Chapo Trap House - 775 - The Wrestler feat. David J. Roth (10/23/23)

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

David J. Roth joins us this week as we continue discussing the relatively limp and unconvincing propaganda emerging around the Israel-Gaza war. Then, David gives us his review of “Moneyball” Michael Lewis’ new book on Sam Bankman-Fried, and we take a look at a new Washington Post piece chronicling Jim Jordan’s career arc from college wrestling champion to almost-Speaker of the House. David’s review of Going Infinite is here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/how-michael-lewis-got-duped-by-sam-bankman-fried.html

Music For reading, friends, it's Monday, October 23rd. This is your Chappell Trapphouse coming at you. It's Felix and I today, but holding down the third Mike Slot on today's episode is returning Chappell champion David Roth. Hey, David, welcome. Thanks for having me. How are you? Doing good.

To lead off the day's show, I have three words one thing to say. Those three words, tactical, Jerry, or Bach. That's right folks. I can actually share, I'm very pleased to share with you some good news about our boy Matt. I'm very, very happy to share with you that he is out of the hospital and onto the next stage of his recovery. So can we get some, get some hearts going from Matt in the chat? Very, very pleased to share this information with you and also to rename this show Tactical Jerry Orbeck. So yeah, kicking off today's show,

been a hell of a week. Before I say the news is all bad, I would like to note the tens of thousands of people in the streets of every American major, every major American city, as well as London, Paris, elsewhere in the world, all standing in solidarity with Palestine and demanding a ceasefire and an end to the bombardment

of a captive civilian population. You know, like, I'm sure we're gonna talk today about a lot of the absurd propaganda that's come out of this war, but like, I really do wanna begin today's show, expressing like something that Felix said on last Monday's episode. It seems like our politicians, the US government

and of course our media is all on board for this, and they're all covering for what we all see happening in front of our eyes. But as far as public opinion and the weight of the world's conscience goes, it is failing spectacularly. I mean, just like, I don't know, like just what do you guys start sitting off this week

of just like what we've seen over the past week in terms of the horror of what's happening in Gaza, but also like the attempts of the Israeli government the US government and You know a compliant media to to manage to manage the perception of what everyone would two eyes can see is happening right in front of their well like you know as far as the horrors it's You know, it's mostly, as we said, with Muhammad, and as we said in the episode after that, it's like what you expect to see from Israel and Gaza, but just dialed up so far. Like we've seen them hit hospitals before, we've seen them hit residential zones, but they seem to be targeting individual ambulances

in this incredibly specific way, bakeries, which I don't recall them taking out every single bakery that they could before, like a new level of evil, which is shocking even for them. And, you know, it seems like the MO for them is to, you know, whether it's the bakeries or individual ambulances, make it so that people in Gaza are afraid to even help. I mean, people there will help regardless. They've shown enormous fortitude in the face of all this, but really only comparable, if not in literal method, but objective to the first wave of executions of Jews in Lithuania

in 41 or right-hard hydric and proc. But the media or professional Israel advocate side, I think they're a little lost. I don't know if you saw the star, the Orthodox business council said that because of the Starbucks unions statement on Palestine that now if you get a even coffee flavored coffee, if you even get coffee flavored coffee from Starbucks, you might as well be drinking Jewish blood, which is like, I don't think I've ever heard, like, have

you ever heard of someone who hates Jews? It's like, oh, my favorite Jewish blood. I have the quote here. It says, the chamber is also campaigning to have starbucks closed stores and dismissed thousands of workers who quote support hummus after their union posted a statement on x-ing solidarity with palis nine the chamber has launched a boycott of the coffee chain under the slogan drinking a couple starbucks is drinking a cup of jewish blood

i really thought that uh... philix was dialing that one up for comic effect there. No. Actually, underselling it a little bit. Like, you put more qualifiers in there than they did. Yeah, I could not believe. I thought someone fuck with it or something. It was like, I mean, drinking Jewish blood is like, just if I saw that divorce from context, I would be like,

is that like a guy who hates Jews saying that? Yeah. It's thing? Yeah. Yeah. It's so fucking weird. It's so fun. It's like one of the weirdest things I've ever heard anyone say. Also not like an old testament formulation, like that's just like a weird guy's brain coming up with something unpleasant off the top.

Like it's not the kind of thing where you could just like sort of cite it and be like, oh well, you know, it's actually like a tlmodic callback. Like it's just people that are completely out of their minds with it. It feels weird to, you know, to have hit that sort of like butt after the stuff. I mean, because it is an incredibly brutal and disheartening conflict.

