come to learn

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Speaker 1: this is when he's quoting other comedians. He's debating you

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Speaker 1: know when this person used it and what that meant.

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Speaker 1: So this is definitely not him like using this as

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Speaker 1: a slur at people. But you look at the video

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Speaker 1: and it looks absolutely terrible. Right, So then at the

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Speaker 1: same time, let's go ahead and put this element on

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Speaker 1: the screen. People start to notice that a bunch of

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Speaker 1: his old episodes are getting pulled from Spotify. And if

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Speaker 1: you look at this list, this is a handful of

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Speaker 1: the ones that get pulled. Ultimately, now I think it's

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Speaker 1: up to over like one hundred hundred and ten different

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Speaker 1: episodees that have been pulled. You can see some of

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Speaker 1: the people are those you might expect, people like Alex Jones,

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Speaker 1: and other ones you're like, wait, what, like Kyle Kolinski

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Speaker 1: as one example. They also pulled down the Amazing atheist

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Speaker 1: Duncan Trussel, I mean, just Michael Malice across the board, right,

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Speaker 1: And so there's been this sort of narrative of, oh,

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Speaker 1: this must be the episodes where he said the N

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Speaker 1: word definitely not the case, because number one, he didn't

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Speaker 1: say it nearly as many times as one hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty episodes or whatever. And number two, I mean Kyle

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Speaker 1: remembers his episode with Rogan, there were no racial slurs involved.

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Speaker 1: So this okay, So this is happening. The next piece

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Speaker 1: is that, under pressure, Rogan comes out and makes a

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Speaker 1: really fulsome apology for language that he's used in the past,

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Speaker 1: jokes that he's told in the past that he himself

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Speaker 1: finds to be offensive and racist. Let's take a listen

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Speaker 1: to a little bit of Joe's apology. Hello, friends, I'm

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Speaker 1: making this video to talk about the most regretful and

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Speaker 1: shameful thing that I've ever had to talk about publicly.

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Speaker 1: There's a video that's out that's a compilation of me

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Speaker 1: saying the N word. It's a video that's made of

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Speaker 1: clips taken out of context of me of twelve years

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Speaker 1: of conversations on my podcast, and it's all smushed together,

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Speaker 1: and it looks fucking horrible even to me. Now, I

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Speaker 1: know that to most people, there is no context where

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Speaker 1: a white person is ever allowed to say that word,

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Speaker 1: never mind publicly on a podcast. And I agree with

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Speaker 1: that now. I haven't said it in years, but for

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Speaker 1: a long time when I would bring that word up,

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Speaker 1: like if it would come up in conversation and say,

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Speaker 1: instead of saying the N word, I would just say

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Speaker 1: the word. I thought, as long as it was in context,

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Speaker 1: people would understand what I was doing. And so the

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Speaker 1: very latest piece, and we can put this jump forward

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Speaker 1: to A five, we got an email from Spotify to

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Speaker 1: their employees giving sort of their view of what happened here.

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Speaker 1: This is from the CEO, Daniel Eck. He says, and

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Speaker 1: this is a long letter. I won't read it all,

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Speaker 1: but I'll read a portion here. He says. There are

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Speaker 1: no words I can say to adequately convey how deeply

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Speaker 1: sorry I am for the way the Joe Rogan experience

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Speaker 1: controversy continues to impact each of you. Not only are

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Speaker 1: some of Joe's comments incredibly hurtful, I want to make

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Speaker 1: clear they do not represent the values of the company.

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Speaker 1: I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated,

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Speaker 1: and unheard. This is also significant the second paragraph, So

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Speaker 1: keep this up. I think it's important you're aware that

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Speaker 1: we've had conversations with Joe and his team about some

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Speaker 1: of the content in his show, including his history of

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Speaker 1: using some racially insensitive language. Following these discussions, in his

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Speaker 1: own reflection, he chose to remove a number of episodes

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Speaker 1: from Spotify. He also issued his own apology over the weekend.

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Speaker 1: Go ahead and put a six up on the screen. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is another portion of this letter. Kind of the

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Speaker 1: conclusion they go on to talk about, you know, we

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Speaker 1: really want to make sure that we're thinking about this

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Speaker 1: that I've had conversations. Some have been supportive, others have

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Speaker 1: been incredibly hard. All of them made me think. One

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Speaker 1: of the things I'm thinking about is what additional steps

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Speaker 1: we can take to further balance creative creator expression with

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Speaker 1: user safety. I've asked our teams to expand the number

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Speaker 1: of oundside experts we consult with on these efforts, and

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Speaker 1: look forward to sharing more details. And the long and

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Speaker 1: short of it. Kind of the headline from this letter

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Speaker 1: that Daniel Ax sends to his employees there at Spotify

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Speaker 1: is that do not believe that canceling Joe Rogan is

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Speaker 1: the solution, So sager. That kind of brings us up

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Speaker 1: to date with more or less what is transpired. Let

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Speaker 1: me just say a couple things that I'll hand it

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Speaker 1: to you for your reaction. First of all, you know,

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Speaker 1: the elephant in the room, of course for us, is

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Speaker 1: that we're friends with Joe. We like Joe, and not

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Speaker 1: only that, but Joe has been incredibly good to us.

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Speaker 1: He helped us, you know, when not only did he

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Speaker 1: have his hon his show twice, but when we were

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Speaker 1: thinking of going independence the first call, he was the

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Speaker 1: person that said to us, do it. I'll have your back.

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Speaker 1: I know you guys can make it like. We were

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Speaker 1: very nervous about it, and he was extraordinarily encouraging. So

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Speaker 1: there's no doubt that, like we are not neutral or

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Speaker 1: unbiased in this. However, I also want to say that

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Speaker 1: I think if you look at our record of defending

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Speaker 1: people that we like and people we really really don't

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Speaker 1: like when it comes to free speech issues, I think

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Speaker 1: you will see a very consistent pattern. You only have

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Speaker 1: to look to last week when we were defending the

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Speaker 1: Goldberg and Dan Bongino. I think to see that. You know,

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Speaker 1: we've had a pretty consistent take on this issue. I'm

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Speaker 1: glad you said that, And this is important too. Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to take my emotion out of this and

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Speaker 1: look at this dispassionately, as if I had never met

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Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, as if he ever never helped us out

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Speaker 1: in the way that he did. I won't be perfect

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Speaker 1: about it, but take that obviously with the grave soul.

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Speaker 1: Understand where I'm trying to come from. When I see this,

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Speaker 1: I see the boat Spotify trying to have the best

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Speaker 1: of all worlds. They want Rogan without the warts, but

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Speaker 1: they also want his eleven million listeners. I saw it

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Speaker 1: described as a pot from a podcast from a podcast expert,

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Speaker 1: like a media person, that Joe's episodes are akin to

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Speaker 1: a Taylor Swift album per day on the platform in

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Speaker 1: terms of their economic value, just to get people to

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Speaker 1: try and understand what that means in terms of user engagement,

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Speaker 1: driving subscription and all of that. The problem that I

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Speaker 1: have with this statement is that he's like, look, canceling

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Speaker 1: Joe is the wrong thing, But balancing listenership with user safety,

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Speaker 1: Oh man, here, you know, if you had thought labels

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Speaker 1: were enough, then the experts. Anytime the experts start to

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Speaker 1: get involved, I know that the anti racist hucksters are

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Speaker 1: marching on in. And even worse within this is he

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Speaker 1: says that I'm going to be dedicating one hundred million

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Speaker 1: dollars to historically marginalized communities and artists. What the hell

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Speaker 1: does that mean? Once again, you are basically paying off,

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Speaker 1: you know, the opposition in order to keep quiet so

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Speaker 1: that they'll come onto your platform and not say anything.

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Speaker 1: And also, if you think that paying them off is

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Speaker 1: going to work, I have news for you. Go and

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Speaker 1: see how it's worked out at almost every other company.

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Speaker 1: That's the big problem that I have with this statement

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Speaker 1: in terms of the actual events themselves. This is all hypocrisy.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Our president and I put this out there,

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Speaker 1: has said the N word, you know, while quoting it

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Speaker 1: in public in the year nineteen eighty five. Do I

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Speaker 1: think that that's what makes him a racist? No? But

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Speaker 1: when you strip context out of everything, that's what's gonna happen.

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Speaker 1: Dave Portannoy put out a statement. I'll be talking about

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Speaker 1: some of that in my monologue. You know, people have

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Speaker 1: been going after him because he was, you know, singing

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Speaker 1: along to lyrics of a Jaw Rule song while introducing

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Speaker 1: jaw Rule like five years ago, and they're like, this

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Speaker 1: is what makes you a racist. No, that's outrageous. We

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Speaker 1: either live in a society with context or don't should

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Speaker 1: Joe said it probably not. Okay, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.

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Speaker 1: What do you do like? You know, obviously agrees with that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think he agrees with that now too. Should

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Speaker 1: he have been saying this? But you know, also consider

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Speaker 1: the times. Ten years ago was a really long time

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Speaker 1: some of these jokes and other things. I remember also

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Speaker 1: that our former president Barack Obama, who Joe loves, made

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Speaker 1: big headlines when he went on Mark Baron's podcast twenty

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Speaker 1: sixteen and said, I don't want racial politics in this

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Speaker 1: country to come down to whether you can say the

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Speaker 1: N word or not. He actually fully said the N

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Speaker 1: word on the podcast. Listen to Obama. Okay. Obama is

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Speaker 1: the one who actually came out of and said this.

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Speaker 1: I'll be the only guy to defend Joe at quote

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Speaker 1: Obama at the same time. But I'm just trying to

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Speaker 1: put this in a societal point of view, Howard Stern.

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Speaker 1: I mean, so many people in public life, many of

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Speaker 1: the people who were trying to cancel Joe themselves. Some

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Speaker 1: guy Winslow I'll be talking about him tomorrow who got

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Speaker 1: the Rocks to denounce Joe Rogan and I'll also be

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Speaker 1: you know, do a full thing on that. Well, he

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Speaker 1: himself he is the N word many times this books.

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Speaker 1: My point is, let's not play this game. Okay, Let's

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Speaker 1: not try and assume you know the character and the

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Speaker 1: fulsomeness of someone's soul based upon a very maliciously cut

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Speaker 1: crip from a clip from a very suspect group that

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Speaker 1: I'll also be digging into. So I think it's important

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Speaker 1: to deal with the actual statements that were made, you know,

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Speaker 1: saying N word over and over again again. I think

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Speaker 1: the context of this really matters. That doesn't excuse it,

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Speaker 1: but clearly Joe was saying he hasn't done this in

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Speaker 1: a long time. He had already realized this was not

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Speaker 1: a good thing for him, as a white dude, to

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Speaker 1: be saying. He comes out and apologizes, but the problem is,

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Speaker 1: it's really not about the N word or the anti

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Speaker 1: vax information. It's really not about that. Keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: as you were pointing out, first of all, there's a

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Speaker 1: huge amount of power and money in this. He has

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Speaker 1: is the tent pole of Spotify and their podcast outfit.

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Speaker 1: They he is the number one podcast not just here

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Speaker 1: but in ninety different markets for Spotify, so they have

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Speaker 1: obviously huge vestig interest here, and their competitors have a

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Speaker 1: huge invested interest in hobbling him and in taking him

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Speaker 1: down because this has been massively significant for Spotify. So

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Speaker 1: there's that piece. Then you have all the people, all

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Speaker 1: the circle of people who, you know, the media types,

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Speaker 1: the sort of like corporate mainstream media types who are

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Speaker 1: jealous of Joe, who don't like the fact that they

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Speaker 1: don't have control over what he says, who he has on.

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Speaker 1: He hasn't been effectively you know, subjected to shame and

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Speaker 1: control and coercion in the past. You have the fact

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Speaker 1: that you know, now that he has this exclusive deal

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Speaker 1: with Spotify. It sort of gave these people an opening,

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Speaker 1: you know, it gave him a cudgel. That's exactly the

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Speaker 1: right word, because now it's no longer Look, Joe's doing

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Speaker 1: his thing, and you know, what are you going to

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Speaker 1: do about it? Because he's on his own. He's independent. Yes,

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Speaker 1: at YouTube he was there, but he wasn't exclusive, he

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Speaker 1: didn't have this big deal with them, He wasn't sort

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Speaker 1: of like their product. He's just using their platform. So

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Speaker 1: it is a different relationship. Now you have another place

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Speaker 1: where you can apply pressure through the Spotify CEO, through

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Speaker 1: their employees, who I'm sure are very distressed, and that

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Speaker 1: they were sending a lot of you we know from

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Speaker 1: historic stress, yes, from historic events as well, that there

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Speaker 1: is at least some group of the Spotify employees who

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Speaker 1: are very upset about all of this and how this

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Speaker 1: is all going. Then you have the anti vaxx direction,

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Speaker 1: you know, saying Malone and McCullough, who Look, I have

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Speaker 1: my issues with those podcasts as well, which I talked

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Speaker 1: about in which we had doctor sot on to go

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Speaker 1: through the claims and talk about which is the right

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Speaker 1: way to handle these things. But so that doesn't really land.

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Speaker 1: But Joe comes out and makes a statement and Spotify

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Speaker 1: puts these labels on the podcast, and there's that creates

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Speaker 1: a little bit of blood in the water. Now, look,

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Speaker 1: I don't blame Joe for doing that. I thought his

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Speaker 1: comments were very gracious. I thought they were very heartfelt,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately, when you're in these sorts of circumstances like

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Speaker 1: you have to be true to yourself and respond to

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Speaker 1: them in the way that is going to make you

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Speaker 1: feel like you handle it in the best possible way.

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Speaker 1: So I don't blame him for doing that. But I

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Speaker 1: do think that that put a little bit of blood

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Speaker 1: in the water and it sort of enabled this next

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Speaker 1: very coordinated attack. Sager's gonna be breaking down in his

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Speaker 1: monologue just how coordinated that is. But let's just say

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Speaker 1: there's a democratic super pac involved to tell you how

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Speaker 1: organic all of this outrage manufacture is. And then just

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Speaker 1: so you really know this has nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: him saying the N word or offensive language or whatever.

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Speaker 1: You know, Kyle and I were trying to rack our

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Speaker 1: brains for what he said in his episode that might

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Speaker 1: have gotten it hold because there certainly was no I

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Speaker 1: don't even think they talked about race wow in that

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Speaker 1: entire you know, three hour long discussion. But one thing

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Speaker 1: they did talk about was Jamal Kashogi and Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 1: And also Kyle was very aggressive and very outspoken about

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Speaker 1: the war that they're prosecuting in Yemen and how they're

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Speaker 1: causing famine. He was outspoken about some of their you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of barbaric practices, public beheadings and those sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: Well alone and behold, Spotify just like right now enabled

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Speaker 1: podcasts in the Saudi market. Is that the reason why

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Speaker 1: it's a great cover those couldn't be could be, but

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Speaker 1: it's certainly not about sort of offensive language because there

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Speaker 1: was nothing in that podcast that would that would fall

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Speaker 1: in that category. They're also that I think they talked

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Speaker 1: about Epstein as well, which was another thing that we're like,

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Speaker 1: interesting maybe, But there was also a moment in there

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Speaker 1: that was kind of a little bit prophetic where they

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Speaker 1: talked about the problem was censoring all of these independent

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Speaker 1: media outlets. And look, I know Joe has a big

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Speaker 1: contract for Spotify, so he's technically technically corporate media. But

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Speaker 1: the whole fight over this is about the fact that

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Speaker 1: corporate media has not been able to control him and

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Speaker 1: has not been able to rain him in, has not

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Speaker 1: been able to dictate who he has on and what

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Speaker 1: he says and what sort of topics he covers. So

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Speaker 1: that's why I make the distinction. But take a listen.

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Speaker 1: This is a four control room. Take a listen to

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Speaker 1: some of what they had to say on that now

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Speaker 1: banned podcast. Speaking of social media, have you seen all

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Speaker 1: these purges recently? There's a new round of it that

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Speaker 1: just happened. No who get purged, They're all almost all

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Speaker 1: alternative media accounts, so it is a scary time because

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Speaker 1: you see that this can impact you know, really anybody

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Speaker 1: who's not towing the line, if you will. The Internet

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Speaker 1: went through a phase of like just totally free and open,

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Speaker 1: wild wild West type thing, and now it looks like

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Speaker 1: they're trying to reel it back in. And it's like,

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Speaker 1: that's the viewed as the public square. It's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be that these social media outlets, which are so gigantic

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Speaker 1: and so powerful, that this is now the public square.

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Speaker 1: So to be able to censor people in these in

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Speaker 1: these forums should be considered unconstitutional. Yeah, kind of ironic

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Speaker 1: that that's the sort of conversation they were having on

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Speaker 1: a podcast that you now cannot find anyway. I gotta

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Speaker 1: be honest, I'm kind of offended that we didn't get

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Speaker 1: taken off neither episodes. I guess I wasn't hardcore enough.

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Speaker 1: If we're happy, if we're lucky enough to be back on,

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Speaker 1: I'll bring the five. Here's what I really have to say,

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Speaker 1: especially about this. How are we supposed to check what

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Speaker 1: he said when they took it down? This is part

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Speaker 1: of the problem. Kyle's got to rely on his memory.

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Speaker 1: I hear that there's some guy online who's got all

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Speaker 1: of the episodes downloaded. You have to contact him and

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Speaker 1: he'll send you one. By the way, whoever you are,

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Speaker 1: please send them to me. I've been trying to get

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Speaker 1: in touch. But all of this is important whenever it

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Speaker 1: comes to the delineation of language, because I see these

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Speaker 1: dishonest morons online saying Joe is corporate media. You know

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Speaker 1: he works for a corporation. Okay, you really want to

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Speaker 1: play this game establishment media. It's very clear here is

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Speaker 1: the thing. The Joe Rogan experience will probably never ever

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Speaker 1: be allowed to happen again because it slipped through the cracks.

