Chapo Trap House - 552 - The Nephew Gap (8/23/21)

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

We start off discussing Jeopardy!, Tesla Bots, and how all these conservative radio hosts keep dying of COVID. Then we talk about Tony Blair crying about Afghanistan and step inside Tom Friedman’s mind palace to explore the Taliban’s strategic cousin and nephew reserves.

Now what was that thing, we were talking the other day and you were talking about how just for like all the institutions that govern American life like the sort of like the incentive structure has gotten so not just short term but so like ludicrously skewed that they all seem like incapable of making even the most simple decisions to like further the existence of themselves as institutions. Yeah, and you're seeing that with both parties right now because the Democrats are not going to pass the voting reform bill that they need to to prevent just getting gerrymandered out of power for the next 20 years.

And Republicans have decided that in order to keep their jobs in the Republican Party, they're okay with just letting vast swaths of their actual voting base die of COVID. Not just let them die of COVID, but like actively encourage them to do it, huff each other's farts in a closed room for freedom. Do it. I mean, yeah, like obviously that's true. And I want to talk about the political ramifications in a second, certainly in light of the FDA finally approving this vaccine, which, you know, good news means they can start charging

you money for it. Hell yeah. And insurance companies are stealing it from you. By making it free, they fucked up because of course people aren't going to trust something that's free. What is good that's free in this country? What do you get for free that isn't a scam? I mean, yeah, but I was just thinking about like this, just like this sort of suicidal

like the suicidal nature of institutions and like they're like unable to do the very simple thing that like there exists to do in the first place. I was thinking about that this week in the context of jeopardy and what they've just done with their idiot host. And they had to like, okay, so they let basically an executive producer who had been on Jeopardy for two years, Dick Cheney himself into the position of Alex Trebek by like setting up a blue ribbon panel to find a new Jeopardy host. Then he just appointed himself a guy who nobody had ever heard of.

And when I first heard it, I was like, well, you know, at least he's from the Jeopardy family, you know, like they're, you know, he has some connection to the show. It's like, nope. He came in there in like the last year of Trebek's life and was just like, well, I'll be the new Alex Trebek. And then he said some, said some spicy things on a podcast and then, okay, like he has to go. But then he's just being replaced with the wizard, Mayan Bialik, Mayan Bialik that that's

so that like it just, just taking one of the most beloved institutions in American life and just throwing it in the fucking toilet for no reason. When did, when did like everyone start watching Jeopardy? This feels like something that happened in the last five years and everyone was, everyone's really trying to fool everyone and be like, oh, I was always into this. It's like how every, like every single person is like Anthony Bourdain changed my life like in the last three years. I don't know.

I mean, I don't know about these, these fake jep heads out there, but I've been watching Jeopardy my whole life, my whole life and it's gonna be hard to imagine doing that in the future. Yeah. No, it just, you know what? Not everything's got to stop eventually. And I think that the healthy thing is just to tell yourself it's not around anymore and to not accept the, the inferior version and to, to embrace finality and endings instead

of maintaining a fantasy that everything can always maintain itself forever. Like the occupation of Afghanistan, for example, you got to run some time. Why not Ken Jennings? That's why a lot of people, a lot of people thought that would make sense. You know, he was like, I had a very legendary run on Jeopardy. I mean, he came back to host some of the tournaments of champions, well-liked, wouldn't have been controversial, but no, they got to give it just like the woman from the Big Bang Theory because she's on a show for smart people and a fucking some, some producing dickhead who

no one's heard of ever. Yeah. They got, they got Michael Richards on, rebuilt the Laugh Factory set and nobody's happy. So like Ken Jennings, do you remember when like, yeah, the bean dad thing happened? Oh, yeah. And I think that might have been too... Is that bean dad as his co-host? Yeah.

Ken Jennings, that made me like Ken Jennings more because like, A, like nothing bean dad said was like really that bad for like 2012 was like everyone was doing or like, oh, what if there was a Holocaust, but for people who didn't use the turn signal right, you know, that was fine. It was fine. That was encouraged to do back then. You could get on midnight and get some top from a girl with a side fringe. People forget that's how he made his bean daughter, probably.

And it's like... That's how he forged the bean dog. Yeah. He like, he's gone on at midnight a lot of times by like being like, oh, hashtag sodas Hitler would like. But like, it was, you know, this has been a past four years just selling people out of like, you know, your friend made like some Michael Ian Black style like 2012 tweets. And you're like, I have listened to the considerations of others.

And I think accountability and process are the two things that caught you just a word solid, just selling your friend down the river for like, you know, $70,000 a year. Ken Jennings. And this is like, I mean, Ken Jennings is like already balling because he's a Mormon and he's got his head on straight, but like, he really wanted to do this, but instead of like throwing this guy under the bus, he was like, probably doesn't even like that guy this much. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It was like, no, I'm like riding with him like, sorry, sorry, sorry losers. He didn't say, he didn't say sorry losers. He was like more polite than that, but I did appreciate that. And it was, I think he should have been given jeopardy because of that. There were a lot of options that made sense. And the main thing that people got pissed about is that they made it seem to be like it was a public audition and the people's input was wanted and people felt, oh, I'm

part of the process. My friends at Jeopardy are, are, are asking for my input on who they want to host. And then they just bring this fucking suit down to be like, yeah, it's me. Fuck you. Yeah. And they like got a guy who like is so just unremarkable that it's like, if they, if we did running man in real life, he would host it. Yeah.

He's like a boring, boring evil game show host. His only hosting experience was a few years ago. He hosted Beauty and the Geek. If anyone remembers that one, I was, I was on both sides of that. Well, I mean, unlike the occupation of Afghanistan, Jeopardy conceivably could live less than another 30 years. They just had like, you know, just as one of any number of hosts that could have done the job, could have done the job.

But now they screwed themselves over. And you know, again, I'm just thinking about this again in the context of like this is just the, the short-sightedness and just, just incompetence and just utter inability to function properly of like every institution in American life is how we end up in a situation where Elon Musk can basically put a guy in tights on stage, crumping and be like, this is a robot. Oh my God. That was so good.

That was amazing. They put a motherfucker in an outfit. They put a motherfucker in an outfit and then he comes out and goes, it'll be real though. Yeah. And yeah, it's like, I, I love like all Tesla stuff because even like, even like 30 years ago, you couldn't really do this. Yeah. You really have a company where you're like core product.

The thing that like, the one thing that people are actually buying is like every day you can find like a thousand people being like, I, I love you, but my, my car ran over three of my sons. It was a half moon and my car's computer fucking blew up and fucking flat my son's like accordions and it just blows up all the time. It sucks. They don't, everything else is just like, it's a vaporware. They're making Duke Nukem forever.