And yet there is this sense that all of this stuff seems like it is not resonating the way that it did after September 11th, which was that big comparison that initially I saw after this started was that it felt like 2002 all over again. And there is a lot of that. Institutionally, I feel like the level and style of fuckery is pretty one to one. The times edited stuff out of a Thomas Friedman column yesterday, like Thomas Friedman being too spicy

is like very, very 2002 like Boot-N-Your-As vibes. And yet it's like, I don't think it's really like hitting necessarily. It's not what it's doing in polls. It just looks o-fish. I was talking to Katherine over the weekend and like obviously like I think on previous episodes I said like if you didn't live through 9-11

in the war in Iraq, like congratulations you get a chance to see what it was like. And it's certainly true in the way in what we're seeing from the media. I mean like saying that it's a confirmation when an IDF spokesperson chose computer printouts that say al-Qaeda cyanide gas on it. And then you just be like well, yep, here we go. And but like I think what we're seeing is like a generational divide of people like, you know, our age who lived through 9-11 and the Iraq war. But what I think we're really seeing is a divide between people who watch cable news

and people who don't. Like there are people who watch the news, you know, like they're totally in locked in, they're in the locked room. They're not getting out of it. But for most people under the age of 40, like cable news or the New York Times is not like considered like the word of God.

And after 9-11 and the lead up to the Iraq war, like you could see the same thing working on people my age. And even I found myself susceptible to it. It's just like this, this demand to do continual homework, to find out the true facts and data about what is very clearly like you know you don't need to do homework to like to override your own common sense and fucking eyesight. That's the thing that was so jarring about like that period was

that I remember like the little bits of like sort of rinky dink activism that I was doing in 2002 and 2003 it was like all of it felt like you were sort of pulling on the lever that was supposed to deliver a response if the things that I'd been taught worked a certain way actually worked that way and then you would pull the lever and like either nothing would happen or like a boxing glove would emerge from a concealed panel and sock you in the nuts and it was incredibly like disperiting in that way and yet I feel like there's, you know, as you said, like cable, all of these things,

like the spectacle is the same. Many of the same people that cast the bad votes 20 odd years ago are like still there and fucking absolutely geeked up to cast another bad vote if they can do it. And yet I don't think that, I mean, anybody that sort of remembered

how that works. First of all, like you're not expecting necessarily to like, file a petition with somebody and then expect them to read it carefully or whatever. I just don't think that any of this is fooling anyone. The hard part is just that, it all sort of seems like it runs on rails anyway. I'm not even sure of that anymore. So the first week, there were all these absolutely absurd articles that were, they ran the range from like, I'm to the left of everyone. I supported Elizabeth Warren, but... Bailey's a friend, I've met the dog.

Yeah, I was inside the inflatable bed. I'm to the left of everyone. But we don't knew it goes to now. The Palestinian cause is dead in America, the left is dead. And I didn't think that, obviously. But I did think, okay, this is going to suck. We're probably not going to see what we saw in 2021 where there was like an increased presence

both in media and protests in favor of Palestine. It's going to be kind of a third rail for a little while, but like, you know, the strategy here by Hamas was, that like what are we going to get from Western sympathy, right? And instead, this is the most unprecedented, this is the most public support I've ever seen from Palestine in America. To a point where like I never actually expected to see this, I just literally did not expect to see like tens of thousands in like every major American city, like fucking tens of thousands of people in Dallas.

And I like, you look, you know, like David, you talked about how like the weird butt of it all, where it's like there are these just terrible horrors that you try not to believe that humans are capable of doing. Like just the worst, most cynical, zero sum view of humanity boiled down to just the most cynical Nazi-esque birth rates and blood and soil view of the world.

And then the sort of like silliness of their response in America, but I think another angle to that is like when you look at these protests and you look at the state of the Palestinian movement in America and the West at large and you see how robust it is, but also see like fucking normal happy families in And you'll know people there. And that's huge. And like in 2002, it literally was just like a 67 year old former PFL P voter who lives in North Chicago and for some reason and like, do people like me? Yeah, it was weird. There were lots of people in the streets then too, but I think that there was an abstraction

to it. It was sort of like, you knew what was going to happen and you knew that no matter what you did, it was going to happen. And so people sort of showed up, and there was that sort of like, you know, everybody sort of turning out, making it clear that this was not something that they wanted, but I think that you're correct in identifying that like the spirit of it is different, because that was the sort of thing that was organized on that like, you know, 2002 internet. It was very like moveon.org, like emails with a million BCCs on it, type shit.

Whereas like this, it feels like I wouldn't have guessed that this movement was there ready to be activated, that there was this spirit necessarily ready to be activated. And it's sort of heartening to see that there is more energy for humane politics below the surface than you would have guessed. Because I think back then, I thought that there was going to be more than there actually was.

Like it just turned out that the well was dry, you know? Yeah, yeah, and I feel like a lot of the ridiculous responses we're seeing, like we talked about the drinking Jewish blood at Starbucks, but just like whether it is someone who's job it is to like put this shit out there, whether it's like the guy in the IDF who makes like brochures where it's like, this is what the Hamas guy was carrying.

This is a map of every JCC in America and instructions on how to make it a hydrogen bomb, and you look at it, and it's like, hey, gartho horrible, poor thing, you're like, what the fuck? Or just like random people who are just like, completely lost it, like have lost touch with everything, and are just like screaming at every picture of the protests that you see. I think there's like actually this massive psychic care and damage inflicted upon these people by seeing like just how like normal and nice and widespread like the pro Palestine side is.