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Speaker 1: It was never supposed to be this way. He will

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Speaker 1: be the first person to tell you that. And so

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Speaker 1: because they never had a hand in molding it, in

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Speaker 1: booking it, and shaping it, in promoting it, any of that.

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Speaker 1: He never did any pr ADS interviews. That makes it

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Speaker 1: so that when it becomes so much bigger than them,

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Speaker 1: it is a direct threat to their authority. And that

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Speaker 1: is what it is all about. That's what that clip

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Speaker 1: was of. That's what the censorship, as you pointed out

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Speaker 1: over the weekend of the right and the left. Guess,

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Speaker 1: it's about power, and it's about control and the dishonest

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Speaker 1: actors out there pretending to care about this clip of

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Speaker 1: Joe saying the N word. They are the most biggest

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Speaker 1: hypocrites on the planet. Apply the same standard then to

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and to Howard Stern and to so many

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Speaker 1: of the people in American public life. Obama, like I

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Speaker 1: said previously, right, context doesn't matter, Okay, I mean this

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Speaker 1: is part of the thing whenever we come down to

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Speaker 1: litigating this without any context, without any good faith, and

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Speaker 1: especially whenever we try to make it all about using

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Speaker 1: race in particular as a cudgel, and to make it

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Speaker 1: so that these words lose meaning. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: if you care about race and race relations in this country,

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Speaker 1: you don't want that. You want these to have the

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Speaker 1: real palpability that they originally had to maintain the power

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Speaker 1: of the attack and the label in the first place,

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Speaker 1: because they have erased it from all of our discourse.

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Speaker 1: Millions of people out there, they see through this, they

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Speaker 1: know exactly what that's happening. And so, like I said,

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Speaker 1: I would be saying all this and this defense if

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Speaker 1: I never met Joe Rogan. I've been a fan of

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Speaker 1: his from a long time. When I was a young

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Speaker 1: guy riding the metro. The funniest thing is, I told

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Speaker 1: you the most controversial things that he believes are that

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Speaker 1: the Sphinx is like ten thousand years old. So I mean, personally,

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Speaker 1: big archaeology should be the people who Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said about that, and I

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Speaker 1: get this is the other thing that upsets me about

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Speaker 1: this is if you're a kind of normy person like

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Speaker 1: this is this has penetrated to the point that, like

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Speaker 1: my mom's talking to me about it, My girlfriend's sisters

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Speaker 1: are like, what's going on with the only hot And

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Speaker 1: my mom just figured out how to listen to my

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Speaker 1: podcast Okay seriously, like in the last month, So it

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Speaker 1: has broken through to the entire world. I told you

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Speaker 1: before when we were talking about this, my friend who

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Speaker 1: was in Brazil back home visiting our family, was like,

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Speaker 1: what's going on with Brogan? All the Brazilian mediolscenario apparently

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Speaker 1: is defending Like Okay, thanks, but you know, to get

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Speaker 1: back to your point about race, and just to use

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden as an example here, think of the harm

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Speaker 1: that Joe Biden has done to black people in this

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Speaker 1: country through his career. Think about the crime bell and

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Speaker 1: mass incarceration, and the drug laws and his involvement in

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Speaker 1: creating the crack cocaine mass disparity. I mean, you want

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Speaker 1: to talk about people who have really harmed black people

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Speaker 1: in this country, please saying this word in context and

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Speaker 1: as part of quoting people. This pales in comparison. And

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Speaker 1: the only reason I say this is and this is

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Speaker 1: something I'll talk about a little bit more in my

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Speaker 1: monologue to point out what a silly distraction all of

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Speaker 1: this is from the real work of making this country

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Speaker 1: in this world a better place. You know, it comes

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Speaker 1: down to do you trust the people in this country

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Speaker 1: to be grown up, adult Americans to be able to

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Speaker 1: listen to a podcast that may have things that are

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Speaker 1: a little edgy or even sometimes blatantly offensive and not

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Speaker 1: be able to turn into the Do you actually trust

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Speaker 1: your fellow human beings here to participate in a democracy,

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Speaker 1: because that's what this comes down to. And if the

430
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 1: answer is no, then we're in a really bad place.

431
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: I do want to say, even though this feels like

432
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:19,320
Speaker 1: this title wave of like mass public outrage, I do

433
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: think that it's relatively This is like a relatively elite

434
00:22:23,280 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 1: online conversation where the voices are extremely loud, but most

435
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 1: people that I think are going about their normal days

436
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: have a lot deeper concern than what Joe Rogan said

437
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: on a podcast in twenty eleven. However, that doesn't mean

438
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: that the fight doesn't matter, because these are the people

439
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:44,440
Speaker 1: who number one, have disproportionate power, and number two, it's

440
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:47,439
Speaker 1: really sad because they're also oftentimes the people who, in

441
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:52,160
Speaker 1: another era, their activist impulses would have been part of

442
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: an effort for real collective change rather than just like

443
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 1: policing people's language and desperately urging tech oligarchs to cling

444
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: even more power. And so that really undercuts our ability

445
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: to have a democracy in this country when number one,

446
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,000
Speaker 1: you don't trust your fellow human beings to engage in

447
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,399
Speaker 1: that democracy and not be like so thrown off course

448
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 1: by a podcast that we can't coexist, and number two,

449
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: where our greatest activist impulses are channeled towards helping the

450
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:27,159
Speaker 1: powerful become even more powerful. So that's one of the

451
00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 1: things that is really troubling about this and why I

452
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: think we've focused so much time on it, because it

453
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 1: is part of this really larger fight of what kind

454
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:36,600
Speaker 1: of a country are we going to live in. Is

455
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:38,199
Speaker 1: it going to be democracy? Is it going to be

456
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: a police state? What are we going to spend our

457
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: time in collective energies doing? Are we going to be

458
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: policing podcasts from twenty eleven? Are we actually going to

459
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: try to do something for the collective good? And I

460
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: just want people to know that, you know, I don't

461
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: begrudge anyone who like listens to these words or these

462
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:57,639
Speaker 1: old jokes or whatever and feels like this was really

463
00:23:57,640 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: offensive and this wasn't okay, But I want you to

464
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: stand that this was not some organic, like mass outrage.

465
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 1: This was orchestrated. It is a hatchet job, and at bottom,

466
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: it's about power and money and who has control. Yeah, power,

467
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 1: money and control, and you know, in a way, to

468
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: your monologue's point, they're gaslighting all of us into trying

469
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: to make us focus. And luckily we have this show

470
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: so that we can talk about Rogan and we can

471
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: talk about all the stuff that also matters. So let's

472
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: move on to another story, the GoFundMe story, which is

473
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: also about power, control, tech and money. Let's go ahead

474
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen, a really

475
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: stunning display go fund me after raising tens of millions

476
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: of dollars, not the organization itself, but a petition on

477
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: the platform for the Canadian Trucker Convoy says that no

478
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 1: further for their funds would be distributed directly to the

479
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: organizers of the Freedom Convoy protests, and they firm specifically said, quote,

480
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: we now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously

481
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: peaceful demonstration has become an occupation. So this is a

482
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 1: very important point, Crystal. The Freedom Convoy of the truckers

483
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: who are originally protesting vaccine mandates, but really more it's

484
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: become a catch all for all restrictions in Canada. On

485
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: top of vaccine mandates and restrictions, lockdowns, masks, et cetera.

486
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 1: Has become a force where they've occupied, not even even occupied,

487
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: I don't even want to use their language. They have

488
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: taken up, you know, certain parts of the city in Ottawa.

489
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: They're honking their horns. They're getting a lot of community

490
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: support both out in the United States but also within

491
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: Canada as well, and it's turned into a real grassroots movement.

492
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: Now as some grassroots movements, it has raised tens of

493
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 1: millions of dollars online, but the Ottawa police and the

494
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 1: Canadian government have taken an incredibly hard line against these truckers.

495
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: Now there has not been use of force yet, although

496
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: apparently that you know, remains in the cards and it

497
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: is possible. But they've been denounced by the Prime Minister,

498
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: they've been denounced by the police, they've been accused of,

499
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: you know, all sorts of things as usual. You know,

500
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 1: the truckers are now racist because one guy had a

501
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: Confederate flag in the convoy of like, by the way,

502
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: we also don't even know yet how big this thing is.

503
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: Some said fifty thousand, some said a thousand. Who knows,

504
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: it's not fifty thousand, it's more like a thousand. I

505
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: didn't you take a look at the the numbers in

506
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: terms of participants at the biggest rallies, it was like

507
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: eight thousands. In terms of number of trucks, it was

508
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 1: in the hundreds to maybe. So all of this is

509
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 1: really important. But the problem is that this has become now.

510
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: Go fund me is the cudgel through which people who

511
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: are trying to raise money for a cause believe in,

512
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: and go fund Me is supposed to be the platform,

513
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: is now acquiescing to the demands of law enforcement that

514
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: is a terrible standard. Let's put this up there, which

515
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: is Ottawa Police puts out a statement. We want to

516
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: thank go fund me for listening to our concerns as

517
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: a city and a police service. The decision to withhold

518
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: funding for these unlawful demonstrations is an important step and

519
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: we call on all crowdfunding sites to follow. Now, what

520
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: did we just talk about in our rogan block Crystal,

521
00:26:58,680 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: which is where you can live in a free soil,

522
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 1: or we can live in a police state. The definition

523
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 1: of a police state is when the police get to

524
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: decide what cause is worthy and what is not. Now,

525
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: look Canada, you know it's not America. They don't have

526
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights. Ostensibly free, but a lot more

527
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: like the Europeans. This is still, though, an American company

528
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: which masquerades itself domestically as oh well, we don't take sides,

529
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: even though they have in the past. This is the

530
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: most absolute demonstration that they will listen to people in

531
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: authority when it's a cause that they don't like, and

532
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: that they will then use their platform and to deny

533
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: a key part of the online fundraising system towards people

534
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: just because they disagree with their aims and their justification

535
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: here could have obviously been used against BLM. It obviously

536
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: wasn't right. You know, those people have raised are tens

537
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars and there's a lot of questions

538
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 1: about where that money has gone. But the point is

539
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't have pulled it from BLM either. They

540
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: shouldn't pull it from anybody. Anybody should be allowed to

541
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: raise money here unless it's explicitly violating the whole like

542
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: docs in you know, the violence, the actual cardinal rules

543
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: of the Internet for when things should get taken down

544
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 1: apps in that these truckers they're protesting, okay, protests, they

545
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: get to raise money, especially on an American platform like GoFundMe.

546
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: Who's doing this at the behest of the Ottawa police.

547
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time looking into this one

548
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: because I think it's this type of story. First of all,

549
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: we're not there, right and we don't. It's not a country,

550
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: it's not our country, We're not there, and so I

551
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: really wanted to spend a lot of time doing research

552
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: about what is really going on, how's the meeting media

553
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: portraying it, what are the participants themselves saying? I listen

554
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: to a lot of audio of people who are involved

555
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: in it themselves talking about what it's about and how

556
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: they feel about it, And I think there's a few

557
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 1: things that are important to say here. First of all,

558
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that if you live in Ottawa, this

559
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: is a tremendous pain in the ass, sure right, it's

560
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: I feel total sympathy for you. They're honking their horns

561
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: all night, it's extraordinarily loud, You're having trouble getting around

562
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: your city, and just like living normal life. I get it.

563
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think we can relate to

564
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: it having been living here a couple of summers ago,

565
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: during the George Floyd protests, when and during the inauguration,

566
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: and during the inauguration and after January sixth, I mean,

567
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: it just was like one thing after another where but

568
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: there were times when I mean this city was under

569
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: a military lockdown, helicopter circling overhead, every street barricaded with

570
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: massive military vehicles and hum v's and armed, you know,

571
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: openly armed soldiers. So I definitely get the frustration of

572
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: having your normal life disrupted. However, there have been only

573
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: three arrusts from this protest. They were for relatively minor

574
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: infractions as my understanding, things like property destruction. And I

575
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: do think that there has been an effort because the

576
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: cause is broadly unpopular in Canadian society, but I think

577
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: there's been an effort to use the actions in the

578
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: language of a few to broadly tar the whole movement.

579
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: The one Confederate flag is a good example. The one

580
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: dude who said this is going to be our January

581
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,959
Speaker 1: sixth is another good example. And from listening to the

582
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 1: comments of the people who are involved themselves, which were

583
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: broadcast by CBC, which has not been very charitable to

584
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: that they have been trying to really police their own people.

585
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: So there were instances of people using Nazi iconography, swastikas,

586
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: yellow stars and the like. Now they say, we're saying

587
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: that they're the Nazis, not that we're in support of Nazis.

588
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I do know that that sort

589
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: of imagery and like symbology can be very offensive and

590
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: it's not helpful to their cause whatsoever. They seem to

591
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: know that as well and are trying to crack down

592
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: on that sort of direction. So I don't want to

593
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: sanitize and say these are like all just salt of

594
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: the earth people. There's no extremist elements or anything like that.

595
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: But the important thing is that they're the root of

596
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: their protest is a legitimate line of debate, which is

597
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: about whether you agree with them or not. Should we

598
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: have these vaccine requirements, should we have these lockdowns, should

599
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: we have these mask mandates. We disagree with this, and

600
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,479
Speaker 1: we want to make our voices heard, And frankly, I

601
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: think that their approach to it has been very creative

602
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: and has been very effective, certainly in getting people's attention

603
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: and inspiring people in Canada, but also obviously this has

604
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: been a big story here as well. The reason it's

605
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: relevant to us is because of the GoFundMe piece, because

606
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 1: this is an American company that is incredibly significant in

607
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: terms of a fundraising platform, and for them to be

608
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: able to have the say over who's able to actually

609
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: raise funds for their cause and who's not, that's where

610
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: things start to get very uncomfortable, because again, you're just

611
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: your cand and over control of society to few tech oligarchs,

612
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: letting them say who can have a podcast, who can

613
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: be on YouTube, who can raise money at funds? Who

614
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: can host on you on the cloud, who can exist

615
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: on the app store. You really are closing off avenues

616
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: and making it so that there are these incredibly powerful gatekeepers.

617
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,719
Speaker 1: And once again, if you think this is just going

618
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: to stay with the right, go ask all the leftists

619
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: who have been canceled and who have been deep latform

620
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: and who've had their podcast taken down about how that

621
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:26,959
Speaker 1: ultimately all works out. I honestly think it's worse than

622
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: the tech piece because they didn't take responsibility. They gave

623
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: it to the cops. They were like, no, the cops

624
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: say it's bad. You're like, well, okay, so that's the standard.

625
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: I mean, let's take the logical extrapolation of that in

626
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: terms of tech people listening. Then to the law enforcement agencies.

627
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: You think the FBI doesn't have an interest in taking

628
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: down this podcast after all the January sixth coverage that

629
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: we've made here, or the Capitol Police talking about their

630
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: spying abilities, or the Department of Homeland Security. Luckily we

631
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: have the First Amendment. We can say whatever we want,

632
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: but we don't have a right to be on YouTube.

633
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: We don't have a right to be on Spotify or whatever.

634
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: Any of those people could then go ahead and platform

635
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: or partner with the platform on the cops. If they

636
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: made the request, I'll take it at one step further

637
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: up the tech stack, if you will. Let's say gofund

638
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: me didn't do this. What if Visa and MasterCard and

639
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: other credit card processors there's only like three or four

640
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: in the entire country decided they would no longer process

641
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: transactions at the behest of law enforcement towards the Autawa truckers. Well,

642
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: that's pretty scary, and actually that's already happened in several instances.

643
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: Now that was against white nationalists. But the standard has

644
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: been set, and especially if they use it and listen

645
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: to the cops, especially in a time of turmoil and

646
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: protest and occupation, you know, whatever you want to call

647
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: it about what's happening. So the point is is that

648
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: these co American tech companies are setting the standard of

649
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: listening to foreign law enforcement. Okay, go fund me, Hong Kong,

650
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. Go fund me Saudi Arabia. Let's uh, women,

651
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: go ahead and try and start to go fund me

652
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: in Saudi Boom, Go fund me, Iran, Go fund me, Russia,

653
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: Go fund me, Ukraine, Go fund me, Germany, even you know,

654
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: all of these places have outrageous anti free speech laws.

655
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: The standard that they're setting is that the locals get

656
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: to decide what is cool and what is not. Now, okay,

657
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: that's fine from a democratic sense, but not from an

658
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: American tech company sense, and especially if they're going to

659
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: import that standard here to the US. So that's my

660
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: biggest concern on all this. I listened as part of

661
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: my research for this. I listened to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

662
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: podcast that was truly insane. They brought on this woman

663
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: who is an expert in like terrorism financing, and then

664
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 1: she was using all of this language that was plucked

665
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: straight from Russia Gate, talking about we don't know where

666
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: these funds are coming from, this is foreign influence in

667
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: our country. And she wasn't actually, she wasn't talking abou Russia,

668
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: was actually talking about the United States. But it was

669
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: all meant to be very nefarious, very sketchy. I mean,

670
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: first of all, it was just completely invented because she

671
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: had no idea who gave the money, where the money

672
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: came from, and so that enabled her to concoct this

673
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: whole sort of like idea of a nefarious cabal that

674
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: was supporting this because it was interesting her language too,

675
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: because the reason she first decided to investigate it was

676
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: because it struck her that it was not likely that

677
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: they organically raised that much money, which speaks probably to

678
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 1: her own bubble of the people that she lives around

679
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: and the views that they hold, and that they wouldn't

680
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: need the type that would give to a cause like this.