Oh yeah. We're going to make a car tunnel under cities. Okay. And now like their new thing that they'll never make is just like a robot. Like they're making the robot from iRobot and instead of even having like a concept model, just like some asshole, some guy who like was the most handsome guy in his town in Nebraska. And I'm going to move to LA, I'm going to make it.

I'm going to, I'm going to make it. You know, I'm the most charismatic guy in my high school, 17 people and they're like, we love you. You have to, you have to go out there. You have to make it. And you know, he couldn't even get in those Mickey Rourke directed DVD movies. Now this is what he's doing and he's somehow going to die from doing this. There's like arsenic in the Elon Musk found the one like spandex suit that has like, can

give you lead poisoning. I mean, it's like, just like the tech press, I mean, it couldn't be much lower than they are already, but like, it's just like, they know the joke is on them, but they have, they all come out and they're like, the genius Musk has done it again. Yeah. And it's just, it's not even like, it's, it's like, you remember when Colin Powell presented before the United Nations and he was just like, here's an artist's rendition of what the mobile bioweapons labs look like if we had photos of them that actually existing

and people were like, stunning, the world must take notice of this evidence. If they had just brought out like a guy, like the guy in the big Lebowski who plays Saddam Hussein, if they had just brought him before the UN and be like, I have the weapons, please don't take them away. The last thing I want is a military invasion. They'd be like, you heard it from him folks. And then like, they'd covered it like that, like that's what this fucking Tesla robot bullshit is.

What's amazing is that the specs for the robot, the proposed robot that he put out suck, like this is a thing that is never going to be built. And yet it's still, it's maximum like lifting capacity is like 45 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. They were putting out specs like it's a terminator and it's like top speed five miles per hour deadlift, 103 pounds. And it's like, you built our listeners, you know, several hundred thousand of those guys

at command. They'll come over to my house and like, uh, like, you know, move for me, they'll move stuff around. They'll have to get a goddamn robot to do that. Yeah. I know. I get 15 listeners to move a chair. Um, but yeah, a max stair capacity, three, three stairs, and it explodes.

Yeah. This way it's like, remember when Eric, Eric said, it was like, I forget what he was complaining about, but he's like, I had to walk 0.43 miles to another Jiffy Lube. And it's like, Elon Musk saw that and was like, what if I could make a machine that's wrong? This is like, I mean, like all of the Tesla computer stuff, it just seems to freak out when like, it'll probably like freak out when the moon is like in the wrong position. And it's like, you know, technology is so shitty now that like, TikTok witches actually

can like really affect the world. If you have like a million women concentrating on the moon, it can destroy every Tesla product. Ladies, let's start your engine. I sincerely believe like, you can't do much to the moon, but like a million women who believe they can move the moon, like looking at the moon can move it like an inch. And that's enough to kill like 57,000 guys who like parked their first name on Twitter in 2006. And we're early Tesla adopters.

I like the Tesla self-driving thing. It'll pass a billboard that's like hundreds of adult DVDs at this next freeway exit. And then it'll just be like, Oh, a hundred miles an hour, and then it'll just like, it'll speed up and drive you off a fucking cliff. I mean, like that's the new thing for rich guy. Like I'm sure there's going to be a lot more Audre McClendon, Audre McClendon's, or maybe not because I think of Audre McClendon did his thing today. Instead of his company like crashing, they would just be like, okay, it's like too interconnected.

We're just like, keep this on life support through the Fed like forever, but we're mad at you. But like if you do, if you fuck up that bad that you're like a billionaire one day and just through your own malfeasance, it's like, oh yeah, I owe like $700 million to Tajikistan. And I just spent $50 million on like an owl hunt. And you want to kill yourself. Like Audre McClendon, he had to do it like analog. He had to take his really fast car and just fucking smash it, smash it into a brick wall

and flatten himself. And to this day, my favorite way that a rich guy has killed himself. It is. He wanted to go out big, but like a lot of people aren't going to have his like Oklahoma swagger of like, you know, around here, we want to kill ourselves. We do a big, they're going to, you know, like they're going to speed up in front of the brick wall, like hesitate, spin out and be like, I can't do it. Call the Federal Reserve and like save my company.

But now you can just, if you drive your Tesla for more than two hours, that can probably happen to you in the right lunar conditions. It'll just do that for you. There's nothing you can fucking do. So if you really like, if you, you're a rich guy, you really fucked up, like the answer is in your garage. You can listen to your favorite tunes while you're doing it. Well, and you know, because it's a Tesla, you can't do the classic, you know, leaving

the exhaust running with the garden hose, you know. Yeah. You just drive around, wait for it to just burst into flames, which it will. No, yeah. In a long enough timeline of like two hours, it's going to find a way to kill you. I was thinking about that, like the, the, the Charismatic Nebraska, sort of corn fed hunk who came to LA to be an actor and then ended up in a spandex robot outfit, just dancing to Skrillex at a tech conference.

I guarantee you that like, for whatever money he got paid for that, in addition to like the copious NDAs he had to sign, there's probably some clause in that contract that means like that Elon Musk's like, you are a robot now, you don't have rights. Like you are literally a, you are an object now. You can never take this off. Yeah. Our friend, Crump for me, Crump for me, Crump for me and Grimes. It's like a Manchurian, a Manchurian candidate thing where his switch is like hearing Elon

Musk's favorite clown step tracks. All right, thank you. Now, unlike Joe, unlike Joe, Joe, obviously that was not real, a friend of the show Everett from a coast of Asia-Napoleon said something that really stuck with me. We're not going to get robot servants. Not going to happen. No, no. We've plateaued on that kind of like innovation.

There is no way for you to invest in any long-term research. It's just all got to pay off in the next quarter. So what we will end up with is just people who are your servants, but they're dressed like robots and then you get to pretend that they are and pretend that you're in the future and you also don't have to look them in the eye. And that will be our wonderful robot, Asimov, future that we all get to live in. Now, yeah, if you come from like one of the countries that like America is pretty much like sinking into the sea through emissions, like you can come here and be a robot.

Yeah. That's going to be the thing. Well, speaking of the future and killing yourself, the other thing I got to talk about this week is I wish I loved anything as much as conservative talk radio hosts love dying of COVID. Yeah. I loved it. It's incredible.

We've been talking about casino a lot, but this is like, look at what always happens. The high level guys, they're like, you know, fuck COVID, it's not real. They all got the vaccine in like January. They're on like eighth booster shot. Like Greg Abbott was probably just like double jamming, like huge syringes into his neck every day. No, he does. He's had a fucking booster already.