Yeah. I think that was an enormous psychic hit to them. Another point I'd like to make is like in addition to the tens of thousands of people that were in the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn just just to bring her in Brooklyn yesterday but add to that chicago l.a. doubtless i mean the list goes on massive massive protest demanding a ceasefire demanding our government stop eating and abetting the war crimes of israel i would just like to say like according to public opinion polls that is like the majority opinion of the united states right now.

The public only 12% of the Americans would ask strongly disagree that there should be a cease-fire in Gaza. Only 12% it's 100% of our politicians in media and both the Republican and Democratic party. But it's just like I just like to ask where are the counter protests demanding that the bombing continue? Where's the grounds where the public support for the Israeli military? This is always sort of the way it goes though.

This is the part that is so crushing about it. That was the case. It was like 100,000 people in the streets being like, I don't think that we should invade and occupy Iraq. They had nothing to do with the thing that happened to us here, like 80 blocks away. The response to that was just that it made Dick Cheney worse somehow. Yeah, but the Rock War had majority support.

It did. And it definitely also, that was again, the sort of thing where this other side of it was just not, it was not the same sort of energy. And it also didn't seem like it really was working on people one way or the other. Maybe they weren't, as in your or maybe the general public hadn't yet realized that watching cable news makes you insane. Yeah, yeah, and I feel like I don't know just the the people who sold

the Iraq war many of which are still here. Joe Biden. Yeah, Joe Biden, the literal democratic whip to get votes for the resolution. I don't know, they just don't seem to have it together in the same way. I would say I think that- The advantage of Jerren Tockersy is that all of these guys are just like playing senior circuit ball now. Everybody that was like just hummin sitting mid 90s for like a few years. The Neal comes to the Bush administration who moved into the big three league of cable news appearances.

Yeah, it is literally like when they called Abe Simpson and his friends in to act as strike breakers. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was a style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. Yep. I'm going to say like in terms of at least my favorite bit of hilarious propaganda, hilarious and blood folks propaganda this week, it definitely had to be the look, it's the, you've got

to find a little silver lining to the dark cloud and it's just, it's the smiles that keep us going. So my personal favorite piece of Observed propaganda this week was the Islamic jerky boys call that they released. Yes Hey, that's this is Muhammad Akbar. Yeah, we bombed that big in hospital. Yeah, Israel doesn't talk its civilians Chattage he's dick Activating like just the sizzle chest protocols the idea of activating just the sizzle chest protocols. Yes, it is.

What is it? And it's like, I'd like I understand like they count on the fact that like they're not even trying to be convincing to like any normal person. This is just this is the fig leaf that they need to give to the world press so that they can continue doing their war crimes. But it's just like are these the actions actions in a side that's like really confident and not just like their moral justice of this cause, but even their victory in it?

Yeah, no, like do you feel in control? Do you feel in control when you like have two guys open audacity speaking like bad Arabic and being like, you know, clearly that was Islamic jihad's rocket that killed all those people. But we should blame it on Israel because that's actually, it's the only army in the world that promotes LGBT people. And they even have vegan options, you know, like if you want to wear combat boots. And several celebrities actually perform concerts in Israel. Anyway, I was talking to my slaves and I think we should inflate the casualties. So gay people in the West who we would rape to death if they were here.

So they defame Israel, which is the only safe place in the world for Jewish people. It does have the feeling to me, especially on Netanyahu, who's part of a guy who is absolutely playing with his back to the wall and also is a pretty evil guy. I mean, I think the for Netanyahu, it's like there's no limit of how, it's certainly how many Palestinian people he would kill if it kept him out of jail a little bit longer.

He had a fake guy show up at his press conference pretending to be a family member of one of the hostages and going, I support you, BB, kill them all. Yeah, jeez. It's so fucking low rent. Yeah, it's so low rent. Yeah. Well, it seems like the through line through all of this.

This is like a very feared and respected military that does have all the whatever state of the art hardware. And highly trained personnel and whatever. And they're doing fucking security whatever state of the art hardware. And, you know, highly trained personnel and whatever. And they're doing fucking security for settlers in the West Bank. Like someone drove a car through a fence that they weren't paying attention to and started all this. If you want to like say that it's necessarily as simple as that, but it's not the sort of thing where the more brutal you are or the more harsh you are, that somehow makes you safer. I think that that's another lesson of 2002

that we now know not to be the case. And yet, obviously, that's still, it's the one thing that Netanyahu has to bank on, I feel like, is the idea that like, I just have to let me finish killing everybody or else you're never gonna be okay. Yeah, but he's in this impossible spot where it's like his promise for like literally like

40 years at this point, right? Is you have to let me finish killing people, but also like when I kill people, it's going to be like low cost, low involvement, it's gonna be easy. Like you won't even have to think about it. And they're afraid to even start the ground invasion. Like this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

Just as far as like an army losing its capability so quickly. Well, I mean, I think the choice to them is pretty clear. And like, either they're going to have to commit to a ground invasion that like I think is pretty clear. Nobody has any confidence that will be successful for them or continue doing what they're doing which is just the ongoing liquidation of a civilian population that they wish didn't exist and they will kill as many people as possible and then forcibly displaced many more and i get i must rest the Biden White House is giving them

full military and diplomatic support to do so that is what that is what is that question here everything else is just homework signed to you by fucking cowards and nothing had to that uh... as long as we're talking about biden so as we're talking about biden and you know just the few the few grim reasons to smile over the past week christ can you keep the clip of biden and Blinken on that fucking on Air Force 1? and what I would not notice, I know say things like that, unless I have faith in the source of what I've gotten.