681
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: But that's the type of misinformation that's being used, and

682
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: it's to the point that they're actually going to have

683
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: like a government hearing an inquiry into the source of

684
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 1: the funds and all of this. So that's some of

685
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: the heat that has been created around this money and

686
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: where did it come for from and what is it

687
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: going to. So originally GoFundMe was like, we're going to

688
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: give it to charities. Now they are refunding it to

689
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: the people involved. But you know, those people who gave

690
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: that money, they want to support this cause and they

691
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: have every right to, whether you like the cause or not.

692
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: I personally have issues with, you know, the stances they're taking.

693
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:18,959
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that they're like, you know, a

694
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,760
Speaker 1: widespread anti vac sentiments within the group, But who cares.

695
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 1: It's about believing in democracy, even when it's uncomfortable, even

696
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: when it's messy, believing that people have a right to

697
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: raise their voice in protest, and that in that give

698
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 1: and take you're going to come to some sort of

699
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: consensus about what your society is going to look like.

700
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just a sad state of affairs

701
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: that you have so many people who, again, in another time,

702
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:45,359
Speaker 1: would be very energized. I would have activist impulses dedicated to, hey,

703
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: how do we how do we forge a better collective good?

704
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,399
Speaker 1: How do we stand up against the man? And now

705
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: what are they spending their energy doing? Like begging tech

706
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: all of these the man to have more to take

707
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: more control over society. Yeah, I think that's well said.

708
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and move on to Ukraine. This is

709
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: an important story, one of the most stunning displays that

710
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 1: I've seen from the American press in a long time.

711
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: That being said the journalists who were about to show

712
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: you Matt Lee. I actually was in the State Department

713
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: Press Corps for a very short period of time. I

714
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: got to see him in action. He is somebody deeply

715
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: skeptical of all administrations, lived through a lot of lies,

716
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 1: and it very much shows on his kind of weather

717
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: beaten face and in his language. But this exchange over

718
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: a recent claim from the US government is truly incredible.

719
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: So we'll set it up a bit, which is that

720
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 1: the US government had come out over the weekend or sorry,

721
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: on Friday, and they said, we have evidence that the

722
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: Russians are planning a video which is going to be

723
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: some false flag attack with crisis actors, which then is

724
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: going to be a pretext for the invasion. That's all

725
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 1: they said, and a lot of us said, Okay, show

726
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: us the evidence. What's the evidence, And their claim is

727
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: that simply uttering that claim the Russians are doing this

728
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: is evidence that that declassification of being able to say

729
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: it is enough for all of us. And it was

730
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: crystallized in this moment with Matt Lee pressing him and saying,

731
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: show me the actual evidence and watch this former CIA

732
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: Google squirm under real questioning from the press, offering up

733
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: nothing and showing us that, yeah, they don't have a

734
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: whole lot to back up what they're saying. Let's take

735
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: a listen. Nice Okay, well that's quite a mouthful there.

736
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: So you said, actions such as these suggest otherwise suggest

737
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: meaning they suggest they're not interested in talks, and they're

738
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:44,839
Speaker 1: going to go ahead with some kind of a What

739
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: action are you talking about? One the actions I've disappointed

740
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: to you? The fact action the fact that Russia continues

741
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: to engage in disinformation. He made an allegation that they

742
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: might do that. Have they actually what we know, Matt,

743
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: is what we what I have just said that they

744
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: have engaged in this activity, in this planning activity. But

745
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: let me let me because obviously this is not this

746
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: is not the first time we've made these reports public.

747
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: You'll remember that just a few weeks ago, sorry, you

748
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: made what report public? If you'll let me finish, I

749
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: will tell you what report we made public. We told

750
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: you a few weeks ago that we have information indicating

751
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: Russia also has already prepositioned a group of operatives to

752
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,919
Speaker 1: conduct a false lag operation in eastern Ukraine. So that, Matt,

753
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: to your question, is an action that Russia has already taken.

754
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: It's an action that you say that they have taken,

755
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 1: but you have shown no evidence to confirm that. And

756
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to the next question here, which

757
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: is what is the evidence that they I mean, this

758
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,280
Speaker 1: is like crisis actors. Really this is like Alex Jones

759
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,399
Speaker 1: territory you're getting into. Now, what evidence do you have

760
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 1: to support the idea that there is some proper aganda

761
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,280
Speaker 1: film in the in the making. Now, this is derived

762
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: from information known to the US government, intelligence information that

763
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,320
Speaker 1: we have declassified. I think you okay, Well, where where

764
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 1: is it? Where? Where is this information? It is intelligence

765
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: information that we have declassified. Well where is it? Where

766
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: is the declassified information? I just delivered it. No, you

767
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: made a series of allegations. Would you would you like

768
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: us to print out the top art because you will

769
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: see a transcript of this briefing that you can print

770
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: out for yourself. Not evidence, Ned, that's you saying it.

771
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: That's not evidence. I'm sorry. What would you like, Matt?

772
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: I would like to see some proof that you that

773
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:43,439
Speaker 1: that that that that you can show that that Matt,

774
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: you have been that that shows that that that shows

775
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 1: that the Russians are doing it. Ned, I've been doing this.

776
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 1: I know that was my you have. You have been

777
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: doing this for quite a while. You know that when

778
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 1: we declassify intelligence information, and we do so in a means,

779
00:40:56,760 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: we do so, we do so to protects. I remember

780
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: a lot of things. So, where is the declassified information,

781
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,399
Speaker 1: other than you coming out here and saying, Matt, I'm

782
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: sorry you don't like the format, but we have a

783
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: class format. It's the content. I'm sorry you don't like

784
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: the content. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you are doubting the

785
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: information that is in the possession of the US government.

786
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 1: What I'm telling you is that this is information that's

787
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: available to us. We are making it available to you

788
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: in order for a couple of reasons. One is to

789
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: attempt to deter the Russians from going ahead with this activity. Two,

790
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: in the event we're not able to do that, in

791
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: the event the Russians do go ahead with us, to

792
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: make it clear as day, to lay bare the fact

793
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:42,839
Speaker 1: that this has always been an attempt on the part

794
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: of the Russian Federation to fabricate a pretext. Yeah, but

795
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: you don't have any any evidence to back it up

796
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: other than what you're saying. It's like you're saying, we

797
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: think we have information in the Russians may do this,

798
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: but you won't tell us what the information. And then

799
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: when when you're that is the idea behind the terrence,

800
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: when that is the idea behind a turrence and it

801
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: is all hope that the Russians don't go forward with

802
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: this is you say, I just gave it to you.

803
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: But that's not what you You seem not to understand.

804
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: You seem not to understand the idea of we are

805
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,840
Speaker 1: the Russians from moving forward with this type of activity.

806
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 1: That is why we're making a public today. If the

807
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: Russians don't go forward with this, that is not it's

808
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: so facto an indication that they never had plans to

809
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: do so. Uh. But then it's unprovable. My god, what

810
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: is the evidence that you have that suggests that that

811
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: that the Russians are even planning this? That is the

812
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 1: perfect way to handle that. You have to scorn them

813
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,919
Speaker 1: exactly to their faces and show them that what they're

814
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 1: saying is outrageous. We have evidence, I just gave it

815
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: to you. That's not evidence, that's you speaking. That doesn't

816
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: mean any And you say in some stuff, we continue

817
00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: to find that Washington makes these outlandish crew claims, which

818
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: leads them to have the hottest rhetoric in the ongoing

819
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: dispute between Ukraine and Russia. And if you do want

820
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: to broaden it out, you can say the Europeans and

821
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: Russia put this up there on the screen. US assessments

822
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,879
Speaker 1: continue to find Russia could seize Kievan days cause some

823
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: fifty thousand civilian casualties in Ukraine. I mean, what year

824
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: is it, you know, nineteen thirty nine. What's happening here, crystal,

825
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 1: which is that the rhetoric used from Washington does not

826
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: match the rhetoric or the actions that are being pursued

827
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: on the continent right now. Macron is practicing shuttle diplomacy

828
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: between Europe and Russia, trying to hammer out some diplomatic

829
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: or agreement, and the US, as Matt Lee says, is

830
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: putting out some Alex Jones level insanity in terms of

831
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 1: its claims about what exactly is gonna happen. That's a

832
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: crazy claim. If you have evidence, publish it. I'd love

833
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: to see it. This would be like ADLEI Stevenson at

834
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis. We have evidence that the Russians

835
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: put missiles in Cuba, and everybody's like, okay, where is it.

836
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,280
Speaker 1: At least we brought pictures that time. I mean, this time,

837
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: they won't even give us that what's happening here? I

838
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: think it also says a lot about what they expect

839
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: from the press. Corps that they think they could just

840
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: assert something that is a look, well it did work, actually,

841
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,399
Speaker 1: Crystal Yeah on CNN they parodied it. They go right

842
00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: along with it. Yeah, that you could put on something

843
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 1: that is quite a pretty wild claim. Look, I don't

844
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: put anything past around. I don't trust them, eybe, but

845
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: this is sound there. I mean, he says, it sounds

846
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: like some Alex Jones, like crisis actors and all of this,

847
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: and this is like plot number three that they've claimed

848
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: the Russians are planning here and uncovered us, and you know,

849
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: the Brits are partnering with us to sort of distract

850
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: from their own problems at home. But so listen, I

851
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: think it says everything that they think that the press

852
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: will just take this their assertion backed by nothing, as

853
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: complete fact. And the other thing that we've seen with

854
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 1: this really consistently is the language around. If you are

855
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:12,320
Speaker 1: willing to dissent from their narrative, you are immediately tarred

856
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: as creator propaganda's Russians. All of that stuff there was actually,

857
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: I mean, this was kind of funny too. David from

858
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: don't normally check out his Twitter feed that often, but

859
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,360
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's put out this statement that just said,

860
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. We call

861
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: on President Biden to de escalate tensions and work for

862
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: peace rather than prepare for war. Sending thousands more US

863
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: troops to Europe and response to Russia's threats against Ukraine

864
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: only fans the flame of war. Incredibly reasonable sentiment, very

865
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: consistent with their historic pro peace orientation. And David from

866
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 1: quote teats that and says congratulations to Tucker Carlson on

867
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: his appointment as CEO of BEN and Jerry's like, just

868
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: the language and the rhetoric around this is so ridiculous.

869
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 1: Allowed to say, hey, here's what's going on from Russia's perspective,

870
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: here's why they're looking at it this way, here's what

871
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 1: some of their motivations are, which, again in the New

872
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: York Times this morning, they're laying out what Macron is

873
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: trying to do and is trying to assert the European

874
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: position because they have a lot more directly at stake

875
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: in this in terms of their energy prices than we do.

876
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: And one of the things that The New York Times

877
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: says is that they're trying to figure out how to

878
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: acknowledge that Russia has a little bit of a point

879
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: when it comes to NATO expansion without backing off of

880
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: the promises that have already been made and the statements

881
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: that have already been made by the West with regards

882
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: to that NATO expansion. So this is not crazy stuff

883
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 1: to talk about. But they've just gotten away with so

884
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: long having reliable stenographers from the press that will just

885
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: write down whatever they say is fact, no evidence needed,

886
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: that they feel like they can do this and they

887
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: can get away with it, and they largely can. No,

888
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:04,280
Speaker 1: you're right, And there was a moment on the exact

889
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: same day that we want to show you about Syria.

890
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and move on to that. What

891
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: happened for so, yeah, so you guys probably saw this

892
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: news that there was a big raid in Syria that

893
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 1: took out an ISIS leader. I'm going to totally butcher

894
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:20,800
Speaker 1: his name. I'm sorry, but his name is Abu Ibrahim

895
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: al Hashimi al Karashi. Karashi Tarishi was killed Wednesday, I'm

896
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: reading from CNN right now during the US counter terrorism

897
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: raid in northwest Syria. Biden announced that on Thursday morning,

898
00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: biggest US raid in that country since the twenty nine

899
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: nineteen operation that killed the last ISIS leader, Abu Baker

900
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: al Bagdati. So what the US says, what they claim

901
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: without evidence at this point is that he blew himself

902
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: up as US forces approached his compound, and that self

903
00:47:53,080 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: immolation or suicide bombing resulted in multiple civilian casualties. However,

904
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: there's a lot of facts that don't add up here.

905
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: The number of civilian casualties that the US is claiming

906
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: does not match what independent organizations on the ground are

907
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 1: saying the number of civilians that were killed during this operation.

908
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: And so, once again, on the very same day that

909
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: we were having pushed back over the whole Ukraine situation,

910
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: we also had some pushback from reporters about the narrative

911
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: that the White House was laying out with regards to

912
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: how this raid exactly went down. Let's go ahead and

913
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: put this tweet up on the screen. A board Air Force.

914
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: One reporter asked White House pro Secretary Jensaki for evidence

915
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: to back up the claim that Karashi detonated a suicide bomb.

916
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: Saki responds by asking whether skeptics think the US military

917
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: is not providing accurate information and ISIS is providing accurate information?

918
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 1: Let's go to the next tweet. The reporter did not

919
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: back down. That reporter said, I mean the US has

920
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: not always been st right forward about what happens with civilians,

921
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: and I mean that is a fact. Great points there.

922
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put the next piece up on

923
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 1: the screen. So this shows the discrepancy. The Syrian civil

924
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,200
Speaker 1: defense group, the White Helmets, says that thirteen people were

925
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:17,760
Speaker 1: killed in the raid. Meanwhile, the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby

926
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:20,360
Speaker 1: says that four civilians and five combatants that would be

927
00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 1: a total of nine people died during the operation. So

928
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:27,120
Speaker 1: there's a discrepancy already from the jump about how many

929
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: civilians were actually killed, not to mention, no actual evidence

930
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: provided that the civilians who were killed were actually killed

931
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:39,280
Speaker 1: by Karashi and his suicide bomb. So it's another instance

932
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,240
Speaker 1: where typically for years and years, everyone in the press

933
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:48,760
Speaker 1: would just parrot whatever the official line was, no evidence needed,

934
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: yae go USA, and they would move on. This is

935
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: a very rare instance of a reporter who's saying, listen,

936
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:57,719
Speaker 1: I hear your narrative, but I would like to see

937
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: some evidence here. And of course we know for and

938
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: what this reporter alluded to. We know from lots of

939
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: reporting from the intercepts over many years, recently from the

940
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: New York Times, that the number of civilian casualties is

941
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: dramatically higher than they've ever acknowledged, that there are a

942
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 1: few precautions put in place to avoid civilian casualties, that

943
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:20,319
Speaker 1: they're covered up after they happen. And of course we

944
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:23,720
Speaker 1: saw that horrific, horrific case in point of what happened

945
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: with that drone strike in Afghanistan. I mean, look, if

946
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: you have evidence, you have to release it. And you

947
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: know the reporter is correct. I have no sympathy for

948
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: Abu whatever all Kuahi. I have also, don't put it

949
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: past them to blow up a bunch of kids. But

950
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: the White Helmets, and this is the other problem. White

951
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 1: Helmets a state department funded thing. You know, a lot

952
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: of people call them, you know, propagandists themselves in the past,

953
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: so it's hard to believe. But you know, in general

954
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: they try to save civilians, and they put out a

955
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: lot of videos during the civils Syrian Civil War, even

956
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 1: they are saying, right, there's a lot more casualties. Okay,

957
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 1: I mean maybe is has killed them. You have to

958
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,839
Speaker 1: tell us. And I don't believe them? Should you? How

959
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 1: many stories we've done here on the show, blowing up

960
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: that dam in Syria, lying about it? Obviously the isis

961
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: drone strike, lying about it, botching it, covering it up,

962
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 1: not punishing anyone. Look, maybe they killed some civilians. Admit it.

963
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's the fog of war. It

964
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,879
Speaker 1: maybe even be understandable. But you have to admit to it.

965
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 1: Why don't you say anything? And what was the planning

966
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 1: behind this operation? That was the other problem is that

967
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: Biden was trying to turn this into some oslov and

968
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 1: laden moment. Trump did the same thing with Bagdaddy. It's like, look,

969
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 1: neither of these guys even compare Sosama, Like it's not

970
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: even close in terms of the direct relationship. You know,

971
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 1: the way Americans feel about it, all of that, and

972
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 1: they try to use it as some like chest beating

973
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: moment to gin up their own popular support, which I

974
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 1: personally found very gross. I do think the timing of

975
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: it is noteworthy here because obviously Biden under a lot

976
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: of pressure here, not things you know, not going down

977
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: well with Ukraine, things not going well with COVID, things

978
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: not going well with the economy, and so yeah, this

979
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:03,399
Speaker 1: was a nice way to try to put a feather

980
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:05,720
Speaker 1: at his cap of we got the bad guys. Meanwhile,

981
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: you also killed a bunch of Do you remember the

982
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: twenty twelve Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic Convention bin

983
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: Laden is dead and GM is alive. He said it

984
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: over and over again. This was a huge political benefit

985
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: to Obama at the time when he was running for reelection.

986
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to remember, but that was Biden's

987
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: whole thing. He was like, we killed Osami. He said

988
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: it over and over and over again in his speech.

989
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:28,399
Speaker 1: You know, you should go and watch it, if not,

990
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 1: just to see how different he's was at the time.

991
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: The reason why all this matters is that it's fuzzy

992
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,280
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't trust these people whenever they make claims.

993
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 1: I do want to say though, and this just bothers me.