Yeah. Meanwhile, like the copper regimes, they're like, oh, those guys are saying that because they believe it. Oh, yeah. No, this is COVID is not not real. And if it like if it was like, it's not really going to affect me even though. Yes, I'm 90 pounds overweight and like have just been sitting down for the past 28 years. And I have like, I have a lung disease from like buying a green beret cigar brand.

But like this is not going to really affect me. I don't need to get the shot. I'm like fine. I may be 85 years old. I may have had to have gotten into radio because of a bridge tournament fixing scandal. That booted me out of boarding school in 1931. I may have, you know, made a buffoon of myself at like a slave auction debutant ball as I was coming of age as a 29 year old man and fled town to got into radio and changed my

name to like, Gerald Kisman. I'm like the biggest, biggest conservative radio star in, in Idaho, but I don't really need this. I'm in perfect health, dead instantly, instantly, dead, gone. And it's just like, you know, and thanks to Facebook, we now have like a chronology of events of like all the memes they posted up until their loved one was just like, please pray for so and so they're on a ventilator right now. And it's all the most dogbrained, like ignorant, like violently ignorant demands that like

other people not be vaccinated, that the vaccine is only for pussies. They don't need it. You know, it's just like this very skewed sense of like risk and chance because it's sort of like, if there, if there was like, you know, like one of those things at a casino where it's like a hundred slots and you spin the wheel and 99 of the slots or you win a little prize, but one of them is your life ends. Would you spin the wheel? Yeah.

Because I mean, the odds are in your favor. Yeah. The odds are in your favor. Like I wouldn't want to win a cash prize. If you win, you get to live like your same shitty life of like being an old man who gets UTIs and like plays like shitty radio bits called like, you know, what if Obama ran the NFL? Touchdown, you change your gender and like tells, you know, you lose your life.

But I mean, like it is like I, you know, to me, very pro vaccine because like if you look at the top level, the top level of all these guys, they're all old as shit. They only eat like fucking GMO red meat all day. They're like still hanging out with people in closed rooms. And like, even when they do get COVID, like nothing happening. Yeah. Look at Greg Abbott. Yeah.

Like they're fine. It's like, yeah, the vaccine's like awesome. Yeah. No. Yeah. This is like NWO knocked it out of the park with this one. Did you see it? Did you see Trump get booed at a rally in Alabama because he was like, I took the vaccine.

It's wonderful. It really works, people. It really works. And he got booed. You got to do what you have to do. But I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good.

Take the vaccines. But you got, no, that's okay. That's all right. You got your freedoms, but I happen to take the vaccine. If it doesn't work, you'll be the first to know, but you do have your freedoms. You have to keep, you have to maintain that. You have to maintain that. And you got to get your kids back to school.

And then he just like absolutely cringed away from it. Like he's absolutely terrified of like them not liking him, even though he has nothing but contempt for them. It's very funny. It's just these people are like, they're so pot committed now to not getting owned by the lips because like if you get the vaccine, like you won't know, you are literally have made you do something you didn't want to do. That's it.

You don't have any autonomy anymore. You don't get to be a fucking mega guy anymore. You have been neutered. Yeah. I mean, but like, is it, is it, yes, yes, you will be owned, but is it, it's slightly less owned than having your Facebook taken over by your wife. But they don't think it's going to happen till it happens. Yeah.

That's the thing. And then once they're dead, they can't post anymore about how they made a mistake. You're right. Yeah. You're right. Then it's like, yeah, exactly. Everybody thinks it can't happen to them until it's them and then they're no longer part of the equation.

I don't know, like, Phil Valentine, like, but while he was dying, was like, please get the vaccine. And it's like, oh yeah, that'll do it. Like these, like these people like see their, this happened to their friends who are like, live the same like shitty lifestyle they do and like are, you know, an equally like shitty health and all claiming that they're like, they're like, the co-morbidities aren't going to happen to them because they were in like the Missouri Air National Guard 45 years ago.

I've done like a bun 30 jumping jacks in my life. And they like, yeah, they see their, all their friends named Gary die and they're like, oh, well, like Gary was like a different type of like inert fat guy than me. He had a different lung disease than I have. So that like can't really, like, I don't know. There's just like nothing you can do besides a mandate. Like I'm sorry. Like that's, that's really it.

I mean, like, well, the one thing you do is, is just, you know, take some sort of, I mean, like, okay. So like the question that's been raised about this and like, you know, Phil Valentine is one of them, but there have been like probably half a dozen considered at least six that I have seen. Yeah. And like the thing is like, all of these guys, like you, you, you will have never heard of these scoots.

They're like, they're like the local Rush Limbaugh for whatever radio market they're in. But I guarantee you they all have audiences. They're like 10 times the size of this show. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Massive, massive followings. Yeah.

Yeah. They're on, they got on Raya. I didn't. You know? Yeah. He's like, he's like a 21 year old girl named Maddie who's like, yeah, I'm going out with Phil Valentine. They're going to Moodway.

She's like a fucking dumbass with a huge face and a cowboy hat. Well, I have a loft in Bushwick when I go on Raya dates. And you know, like I've seen, I've seen some people just be like, look, I mean, yes, yes, they have like a copious history on their program and end on Facebook of like I said, violent, violent ignorance against the idea of a vaccine and against anyone who's got a vaccine, loudly promoting absolute snake oil to their credulous fucking excuse me sheep trench, not snake oil. And then of course, and then they show up dead of COVID and then begging to get the

vaccine as they choke out their last breaths. And the question is like, is it okay to take some sort of perverse amusement in this? Is it okay to make a joke at people dying and like, yes, these are all people who have loved ones and families and things like that. And it's a, you know, it's a terrible thing to think about, like having your having your loved one, you know, behind glass unable to comfort them as they, you know, slip away to a disease that could have been easily prevented. But I got to say, these guys, even before COVID, we're all just about the most selfish

fucking belligerent assholes that this country is capable of producing, which is saying a lot. Yes. So, I mean, it's just, if you don't take it, it's just, I question your humanity. If you not, it cannot appreciate on some level the irony that's going on here, or just the the poetic justice, the very simple poetic justice of like these people loudly proclaiming their right to do something, and then it ends up killing them, I mean, against all common sense and logic.