Artifnist Department says it's highly unlikely, and it was really, but it's a different footprint and intercept is anyway. And so that's why I can notice I didn't say it first. I wanted to make sure Feel it feel and fine. Yeah, the thing that you can't get from hearing that and I think you can you can sort of get it Is the presence of numerous panicked aides standing over by these orders Anthony Blinken is standing right behind him and looks terrified yes his eyes you can see the whites of his eyes glowing yeah Anthony Blinken is there and he's like I don't want Poonani right now this is not time to be a Ho Chi-Coo Chi man.

He really sounds like he's dying. Yeah. This is the worst I've ever seen him. Yeah, do you remember like the first week when all the Biden people were like, Joe Biden is staying up till 2 a.m. tonight. Yeah. David from actually had a really fun, you know, a lot of Steve Martin in the jerk moments, but David from had a funny one when Joe flew to Israel and it was something like,

this Joe ain't no weak sleepy. And I was like, you should have apologized. I think you should have apologized. I think you should go to prison for that. It is also funny that for a country that's now run by it's worst and oldest people that like being able to stay up late is that's the status thing that that's like the news that you would link. Not that like he's reading all of his briefings like all the way through like everybody knows that's that's reading all of his briefings like all the way through, like everybody knows that's hard and boring, but the idea of being like,

he watched most of the foul in last night, okay? So I think that should pretty much put that one to bed. Yeah, and it seems like, well look at this, he's like going to Israel and staying up pretty late. He's the fucking president. Right, no one made him do this. Yeah. And like this was like the survivor was on that night. All right. Like he didn't want to go. He had other plans. It's just like it looks like he got like his face lift is working,

but like his chin tuck isn't and there's like flesh that's just sort of loose at the bottom. This is a turkey chowel. And like, don't follow politics. He looks pretty different every single time I see. Yeah. And like, he, like he, he is, he seems fucking dead in this clip. Yeah. So I gotta say, I just have to wait for him

from a deep sleep. This is, this is about as humiliated as this country is, I mean, like as far as I've been alive, I mean, this is like top five most humiliating moments is seeing our Cinal Cryptkeeper president dot her out to give like the full to give the support and credibility of our intelligence community to the absurd lies that Israel. It's just like the fact that he's doing this on behalf of Israel. Because it's like George Bush and Dick Cheney, like they were lying and what they thought was America's like greedy self

interest that like something we wanted to do. But it just feels like, once again, it feels like, nobody knows what they're doing anymore. They're just reacting. And then he's just fucking like, emulating America's credibility. So did it exist anymore on a global stage. On behalf of this rinky, ding, fucking ally,

what are the fuck are they doing for us? That's worth what we're kicking into them right now. And it's pathetic corrupt leadership that doesn't respect you and has gone out of its way to broadcast that it doesn't respect you. Like that's the other thing. What are you, like Netanyahu's never gonna give you back any of this, even if you thought it was worth something

which I think it is like a very good question. Like what exactly would that be worth? So to set fire to all this for, I'm assuming that it is just that sort of like, the thing that animates, I think, a lot of like, geriatric DNC decision making stuff, which is just, they remembered a poll from 2003 or 2007 and are just kind of acting off of it.

It's just inertia. It just seems like it's like an algorithmic response. I'm like, I think they're underestimating how fucking, how much is gonna blow up in their their face and we're seeing now with like especially the Democratic Party like you know like a fucking John that's lab John Federman and his staff like the whole first week they were like kill them all and I don't know if like Dave Chains their tune but like it just Obama's statement today where it just seems like they're

all like the none of them are saying ceasefire they're just saying oh we got to let some water in and like you, you know, we encourage Israel to respect international law and protect civilians. And I think I'll notice about that, is like, Derek Davis pointed this out, and I think it's very important. Whenever you see one of these threads from someone from the Atlantic Council

and like 10th, 10th tweets into the thread, they're like, obviously Israel has a duty to protect innocent civilian life in Gaza. And then the previous 10 tweets are all laying out why any evidence of them failing to do that is actually Hamas disinformation. Let's just say she can make you go, hmm, what we call in the business,

the to be sure paragraph. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a staple of that type of like DNCE or like that sort of writing and stuff like that because you're laying out a position like that you kind of know is bad or gross but that you think might be interest like interesting to the powerful people that are reading it and then at some point yeah then you have to like get all you know just stack your caveats and then hit your conclusion and get out.