994
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 1: It took the war in Afghanistan and like the collapse

995
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: of Kabble before everyone's eyes, in the military's lives over

996
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 1: the last twenty years for these people to wake up

997
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: and be like, Okay, hold on a second, maybe we

998
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 1: should ask that. It's like, yeah, we should ask Okay,

999
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: Like you know, I shouldn't cry tears that it's coming now.

1000
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: But it's like, hey, you know, we could have saved

1001
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people if this happened in the past.

1002
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,920
Speaker 1: I will say this, it shows you how weak they

1003
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,760
Speaker 1: ultimately are. They don't. Nobody believes him anymore, and you shouldn't.

1004
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: They've lied to our faces over and over and over again. Also,

1005
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: what are all these troops doing in Syria in the

1006
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: first place. I don't remember having a conversation around that one,

1007
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 1: because you know, they didn't just come in from Iraq

1008
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:23,800
Speaker 1: or wherever. There's a base of like a couple hundred

1009
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: guys who are just sitting in Syria. It's twenty twenty two.

1010
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: We killed Bagdaddy in twenty nineteen, the caliphate collapse in

1011
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:32,879
Speaker 1: what twenty eighteen? Are we just now going to sit

1012
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 1: in Syria forever? By the way, the Syrian government doesn't

1013
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: want us there. I'm not saying I like us od

1014
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:41,280
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's his country. He won the civil war. Okay, fine,

1015
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:43,439
Speaker 1: so listen to them. This is the thing I don't

1016
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: really seem to understand. Congress is supposed to authorize these

1017
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 1: types of occupations and invasion of a foreign nation. I mean,

1018
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 1: you know, we should have a conversation around that, and

1019
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: then they just do these little operations here and there,

1020
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 1: and they hope that we don't hear about it. And

1021
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:58,879
Speaker 1: when we do hear about it, everybody's supposed to chest beat.

1022
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: But every once in a while, a little bit of information,

1023
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: thanks to the Internet, starts to squeak out, and you know,

1024
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: we learn about Niger. You're like, hey, what happened in Niger?

1025
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: What was all that going on there? How do these

1026
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 1: four guys end up in the middle of the desert

1027
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 1: and one of them get shot with no air support

1028
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: on some crackpot mission. Also wire troops in Niger, in

1029
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: the first Somalia, Yemen, the very first week of Trump's presidency,

1030
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: Navy seal gets shot in the chest in Yemen on

1031
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: some crazy kill capture mission against al Qaeda. We're also

1032
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids were killed, no questions, I mean,

1033
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: these are all this has been happening for a long time.

1034
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:34,759
Speaker 1: I would just put it in that context. Yeah, these reporters,

1035
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 1: they've let a lot of this slide. Oh when I

1036
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 1: was there, Well, and let's not over sell this is

1037
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: one person. Yeah right, It's like, hey, I want to

1038
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 1: see the evidence. There's but it says a lot about

1039
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: how much they've been exposed. That you even have a

1040
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 1: single reporter who's willing to say, you know, your narrative

1041
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: about the suicide bomb, maybe it's true, but don't I

1042
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: don't put it past them. Yeah, we don't put it

1043
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: past them. But that there's even just a question of like, well, okay,

1044
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: let's see the evidence, because you people will tell us

1045
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:09,360
Speaker 1: whatever is most convenient for your storyline. The Niger example

1046
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: is a great one because there's been even more information

1047
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 1: to come out about you know, they tried to blame

1048
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:18,239
Speaker 1: the dead bodily. Yeah it was a role mission, and

1049
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: they come to find out no, it wasn't, No, it wasn't.

1050
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: This was authorized from the top. You all just don't

1051
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: want to have your hands dirty on something that went

1052
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 1: so horrifically wrong. So tiny little bit of skepticism here

1053
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: is nice to see. Yeah, that's right. All right, all right,

1054
00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 1: got some lighter news here from CNN. CNN and disarray.

1055
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: Let's put this first piece up on the screen. So,

1056
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: of course we've been tracking Andrew Cuomo. Chris Cuomo gets fired.

1057
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 1: Jeff Sucker gets taken out as part of that, because

1058
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: apparently he was having a long time affair which apparently

1059
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:52,799
Speaker 1: everybody knew about and was totally consensual. But the person

1060
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: who was a woman he was having affair with was

1061
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:57,399
Speaker 1: a former Andrew Cuomo aid, and sure looks like Chris

1062
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:02,240
Speaker 1: Cloma's kind of getting his revenge here by basically threatened

1063
00:56:02,239 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: to expose the whole thing, and that there was a

1064
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 1: lot more going on with regards to Zucker and his brother.

1065
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,360
Speaker 1: Andrew then ultimately meets the eye because of course, you know,

1066
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: Zucker's line is, oh, Chris was totally doing this on

1067
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: his own. I had nothing to do with it, and

1068
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: so we have to fire him. We you know, killed

1069
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: the bad apple. So so now we're getting some details

1070
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: of how much money is at stake here and how

1071
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 1: much money Chris Cuomo may be able to extract from

1072
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 1: CNN with some of the apparently successful tactics he's been using.

1073
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:34,280
Speaker 1: Daily Mail said in that tear sheet fired CNN anchor

1074
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:37,839
Speaker 1: Chris Cuomo was hoping to secure an eighteen million dollar

1075
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: lump sum payout following his departure last year. I think

1076
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: that was the entirety of the rest of his contract.

1077
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: But he's been told to set his size lower, with

1078
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 1: him unlikely to receive anything more than a round, just

1079
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: a mere nine million dollars. Sager that he's looking like

1080
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:54,799
Speaker 1: he's got house in the Hamptons out of this. That's right,

1081
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not cheap. They're living that life. There.

1082
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,600
Speaker 1: Apparently AT and T CNN's companies said to be negotiations

1083
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 1: to reach a deal that would see the fired anchor

1084
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 1: receive half of the eighteen million dollars he had been

1085
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:11,759
Speaker 1: vying for. So looks like CNN AT and T a

1086
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: poise to offer Chris Cuomo a little bit of hush

1087
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: money to keep some of the uglier, dirtier details of

1088
00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: how this all went down under wraps. So that's one piece.

1089
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: The other pie. The next piece that we can put

1090
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: up on the screen here is the staffers. The anchors

1091
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 1: at CNN are not happy because they see how exactly

1092
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: happening this went down, and they are totally freaked down

1093
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 1: about what this is going to mean for them and

1094
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 1: their next and their jobs going forward. Jake Tapper kind

1095
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:46,000
Speaker 1: of led the charge here. This was in a meeting

1096
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:52,160
Speaker 1: with the WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kyler. Tapper says, I'll just

1097
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: reduce relatively long quote, but you can see the direction

1098
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 1: of where they go, if you could address the perception,

1099
00:57:58,280 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 1: because we're all going to be asked about this, the

1100
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 1: perception that Chris Cuomo gets fired by CNN, Chris Clomo

1101
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: hires a higher powered lawyer who has a scorch Durth policy,

1102
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: who then makes it very clear to the world that

1103
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: unless Jeff gives Cuomo his money, they're going to blow

1104
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: the place up. Stuff starts getting leaked to gossip websites

1105
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: about Jeff and Allison. Then weeks later, Jeff comes forward,

1106
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 1: discloses this and resigns, not willingly. An outside observer might say, well,

1107
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: looks like Chris Cuomo succeeded. He threatened. Jeff said, we

1108
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 1: don't negotiate with terrorists, and Chris blew the place up.

1109
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: How do we get past that perception that this is

1110
00:58:34,760 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: the bad guy winning now? I would strenuously object to

1111
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 1: the idea that Jeff Zucker is the good guy and

1112
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:44,480
Speaker 1: Chris Coohma is the bad guy, when in reality what

1113
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: was about to happen was going to be exposed that

1114
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 1: Jeff Zucker also was the bad guy. What I love

1115
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 1: about all these guys, Tapper and Jim Acosta and the

1116
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:58,480
Speaker 1: rest of them, They are freaking out because Zucker protected

1117
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: them at all costs. To the higher up executives. People

1118
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: need to know this at and t did not like CNN.

1119
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: That's why they're selling it basically to Discovery as part

1120
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: of some big major deal down in Dallas. They had

1121
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 1: been wanting to cap CNN and cut costs for a

1122
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: long time. Zucker was the person who pushed back against

1123
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: all of that. And part of the reason that it

1124
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 1: was sold and given to Discovery in the first place

1125
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:22,960
Speaker 1: is because Discovery also wanted to take things in a

1126
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: different direction, but was perhaps willing to spend more cash.

1127
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: Now Acosta, Tapper, and the rest of the clowns, their

1128
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: worst behavior was not only protected, but encouraged by Zucker.

1129
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 1: That's why they loved Zucker. In fact, it has come

1130
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 1: out that Jake Tapper held a shiva of like solemnness

1131
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:45,600
Speaker 1: on Friday night when they all found out the news

1132
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: for all the morning CNN staffers. That's how much they

1133
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 1: loved this guy. Okay, And the reason why is because

1134
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 1: he was, at his core the developer and the protector

1135
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: of the clownish behavior over the last five years. I

1136
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: can't underscore this enough. It was his idea he believed

1137
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 1: not only was good for business, but he believed that

1138
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:09,960
Speaker 1: it was the best possible thing that you could do

1139
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 1: for the country. Kind of found himself as you know,

1140
01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 1: this anti Trump person, even though he himself was a

1141
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:17,440
Speaker 1: guy who created Trump over on the Apprentice. And what

1142
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 1: I find especially hilarious is that the CNN talent are

1143
01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: telling on themselves because they're protecting Zucker. They see, no,

1144
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: they have no ethical qualms here with the fact that

1145
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 1: the boss was banging one of his subordinates, and that

1146
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 1: at that time him and that subordinate re coordinating with

1147
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:37,040
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo, her former boss, both talking points that has

1148
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: now come out, and in terms of encouraging him to

1149
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 1: go on Chris Cuomo's show for higher ratings in the

1150
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 1: first place, they have no problem with that. Not only

1151
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 1: no problem, they are outwardly talking about how Zucker is

1152
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 1: the best person in media. Now, look, you say what

1153
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:54,760
Speaker 1: you will about Fox and all that. I didn't see

1154
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: a lot of people being after Roger Ayles was canned

1155
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: saying oh, but Roger, you know, he was the best boss.

1156
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 1: He's like No, Everyone's like, okay, Roger, Roger was nice. Yeah,

1157
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: It's like he was not a nice okay, sure, but

1158
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: like you know, arguably more successful than Zucker and more

1159
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 1: would I say when I point to that is that

1160
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:16,160
Speaker 1: they're saying the quiet part out loud, which is that

1161
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 1: they value his loyalty to them in defense of their

1162
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: shenanigans in idiocy more than actual journalistic integrity. And I

1163
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:25,640
Speaker 1: think that that is pathetic and disgusting from him. I mean,

1164
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 1: Zucker created a real full service economy there at CNN

1165
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:34,040
Speaker 1: because he was definitely a part of elevating Trump. I mean,

1166
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 1: first of all the Apprentice, but during Trump's campaign, you know,

1167
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: they were infamous for how much they were showing his rallies.

1168
01:01:42,160 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 1: They'd show his empty podium rather than Hillary Clinton's siege Rael,

1169
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: probably more entertaining. I'm sure it was more right, I mean,

1170
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: And so they they're a business. They care about the ratings,

1171
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 1: they care about the money, and Jeff was leading the

1172
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 1: charge on all of that. And then once Trump gets

1173
01:01:58,600 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 1: into office, they they decide to completely orient themselves in

1174
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 1: opposition to Trump, and people like Jim Acosta become big stars.

1175
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:09,840
Speaker 1: As you know, he's got his own show now watches it.

1176
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:11,880
Speaker 1: And so it's great for Trump because he's got this

1177
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:14,240
Speaker 1: great villain that he can point to and he can

1178
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 1: you know, fake news and all that stuff. It's great

1179
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 1: for them. They get book contracts, they get great ratings,

1180
01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: they get to, you know, be the opposition in the

1181
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: Trump Show. So none of this was about like, let's

1182
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:26,840
Speaker 1: do what's right for the country. It was great, it

1183
01:02:26,960 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 1: was great for their business, and now that that business

1184
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 1: model is dead, at least for the moment, they've also

1185
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: been really, really, really struggling. So that's sort of the

1186
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: back context here. But it is incredible that there doesn't

1187
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:44,200
Speaker 1: seem to be any concern from the talent whatsoever about

1188
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 1: the fact that it also came out there's at least reported,

1189
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 1: you know, allegations that he was helping Andrew Cuomo on

1190
01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: his coronavirus freefing, you know, being serving as much of

1191
01:02:56,400 --> 01:02:59,880
Speaker 1: an advisor to Andrew Cuomo as apparently Chris Cuomo was.

1192
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: So then when he turns around that that also gives

1193
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: you insight into why Chris Cuomo was able to hang

1194
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 1: around for so long, because this was a very uncomfortable

1195
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:12,480
Speaker 1: situation for Zucker that, you know, if it all comes

1196
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 1: out that not only is Cuomo advising and his brother,

1197
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 1: but you're advising his brother and you're you know, you're,

1198
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:22,680
Speaker 1: you're whoever, what do we want to call her? Your?

1199
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:27,000
Speaker 1: Your lady is also advising Cuomo, this is not going

1200
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:29,120
Speaker 1: to look good for you. The funny this is we

1201
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 1: have to play some of this. Brian Stelter has been

1202
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:36,600
Speaker 1: a very consistent lackey for the higher ups at CNN.

1203
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: That's how someone who's so profoundly untalented can end up

1204
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 1: with a big job at a network. Is you're good

1205
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: at You're good at playing the inside game, which clearly

1206
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 1: he was during the whole Chris Cuomo fallout, Remember You,

1207
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: famously was like, this is such a strange Who could

1208
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: ever anticipate this situation? How could you figure out what

1209
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:55,440
Speaker 1: to do when it's very obvious this conflict of interest

1210
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 1: and that you know, the way they had handled it

1211
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 1: was totally unacceptable. So here's the sort of of like

1212
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 1: absurdly fawning language that Stelter has been using to talk

1213
01:04:05,520 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: about Jeff Zucker is why why did this happen? This

1214
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 1: is the ugliest shake up at CNN since the day

1215
01:04:13,320 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 1: is Ted Turner was still walking the halls. Zucker was

1216
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 1: in charge one minute and he was gone the next.

1217
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:22,040
Speaker 1: So why even employees who didn't like him, are mad

1218
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: because this made CNN look bad, so they want to

1219
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:28,320
Speaker 1: know why. They want to know what happened. But most

1220
01:04:28,320 --> 01:04:33,640
Speaker 1: staffers did like him, Many loved him. Many felt Zucker

1221
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:36,680
Speaker 1: was the best boss they'd ever worked for. They would

1222
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: walk into war zones for him, and sometimes they did,

1223
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:43,520
Speaker 1: and in return, Zucker protected them, defended them, cheered for them.

1224
01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 1: He was like a heat shield. That's the best way

1225
01:04:46,680 --> 01:04:49,600
Speaker 1: I can explain it. He shielded his staff from all

1226
01:04:49,640 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: sorts of heat. Look they were using hagiographic language, but

1227
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:56,240
Speaker 1: he's just telling you what I just told you. He

1228
01:04:56,320 --> 01:04:58,320
Speaker 1: was the heat shield, all right, And look, some of

1229
01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: that heat probably should have come. I am truly relishing

1230
01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 1: Crystal to see what happens behind the scenes. This website,

1231
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:09,200
Speaker 1: Radar Online, which actually had the Coomo story originally, has

1232
01:05:09,240 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: a new piece which I find personally hilarious. Let's put

1233
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. It turns out that

1234
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: Chris Wallace is having a quote meltdown over the Zucker

1235
01:05:18,720 --> 01:05:21,680
Speaker 1: Alison Gallis scandal and is said to be at war

1236
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:25,480
Speaker 1: in the DC Bureau with Jake Tapper. Wallace is apparently

1237
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:30,760
Speaker 1: getting paid eight to ten million dollars a year hilarious.

1238
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 1: Just think about that eight to ten million to anchor

1239
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: CNN plus, which nobody is going to watch. This thing

1240
01:05:36,880 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 1: is going to be the one hundred million dollar boondoggle.

1241
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 1: I'm also looking forward to that story. But what they

1242
01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:43,480
Speaker 1: point to is that Wallace thought he was going to

1243
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:46,080
Speaker 1: be coming over to work for Zucker, and now Zucker

1244
01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:49,479
Speaker 1: himself is out. He apparently is at war with Jake

1245
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:53,200
Speaker 1: Tapper over journalistic disagreements and all that, which I find

1246
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:55,600
Speaker 1: very funny. I think this place is going to implode.

1247
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why, which is that Discovery CEO,

1248
01:05:58,440 --> 01:06:01,200
Speaker 1: by all accounts, does not love of any of this nonsense.