I mean, if you're, if you really are horrified by the comedic implications of that, then you have to spend your entire day weeping because there are so many people in this world who are suffering and dying for things that they had no hand in. Absolutely senseless and misery of innocence. And I'm sorry, this is not that. No, they're way more pitiful people in America. I don't want like, I don't want people to die, but it's like, yeah, I'm sorry. There's just like, there's a lot more people who like had way less of a say in their fate

in this country. Yeah. Especially since, as we said, like the guys who are like two rungs up higher them in the in the machine, in the pyramid scheme, they're not doing this. They took the fucking vaccine. So like, this is literally people who are just too dumb to know what grift they're doing. I think in general, we assign like a greater degree of human control than is possible over this.

Yeah. Over COVID in general. Yeah. Like, and I think, you know, it manifests in a bunch of different ways, but like, you know, with this, like the human control, this is a big thing that I see like the normal conservatives do, like the boring normal conservatives do is like, oh, well, like, don't make fun of Phil Valentine because then people are like, double not going to get the vaccine, which is like already patently ridiculous because, okay, well, they're not getting it

now. Yeah. So like, what the fuck? But it, the idea is like, okay, if I can get like snarky Deborah in 1962, like some fucking grandma with a blue wave emoji and shit to not laugh at this, then, you know, what, what Phil Valentine's listeners who like, aren't, will never see this woman will go, oh, liberal Deborah like said hopes and hopes and prayers. I hope you guys get the vaccine.

I think I'm going to get it. Yeah. And now you, you, yeah, you being a normal conservative, you get to, you got to have affected that into happening. You, you, you have increased like vaccination rates in like Louisiana or they're 30%. Now they're like 90% because everyone, everyone saw the compassion of like, Kayhive people on Twitter, this thing that's never going to fucking happen. Even if they saw it, it would just enrage them because it would be taken as condescension.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no communicating across these barriers now. It is like, it is pure reflexively oppositional. So it does, that is liberating in a way. It means that you cannot affect their behavior in any way. Just five, man. If some, if some Goofus, if Bert Gumbass from like Raleigh Durham drive time does 15 posts

in a row about how massive are for Pussies and then his wife has to say, pray for Bert. He just coughed his asshole out of his mouth. That's sorry. That's funny. Yeah. I mean, like, look to steal a phrase from the greatest wordsmith of our time, Eric Paddock, he could do anything he wanted and he did. And he did.

That's what this is. You can do anything they want, they can do anything they want and they did. This is kind of what, if you do this, this is what happens, like this is kind of what you want it. Honestly. Yes. Yeah. It reminds me of that amazing story from the article, like a month or two, I guess,

ago now that was a deep embed with like these, these Trump groupies who were going around at the end of the campaign in 2020 at the height of like the first waves of COVID before the vaccine going around to all these rallies, no mass, obviously. And like one of them even got, one of them got COVID refused to go to the hospital or take a test because he didn't want to add to the numbers and make Trump look bad. And even though it was an old fat piece of shit, he survived. And then like a month later, he got killed in a car accident driving home from a boat rally in Florida.

It's like they, they, they want it. They want to die in this. They want their debt. Like this is like not getting the vaccine and then choking out in the hospital is a, it is a meaningful death in a way, like having a heart attack in front of bog fuckers of Grungus County would not. Yeah. And maybe, maybe there are like a lot more suicidal people than we have a meter for in

America because it's in ways we can't quite measure. And it's like, yeah, sometimes you see some behavior like that and you're like, yeah, you know what, man, you want it to go. I mean, it's hard to conclude, it's hard to reach any other conclusion than like this is in some way a kind of subconscious death drive. Yes. Among like masses of people. And then because like I saw a story yesterday that said that 70% of the calls to the Mississippi

State poison control hotline are people who have made themselves ill, taking sheep dewormer. And what's amazing is this isn't the first one of these. There was already hydrochloroquine. And now all the people who spent a year saying hydrochloroquine was the real cure and that the government was preventing you from using it, they have forgotten it even exists. And now it's the horse paste. So the Ivermectin is interesting because it is like in a lot of third world countries where, you know, we're just like not letting the vaccine or syringes get to, they do use

it to treat it. And like, there's some further information there that I like don't know because this is just one half of the tweet I read. But like, did you see it get filtered through like the American consumer mind where it's like, no, like, this is no longer about like getting COVID or not getting COVID. This is about like completely about the consumer choice. And it's like, are you the type of pussy who gets the vaccine? Yep.

Or are you like the cool rugged person who buys Ivermectin? The smart guy. Jams it into themselves. Yeah. The smart guy who doesn't listen to the propaganda and makes his own choice, even though you don't know anything. Like for me, I'm liberated on all this shit because I don't fucking know. Nobody knows anything about any of this stuff.

None of us are scientists that you cannot do your own research to know what's really going on with the fucking vaccine or the fucking coronavirus or any of that shit. You can only pick one group of people who you feel culturally of affinity for and then believe what they tell you because you can't fucking know. And we can't accept that. We can't accept that at the end of the day, we're at the mercy of forces beyond our control. So we have to invest our ability to just wade through information that yes, we have access to, we can do our research, we can look at the stats, but we don't have the training

or understanding to know what the fuck any of it means. But that doesn't mean anything because we're still left with the necessity of making that consumer choice. And at the end of the day, we're going to be driven by our cultural affinity and that's going to pull us one way or the other. And then we're going to tell ourselves the whole time that we're actually making smart science informed decisions or whatever the fuck. And we're not just experiencing like this is all part and parcel of a breakdown in

like all forms of institutional authority in this country. And the thing is that breakdown is wholly justified. Yes. I mean, we talk about it every fucking week on this show. And you can point to all of the like conflicting bad advice that was given at the early stages of this pandemic. You could talk about like how badly public health institutions and officials have squandered opportunities and led to deaths or just like, you know, been incorrect in the past and all

be 100% correct. But it's just like you, you're like, you could study for the rest of your fucking life and still not even have a fraction of the knowledge necessary to like look at like the data behind any of this shit. And it's just like at the end of the day, just do what your doctor tells you because chances are if there were any other illness or problem, you would simply follow the advice of a medical professional because like that's the best it's the best we have. It's the best.

It's literally the only thing we have. And like the thing is, it's just like, I think we talked about this before, but it's just like when people, they take a justified skepticism of like, you know, official sources of like information and authority or like news or things like that. And they take a rightful skepticism, but then just go completely in the opposite direction and exercise no skepticism over just charlatans on YouTube, just absolute fucking frauds who are like, just look, I mean, you may not trust Dr. Fauci, but like, why would you trust Brett Weinstein?