Yeah. Can we talk about uh Federman Federman was on pod saves one of the pot save shows he uh... he was on the pot save show and presumably like they were celebrating at the greatest humanitarian uh... achievement of all time twenty trucks and it's like the fucking graham crackers for two million people that are being murdered uh... and uh... he was on their and he was talking about Hamas. And a few times he referred to him, Hamas with the pronoun he and the fucking subtitles they use, put it

as they, but with like, you know, the sick brackets. And I that really, it really tickled me when he was like, he's imagining like Carl Hamas the worst guy in the world. Yeah, he was like Hamas. He always lies like this. We knew a guy like Hamas in Braddock. I need to I need to wear an one shorts and all fucking kill myself. No, but like as far as like the Democratic politicians go like as I laid out I think it's pretty clear whether it's pretty clear where there are Constituents how their constituents feel about it the bear minimum a ceasefire to the killing like an end to the aerial bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli military and but like they have to like now that they're I think they underestimated that because they're playing like they're

They're running in their head the old script which is that America will always stand with Israel and it's just like the Contortions that these people have to now come up with on the liberal side to justify, explain away, or complicate, again, the bear and basic fact that the Biden administration is providing, is abetting a genocide being carried out by a very close ally. And also I think running a real risk

of like a bigger regional war because they won't say even the qualified stuff that you're saying, even the idea of basically being like, stop doing the fucking war crimes. If you need to do your other shit, whatever, like we always stand with you blah, blah, blah, blah, like Laura, I'm if some, you know, Democrat shit. This could go so much worse in a global way

because of the fact that I think, again, I think they are working pretty hard to justify it. I also don't get the sense that anybody's working really very hard at all. This all just sort of still feels like they're stuck on the factory settings of what you're supposed to say in a situation like this and not appreciating the gravity micro or macro of just how bad this could get. Yeah, with how bad this could get. Yeah, with how bad it could get and like, okay, even if you're just looking at this cynically, right?

And I feel like a lot of previous calculations we've seen with the US and Israel, it has operated under, I mean, the same assumption as the last 40 years of Israeli policy and the Iron Dome era especially, basically that like it will be a low cost occupation and suppression. That like look this may be bad, this may look bad but like they'll get it done soon, they know what they're doing and like it will be out

of the news. That is you know, it's no longer the case in the macro, but just as far as this war, there's really no guarantee that they'll succeed. There's no guarantee that the invasion of Gaza will go well for them. It'll certainly be horrible, like a historic, historic, since there's a war crimes, but there's just no guarantee that they'll be able to get it done without needing help in the form of like actual US troops. And like even if you're just being cynical, that is, I don't care if like a poll says that 60 odd percent of people like like Israel in an abstract, no one is going to want to send fucking Marines to fight for Israel and Gaza. That is just not going, it's not going to be popular, it's definitely not

going to be good. It makes an incredibly dangerous situation far more dangerous. And I feel like none of these people realize just how much on the brink everything is. Yep. As I was talking about our wonderful Democratic party and their reaction to all this, I have to highlight the good work done by the congressman from Tel Aviv, Richie Torres. Oh my God.

The absurdity that his district is like 84% lecudenix. Dude. Yeah, yeah, dude. The guy in the fake Afghanghan government in america put together whatever guy in afghan parliament represented the zebulans district had proportionally more to his constituents in richie or is but it's just like the absolute obscenity of of this guy just parking and like here's the deal he represents i've i i've

looked at this up, he represents not like the top, one of the top 10 poorest congressional districts in America. He represents by income per capita, the poorest congressional district in America. And what's so obscene about that to me, is that there's no way he could get away with just being a mouthpiece for a foreign government

if he represented a district with, and with even 10 people who mattered. Because they might they might ask why is my congressman only tweeting about Israel? Why is my not Jewish congressman accusing Jewish peace organizations of not being Jewish? We have bad holes that need fixing right. Seriously. Like this is all of our pipes are led. Like this guy's main concern.

Yeah. I think this is what's weird about I think the the Menendez story was sort of similar to this, where it's like, you just realized, first of all, like, how cheap American politicians actually are. Like, what it caused, like, it's not for like, like, like, like, like box tickets to a gift card. It is Buffalo Wild Wings gift cards, like, three digits on it, but not four digits on it.

And then also, like, and the other work that they're supposed to do, like, they will just straight up not do. Like, they will drop constituent services stuff if there's an opportunity to sell an anti-tank weapon to, like, the Egyptian government in a way that was a little money in your pocket. Yeah.

Yeah, Torres, he hasn't tweeted about the Bronx in two weeks. Um, he is, like, he is now so into it that, like, because he hasn't tweeted about the Bronx in two weeks. He's now so into it that like I get, I was under the impression that Richie Torres was like a lapsed Catholic, but he's become a rabbi in like a week, which is amazing. And he's, he's the first of his type, a Jewish Pope who can excommunicate Jewish people. Yeah. I've had my disagreements with the man, but incredibly impressive. Yeah, not a lot of people. It takes all lifetime for a lot of people to get that sort of training.