1249
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:04,400
Speaker 1: We played that clip here on the show several months

1250
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:08,520
Speaker 1: ago of a huge investor in Discovery, an original founder

1251
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 1: of CNN, who was like, I think CNN needs to

1252
01:06:11,080 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 1: go back to its news roots. This is terrible. Jason

1253
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:18,840
Speaker 1: Kyler hated Jeff Zucker by all accounts, because he was

1254
01:06:18,880 --> 01:06:20,760
Speaker 1: a tech guide. He thought Zucker and all these DC

1255
01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:24,280
Speaker 1: New York people were clowns. Correct, Jason, you know, clean

1256
01:06:24,360 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 1: house while you have the chance. Well that's the other

1257
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:27,480
Speaker 1: part is this looks a little bit a little bit

1258
01:06:27,560 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: like you know, his revenge. Yeah, well, I mean, listen,

1259
01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:33,080
Speaker 1: take it okay, I think it's fine. I what I

1260
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: see very much is an opportunity where you can actually

1261
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:39,160
Speaker 1: clean house over at that network. I mean, I'm not

1262
01:06:39,200 --> 01:06:41,320
Speaker 1: saying you could ever turn around CNN Plus after some

1263
01:06:41,360 --> 01:06:43,480
Speaker 1: of the hiring decisions that have made, but I don't know,

1264
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:46,360
Speaker 1: maybe you can do something different. But there are a

1265
01:06:46,400 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: lot of people in the executive chair who have hated

1266
01:06:49,160 --> 01:06:52,360
Speaker 1: this show and or have hated this network for a

1267
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 1: long time in the direction it went under Jeff Sucker,

1268
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: and they're in charge now. And if you're Jim Acosta,

1269
01:06:57,200 --> 01:06:59,240
Speaker 1: you know it's not gonna be a good time for you, buddy,

1270
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:02,960
Speaker 1: because his ratings are We would be living under a

1271
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:07,600
Speaker 1: bridge if that few people watched our show we were independent.

1272
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:11,200
Speaker 1: Just put it in context, Don Lemon is the same thing.

1273
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 1: These people are really going to suffer. These people are

1274
01:07:14,000 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 1: getting tastes crazy to anchor these streaming shows. I mean,

1275
01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 1: I could just tell you the economics does not yea

1276
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 1: that way for Chris Wallace. He there is like not

1277
01:07:24,280 --> 01:07:27,360
Speaker 1: one person in the country who is going to subscribe

1278
01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:29,200
Speaker 1: to see an unplus to see Chris Waller. I agree,

1279
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:32,200
Speaker 1: And that's what these that's what these salaries ultimately should

1280
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:34,240
Speaker 1: be used to justify. I mean, Rogan is a perfect

1281
01:07:34,320 --> 01:07:37,640
Speaker 1: example of yeah, he got a big deal, but actually

1282
01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:42,080
Speaker 1: he's mad because of the number of people that he

1283
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 1: actually brings in is converted to premium subscribers. I mean,

1284
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:48,000
Speaker 1: this is a huge money maker for Spotify. Why because

1285
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 1: he actually has an audience that cares about what he

1286
01:07:51,120 --> 01:07:53,040
Speaker 1: has to say and is going to show up for him.

1287
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: These people they're hiring, no one cares what these people

1288
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:00,320
Speaker 1: have to say, and so it's ridiculous. I will say,

1289
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:02,560
Speaker 1: the one thing that I don't think there's any saving

1290
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:06,080
Speaker 1: CNN plus that's that's a dune deal. But the one

1291
01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:08,760
Speaker 1: thing that we'll rescue CNN is Trump. And it reminds me,

1292
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:12,920
Speaker 1: if you know, it reminds me very much of an MSNBC.

1293
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:16,400
Speaker 1: You know, during the Obama years when I was at

1294
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:18,759
Speaker 1: the end of when I was there, ratings are way down.

1295
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:21,920
Speaker 1: They did the same thing, We've gone too far left,

1296
01:08:21,960 --> 01:08:25,160
Speaker 1: it's too progressive. Imagine saying that. No, but anyway, that

1297
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:26,880
Speaker 1: was the thinking. It's like, we got to get back

1298
01:08:26,920 --> 01:08:28,640
Speaker 1: to the same thing. We got to get back to

1299
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 1: our roots a NBC News. We're gonna plug Brian Williams

1300
01:08:31,439 --> 01:08:33,120
Speaker 1: in he's going to do breaking news. We're going to

1301
01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:35,280
Speaker 1: use like these people like Kate Snow and all these

1302
01:08:35,560 --> 01:08:38,720
Speaker 1: NBC news journals are going to be given shows. We're

1303
01:08:38,720 --> 01:08:41,760
Speaker 1: going to get the opinion down a here, and then

1304
01:08:41,800 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 1: Trump shows up and of course saves the whole thing.

1305
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:46,800
Speaker 1: The shows that are doing the best are the ones

1306
01:08:46,840 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 1: that are willing to be the most insane and deranged

1307
01:08:50,479 --> 01:08:53,400
Speaker 1: when it comes to Trump and especially the Russia conspiracies,

1308
01:08:53,760 --> 01:08:56,559
Speaker 1: and so you know, MSNBC looking at the bottom line

1309
01:08:56,560 --> 01:08:58,720
Speaker 1: makes a total incomplete shift. It's gonna be the same

1310
01:08:58,720 --> 01:09:00,559
Speaker 1: thing with CNN. They're going to try to pivot back

1311
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:04,040
Speaker 1: to where the straight news journals a minute Trump comes

1312
01:09:04,080 --> 01:09:06,760
Speaker 1: back on the scene. It's gonna shift around right again,

1313
01:09:06,800 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: because that's you know, that's the only thing that has

1314
01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:12,320
Speaker 1: worked for them over these past number of years. Otherwise

1315
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:13,720
Speaker 1: they were dead in the water. Yeah, so I might

1316
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:16,559
Speaker 1: as well gouge my eyes out live on you pretty

1317
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:21,479
Speaker 1: much all right, Zacher ready looking at it. Well, there

1318
01:09:21,520 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: is always more to the story than it seems. I've

1319
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:26,240
Speaker 1: watched with great dismay as the tide is turned against

1320
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan and one of the most transparent witch hunts

1321
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen in my lifetime. First he was

1322
01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:34,720
Speaker 1: the purveyor of vaccine misinformation. Then he destroyed them with

1323
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:37,640
Speaker 1: his response, Oh okay, now he's a racist. When this

1324
01:09:37,680 --> 01:09:41,080
Speaker 1: one dies down, he'll be a transphobe, a misogynist. They

1325
01:09:41,080 --> 01:09:44,519
Speaker 1: are pulling out all the stops. I, along with many others,

1326
01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:48,080
Speaker 1: are resolved to fight back against them. But therein lies

1327
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:51,559
Speaker 1: the question who is them? It's a great question one

1328
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 1: I have spent hours trying to get to the bottom of.

1329
01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:56,600
Speaker 1: So come along with this journey with me. I have

1330
01:09:56,680 --> 01:09:59,679
Speaker 1: previously laid out the various music interests at play behind

1331
01:09:59,720 --> 01:10:03,080
Speaker 1: Neil Young and the original boycott campaign from Blackstone and

1332
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:06,200
Speaker 1: the Hedge Funds to Amazon Music, but the recent effort

1333
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:09,760
Speaker 1: against Rogan has inspired deeper investigation, and I have found

1334
01:10:09,800 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 1: that this is even bigger than I originally thought. Something

1335
01:10:12,920 --> 01:10:16,320
Speaker 1: I took notice of Thursday is that this entire manufactured

1336
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:20,280
Speaker 1: controversy began right before Spotify earning season. The reason that

1337
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:23,320
Speaker 1: matters is that the controversy caused a big headache for

1338
01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:26,600
Speaker 1: the CEO, Daniel Eck, and it coincided with a not

1339
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:30,640
Speaker 1: so great earnings report for Spotify. The company meaning that

1340
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:34,600
Speaker 1: whomever is striking against Rogan had maximum leverage as a

1341
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:38,200
Speaker 1: stock plunged by twenty percent. It's in the downtimes that

1342
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:41,839
Speaker 1: these companies are the most vulnerable. Now I'm not claiming

1343
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:44,120
Speaker 1: Rogan is the only reason that stock went down, but

1344
01:10:44,200 --> 01:10:46,320
Speaker 1: let's say organically it would have gone down to like

1345
01:10:46,400 --> 01:10:49,680
Speaker 1: eighteen and now it's down twenty. That two percent is

1346
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:54,040
Speaker 1: literally hundreds of millions of dollars in value. Every tiny

1347
01:10:54,080 --> 01:10:56,640
Speaker 1: tenth of a percentage point matters at this level that

1348
01:10:56,640 --> 01:10:59,240
Speaker 1: we're talking about, And if you think that sounds far fetched,

1349
01:10:59,400 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 1: it's not literally right now, Business Insider just dropped its

1350
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:06,320
Speaker 1: second ridiculous hit piece on barstool founder Dave Portnoy, right

1351
01:11:06,360 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 1: before his company, Penn Gaming had its earnings calls. The

1352
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:12,320
Speaker 1: best part They did it twice in a row, a

1353
01:11:12,400 --> 01:11:15,559
Speaker 1: transparent effort to destroy his net worth. They do this

1354
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:18,080
Speaker 1: all the time. It's a piece of the playbook. But

1355
01:11:18,200 --> 01:11:21,200
Speaker 1: again that they question, well, it could be a lot

1356
01:11:21,280 --> 01:11:23,720
Speaker 1: of people, per my friend, unusual Wales. Here are the

1357
01:11:23,720 --> 01:11:27,920
Speaker 1: companies that are short Spotify, Big Time, RBBN Fund, Calamos

1358
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 1: Investment Trust run by a billionaire, Luthold Funds Inc. Guidestone, Funds,

1359
01:11:33,360 --> 01:11:38,000
Speaker 1: morning Star Alternative Funds, Northern Lights Fund Trust three. It's

1360
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:40,880
Speaker 1: difficult to dig into who exactly owns these and controls them,

1361
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:42,439
Speaker 1: but I'm putting them out there in the world for

1362
01:11:42,479 --> 01:11:44,400
Speaker 1: all of you to see, perhaps for others to take

1363
01:11:44,439 --> 01:11:47,240
Speaker 1: on the mantle. The other question to always look into

1364
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: is the Latin phrase qui bono? Who benefits? On this one?

1365
01:11:51,360 --> 01:11:54,400
Speaker 1: We all know the answer. No single person has benefited

1366
01:11:54,400 --> 01:11:57,800
Speaker 1: more from this fracas than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. As

1367
01:11:57,840 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 1: I previously reported, Neil Young, of course, is immediately starting

1368
01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:04,160
Speaker 1: giving people a four month free deal on Amazon Music

1369
01:12:04,400 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: after leaving Spotify, and the company put both Young and

1370
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 1: Mitchell write smack dab on its homepage, using the controversy

1371
01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:14,839
Speaker 1: to try to get sign ups and generate even more revenue.

1372
01:12:15,120 --> 01:12:18,040
Speaker 1: But the craziest thing I saw was this true hit

1373
01:12:18,120 --> 01:12:21,400
Speaker 1: job was a helpful guide from the Washington Post, who

1374
01:12:21,400 --> 01:12:24,920
Speaker 1: wrote an entire article titled how to Quit Spotify without

1375
01:12:24,960 --> 01:12:28,320
Speaker 1: losing your music? Just a helpful lifestyle tedbit, of course,

1376
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:32,840
Speaker 1: except who owns the Washington Post. Oh that's right, Jeff Bezos.

1377
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:36,800
Speaker 1: Article just so happens to include handy little instructions about

1378
01:12:36,840 --> 01:12:39,400
Speaker 1: how to port all your music off of the platform

1379
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:42,599
Speaker 1: if you just so happen to turn over to Amazon Music. Now,

1380
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:44,559
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I knew bigger forces were at

1381
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:48,080
Speaker 1: play is because this is an old school Washington play.

1382
01:12:48,439 --> 01:12:52,160
Speaker 1: Almost nothing you see is organic or authentic, and that

1383
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:55,160
Speaker 1: even includes the Joe Rogan racial controversy. So while the

1384
01:12:55,160 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 1: clip of him saying the N word over and over

1385
01:12:56,880 --> 01:12:59,200
Speaker 1: again is one, this existed for years. There's a group

1386
01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,080
Speaker 1: on Twitter that was most responsible for disseminating it to

1387
01:13:02,120 --> 01:13:05,840
Speaker 1: black artists and urging cancelation. It's called Patriot Takes. Now

1388
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:08,360
Speaker 1: here's a statement from Patriot Takes taking credit for this.

1389
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 1: They say they're going to keep going. It's out in

1390
01:13:10,479 --> 01:13:13,800
Speaker 1: the open. So who the hell are these people? Let's investigate.

1391
01:13:13,840 --> 01:13:16,720
Speaker 1: Per their website, Patriot Takes is a group dedicated to

1392
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:20,920
Speaker 1: exposing right wing misinformation. Oh okay, nothing shady about that.

1393
01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:24,160
Speaker 1: Who funds them? They are partnered with an organization called

1394
01:13:24,280 --> 01:13:27,839
Speaker 1: Midas Touch. Now. Midas Touch describes itself as a quote

1395
01:13:27,960 --> 01:13:31,519
Speaker 1: producing the best pro democracy political videos and content and

1396
01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:34,840
Speaker 1: include a political action committee that's interesting, a super pack.

1397
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:37,120
Speaker 1: So this is a world I know a lot about

1398
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:40,320
Speaker 1: who exactly has donated to this Political Action Committee. Well,

1399
01:13:40,439 --> 01:13:43,000
Speaker 1: per my research, one of the biggest donors to Midas

1400
01:13:43,040 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 1: Touch pack is none other than Bette Midler, the washed

1401
01:13:46,520 --> 01:13:49,479
Speaker 1: up actress who most recently said West Virginia is full

1402
01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:52,920
Speaker 1: of quote poor, illiterate and strung out people in reference

1403
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:56,400
Speaker 1: to Joe Manchin, they're not sending their best in other words,

1404
01:13:56,439 --> 01:13:59,280
Speaker 1: is what she said. But who else? Of course, also

1405
01:13:59,320 --> 01:14:02,719
Speaker 1: on the list Reid Hoffman. Hoffman is probably the single

1406
01:14:02,840 --> 01:14:06,960
Speaker 1: largest donor in democratic politics today, next to George Soros.

1407
01:14:07,080 --> 01:14:10,639
Speaker 1: He has donated some four hundred million dollars to these

1408
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:14,080
Speaker 1: types of groups and all sorts of shady efforts, including

1409
01:14:14,160 --> 01:14:17,960
Speaker 1: funding a literal fake news publication in Alabama to try

1410
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:20,559
Speaker 1: and swing the Senate election down there. So here we

1411
01:14:20,600 --> 01:14:23,599
Speaker 1: have a shady democratic media group who is finding these clips,

1412
01:14:23,720 --> 01:14:27,200
Speaker 1: funded by Silicon Valley billionaire and Hollywood actress, as well

1413
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,040
Speaker 1: as a lot of other types. Now, as for the

1414
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:32,599
Speaker 1: operation itself, let's look deeper. Midas Touch group is run

1415
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:35,360
Speaker 1: by three brothers, one of whom was once a social

1416
01:14:35,400 --> 01:14:38,840
Speaker 1: media manager for Ellen DeGeneres. Now, the group was a

1417
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:43,439
Speaker 1: resistance media operation which generated cringe clicks during the twenty

1418
01:14:43,520 --> 01:14:47,479
Speaker 1: twenty election, but by twenty twenty one, even Rolling Stone

1419
01:14:47,720 --> 01:14:51,559
Speaker 1: magazine unveiled the effort as one that took millions of

1420
01:14:51,600 --> 01:14:54,839
Speaker 1: dollars from big donors and anti Trump liberals and appears

1421
01:14:54,880 --> 01:14:59,200
Speaker 1: to have dramatically oversold its influence. It's basically a Blue

1422
01:14:59,240 --> 01:15:02,200
Speaker 1: Lincoln project. So do you guys get the big picture? Now?

1423
01:15:02,560 --> 01:15:06,919
Speaker 1: Wall Street, Jeff Bezos, big Democratic donors, resistance media operation.

1424
01:15:07,200 --> 01:15:09,599
Speaker 1: This is a political hatch's job. I know quite well.

1425
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:12,320
Speaker 1: I recognize at the moment I saw move on dot

1426
01:15:12,400 --> 01:15:15,240
Speaker 1: org and ultrabiolt get involved last week, and I'll continue

1427
01:15:15,280 --> 01:15:17,040
Speaker 1: to stand up for Rogan in the only way that

1428
01:15:17,160 --> 01:15:20,599
Speaker 1: I think I uniquely can. Following the money, uncovering the

1429
01:15:20,600 --> 01:15:22,800
Speaker 1: corridors of power. We're never going to give up here

1430
01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:24,760
Speaker 1: on this show. That's the thing, Crystal. I mean, you

1431
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:28,120
Speaker 1: look at this group, Midas touched, Superpack, Ben and if

1432
01:15:28,120 --> 01:15:30,960
Speaker 1: you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become

1433
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:36,640
Speaker 1: a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. Let's go

1434
01:15:36,680 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: ahead and get your monologue Crystal, because I know you've

1435
01:15:38,360 --> 01:15:41,160
Speaker 1: got a great point about anti politics here. Well, guys,

1436
01:15:41,160 --> 01:15:43,800
Speaker 1: there are in one sense, about a billion things going

1437
01:15:43,800 --> 01:15:45,759
Speaker 1: on in the world more important than the current efforts

1438
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:50,240
Speaker 1: to James smear and censor one single podcaster. You've got hunger, poverty,

1439
01:15:50,400 --> 01:15:53,320
Speaker 1: war to spare, climate collapse. Just take your pick. We're

1440
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:55,400
Speaker 1: in the midst of a new Cold War style conflict

1441
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,760
Speaker 1: between the two nuclear powers centered around Ukraine. The FED

1442
01:15:58,920 --> 01:16:02,080
Speaker 1: is making economic life or death decisions right now as

1443
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:05,400
Speaker 1: we speak. Inequality has soared during the pandemic to world

1444
01:16:05,520 --> 01:16:08,960
Speaker 1: historic levels, leading to a dystopian split screen, like Jeff

1445
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:12,280
Speaker 1: Bezos commanding the deconstruction of a historic bridge in order

1446
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:15,920
Speaker 1: to accommodate his massive yacht, while on the other hand,

1447
01:16:15,920 --> 01:16:19,200
Speaker 1: you've got his former workers like de Quan Smith, forced

1448
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:22,479
Speaker 1: into homelessness for the crime of advocating for a union.