Well, because he's not his brother made great movies. It's because that they think that they're on your side. I mean, that that's all it is. Like, well, there's good guys and bad guys. And I found who the good guys are. And like the reality that there's nothing but either, yeah, like the bloodless technocrats of a capitalist machine who do not give a shit about you and will lie to your fucking face like Dr. fucking Fauci all day long and really do have no real investment in anybody's health

or safety. They just want to keep the wheels moving. But the other side of that is just fucking scam artists because who the the idea that there is some some counter hegemonic concentration of of like scientists and media figures who are outside of the capitalist structure and are genuinely committed and have the the resources and and the commitment to like give you the truth is is is it's a very comforting fantasy and that allows you to imagine that there's an escape from this. But I mean, you can you can't accept that, but then you will end up in the hospital with

horse paste overdose. That's that's what that leads to hindsight is always 2020. But I think like, I don't know, I was thinking about it and I think like with this whole thing since before the vaccine, I think one area where everything kind of went haywire was when this was sold to people as like, you should, you know, wear a mask, you should distance, you should not go places because it's like an altruistic thing. Yeah, I don't think Americans are unaltruistic. I think there are a lot of people in America who you would not expect to be good people

who actually do great selfless acts, but I don't even think they fully think of themselves that way. I think if you sell like a mass action coming from Fauci or coming from the CDC or coming from whoever as like, do this to be kind to your neighbor. No one gives a shit about their neighbor. You put it in those but no one fucking cares. I think maybe there would have been a better shot if it was like, hey, like we we just like kind of need to do this so we can like live life again.

And then when the vaccine came out, it isn't like, oh, get the shot, like save a life. Like no one in this country wants to save a life. If it was like, get this, get the shot and you can like go to a baseball game or like go to a club called like level two or like whatever. But even then, I mean, it's like, you just have entire areas of the country where like people are just doing that anyway. We always go back to square one where I think on some level, whatever has happened was always going to happen with this country unless you change course like 40 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. We're pretty pot committed at this point. But another reason that that like altruistic pitch doesn't work and it's a product of like the epistemic bubble that are specifically the media around our ruling class operate in that they assume because that kind of like manipulative language around goodness around virtue is what gets them to do things that it'll work outside of that bubble. But for a lot of people who just sort of passively have to observe a media culture that they're

largely alienated from, they're able to recognize, even if they can't articulate it, that all that talk about altruism is a fucking bullshit and it's all bad faith manipulativeness and that it's only trying to get you to do what somebody else wants you to do for their self-interest. And the altruistic patina is alienating even more because you know how fraudulent it is and it makes the whole thing just wreak of bullshit. And they literally cannot process that because they don't know anybody who thinks that way. They only know people who are motivated by a fear of other people thinking they're not good people and running around doing what they think other people want them to do because

they do live in like these, I'm sorry, coastal enclaves where everybody is, it's a panopticon of like social media surveillance and the total distrust of everyone where the only way you can get anybody to do what you want them to do is to make them think that they have to do it or else they're bad people. The two sort of cultural centers of gravity, both like liberal and conservative, they take things that are essentially about like, you know, to put it in self-health terms, being the best version of yourself, you know, to take religion and it's like just put it through this prism so many times you, you know, like when you downloaded YouTube video and re-uploaded

a billion times to the point it's unrecognizable where it's like now you are, you're a good person for buying a boat, you, like Jesus Christ would like just ignore, Jesus Christ would like put homeless people on a bus at gunpoint and send them to the sea. You don't even have to see anything that reminds you of the evils of the world. Then, you know, on the more liberal side, things like therapy, the nebulous term, mental health is now, it gets altered into like, hey, like psychology is so important, ghost your friends, sit down forever, watch your favorite fucking shows, anything that you're in a constant state of panic and you need to acknowledge all those feelings of panic

and doubt as real and valid and you should just watch your favorite show forever. Neither, neither, there's no real cultural force for like actual altruism or like doing things for other people in this country and that's fine, that's what it is, it's like no single living person's fault but the idea that we were going to get everyone to do the same thing in any step of this pandemic by appealing to that was absurd, it was absurd. It's like anyone who designed that approach might as well not have come from this planet much less this country. And I mean, I guess like at least on the Republican side of things, I mean back to like what I

originally started talking about here is that like, it's just another example of like they are tribly led by their base in a way that the Democrats cannot even begin to conceive of because they're so pot committed now to being anti-vaccine that even though all these guys like DeSantis and Greg Abbott have probably had 15 COVID vaccines already because they have to be around these people all the time, if they come out and encourage people to get the vaccine or mandate it or even admit to having got it themselves, like look what happened to Trump, they get the boobers, you know, no one wants to hear it even from the people that they like is supposedly trust and support.

And I mean, like, I don't know if it'll, I doubt it'll have any effect on, you know, elections or whatever, but like, they are literally killing like a good chunk of their voter base. And they're doing it, and they're doing it because that voter base demands it. Please kill more of us. Please keep us in a real crate of just like cultured ignorance of just studiously cultivated ignorance and fucking like ignorance and arrogance. Please keep us in that real crate until we die.

And any, any attempt to open the crate door and like put a little treat out there to get us out. No, we will, we will, we will violently oppose any effort to do that. It's hard not to like, you know, admire them a little bit that Republican base because it's like, you know, for years, years, they have gotten so much out of the party. They have gotten, they've gotten these guys to do so many ridiculous things. Take an evil, evil calculating fucker like JD Vance and make him look like a fucking, he's like, he's been chewing the neck of his t-shirt and sucking the spit out all day.

It is amazing what they do to everyone. And now, like they are asking them to do the single most like counterintuitive thing. No, kill us and get rid of our votes. Okay, fine. That's what you guys want. Amazing. Democrats could never. Democratic base, you know, they all, they all ask to die.

Yeah. Or at least in that way, that quick. No. And, you know, I mean, like, I will, thanks to voter ID laws and gerrymandering, like half of these people could die and their political influence would be diminished just only slightly. Yeah. All right, well, moving on from domestic concerns, obviously, we got to keep talking about Afghanistan because it continues to be, it continues to be fire, folks.