The idea that he could do all of it between like whatever, I don't, what was his last post about the Bronx? Was it like when the Yankees traded Harrison Bader or something? Like, he's not even that. That man has never worn a Yankees hat in his life. No, he makes like Eric Adams look like a hardcore sports fan. They do Team gets a lot of points

It's like, all right sir. Thank you. I I realize something about Richard Torres So the fact that Sean McElwee created him oh, he's one of those. Yeah, Sean McElwee gave us Richie Torres. Sean McElwee is a bizarro yakub. Is that a stout thing? That's the big head scientist, Sean. It's amazing. But yeah, I agree with the knowledge. You, you, Taurus, he really doesn't like it when you point out that he took money from FTX and that one of Sean McElwis financial foibles was a series of very weirdly timed donations

to him. And amount of people would say would indicate he was acting as a straw donor to Richie Torres. He really does not like it when people point that out for what it probably because he's innocent. Yeah, most That's usually the thing that gets people upset when they're the like on the long end of a series of straw donorship stuff. Felix, I mean like I don't want to You get to as far as the too far over your skis here because I am looking at a good deal of osent about the supposed straw donations. And the number of our arrows posted on this PDF. That's what we can do when you call this down. Yeah.

Yeah, wait, look, we could even put like this looks like Richie Torres was sleeping on a bean bag, bean bag mattress at San Bigman Frieds, discussing Bahamas, Bet House. That could, that could be a hologram. We just don't know. These guys are good at computers. You can't really rule any of that stuff out. Exactly. By the way, David, as long as we're talking about SPF,

can you give us the executive summary of Michael Lewis's new book about him? Yeah, I had to read it. This is, I was, I arched the distinction. This is the most on-brand shit there. I was I think the last person to review it, like not because I absolutely nailed it so much, but it was like everybody else had filed earlier than me

and then I was able to come in at the end. The, it's a terrific book. It's a really great story if you wanna read about a man sleeping on a bean bag chair and cargo shorts that he never takes off. That's a really, you know, I've been inspired and it's like, I know that's like one of the three big genres of stories.

You got, you know, man against nature, person who never brushes his hair, doing massive financial crimes. And then, I don't remember what the other one is. It's a disaster of a book. I mean, it is like, it's weird, because it's the only, I actually like Michael Lewis's books. Me too.

A lot. And I've been reading him for, and this is again me being able to play the old person card, I remember reading his like campaign trail ship when I was in high school for the nomination that Bob Dole wound up winning. And it was, he made like Allen Keys seem like a likable, interesting human being,

which in retrospect is like a red flag, but at the time I was like, what can't this guy do? And it was, this was like, I think he finally found a subject that like defeated his capacity to humanize them in a basic way. He clearly believes in SPF.

This is so the story of the book is the Lewis was embedded with Sam Bankman Freed as FTX peaked and then fell apart. And then there was, you know, whatever, the moment of legal reckoning that we're in now. The book came out the day that Sam Bankman freed trial started in Lower Manhattan. It is a huge missed opportunity in the sense that for all of that, for all of the many crimes that Lewis witnessed, he spends most of the time like referring to Sam Bankman-Free as if he's like sort of a hapless,

neurodivergent child who's caught up in the world of adults, which is I think the worst possible angle that you could take on it. Yeah, I am, like you, I loved a lot of Michael Lewis's writing. I don't know if you've ever read Liars Poker. Yeah, I have a copy of it here. I was like skimming it over before I did my review and then I realized it kind of didn't really matter.

Liars Poker, again, in terms of humanizing stuff that's disgusting, that's like early 90s Wall Street Bond Trader behavior. It's still fucking hits, it's still good. It's an amazing book. It's like a fucking amazing book. It's like, it was the first thing he wrote because he was, Lewis was a botrator

and he worked under all these guys and he worked under the guy who invented mortgage-backed securities, Lewis Renieri. And there's all the, like, there are a lot of like great financial books from this period, like just really interesting growth stories. There are these hilarious chapters where like how Renieri and all his bond traders would just do things like eat nine cheeseburgers for lunch. Yes, and it comes with Guacamole. Who could order

the most guacamole? Yeah, like just an amazing read, actually like pre-edifying on getting you to understand like financial instruments and how some of this stuff came to be. And like yeah, he does do the thing where he humanizes people who are gross or sometimes even like outright criminal. But in Lier's book, I never felt like it was like exonerating.

Like with this, it seems like he's working for S.B.F's defense. Yeah, in a way that's kind of like, again, it would be, I think, more egregious if he had worked harder on it, he really didn't. I mean, that like Lewis makes pretty clear that effective altruism, which is the justification that Sam Bankman freed had for trying to make

all these billions of dollars. The idea there basically being, I'm gonna make as much money as I can. And then shortly before I die, I'm going to donate it in such a way that makes it so we never have another pandemic. I'm gonna give a billion dollars to Trump to not run for president.

Yes. So that's the other bit of it. Is that, so San Bankman freed like everybody else in his cohort of awful rich guys is whacked on Adderall 24-7. This is not mentioned, but it is like, he never goes to bed. He never tells anybody what he's doing and he is constantly off just like making plays

Brett Farve style, just free booting. Throwing the ball left handed to see, like run it up the flag, pull, see you, salutes. So the Trump, that the idea that he offered the Trump campaign $5 billion, so that was the price that he got. When he offered them, he was like, what would it take for him not to run for president again?