1449
01:16:23,080 --> 01:16:25,640
Speaker 1: In a certain sense, any of these topics would be

1450
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:27,799
Speaker 1: a better use of our time than Joe Rogan versus

1451
01:16:27,800 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: the Libs. Yet, ironically, the very fact that the nation

1452
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:34,160
Speaker 1: has become so consumed with whatever bad words Rogan is

1453
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:37,719
Speaker 1: said over his multi decade career, instead of a serious

1454
01:16:37,720 --> 01:16:40,640
Speaker 1: inquiry into any of the problems I just mentioned that

1455
01:16:40,760 --> 01:16:44,040
Speaker 1: is in and of itself actually a gigantic issue. I

1456
01:16:44,040 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 1: don't want to be dramatic here, but the personal moral

1457
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:50,920
Speaker 1: purity way of doing politics is truly a cancer, and

1458
01:16:50,960 --> 01:16:54,519
Speaker 1: it's eating away at our pseudo democracy. In other words,

1459
01:16:54,720 --> 01:16:57,280
Speaker 1: part of why we can never address any of those

1460
01:16:57,360 --> 01:17:01,080
Speaker 1: real problems is because the public is content, ginuinely distracted

1461
01:17:01,160 --> 01:17:05,160
Speaker 1: and tenilated by these fake, personalized problems. But it's actually

1462
01:17:05,160 --> 01:17:07,640
Speaker 1: so much worse than that, because they are not just

1463
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:11,240
Speaker 1: a distraction, their centrality in our public discourse makes any

1464
01:17:11,280 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 1: sort of collective action virtually impossible. It reminds me of

1465
01:17:15,240 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: this infamous nineteen forty four CIA manual on how to

1466
01:17:18,479 --> 01:17:21,479
Speaker 1: destroy the productivity of an organization. It's called the Simple

1467
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:25,559
Speaker 1: Sabotage Field Manual, and it contains the following advice. Take

1468
01:17:25,560 --> 01:17:29,559
Speaker 1: a look at this, bring up irrelevant issues as frequently

1469
01:17:29,600 --> 01:17:34,960
Speaker 1: as possible, haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes and resolutions,

1470
01:17:35,280 --> 01:17:38,240
Speaker 1: refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting,

1471
01:17:38,240 --> 01:17:41,040
Speaker 1: and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of

1472
01:17:41,080 --> 01:17:44,679
Speaker 1: that decision. Now, these precepts seem to have been implied

1473
01:17:44,840 --> 01:17:48,960
Speaker 1: to our entire society in fact, debating the personal character

1474
01:17:49,040 --> 01:17:52,479
Speaker 1: of Joe Rogan and similar obsessions, they are a potent

1475
01:17:52,600 --> 01:17:56,640
Speaker 1: form of anti politics. It feels like you're engaging in

1476
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:59,439
Speaker 1: politics like you're adding your voice to a cacophonist and

1477
01:17:59,560 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 1: vibrant democracy, but you're not. You're stuck wandering endlessly around

1478
01:18:04,040 --> 01:18:07,280
Speaker 1: a fake Potempkin village of democracy, while leads with an

1479
01:18:07,280 --> 01:18:09,680
Speaker 1: interest in maintaining the status quo are left free to

1480
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:14,080
Speaker 1: make the real political decisions. You are relitigating the context

1481
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:16,960
Speaker 1: within which Joe Rogan said the N word in twenty thirteen.

1482
01:18:17,360 --> 01:18:19,759
Speaker 1: While the FED decides whether or not to vote fork

1483
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:22,479
Speaker 1: over a few more trillions to Wall Street, and private

1484
01:18:22,479 --> 01:18:25,320
Speaker 1: equity giants decide whether young people will ever be able

1485
01:18:25,360 --> 01:18:27,640
Speaker 1: to buy a home or start a family, and the

1486
01:18:27,680 --> 01:18:30,960
Speaker 1: oil and gas industry buys off politicians to continue forcing

1487
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:34,000
Speaker 1: the planet off a climate cliff. Now Neil Young, he

1488
01:18:34,040 --> 01:18:36,200
Speaker 1: was the first artist to pull his music from Spotify,

1489
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:38,240
Speaker 1: and actually his arc over the course of his life

1490
01:18:38,280 --> 01:18:41,559
Speaker 1: is really illuminating. His original forays into activism. They were

1491
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:45,439
Speaker 1: about bolstering a mass struggle against war, protesting the killings

1492
01:18:45,439 --> 01:18:47,599
Speaker 1: of young students at Kent State who were gunned down

1493
01:18:47,600 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 1: for their activism against the state under George W. Bush.

1494
01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:53,200
Speaker 1: He was part of a free speech toward decrying the

1495
01:18:53,240 --> 01:18:57,320
Speaker 1: reactionary censorship of anti war voices. But in our modern

1496
01:18:57,320 --> 01:19:01,519
Speaker 1: climate of democracy sabotage. He's flipped now his IR is

1497
01:19:01,560 --> 01:19:05,960
Speaker 1: directed at Spotify for allowing too much free speech. He's

1498
01:19:06,000 --> 01:19:10,640
Speaker 1: the same guy, same activists impulses, yet now his activism

1499
01:19:10,680 --> 01:19:14,040
Speaker 1: is dedicated to bolstering power rather than fighting it, and

1500
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:16,439
Speaker 1: his remedy is too perfect as well. He's pushing his

1501
01:19:16,520 --> 01:19:18,800
Speaker 1: fans their dollars to one of the most powerful and

1502
01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:23,360
Speaker 1: nefarious companies on the planet, Amazon, Rogan's thought crimes are

1503
01:19:23,400 --> 01:19:27,920
Speaker 1: given higher moral priority than Amazon's mass exploitation, monopoly rigging,

1504
01:19:27,960 --> 01:19:31,880
Speaker 1: and modern day indentured servitude. But Neil Young is emblematic

1505
01:19:31,960 --> 01:19:34,720
Speaker 1: of an influential activist population that has been tricked into

1506
01:19:34,720 --> 01:19:37,200
Speaker 1: thinking that they are fighting for democracy when they are

1507
01:19:37,240 --> 01:19:40,280
Speaker 1: actually fighting for tech oligarchs and media barons to have

1508
01:19:40,360 --> 01:19:44,200
Speaker 1: more power in an ingenious sleight of hand. Good and

1509
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:47,599
Speaker 1: well intentioned people who in a previous era would have fought,

1510
01:19:47,640 --> 01:19:50,880
Speaker 1: like Neil Young for real democratic change in action, have

1511
01:19:51,000 --> 01:19:54,640
Speaker 1: instead been persuaded that handing over as much control of

1512
01:19:54,680 --> 01:19:57,680
Speaker 1: the public square as possible to our modern day aristocracy

1513
01:19:57,760 --> 01:20:01,080
Speaker 1: is somehow sticking it to the man. They believe that

1514
01:20:01,120 --> 01:20:03,360
Speaker 1: the most powerful people on the planet are the ones

1515
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:06,439
Speaker 1: to be trusted and that their own powerless relatives and

1516
01:20:06,439 --> 01:20:08,720
Speaker 1: neighbors are the ones to be held in contempt and

1517
01:20:08,800 --> 01:20:12,200
Speaker 1: held to account, because that's what the instinct towards censorship,

1518
01:20:12,240 --> 01:20:14,040
Speaker 1: that's what it is about at its core. It's not

1519
01:20:14,080 --> 01:20:17,919
Speaker 1: really about Joe Rogan. It's about adult Americans not trusting

1520
01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,640
Speaker 1: their fellow adult Americans to be able to listen to

1521
01:20:20,680 --> 01:20:24,240
Speaker 1: a podcast or read a Facebook post without becoming murderous,

1522
01:20:24,360 --> 01:20:28,200
Speaker 1: raving lunatics. And that makes these constant moral purity debates

1523
01:20:28,320 --> 01:20:32,759
Speaker 1: active democracy sabotage instead of just a simple bread circuses distraction.

1524
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:37,519
Speaker 1: How are you ever going to engage in collective struggle

1525
01:20:37,560 --> 01:20:39,280
Speaker 1: for change with the sort that led to victory for

1526
01:20:39,320 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 1: the abolitionists and the suffragists and the civil rights movement

1527
01:20:42,439 --> 01:20:45,639
Speaker 1: when the collective has been deemed too evil and too

1528
01:20:45,680 --> 01:20:49,120
Speaker 1: deplorable for a decent person to engage with at all.

1529
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:52,519
Speaker 1: Why would you even want to institute universal programs when

1530
01:20:52,560 --> 01:20:55,080
Speaker 1: they would benefit these evil and nasty people who can't

1531
01:20:55,120 --> 01:20:58,120
Speaker 1: even trusted to listen to a podcast without basically becoming

1532
01:20:58,160 --> 01:21:02,679
Speaker 1: the KKK. Will you challenge corporate friendly media at scale

1533
01:21:03,040 --> 01:21:06,840
Speaker 1: when every channel that challenges conventional orthodoxy is tarred as

1534
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:10,400
Speaker 1: a racist grift. After all, if you trust your fellow

1535
01:21:10,400 --> 01:21:12,640
Speaker 1: Americans to behave like grown ups in a democracy with

1536
01:21:12,680 --> 01:21:16,559
Speaker 1: its necessary messy swirl of information, then whatever Rogan says,

1537
01:21:16,640 --> 01:21:19,559
Speaker 1: whatever Guessie has on, they're really no big deal. Matt

1538
01:21:19,560 --> 01:21:22,639
Speaker 1: Tybee's essential book hatingc tracks how such a large number

1539
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:25,600
Speaker 1: of Americans were persuaded to trust tech oligarchs drunk on

1540
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:28,600
Speaker 1: power more than their neighbors and relatives who happen to

1541
01:21:28,600 --> 01:21:32,040
Speaker 1: have different political views. The constant stream of propaganda from

1542
01:21:32,040 --> 01:21:35,679
Speaker 1: Fox News and CNN and MSNBC, it is all aimed

1543
01:21:35,720 --> 01:21:39,440
Speaker 1: at terrifying the people about their fellow citizens. Your struggles

1544
01:21:39,479 --> 01:21:42,240
Speaker 1: aren't because of a system rigged by plutocrats to deliver

1545
01:21:42,360 --> 01:21:46,719
Speaker 1: riches for themselves and desperation for you. No, the real

1546
01:21:46,800 --> 01:21:49,759
Speaker 1: threat to your well being is your cute, curious aunt

1547
01:21:50,120 --> 01:21:53,519
Speaker 1: or the college kids posting their pronouns to TikTok. That's

1548
01:21:53,520 --> 01:21:56,560
Speaker 1: how you end up with the GOP literally poised to

1549
01:21:56,680 --> 01:22:00,840
Speaker 1: run on no platform and probably win historic talk. They

1550
01:22:00,880 --> 01:22:03,400
Speaker 1: don't have to promise that they'll deliver on anything in particular,

1551
01:22:03,840 --> 01:22:05,479
Speaker 1: just that they will serve as a check on the

1552
01:22:05,479 --> 01:22:07,760
Speaker 1: half of the country that their voters believe to be

1553
01:22:07,840 --> 01:22:10,720
Speaker 1: the problem. Democrats have their list of dangerous people and

1554
01:22:10,760 --> 01:22:12,760
Speaker 1: ideas they want to see ban that they believe the

1555
01:22:12,760 --> 01:22:15,640
Speaker 1: American people can't be trusted with, and Republicans have their

1556
01:22:15,680 --> 01:22:18,080
Speaker 1: own list of dangerous people and ideas they believe the

1557
01:22:18,120 --> 01:22:21,479
Speaker 1: American people can't be trusted with. That's what the CRT, panic,

1558
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:24,839
Speaker 1: anti protest laws, and book banning movements are really all about.

1559
01:22:25,240 --> 01:22:27,799
Speaker 1: Democrats think you can't listen to a three hour discussion

1560
01:22:27,840 --> 01:22:32,120
Speaker 1: with Robert Malone without deciding vaccines or implanting microchips. Republicans

1561
01:22:32,200 --> 01:22:35,080
Speaker 1: think you can't raid Ibramex Kendy without wanting to lock

1562
01:22:35,120 --> 01:22:39,839
Speaker 1: white people into prison camps. I reject this corrosive, anti

1563
01:22:39,880 --> 01:22:43,000
Speaker 1: populus view that seeks to place power in a few

1564
01:22:43,200 --> 01:22:47,800
Speaker 1: concentrated hands, where the only pseudo political struggles are whether

1565
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:50,240
Speaker 1: or not our elected reps will signal that they're on

1566
01:22:50,320 --> 01:22:53,639
Speaker 1: our side in that culture war. In fact, a belief

1567
01:22:53,640 --> 01:22:58,000
Speaker 1: in actual democracy, obnoxious and frustrating as it can sometimes be,

1568
01:22:58,479 --> 01:23:00,519
Speaker 1: is actually at the very core of why I do

1569
01:23:00,600 --> 01:23:03,000
Speaker 1: this show at all, and why I'm so proud of

1570
01:23:03,040 --> 01:23:06,439
Speaker 1: its large and ideologically diverse audience, and why I call

1571
01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:09,559
Speaker 1: myself a populist. I know it can sound really hokey,

1572
01:23:09,840 --> 01:23:12,760
Speaker 1: but I really wanted to demonstrate that it's okay in

1573
01:23:12,800 --> 01:23:15,200
Speaker 1: a democracy to deal with people who might have different

1574
01:23:15,280 --> 01:23:19,040
Speaker 1: views than you. In fact, it is essential, even that

1575
01:23:19,120 --> 01:23:21,240
Speaker 1: you might agree with them in some areas, that you

1576
01:23:21,320 --> 01:23:24,439
Speaker 1: might even find them to be loyal friends, trusted colleagues,

1577
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:27,360
Speaker 1: that they can serve as partners in a democratic project,

1578
01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:30,439
Speaker 1: even though yes, sometimes they might drive you nuts. Look,

1579
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:33,479
Speaker 1: there are only two paths from where we are now.

1580
01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:37,200
Speaker 1: One is towards an authoritarian police state, and the other

1581
01:23:37,479 --> 01:23:41,120
Speaker 1: is towards a real democracy. The less that we trust

1582
01:23:41,160 --> 01:23:43,400
Speaker 1: our fellow adults to be able to handle bad or

1583
01:23:43,400 --> 01:23:47,599
Speaker 1: wrong or dangerous information, or information that just doesn't accord

1584
01:23:47,640 --> 01:23:50,840
Speaker 1: with our own political sensibilities, the harder we will fight

1585
01:23:51,040 --> 01:23:53,840
Speaker 1: for the police state and demand an end to our

1586
01:23:53,920 --> 01:23:58,519
Speaker 1: own democratic rights. Look, we act like our democracy is

1587
01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:00,600
Speaker 1: most in danger of being stolen by a cabal of

1588
01:24:00,760 --> 01:24:04,000
Speaker 1: nefarious wrongdoers, when the much more likely scenario is that

1589
01:24:04,040 --> 01:24:07,000
Speaker 1: we will willingly hand it over in exchange for censoring

1590
01:24:07,120 --> 01:24:09,920
Speaker 1: and banning the people we think are bad. So the

1591
01:24:10,000 --> 01:24:12,320
Speaker 1: cancer at the core of the fight over Joe Rogan

1592
01:24:12,439 --> 01:24:15,439
Speaker 1: right now, it is both a distraction from real problems,

1593
01:24:15,479 --> 01:24:17,559
Speaker 1: and it is a symptom of how much the nation

1594
01:24:17,800 --> 01:24:21,960
Speaker 1: has been poisoned against itself. And this cancer, mark my words,

1595
01:24:22,200 --> 01:24:26,120
Speaker 1: if allowed to metastasize, will destroy whatever good is left

1596
01:24:26,200 --> 01:24:28,880
Speaker 1: in the American ideal. And so on the one hand,

1597
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:31,000
Speaker 1: Shager it's silly, you can say it's bread circuses. I

1598
01:24:31,000 --> 01:24:33,200
Speaker 1: see people deserve. And if you want to hear my

1599
01:24:33,360 --> 01:24:36,680
Speaker 1: reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at

1600
01:24:36,760 --> 01:24:42,559
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot Com. Really excited to be joined by our

1601
01:24:42,600 --> 01:24:46,280
Speaker 1: next guest, doctor John Abramson. He's written a book Sickening,

1602
01:24:46,360 --> 01:24:50,040
Speaker 1: How Big Pharma broke American healthcare and how we can

1603
01:24:50,080 --> 01:24:52,400
Speaker 1: fix it. This is something where he appeared on The

1604
01:24:52,439 --> 01:24:55,519
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan Experience and Crystal and I were absolutely stunned

1605
01:24:55,720 --> 01:24:57,959
Speaker 1: by how good of an episode. It was really excited

1606
01:24:58,160 --> 01:25:00,200
Speaker 1: to read the book. Haven't had that chance yet. We

1607
01:25:00,240 --> 01:25:02,600
Speaker 1: have doctor Abramson here in order to break some of

1608
01:25:02,640 --> 01:25:04,280
Speaker 1: this down. Thank you so much for joining us, sir.