I just, the media coverage of it, I mean, if you watch this weekend, exactly what I said they would do, every heartrending account of someone fearing for their life or being killed or injured in this, as part of this evacuation is being played to the hilt. This is, of course, after people have found that over the last year of media coverage, they covered Afghanistan for five minutes on all of the major networks, five minutes of media coverage. And now, like I said, every heartrending story is being played to the hilt. And it's like, look, it's not like these stories aren't heartrending or tragic to think about,

but like they're no more or less tragic than like 40 people who were killed in a drone strike. Yeah. Or a school full of children that one of the death squads we train just murked. Yeah. And it's like, I'm sorry, I'm not fucking taking it from you. I saw some, like, I saw some, a journalist yesterday said like, oh, well, maybe these stories are now getting played now because so many, you know, so many people in U.S.

intelligence and the military feel this real pain for the people they worked with. Did they feel that pain when they were saying DevGrew to fucking torment them to make trophies out of their bodies? Did they feel that pain when they were just getting on Xbox controllers and going, well, if I kill one bad one and 39 other ones, we did what we needed to do? I'm not fucking, no, I'm not, I'm not taking that emotional manipulation of those fucking people. Go fuck yourself.

You shouldn't even be in there. We're all just sad, and we said they're just sad because we lost because we're losers. What they want is, okay, fine. They keep saying the ones who say it's fine that we left, but the way we left was wrong. No, that's the best. I'm sorry. You lose a war. It what's it going to look like?

It looks like you got your ass kicked and that's what it looked like because that's what happened. Do you think this is fucking AYSO we're going to all line up with the Taliban and high five at the end? Good game, good game, good game. I mean, there is a possibility. There is a world where we may have been able to do a more orderly withdrawal, but it would have required handing over power to the Taliban, which they also would not have allowed and

they would have shit their pants about. There's nothing we could have done these people wouldn't fucking bitch about. No, and then they've created this, like they do with everything, this imaginary third way about like, well, of course I'm in favor of the withdrawal, but just the way it's been done could have been better. I mean, it's just like they have to hold out that position because they can't reveal the truth about like how opposed they are to like the wishes and beliefs of the majority of the American people.

And the best thing though is like, and I saw it in a press conference and then like a lot of people, they're like, hey, somebody asked Joe Biden, do you trust the Taliban? And he said, I don't trust anybody, Jack, even you. On Irish show. On the question of Taliban though, do you, are they, do you trust them now that you have to negotiate with them? I don't trust anybody, including you. I love you.

But you know, there's not a lot of people I trust to look. You've been listening. Irish Joe coming through again. I was like, how did he get this cool overnight? No, I mean, he's still the same guy he always was. But this idea that like, oh, are you saying that we should trust the Taliban? It's just like, well, we have no choice. They won.

I don't trust people. I don't trust people. I don't trust the people on the other side. We're still stuck with them. Yeah. And as long as we're talking about people that you shouldn't trust or people that I will not stand even for a half second to be lectured by, Tony Blair has come back in the mix. But as long as I am breathing in air, I wish to see the trial of Tony Blair.

Tony fucking Blair has crawled out of whatever fucking crawled out of what Wendy Dang for half a second to come up and share that he feels personally betrayed by Joe Biden. And so he called he called he called our Irish Joe an imbecile. He called the Irish Joe an imbecile. How dare you, sir? And I just want to read here. This is a BBC. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was wrong.

And based on an imbecilic slogan, former PM Tony Blair has said, he described the decision to withdraw troops in the country as tragic, dangerous and unnecessary. Mr. Blair, who sent troops into Afghanistan 20 years ago, said the UK involvement in Afghanistan was not a hopeless endeavor, despite the Taliban takeover. Well, then why haven't any of you guys been there in years? God, suck my fucking dick. To call up Alex Nichols again when he said that the UK and Israel should form an alliance of countries who all they do is ask America for money, be the world's worst tourist and

get skin cancer. Mr. Blair said Britain had a moral obligation to stay in Afghanistan until all those who need or are to be evacuated. He wrote in his website, we must evacuate and give sanctuary to those who have whom we have the responsibility, those Afghans who helped us and stood by us and have a right to demand we stand by them. This should not be done grudgingly, but out of a deep sense of humanity and responsibility. Mr. Blair admitted mistakes had been made over Afghanistan, but the reaction to our

mistakes has been, unfortunately, further mistakes. He said while imperfect, the real gains over the past 20 years were now likely to be lost. We were losing them in the three years leading up to this. We didn't gain anything from 2017 to 2020. What was going to happen? What was going to fucking change? Your country won't even accept any of these fucking people. Yeah, no.

Go fuck yourself. He also said that like he says, like I don't know where the code is in this article, but he was just basically like, you know, Britain is facing a sad state of affairs where we may get relegated to a second rate power may. Oh, that may happen. That happened decades ago, dude. Decades ago. They had a fucking seance with Anthony Eden.

He'll tell you about it. This sounds so fucking hard for you guys. It's not so fucking tough that you had to see America do this. It really sounds like, you know, what you guys should do is you should pivot away to America and maybe join the EU. You guys thought about doing that? And I saw another opinion poll of the British public has 50% of Britons opposed to the American which are all from Afghanistan.

Oh, boo, fucking boo. What is up with this country? I wish it was 100%. Fuck all of you people. What is wrong with them? But like Tony Blair, man, this guy, by the way, has spent the last couple of years being a paid lobbyist for the United Arab Emirates. So I mean, this is some fucking nerve at this guy to show up.

What's the problem, Tony? What's the problem? Is a SUNY dictatorship? It's just not good when you put it here, but over there, it's fine. Does the Taliban have to like pay you to take guys to Kosi? If the Taliban built indoor ski slopes, then Tony Blair would be taking money from them. I mean, just utterly repellent. One of the worst human beings alive.

And George W. Bush is bad enough, but I don't know. He had some statement about Afghanistan, but it wasn't nearly as weepy or just aggressive as this. Joe Biden's an imbecile for doing this, for abandoning Afghanistan. It's just like, well, dude, you go over there if you care so fucking much. Just get in a fucking military car, get in a C-130 cargo plane and go get some people out of Afghanistan if you care so fucking much. Well, Tony Blair has the money for it now.

Hire a fucking plane. What are you waiting for? Would you spend a fucking dollar on this? No, he wouldn't. That's what happens. These guys, they were the world-bestriding empire, and then instead of collapsing, as all like monstrous empires deserve to, they got bought out and got to go basically into retirement and now they're just bitching from the back seat because they never got really

checked, which what I'm saying is that Joe Biden needs to start arming the IRA. Yep. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. Bring back the London campaign, Canary Wharf, get the mortars going. These people need to be humbled. Yeah.

They are not humbled enough. You want to see the end of England? No. I mean, Joe Biden's either got to do that or he's got to invent the time machine and we got to run Adjutant Corp back. We got to put the 80, 80, 80-second non-division in Adjutant Corp. Nice longbows, bitch. Boom!

We've got Mark Shooter-Walbro. He's got a baron 50 cal. How do you think about that? Once more into the breach. Blah! Blah! Fucking brains just get blowed the fuck out. We can't give away too much of Loopjumper 3.