And that was, he says the number that he was quoted back. There's no, this is another problem for Michael Lewis in writing this book. There is no reason to believe anything that Sam Bankman Fried says. He's a sociopath and everything that he says in the book up to and including, and he tells Lewis at a lot of points where he's like,

I realize that people found me unsettling to be around because I'm like a haunted doll. And so I started working on my facial expression so that when people talked to me, I was doing stuff with my face that was sort of similar to what they'd expect if they were talking to a regular guy. And then I would just tell them whatever they wanted.

Which again, is something that like if you read the green river killer saying that, you'd be like, that's pretty much checks out. Yeah, he's France's Bitcoin hide. Right. Yeah. I can't. We're a witness.

So long ago, before it's become a juicy. I am becoming the bean bag. I can't hate on Michael Lewis too hard because the guy basically paid my salary for five years, but also, um, he's the best at what it does. This is what's sad about this. Felix, Michael Lewis was on this current season of billions hosting a last year. He was hosting a Lyres poker reunion drinks at like the century club with WAGS.

Oh, so I need to get I've been like I've been behind on all on all this. I will just told me that the new season of billions that the writers should both be imprisoned and given awards for their service to TV. I am so excited to watch it. You have no idea. Let's raise the glass to craft Motherfuckers in the 35th anniversary of Liars Poker. Yeah!

Yeah! What a beautiful con you pulled Lewis. They all think that Liars Poker was a love letter to them kudos. Wouldn't a con wags? I justudos. Wouldn't it car in Wags? I just wrote it the way it was, and people see in it what they want to see. Like disco balls and coke mirrors. Salute.

I will say that of all the things, Salute just had this disastrous press tour promoting the book where he's just sort of gone out of his way to say things that really like undermod, like make you wonder if you ever actually liked any of his work anyway, like it's like that, that, a thing. The Billions cameo is mentioned in passing and like there's a guardian profile of him

that's like the definitive thing about this book and the press door and all that. That was as ominous to me as anything else because that is very much, when they ask you to do that, it means that you're like a status symbol. You're like a rich person thing, like a person that rich people would identify as, you know, a ball bowl to have around.

And saying yes to that, especially around the time that you're getting ready to promote this book suggests again that he's just out of pocket, that it's a broken play and he's taking shots. Yeah, yeah, it's depressing. I mean, celebrity is intoxicating, but I do think you're right that a lot of these interviews, it's like he's trying to get yelled at and quote,

like maybe he's a Saviour operator than we realize, but it's just, even if that is what he's doing, it's like, you're a good writer, like, put the fuck. Yeah, you don't need to get like that kind of heat. Like the idea of just like making everyone so mad that they buy your book the way that when a pro wrestler's in, you know, wrestling and Cincinnati, they're like,

I can't believe I'm in Cincinnati, this town sucks, and then everybody boos. You don't need to do that. He's like 20 books into this career. You know, I got $5 million for the movie rights to this shit before he started writing it. Like just sit this one out if you want. Oh, I did appreciate though.

The details about Sam Bankman frees insane parents, the Stanford professors, and how they bought, they bought a German shepherd who would kill unverbal command because they were so afraid of like the death threats they were getting. And then detail about how they didn't tell Sam the kill word? No, they got the dog from fucking green room that killed all your friends.

They're like, just don't agitate this dog. Like don't bounce your knee up and down compulsively. He hates that. It's it's it's it was very scary for them because the verbal commands as the word used to put the dog in and beast mode is very similar to the sound of visit spinner mix. So it was not visiting his parents very much. Can I say one thing from it's not from my review. Jacob Backrack reviewed the book in the Republic.

I think it's definitive. We love we love Jacob the love. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before.

I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before.

I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. I've never heard of this before. Not just because he is, I'm quoting Jacob incorrectly, probably up the top of my head, but that's like the boring spoiled son of boring spoiled parents. But there is also, it's the same way that AJ is periodically,

he can sort of like, you almost feel that there's a soulfulness in there because he's like, everything sucks. I hate the war that's going on. And you're like, I agree with you, AJ. Like, you're right on this one. But like, he's really just sad because like, he tried to look up a girl's dress

and school and she caught him. Like, there's never anything there that has like any substance behind it. And that is like, the thing in this book that I think like Lewis kind of falls for is the idea of like Sam Beckman freed constantly being like, adults are bullshit, books are bullshit. Most of this stuff bullshit too. And he responds as if he'd like never heard that before like he'd

never met a ninth grader who was annoying and so he's like this guy is on some shit you don't have to create those stuff but he has bars when he says bedtime it's just something that your mom and dad made up. Yeah, it is, it is like if he met season three, A.J. and was like, what, wait, I've never heard of Nietzsche before. Actually, I want to move on to like a, we neglected the reading series on, on, on the show because of world events, but I would like to just return briefly to domestic politics. And I would like a, we feel like, because of world events but i would like to uh... just return briefly to uh... domestic politics and i would like uh... with philix because of course you know about wrestling and you know david because you cover sports

i really do want to talk a little bit about this mega washington post-profile of jim jordan and his career is a let's just say his somewhat troubled career as a wrestling coach because uh... there were issues he had a lot of a lot of that a lot of his, a lot of his players had trouble cutting weight. Yeah, if he played a more popular sport, this would all be like, despite adversity, Jim

Jordan succeeded, but he doesn't get like the Michael victory. Well, yeah, like collegiate wrestling in America. If you are the best ever, right, if you're the absolute best, your price is getting killed by a dupe on care. The second, if you're the second best ever, and you like don't want to go into MMA, your lifetime earnings for being like the best ever at the sport that's been around for like thousands of years and was written about like it's in the first Olympics. it's been around for like thousands of years and was written about. Like it's in the first Olympics.