1609
01:25:04,280 --> 01:25:06,760
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me.

1610
01:25:06,800 --> 01:25:09,960
Speaker 1: I appreciate it absolutely. So let's go a little bit

1611
01:25:10,000 --> 01:25:12,840
Speaker 1: into the book. What are some of the top line

1612
01:25:12,880 --> 01:25:15,960
Speaker 1: ways of which you were able to expose the way

1613
01:25:16,000 --> 01:25:19,919
Speaker 1: that big pharma has rigged and destroyed the American healthcare system.

1614
01:25:20,120 --> 01:25:23,080
Speaker 1: And this is absent of the vaccine conversation, although we

1615
01:25:23,160 --> 01:25:26,320
Speaker 1: will get into that as well. Right So, I spent

1616
01:25:26,360 --> 01:25:29,120
Speaker 1: about ten after my first book came out Overdose to America,

1617
01:25:30,080 --> 01:25:33,040
Speaker 1: lawyers started to call me to serve as an expert

1618
01:25:33,240 --> 01:25:39,240
Speaker 1: in litigation against the drug companies plane of slawyers and

1619
01:25:39,600 --> 01:25:44,320
Speaker 1: I spent about ten years inside the corporate computers. We

1620
01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:46,559
Speaker 1: would get the corporate hard drives that would be up

1621
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:50,880
Speaker 1: to twenty million documents in each case. And over those

1622
01:25:50,920 --> 01:25:54,000
Speaker 1: ten years, I learned what the drug companies are doing.

1623
01:25:54,160 --> 01:25:59,080
Speaker 1: I know what's going on that. I know how they've

1624
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:04,440
Speaker 1: taken over the knowledge that is created and delivered to doctors,

1625
01:26:05,080 --> 01:26:12,320
Speaker 1: and how they encourage, how they create the impression that

1626
01:26:12,479 --> 01:26:16,200
Speaker 1: doctors are practicing the best medicine for their patients by

1627
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:20,400
Speaker 1: prescribing new and expensive drugs and consuming resources that would

1628
01:26:20,439 --> 01:26:24,679
Speaker 1: be better spent on social determinants of health and other

1629
01:26:24,760 --> 01:26:28,719
Speaker 1: approaches than giving expensive new drugs. I know how that happened.

1630
01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:33,160
Speaker 1: Some of it I can tell, and some of it

1631
01:26:33,280 --> 01:26:37,240
Speaker 1: remain sealed. But the bottom line is that American healthcare

1632
01:26:37,360 --> 01:26:43,800
Speaker 1: is performing horribly. American's healthy life expectancy, the number of

1633
01:26:43,880 --> 01:26:46,760
Speaker 1: years they live in good health now ranks sixty eighth

1634
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:49,519
Speaker 1: in the world. It's gone down from thirty eighth to

1635
01:26:49,640 --> 01:26:54,799
Speaker 1: sixty eighth between nineteen between two thousand and twenty nineteen.

1636
01:26:55,320 --> 01:26:59,760
Speaker 1: And for that awful health, we're spending an extra one

1637
01:26:59,800 --> 01:27:03,519
Speaker 1: point five trillion dollars a year on our healthcare. This

1638
01:27:04,240 --> 01:27:06,760
Speaker 1: ought to be the biggest story. This is bigger than

1639
01:27:06,880 --> 01:27:11,320
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. There are more people. The excess death

1640
01:27:11,400 --> 01:27:13,840
Speaker 1: rate in the United States is like, we're having a

1641
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:17,559
Speaker 1: nine to eleven every two and a quarter days, every

1642
01:27:17,600 --> 01:27:20,040
Speaker 1: single two and a quarter days. Three jumbo jets going

1643
01:27:20,120 --> 01:27:24,840
Speaker 1: down every day, and this story is not covered. So

1644
01:27:25,120 --> 01:27:28,920
Speaker 1: what are the roots of that issue? Because yeah, I

1645
01:27:28,960 --> 01:27:31,120
Speaker 1: mean you look around the rest of the developed world,

1646
01:27:31,240 --> 01:27:35,240
Speaker 1: they're not seeing these spiking rates of diabetes, deaths, of

1647
01:27:35,680 --> 01:27:39,479
Speaker 1: overdose deaks, these excess deaths that that you're tracking closely.

1648
01:27:39,640 --> 01:27:42,800
Speaker 1: So what is the root cause of these issues? Yeah?

1649
01:27:42,840 --> 01:27:46,040
Speaker 1: I think there are two caused, Crystal. I think one

1650
01:27:46,120 --> 01:27:50,439
Speaker 1: is that the production and dissemination of what doctors take

1651
01:27:50,720 --> 01:27:55,520
Speaker 1: as medical knowledge has been turned over to the commercial interests.

1652
01:27:55,760 --> 01:28:01,120
Speaker 1: So the essentially the research agenda is set by commercial interests.

1653
01:28:01,160 --> 01:28:06,679
Speaker 1: They control the studies, they control the data, own the data,

1654
01:28:07,120 --> 01:28:14,000
Speaker 1: do the analysis, mostly prepare the manuscripts for publication. The

1655
01:28:14,120 --> 01:28:19,719
Speaker 1: peer reviewers were taught we physicians are taught to trust

1656
01:28:20,160 --> 01:28:23,479
Speaker 1: that peer reviewed articles in medical journals are the gold

1657
01:28:23,560 --> 01:28:29,000
Speaker 1: standard and we should determine our medical practice according to

1658
01:28:29,080 --> 01:28:32,400
Speaker 1: the pure reviewed studies. What we're not taught is that

1659
01:28:32,439 --> 01:28:34,640
Speaker 1: the peer reviewers don't even get to look at the

1660
01:28:34,720 --> 01:28:38,799
Speaker 1: data for themselves. They have to accept what the drug

1661
01:28:38,880 --> 01:28:45,000
Speaker 1: companies have largely drug companies have sent them. So on

1662
01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:49,799
Speaker 1: the one hand, we've got the control of medical knowledge

1663
01:28:50,120 --> 01:28:54,599
Speaker 1: having been given over to the commercial interests without adequate oversight,

1664
01:28:55,320 --> 01:28:58,519
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, we have the dissemination to

1665
01:28:58,600 --> 01:29:02,679
Speaker 1: the public of that information, largely influenced by the drug

1666
01:29:02,720 --> 01:29:07,120
Speaker 1: companies because the enormous amount of advertising that they do. Right. Yeah,

1667
01:29:07,160 --> 01:29:09,599
Speaker 1: this was the part that I was really stunned by

1668
01:29:09,720 --> 01:29:13,000
Speaker 1: during your episode, was about the specific data. So the

1669
01:29:13,280 --> 01:29:17,120
Speaker 1: list is where we can involve the vaccine conversation. Doctor,

1670
01:29:17,439 --> 01:29:20,799
Speaker 1: how have you found it difficult to balance two things?

1671
01:29:20,960 --> 01:29:24,200
Speaker 1: Number one, the drug companies have rigged trials in the past,

1672
01:29:24,280 --> 01:29:27,080
Speaker 1: have not been honest so much so that they've had

1673
01:29:27,080 --> 01:29:30,360
Speaker 1: to pay multi billion dollar fines and the actual efficacy

1674
01:29:30,720 --> 01:29:35,160
Speaker 1: of a medicine. How do we, as you know, as layman,

1675
01:29:35,640 --> 01:29:39,280
Speaker 1: how are we supposed to balance our mistrust rightfully with

1676
01:29:39,439 --> 01:29:42,920
Speaker 1: actual information? How do you look at that problem? It's

1677
01:29:42,960 --> 01:29:46,519
Speaker 1: a huge problem, segar, And what we need to do

1678
01:29:47,080 --> 01:29:50,480
Speaker 1: is look at all the data and make our own decisions.

1679
01:29:51,439 --> 01:29:57,960
Speaker 1: In the case of the vaccinations, Pfizer is fighting with

1680
01:29:58,120 --> 01:30:03,960
Speaker 1: the FDA as a partner to slow walk the release

1681
01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:09,600
Speaker 1: of the data from its original large study of efficacy

1682
01:30:09,600 --> 01:30:13,439
Speaker 1: and safety of vaccines, and the FDA is making the

1683
01:30:13,479 --> 01:30:16,639
Speaker 1: claim that they should get seventy five years to release

1684
01:30:16,720 --> 01:30:21,360
Speaker 1: the data from that study. It's craziness. It's craziness that

1685
01:30:21,439 --> 01:30:26,360
Speaker 1: the public doesn't get access to that data. Now, that

1686
01:30:26,520 --> 01:30:30,320
Speaker 1: would seem to support an anti vaccine position that we

1687
01:30:30,320 --> 01:30:33,880
Speaker 1: don't have the data, and if the data weren't hiding something,

1688
01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:37,400
Speaker 1: FIZA would probably be more likely to volunteer it. On

1689
01:30:37,439 --> 01:30:40,599
Speaker 1: the other hand, there's real world data and we know

1690
01:30:40,880 --> 01:30:44,760
Speaker 1: that people who are unvaccinated have about twenty times the

1691
01:30:44,880 --> 01:30:48,559
Speaker 1: risk of dying of COVID and there's no question that

1692
01:30:48,680 --> 01:30:53,320
Speaker 1: these vaccines are effective, and I would urge everybody to

1693
01:30:53,320 --> 01:30:56,920
Speaker 1: get vaccinated and get boosted when it's recommended. But we

1694
01:30:57,040 --> 01:31:01,080
Speaker 1: need to liberate the data. And it's just another example

1695
01:31:01,200 --> 01:31:06,439
Speaker 1: of how the pharmaceutical industry is controlling this game. I mean,

1696
01:31:06,479 --> 01:31:10,040
Speaker 1: what kind of market could you have when the consumers,

1697
01:31:10,080 --> 01:31:14,120
Speaker 1: the purchasers, the users aren't allowed to see the data

1698
01:31:14,520 --> 01:31:17,960
Speaker 1: upon which the claims that their product is useful and

1699
01:31:18,080 --> 01:31:22,840
Speaker 1: safe are being made. It makes no sense. Could you

1700
01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:25,680
Speaker 1: just so people can make this really concrete walk through

1701
01:31:25,720 --> 01:31:30,080
Speaker 1: an example of, you know, from the development of a drug,

1702
01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:33,759
Speaker 1: to the trials that are performed, to how it's presented

1703
01:31:33,800 --> 01:31:36,839
Speaker 1: to the FDA, to how it's ultimately presented to doctors,

1704
01:31:36,920 --> 01:31:40,799
Speaker 1: and then how it's prescribed to patients. How this all works,

1705
01:31:40,960 --> 01:31:44,320
Speaker 1: and the way that that process has been corrupted. I

1706
01:31:44,360 --> 01:31:46,960
Speaker 1: know you have some really specific examples in the book

1707
01:31:47,040 --> 01:31:51,320
Speaker 1: of how this has all gone down. Yeah, So what

1708
01:31:51,479 --> 01:31:55,680
Speaker 1: happens is drug companies fund about eighty six percent of

1709
01:31:55,760 --> 01:32:00,240
Speaker 1: clinical trials now, and almost all clinical trials are about

1710
01:32:00,280 --> 01:32:03,840
Speaker 1: drugs and devices. They're not about how to improve Americans

1711
01:32:03,840 --> 01:32:08,360
Speaker 1: health in a more general way. So the drug companies

1712
01:32:09,560 --> 01:32:15,759
Speaker 1: fund the trials and they hire companies called contract research

1713
01:32:15,960 --> 01:32:20,880
Speaker 1: organizations to do the research. Now, in nineteen ninety one,

1714
01:32:21,560 --> 01:32:24,920
Speaker 1: academic medical centers did eighty percent of the research, and

1715
01:32:24,960 --> 01:32:27,839
Speaker 1: the academics could play a role in designing the studies

1716
01:32:27,880 --> 01:32:30,760
Speaker 1: and picking the outcomes and the doses and the populations

1717
01:32:30,800 --> 01:32:33,519
Speaker 1: that were in the study, and analyzing the data and

1718
01:32:33,560 --> 01:32:36,880
Speaker 1: writing it up. In nineteen ninety one eighty percent. That

1719
01:32:37,000 --> 01:32:39,800
Speaker 1: dropped to twenty six percent by two thousand and four.

1720
01:32:40,439 --> 01:32:44,960
Speaker 1: So what happened is the drug companies took control of

1721
01:32:46,479 --> 01:32:51,360
Speaker 1: almost of three quarters of the research, and because they

1722
01:32:51,400 --> 01:32:54,760
Speaker 1: could pull the rest of the research, they exerted influence

1723
01:32:54,880 --> 01:32:57,840
Speaker 1: over the academic medical centers for the twenty six percent

1724
01:32:57,840 --> 01:33:01,120
Speaker 1: of the research they were getting. They own the data,

1725
01:33:02,080 --> 01:33:06,719
Speaker 1: they do the analyses, they send in the manuscript. Generally

1726
01:33:06,800 --> 01:33:10,280
Speaker 1: they play a role in writing the manuscript that get

1727
01:33:10,320 --> 01:33:14,280
Speaker 1: sent to the journal for peer review. The peer reviewers

1728
01:33:14,320 --> 01:33:17,400
Speaker 1: look at it. They look for obvious mistakes, but they

1729
01:33:17,400 --> 01:33:21,479
Speaker 1: don't have the data. So it's assumed that when the

1730
01:33:21,600 --> 01:33:26,519
Speaker 1: article is peer reviewed, the peer reviewers have thoroughly have

1731
01:33:27,120 --> 01:33:30,680
Speaker 1: reanalyzed the data and make sure that the study is

1732
01:33:31,560 --> 01:33:35,960
Speaker 1: saying what the manuscript says. That doesn't happen, So the

1733
01:33:36,080 --> 01:33:40,599
Speaker 1: doctors read the peer reviewed article in the medical journal

1734
01:33:40,680 --> 01:33:44,800
Speaker 1: thinking that they're doing what they're supposed to do, but

1735
01:33:44,880 --> 01:33:48,080
Speaker 1: it's not vetted, and they accept that as fact and

1736
01:33:48,120 --> 01:33:51,360
Speaker 1: they start prescribing drugs based on that, and then those

1737
01:33:51,479 --> 01:33:56,360
Speaker 1: articles get collected up into clinical practice guidelines. But the

1738
01:33:56,479 --> 01:33:59,760
Speaker 1: experts who write the clinical practice guidelines that set the

1739
01:33:59,760 --> 01:34:03,920
Speaker 1: states for medical care, they too don't get the data.

1740
01:34:04,000 --> 01:34:07,560
Speaker 1: They have to rely on the commercial analysis of the

1741
01:34:07,640 --> 01:34:11,760
Speaker 1: data that's published in the medical journals. So that information

1742
01:34:12,560 --> 01:34:16,400
Speaker 1: is what forms the basis of what's called evidence based

1743
01:34:16,439 --> 01:34:20,880
Speaker 1: medicine that all doctors are supposed to practice to provide

1744
01:34:20,920 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 1: the best care to their patients. The doctors don't understand

1745
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:29,519
Speaker 1: that that information has not been verified, so that's how

1746
01:34:29,560 --> 01:34:35,160
Speaker 1: the standard is set, and that's we've got a tail

1747
01:34:35,240 --> 01:34:40,680
Speaker 1: wags dog situation. The pharmaceuticals spend about seventeen percent of

1748
01:34:40,720 --> 01:34:45,400
Speaker 1: our total medical budget, so they're not spending all the money,

1749
01:34:45,960 --> 01:34:49,920
Speaker 1: but what they're doing is in teaching doctors how that

1750
01:34:50,000 --> 01:34:53,360
Speaker 1: money should be spent, and it should be spent on

1751
01:34:53,479 --> 01:34:57,040
Speaker 1: the products that they've decided to invest in as a

1752
01:34:57,080 --> 01:35:01,320
Speaker 1: research in their research agenda, because not because they'll produce

1753
01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:05,000
Speaker 1: the most health, but because they will produce the greatest

1754
01:35:05,400 --> 01:35:11,080
Speaker 1: financial return on investment. So that's our system. It's close

1755
01:35:11,120 --> 01:35:14,720
Speaker 1: to the system in other countries. The difference in the

1756
01:35:14,800 --> 01:35:19,080
Speaker 1: United States is we don't have guardrails that exist in

1757
01:35:19,120 --> 01:35:23,120
Speaker 1: other countries. So we don't have independent health technology assessment.

1758
01:35:23,760 --> 01:35:26,760
Speaker 1: We don't have an organization that looks at all the

1759
01:35:26,840 --> 01:35:32,120
Speaker 1: data and determines which therapies are most effective for patients.

1760
01:35:32,479 --> 01:35:36,200
Speaker 1: The FDA tells us which drugs we can prescribe, but

1761
01:35:36,280 --> 01:35:39,800
Speaker 1: the FDA does not tell us which drugs we should prescribe.

1762
01:35:40,200 --> 01:35:45,559
Speaker 1: And almost all the other countries have that we don't have. Yeah,

1763
01:35:46,160 --> 01:35:48,280
Speaker 1: and it would be easy. We were the first country

1764
01:35:48,280 --> 01:35:52,360
Speaker 1: to have Health Technology assessment and it got scuttled with

1765
01:35:52,520 --> 01:35:56,280
Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich's contract with America in nineteen ninety five. So

1766
01:35:56,320 --> 01:35:59,000
Speaker 1: now we were the first to have it, and now

1767
01:35:59,200 --> 01:36:02,480
Speaker 1: we're practic the only country not to have it. Fascinating.