Well, I remember what I said last episode, though, about a forever war. That is the imbecilic phrase that Tony Blair is referring to. In his online article, his first statement since Kabul fell to the Taliban last week, Mr. Blair said that the decision to withdraw was made in obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending the forever wars. I mean, this is just, he's just complaining that people aren't obedient to another idiotic political slogan. Yeah.

The sheer anger that these people have that like a foreign policy decision was made that was generally popular with the country making it, with the population of the democratic country supposedly making the decision. Their anger and betrayal and humiliation over that is so, so vivid and potent. And this idea like, oh, yeah, we drew because we were slavishly devoted to the political slogan forever wars. It's not like we, no, we drew because the forever war we were engaged in was like, even from like a just cold-blooded real politics sense was not serving the interests of this

country anymore. I mean, it was serving the interests of defense contractors, that's for sure. I mean, like, and looking back on the whole Afghanistan war, I mean, like this whole thing was like just a $2 trillion wealth transfer to like the military welfare state. That's all this is. Yeah. And that's why all the people who are paid lobbyists on behalf of, you know, these defense contractors of like the military industrial complex are fucking, they're beat dogs right

now. Also the thought, the guys like Blair and shit, they got to be sweating when they think about the prospect of the Taliban banning opium production because that's another, that's another choice revenue stream. Well, moving on from Tony Blair, I think we're going to round out the show today with a choice reading series about Afghanistan from one of its most sage prophets and scribes. Of course, I am, we're returning once again to Thomas Friedman. Thomas Friedman, the guy who in November 2001 wrote that the Taliban was gone forever

and that war worked, has now come out today and like this article by Thomas Friedman, we've covered him a lot on the show, but I think like this is him really like suffering some sort of mental break. He's going crazy in the booth. He's fucking, he's spazzing on the mic here. And like this is what I mean is it like as our empire grinds down and now comes face, you know, comes tooth and claw up against like the real harsh reality of what it means to be a fading failed empire, having to, you know, retreat in disgrace and humiliation

after being defeated roundly after 20 years of spending all that money and trying so hard to fucking, I don't know, make Afghanistan a country that could orderly process the heroin and minerals that we need. This is Thomas Friedman now who has just retreated entirely into his mind palace. This is his opinion column from last Thursday, which somehow I did not get this article before we recorded, but here it is now. Three people I would interview about Afghanistan. This entire column is just a play that he wrote in his head about him talking to having

imaginary conversations. It's like, you know, it's like when you're in a shower, when you're in the shower, like the day after you had, you had a, you were at a bar or something and you come up with a zinger that you should have said and you do it to yourself in the shower and you're like, fuck, I wish I had a time machine. This is his version of that. Thomas Friedman's best columns are like, they're like the Nas songs that are stupid. Like I can.

It's like, it's like the Nas songs where it's like, oh, I'm going to rap from the perspective of a gun. Oh, wouldn't this be cool? All right. So this is, this is Thomas Friedman writing the New York Times. As I watch events in Afghanistan unfold, I find myself trying to ignore all the commentary and longing instead to interview three people, President Lyndon Johnson, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mohammed Zaheer Shah, the last king of Afghanistan.

So I love right here, he's just like, as the events unfold in Afghanistan, I find myself shutting out all of the news and commentary about what's actually going on that may lead me to, I don't know, face up to my role in all of it. Instead, here's an imaginary conversation I have with three people, one of whom has been dead for 30 years. Thomas Friedman is plural gang. He has headmates. So first up is, this is all written like a, like a dialogue.

So first up is Friedman. President Johnson, oh wait, sorry. Two of these people have been dead for quite a long time. President Johnson, what did you think of Joe Biden's speech about quitting Afghanistan? President Johnson. Well, I'll say now, I'll say, I'll say, I'll say to President Biden, I'll say, you've never seen a cock this big and then I slapped him with it, I put it out of my pants, slapped him in the face with it, with jumbo.

No, he goes, President Johnson, I listened to it and I have to say that I choked up. If I had the guts to give that speech on April 7th, 1965 about America's involvement in Vietnam, the war that I inherited and then expanded with that speech, promise me one thing. You won't link to that speech. Sorry, Mr. President, but I already did. Thomas, you're spazzing in the G-Doc with President Johnson. So then he, you know, he shares a Dylan and Johnson speech about Vietnam. So, Johnson replies, yes, Mr. Friedman.

I wish I had said what Biden did and what his predecessors never would. How many more generations of Americans, daughters and sons would you have me sent to fight Afghanistan in civil war when Afghan troops will not? I mean, that's funny because that's exactly what Johnson said right before. He sent a shitload of American troops to Vietnam. So he basically did already say that. Well, that is how a man with a comically huge dick is cursed, is always cursed to do it, is always cursed to do the dangerous thing.

A man with Joe Biden's dick, which I assume, you know, probably normal, like, length. Irish joke. We all know. Come on. The width of, like, width of a jewel, let's say. He's like, no, I don't know when my time's up, man. Bye. Okay.

So that was, that was President Johnson. Now moving on to President G. President G, what do you think of all of the American commentators proclaiming China a winner from Biden's withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan? Oh, my. These are what we call useful idiots. What planet are these people living on? He captures Z's voice so perfectly. Jay Lee, yeah.

It's amazing how all the great figures of history all sound exactly like Thomas Frieden. What planet are these people living on? We had a perfect situation going before Biden came along. America was hemorrhaging lives, money, energy, and focus in Afghanistan. And its presence was making the country just safe enough for Chinese multinationals to exploit. The metallurgical corporation of China, and Zhang Ji Copper, had a contract to develop a copper mine, and the China Natural Petroleum Corporation was working on a field in the

north of the country. And the Americans were funding the overall security. That is our idea of perfection. Alas, neither of these projects got off the ground because of the craziness in the Kabul government. But Afghanistan is hugely rich in minerals we need. Who will protect our investors after the Americans have stopped doing it for free? Not me.

Friedman. How about the Taliban? The Taliban? You think that we trust them? Have you noticed what their brothers in the Pakistani Taliban have been doing to our investments in Pakistan? Just read this Wall Street Journal from July 28th. Blah, blah, blah.

Who cares? Because Pakistan cannot even keep us safe from its own Taliban and Balak Separatists in their own country. And we own Pakistan. And don't even get me started on how the Taliban victory could inspire our Uyghur Muslims. Joe, Joe, what did you do to us, Joe? You should have listened to your foreign policy experts in the state of Afghanistan. The last thing we want is you refocusing all of America's resources and energy on competing

with us for the industries of the 21st century, instead of chasing the Taliban around the Hindu Kush. So that's a little glimpse inside the mind of... He's having the world's latest dinner party. Yes. Now, next up, Mohammed Zaire Shah was the last king of Afghanistan, who ruled from 1933 until he was deposed by his brother-in-law in 1973, triggering nearly a half-century of coups, wars, and invasions.

He was the last of a 226-year dynasty of Pashtun monarchs to rule Afghanistan. Your Highness, what do you think of Biden's decision to just quit Afghanistan and end of the Taliban takeover? Let me tell you a few things about my country. The first thing you have to know is that we are and always will be a mosaic of many different languages and cultures and ethnicities and approaches to Islam. There are 14 ethnic groups recognized in our national anthem. Biden goes on to list all of them.

The reason the country was relatively peaceful under my leadership, until my idiot cousin toppled me, was that people saw me as a unifying symbol to whom they could all relate. The Taliban represent only one element in our mosaic, Pashtun Sunni Islamism. Since they were ousted by the Americans 20 years ago, all they have been thinking about is how again to own the Afghanistan they lost, not how to govern anew the Afghanistan that exists today. Let me tell you, Mr. Friedman, more than 70% of Afghanistan's population is under 25 years old.

Most of them know nothing about the Taliban and have never heard of Mullah Omar. Just like all those 20-somethings in Iran who have never heard of the Shah and give Iran's Islamic rulers grief every day, they have been raised in a different Afghanistan, in a different age, and they will not easily give up on the freedoms they enjoyed these past 20 years, even if the country was a mess. Tribes in this part of the world, Mr. Friedman, have a saying, me and my brother against my cousin, me and my brother and my cousin against the outsider. Americans were the outsider, and the Taliban could always find plenty of passive and active

cousins for its project of getting you out. 70% of Afghanistan's population are cousins. They're cousins and nephews. The Taliban have no idea how to govern a modern country. Vietnam's nationalist leader, Ho Chi Minh, spent his exile in Paris. These Taliban guys studied at best in Madrasas in Pakistan, where they don't even teach science. They don't even freaking love science. How are they going to govern a country like Afghanistan? Here's my prediction.

The Taliban will either form a national unity government with all the major ethnic and tribal groups under loose centralized control, and will sort of hold the country together and be able to enlist foreign aid, or they won't. If they do, President Biden's bet on getting out will prove right that America's presence was actively preventing Afghans from compromising and coming together to govern themselves. Maybe they will find one of my family's descendants to be the symbolic unifier. I repeat, my reign corresponded with one of the most peaceful eras in Afghan history. So this is just Thomas Friedman with a Ouija board channeling a dead man to basically plant

in the New York Times his recommendations for what should be done in Afghanistan, which is finding another cousin of related to this family and making them king again. Everyone will love that. The guy that basically nobody living there remembers, they'll have a great time. So using like Friedman's law, not only will the Taliban not form a coalition government, they are now possibly, because the other thing is like they'll collapse. They're going to take over Europe now. Like all the alarmists were right, they're going to, the EU will be run by the Taliban.

England luckily will be falling soon. Heard it here first, it is now written in stone. Just going, I said, but if the Taliban try to keep power all by themselves with no cousins, dude, don't ask me to get down without my cousins. The country will eventually resist it. The Taliban will crack down harder and Afghanistan will not implode. It will explode. It will break up into different regions and hemorrhage refugees and instability.

It will be very ugly in America and Biden will be blamed for the chaos, but America will also be gone. Afghanistan will then be a huge problem for its neighbors, particularly Pakistan. China, Russia, and Iran. And Friedman, Friedman closes out by saying, hmm, Pakistan, China, Russia, and Iran, maybe Biden had that in mind all along. Yeah. He's playing, he's playing four DHS here.

I think we all know what's in Biden's mind. It's a Betty, Betty Boop working at a milkshake stand. It's a car that never runs out of gas. A skeleton who sounds like Cab Calloway. It's a hand job during the seventh inning stretch. I do like the idea of the most precious resources in Afghanistan or is not women and girls. It's cousins and nephews. Absolutely.

That is beautiful. I do like that he said that. I do. There's something to it. Well, there we go. Give me enough cousins and I will move the world. I can do this. Well, there you go.

That has appeared a glimpse inside the mind palace of imperial decline. Just absolutely. And mental decline. Yes. Everything's declining at a nice steady rate. And this is why Friedman makes the big bucks, because it's like, here's a real world, like actual politics and news is happening that relates to something he's been writing about and advocating for the last 20 years on behalf of.

And he's like, okay, my column this week, all right, going to knock this one out of the park. I'm not going to talk about it in the commentary or news or history, going to make up a conversation with three guys in my head. Share that with you. Here you go. I love it. The thing I like love about him and like why he's kind of the best is he does not need

the money. His wife is a billionaire. His like in laws, they're like shopping mall and like real estate magnates like he doesn't need the money. He comes in a fucking palace, like even if he's making like combined from like the columns and like speaking engagements, like let's say like $750,000 a year, that's like a drop in the pocket to the like dividends and she's doing it for the love of the game. He loves this man.

He's not very good at it, but through being so bad at it, he kind of is good at it because no one else would, no one else would really do this. No one else in the world. Yeah. I love that thought after a couple of falls to have a brain party with dead guys. And I used to like, I used to like being mad like, oh, why is this fucking guy, they should like fire this guy. This guy sucks.

And then it's like the other people they gather just like quotidian like lives who are like, you know, don't make fun of people who died or like, you know, just like conservatives who represent 12 of the dumbest people ever in Manhattan. And it's like, no, keep this guy. He's none of his beliefs are original. They're just like, just what you're supposed to hear at Davos, but his execution is totally original. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. He's a virtuoso, you know what I'm saying? Like, like there's nobody in the game like him and like, you know, like I said, like so many people we talk about on the show, like you could try to copy them if you wanted to and you could maybe do a pretty good impression, but like only only only the nephew and cousin brain, only a brain powered by the cousins can come up with a column this good. And he's he's awesome. Like the worst people in the world are like, okay, we're going to get we're going to get

him to speak at our like Skoll and Bones alumni group at a restaurant where you can like kill the waiter and he like gets in there and he's like, well, Afghanistan's always had a nephew gas and they're like, oh, wow. You're an awesome guy. King. All right, gang. I think that does it for this week. Until next time.

Bye. Bye. Folks, now that you have heard my story, say bye and hand me over another shot of that. If anyone should ask him, tell them I got those St. James in very good.