1768
01:36:02,479 --> 01:36:07,439
Speaker 1: And similarly, we don't allow cost effectiveness cost effectiveness studies

1769
01:36:07,479 --> 01:36:11,000
Speaker 1: to be funded by federal money. We don't allow the

1770
01:36:11,040 --> 01:36:16,240
Speaker 1: cost of drugs to be included in the recommendations of

1771
01:36:16,360 --> 01:36:22,839
Speaker 1: therapy made by government sponsored organizations. So what we've got

1772
01:36:23,400 --> 01:36:28,080
Speaker 1: in broad brushstrokes is the drug companies are controlling what

1773
01:36:28,200 --> 01:36:31,720
Speaker 1: doctors think they know about the best way to practice medicine.

1774
01:36:31,840 --> 01:36:34,439
Speaker 1: And we don't have the guardrails that other countries have.

1775
01:36:35,000 --> 01:36:36,880
Speaker 1: So let's get into how we can fix it part.

1776
01:36:36,920 --> 01:36:40,760
Speaker 1: Then you have exhaustive lists, but give us some of

1777
01:36:40,800 --> 01:36:42,920
Speaker 1: the top line ways. What are some of the best

1778
01:36:42,920 --> 01:36:46,479
Speaker 1: ways we can fix our health care system? Well? Number

1779
01:36:46,520 --> 01:36:50,560
Speaker 1: one is peer review has to be real. This is ridiculous.

1780
01:36:50,600 --> 01:36:55,400
Speaker 1: We were now operating on scientific standards that predate the Enlightenment.

1781
01:36:55,800 --> 01:37:00,519
Speaker 1: You know, we're back in the sixteen hundreds year. Peer

1782
01:37:00,520 --> 01:37:04,320
Speaker 1: reviewers have to have the data if they're going to

1783
01:37:05,080 --> 01:37:10,000
Speaker 1: verify allow their analysis to be used as saying that

1784
01:37:10,040 --> 01:37:13,839
Speaker 1: the study, the results of the study that are presented

1785
01:37:13,880 --> 01:37:17,160
Speaker 1: are actually true. So we've got to fix pure review.

1786
01:37:18,479 --> 01:37:23,240
Speaker 1: We need a national mechanism of Health Technology assessment, an

1787
01:37:23,280 --> 01:37:30,080
Speaker 1: independent agency or organization that gets all the data and

1788
01:37:30,120 --> 01:37:34,360
Speaker 1: that makes recommendations about which drugs are most effective. And

1789
01:37:34,439 --> 01:37:38,160
Speaker 1: I know you're interested in insulin. That's a big example.

1790
01:37:38,240 --> 01:37:41,840
Speaker 1: We are spending an extra twenty billion dollars a year

1791
01:37:42,000 --> 01:37:47,519
Speaker 1: on insulin analogs, the latest iteration of bioengineered insulin for

1792
01:37:48,120 --> 01:37:51,439
Speaker 1: people with type two diabetes, and it's no better. We

1793
01:37:51,520 --> 01:37:55,479
Speaker 1: can reinvest that twenty billion dollars in helping people at

1794
01:37:55,560 --> 01:37:59,720
Speaker 1: risk of diabetes to participate in active lifestyle counseling and

1795
01:38:00,560 --> 01:38:04,479
Speaker 1: healthy lifestyle activities in their communities, and we get a

1796
01:38:04,479 --> 01:38:08,040
Speaker 1: lot more health out of it than that. We need

1797
01:38:08,080 --> 01:38:11,320
Speaker 1: to control the price of drugs, not just because the

1798
01:38:11,400 --> 01:38:14,120
Speaker 1: drugs are too expensive. They are. We spend three and

1799
01:38:14,120 --> 01:38:17,479
Speaker 1: a half times more. The price of brand name drugs

1800
01:38:17,520 --> 01:38:19,360
Speaker 1: in the United States is three and a half times

1801
01:38:19,360 --> 01:38:22,800
Speaker 1: more than it is in other OECD countries. But that

1802
01:38:22,920 --> 01:38:29,280
Speaker 1: price funds the distortion of our healthcare. So the profit

1803
01:38:30,200 --> 01:38:34,559
Speaker 1: in the United States two thirds to three quarters excuse me,

1804
01:38:34,840 --> 01:38:39,320
Speaker 1: two thirds to three quarters of global pharmaceutical profits come

1805
01:38:39,360 --> 01:38:45,040
Speaker 1: from the United States. All that money creates this huge

1806
01:38:45,080 --> 01:38:50,200
Speaker 1: machine that can lobby that can hire pr that pays

1807
01:38:50,840 --> 01:38:56,719
Speaker 1: doctors to be key opinion leaders, and that money itself

1808
01:38:57,520 --> 01:39:02,880
Speaker 1: distorts our healthcare system. Just doing those few things, having

1809
01:39:02,960 --> 01:39:08,080
Speaker 1: health technology assessment, having cost effectiveness research, controlling the price

1810
01:39:08,080 --> 01:39:12,639
Speaker 1: of drugs, and rebalancing our research agenda so that it

1811
01:39:12,680 --> 01:39:15,960
Speaker 1: reflects the health needs of the American people and not

1812
01:39:16,080 --> 01:39:20,160
Speaker 1: the financial wishes of the pharmaceutical industry. That would go

1813
01:39:20,200 --> 01:39:23,000
Speaker 1: a long way and One other thing would help, which

1814
01:39:23,040 --> 01:39:29,439
Speaker 1: is when drug companies are found guilty of wrongdoing, they

1815
01:39:29,479 --> 01:39:34,240
Speaker 1: ought to be subjected to penalties that are commensurate with

1816
01:39:34,280 --> 01:39:44,600
Speaker 1: the crime, so that when people misrepresent science and reprofits

1817
01:39:44,600 --> 01:39:48,400
Speaker 1: in the billions of dollars range that are ill gotten

1818
01:39:48,520 --> 01:39:53,320
Speaker 1: because their data hasn't been adequately represented. That's stealing a

1819
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:57,040
Speaker 1: billion dollars. And somebody steals twenty dollars, they get in trouble.

1820
01:39:57,080 --> 01:40:04,120
Speaker 1: But if you steal a billion dollars, okay. Those simple

1821
01:40:04,200 --> 01:40:08,520
Speaker 1: measures would go a long way towards bringing American healthcare

1822
01:40:09,320 --> 01:40:13,120
Speaker 1: back towards the function of the other wealthy countries. Last

1823
01:40:13,160 --> 01:40:15,599
Speaker 1: question for you, John, The media has tended to talk

1824
01:40:15,640 --> 01:40:21,439
Speaker 1: about vaccine hesitancy solely is like a personal responsibility story,

1825
01:40:21,680 --> 01:40:25,240
Speaker 1: like these bad people or maybe listening to the wrong

1826
01:40:25,320 --> 01:40:28,479
Speaker 1: podcast or whatever, and so they're not protecting themselves and

1827
01:40:28,479 --> 01:40:31,479
Speaker 1: they're not protecting their communities by doing the right thing

1828
01:40:31,640 --> 01:40:34,760
Speaker 1: and getting the vaccine. What have you thought about those

1829
01:40:34,840 --> 01:40:37,920
Speaker 1: narratives and how do you think that your research about

1830
01:40:37,960 --> 01:40:43,880
Speaker 1: the genuinely malign influence of big pharma has impacted the

1831
01:40:43,960 --> 01:40:47,880
Speaker 1: level of vaccine hesitancy that we have in this country. Crystal,

1832
01:40:47,920 --> 01:40:52,639
Speaker 1: that's really an important issue. And in fact, Robert Kennedy's book,

1833
01:40:52,800 --> 01:40:56,439
Speaker 1: which I wouldn't endorse, I'm not giving it a shout out.

1834
01:40:56,920 --> 01:40:59,400
Speaker 1: He starts his book and the introduction of his book

1835
01:40:59,439 --> 01:41:03,160
Speaker 1: starts with a quote from me about drug company information.

1836
01:41:04,400 --> 01:41:09,439
Speaker 1: I am not an anti vaccer, but the question that

1837
01:41:09,479 --> 01:41:13,599
Speaker 1: you ask is a really important one because people are

1838
01:41:13,680 --> 01:41:16,599
Speaker 1: aware that they're not getting the real data, and now

1839
01:41:17,200 --> 01:41:21,599
Speaker 1: Pfizer and the FDA joining arms to prevent the release

1840
01:41:21,640 --> 01:41:25,880
Speaker 1: of the data from Pfizer's big study that fuels anti

1841
01:41:25,960 --> 01:41:28,479
Speaker 1: vax sentiments. It's like, how can you expect us to

1842
01:41:28,520 --> 01:41:30,720
Speaker 1: take a drug when we can't see the data? And

1843
01:41:30,760 --> 01:41:35,400
Speaker 1: that's a very legitimate point. And I want to make

1844
01:41:35,439 --> 01:41:41,360
Speaker 1: sure that your listeners understand that they deserve the data

1845
01:41:41,439 --> 01:41:46,519
Speaker 1: and that the anti vax folks who use that as

1846
01:41:46,720 --> 01:41:51,559
Speaker 1: to support their argument are not wrong. But the real

1847
01:41:51,800 --> 01:41:56,120
Speaker 1: world data shows that these drugs do the vaccines do

1848
01:41:56,360 --> 01:42:01,240
Speaker 1: way more benefit than harm. Would say that the drug

1849
01:42:01,320 --> 01:42:05,800
Speaker 1: companies not being forthright about their data does way more

1850
01:42:05,920 --> 01:42:11,599
Speaker 1: harm than benefit. And this ought to create a public

1851
01:42:11,680 --> 01:42:16,160
Speaker 1: outcry to liberate that vaccine data so people know what

1852
01:42:16,160 --> 01:42:18,960
Speaker 1: they're getting. Yeah, I think that's really well said. Doc.

1853
01:42:19,120 --> 01:42:21,160
Speaker 1: The last thing is is that we were all talking

1854
01:42:21,160 --> 01:42:23,920
Speaker 1: about this before the segment, but you, like we said,

1855
01:42:23,960 --> 01:42:27,000
Speaker 1: we heard you on the Joe Rogan experience. Has it

1856
01:42:27,040 --> 01:42:29,840
Speaker 1: been frustrating that, you know, for all the talk and

1857
01:42:29,880 --> 01:42:33,360
Speaker 1: the media of doctor Robert Malone and doctor Robert McCollough.

1858
01:42:33,560 --> 01:42:37,439
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember during your episode of not only handling

1859
01:42:37,479 --> 01:42:41,479
Speaker 1: these issues with Grace talking about big pharma and the

1860
01:42:41,560 --> 01:42:44,559
Speaker 1: rot of the healthcare system, but also pushing back yourself

1861
01:42:44,800 --> 01:42:48,920
Speaker 1: on what on brown booster shots around vaccination myocarditis. Could

1862
01:42:48,920 --> 01:42:51,639
Speaker 1: you speak to that element of censorship in our modern

1863
01:42:51,640 --> 01:42:56,240
Speaker 1: discourse if you feel comfortable. Yeah. Absolutely. Joe was a

1864
01:42:56,280 --> 01:42:59,240
Speaker 1: perfect gentleman with me. I didn't temper, I didn't say

1865
01:42:59,240 --> 01:43:01,960
Speaker 1: anything with him that I'm not saying with you. And

1866
01:43:02,040 --> 01:43:04,320
Speaker 1: perhaps I went further out on a limb in terms

1867
01:43:04,360 --> 01:43:09,280
Speaker 1: of being critical of the pharmaceutical industry that's not getting press,

1868
01:43:09,920 --> 01:43:14,479
Speaker 1: and I think it's not fair to Joe. Now that said,

1869
01:43:14,800 --> 01:43:18,040
Speaker 1: we do have a problem, as we're now in a

1870
01:43:18,240 --> 01:43:22,439
Speaker 1: real age of rapid transition about how people get their information,

1871
01:43:23,160 --> 01:43:27,920
Speaker 1: and for reasons that I don't completely understand, this anti

1872
01:43:28,000 --> 01:43:33,840
Speaker 1: vax sentiment is primal almost so that when people come

1873
01:43:33,920 --> 01:43:39,519
Speaker 1: on to the media and they make an anti vax argument.

1874
01:43:39,680 --> 01:43:45,000
Speaker 1: For some reason, it has credence that it ought not

1875
01:43:45,080 --> 01:43:49,720
Speaker 1: to have. The information has not been verified, and we

1876
01:43:49,840 --> 01:43:52,599
Speaker 1: do need to come up with some way to have

1877
01:43:53,680 --> 01:43:56,479
Speaker 1: guardrails on the quality of information that gets out on

1878
01:43:56,520 --> 01:44:01,760
Speaker 1: the Internet without censoring that information. We haven't worked that out,

1879
01:44:01,920 --> 01:44:04,880
Speaker 1: and I think Joe is kind of at the forefront

1880
01:44:05,160 --> 01:44:13,360
Speaker 1: of raising the question of how we deliver a wide

1881
01:44:13,439 --> 01:44:17,880
Speaker 1: spectrum of information and at the same time ensure that

1882
01:44:17,880 --> 01:44:21,600
Speaker 1: that information is responsible, that it that both sides of

1883
01:44:21,640 --> 01:44:25,120
Speaker 1: the argument are presented. And I think what Joe wrote,

1884
01:44:25,160 --> 01:44:28,720
Speaker 1: maybe there are excesses. Maybe he's used language that it

1885
01:44:28,760 --> 01:44:31,360
Speaker 1: should never be used. You know, I don't defend that,

1886
01:44:31,800 --> 01:44:35,360
Speaker 1: but he surely allowed me and many other people to

1887
01:44:35,400 --> 01:44:39,880
Speaker 1: tell their story that is opposite to the Malones and mcculloughs. Right.

1888
01:44:40,800 --> 01:44:50,560
Speaker 1: So how we oversee the public responsibility of bringing information

1889
01:44:50,600 --> 01:44:54,679
Speaker 1: to people is unclear. But I think Rogan's not getting

1890
01:44:54,800 --> 01:44:58,679
Speaker 1: quite the fair deal that he should get. He's brought

1891
01:44:58,720 --> 01:45:01,760
Speaker 1: a lot of good information to Thank you, sir. Very

1892
01:45:01,800 --> 01:45:03,960
Speaker 1: caricature is view of him out there right now. Thank

1893
01:45:03,960 --> 01:45:05,720
Speaker 1: you so much, doctor. Great to have your insight, really

1894
01:45:05,760 --> 01:45:10,680
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Thank you both. Thank you guys so much

1895
01:45:10,680 --> 01:45:13,280
Speaker 1: for watching. I mean, I can't appreciate you all more.

1896
01:45:13,439 --> 01:45:16,040
Speaker 1: You know, we were consumed by all of this this weekend,

1897
01:45:16,120 --> 01:45:18,559
Speaker 1: and every time I was just like, thank God. The

1898
01:45:18,600 --> 01:45:21,479
Speaker 1: business is the way it is because you know, people,

1899
01:45:21,640 --> 01:45:24,840
Speaker 1: both of us, our public stance of defending Rogan I see,

1900
01:45:24,880 --> 01:45:27,719
Speaker 1: you know, all sorts of accusations crawling out of the woodwork,

1901
01:45:27,960 --> 01:45:30,680
Speaker 1: and you know, look, guys, you enable us to have

1902
01:45:30,760 --> 01:45:33,880
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to not care about any of that because

1903
01:45:33,920 --> 01:45:36,559
Speaker 1: we rely only upon you for our business, the core

1904
01:45:36,600 --> 01:45:39,280
Speaker 1: of it. We've expanded now. We added the Matt Stolar

1905
01:45:39,320 --> 01:45:42,120
Speaker 1: collaboration that dropped off the weekend. I was stunned by

1906
01:45:42,120 --> 01:45:44,680
Speaker 1: how many of you watched it. I love that. I mean,

1907
01:45:44,720 --> 01:45:47,800
Speaker 1: we're continuing to find people like him. We're going to

1908
01:45:47,840 --> 01:45:50,680
Speaker 1: be continued to grow. We've branched out. You know, our

1909
01:45:50,680 --> 01:45:53,280
Speaker 1: clips are now on Instagram, on TikTok, to my own chagrin,

1910
01:45:53,960 --> 01:45:56,360
Speaker 1: but you know, you have to exist in the society

1911
01:45:56,400 --> 01:45:59,160
Speaker 1: as we design. Yes, I critique society and I exist

1912
01:45:59,200 --> 01:46:01,559
Speaker 1: in society. What are we supposed to do for our

1913
01:46:01,600 --> 01:46:03,240
Speaker 1: gen Z fan base? You can go and follow us

1914
01:46:03,280 --> 01:46:06,519
Speaker 1: there Instagram, tech talk, YouTube, all of that, but you guys,

1915
01:46:06,600 --> 01:46:08,240
Speaker 1: premium subscriptions at the end of the day are the

1916
01:46:08,240 --> 01:46:11,000
Speaker 1: people who fund us, who enable us to bring you

1917
01:46:11,040 --> 01:46:13,479
Speaker 1: both the Stolers of the world, the Abramsons, and to

1918
01:46:13,640 --> 01:46:17,120
Speaker 1: just take the stands that we feel genuinely one. You

1919
01:46:17,120 --> 01:46:19,040
Speaker 1: will always know that that's where we're coming from, not

1920
01:46:19,120 --> 01:46:21,320
Speaker 1: from any other influence. So thank you all, and we

1921
01:46:21,400 --> 01:46:23,800
Speaker 1: really appreciate you, love you guys so much, and we

1922
01:46:23,800 --> 01:46:25,720
Speaker 1: will see you back here tomorrow.