This thing that is in the Bible, you would receive lifetime earnings of like $21,000 in a shaker bottle. Yeah. It is like ignoring like molestation, like over those stakes is so insane. It's so insane. Yeah.

It is, I mean, Dennis Haaster did it. It was the last guy who had this, I mean, he was the guy who had the last thing. Jim Jordan, he's the word it. But it still, it boggles the mind. Well, I mean, the profile makes pretty clear that Jim Jordan is like an elite level wrestling talent, but also a complete psychopath.

And I think, look, even by the standards of collegiate wrestlers, that's something that I thought the story did. It has its issues, but I did get it right. Like everybody that's quoted in it, all the other college wrestlers that he coached, all of those guys have like been to jail for financial crimes and stuff.

Like everybody all have issues. And Jordan is 10 times crazier than any of them. Yeah, like if you grow up wrestling in America, it is like sort of a form of like institutionalized child abuse. It's like like wrestling, I'm not going to say it's bad because a lot it's produced a lot of great MMA fighters. So we really can't say if it's good or bad. I feel like we don't know, we don't know, like on balance, we don't know. Like any, any, any Alvarez, any Alvarez, one of the most exciting fighters ever, is it bad?

No, I don't know. But, like, is it good to make a nine-year-old dehydrate themselves so they could lose 10 pounds in three days? Probably not. No. Are any of in three days. Probably not. Are any of these things good? Probably not. But yeah, wrestlers are forced from a very young age to do a lot of things that no one would ever want to do.

And double ESO if you play for Jim Jordan. Yes. And it like, I've known a lot of people who are wrestlers through training and like for the most part, they are very good people to know. Like they, they will show up for you. They'll help you move. They will do all this shit. They're very competent people, but they are also basically abuse victims.

And you know, on the other side, I always think of the guy who came to our bar, what I worked at a bar, who was a state-level wrestling champion, a very respected wrestler in his youth. And when he got out of college in his 20s, it seemed like his, not his hobby, but his job was to come into our bar and try to get kicked out as soon as possible. Well, it's a bad life well speaking of institutionalized abuse i mean you might think of that when the words wrestling in the name jim jordan enter your mind but i really like

the the headline in the wash and then post went with here which is relentless wrestler as a way to describe uh... the career of jim jordan but it begins like this it's uh... it uh... this is by uh... david maranis and sally jankens they write his wrestlers at Ohio state called him jimmy and But it begins like this. This is by David Moranis and Sally Jenkins. They write, his wrestlers at Ohio State called him Jimmy and idolized him as an Olympic level legend in their ancient sport. During the nine seasons that Jim Jordan served as an assistant coach, they admired his propriety.

They never saw him smoke or drink or heard him swear and studied his technique and style from his single leg takedowns to his odd victory strut marching in a zombie-like circle straight-legged arms a loft psychopath lunatics monster but they dreaded sparring with Jordan at practice he was unforgiving smothering taking his would-be disciples to the edge of what was allowed if not beyond when Mike chic arrived at Ohio state as a prized freshman recruit in 1988, he was tested by Jordan in the wrestling room at Larkin's Hall. As Schick recalled, Jordan pursued him to the end of the mat, pressing him against the wall, and again,

pressing him against the wall again and again, the freshman struggling to keep his balance as the client wall swayed behind him. Until Jordan cut his legs out from under him and thumbed him smack on his tailbone. Then Jordan pounced on him and pressed his chest against shicks mouth crowding it to where he feared he would suffocate he beat the living snott out of me i mean literally recall chic now a successful high school wrestling coach on florida's golf golf coast he'd do this oh gosh golly g opi tailor off the mat

but on the mat he was like a pit bull yeah that's uh... there are a lot of great like cheating moves in wrestling uh... i previously mentioned Schultz brothers, one of whom was killed by the DuPont Air. They had a move where it was called the Schultz Front Headlock Series where the headlock series in and of itself is not illegal, but because they knew some grappling, they would apply an anaconda or a dars choke while they were doing it, which these are not allowed in wrestling, but they would literally choke people unconscious and lay there unconscious body on the mat and be like, look, I got a pin. There's a lot of like dickish

cheating moves in red. If you're not cheating, you're not trying. There's a lot of this in there. you know if you're not cheating you're not trying there's a lot of this in there uh... i do the detail of him being a uh... you know gully gosh g guy would not would not uh... greenlighting guys in practice uh... another tradition uh... the same in politics john a bainer the former republican speaker the house saw that characteristic in his fellow o'hine so repeatedly undercut by jordan and his right wing freedom caucus that he finally retired in two thousand fifteen worried by the contention

he is wound tighter than a baseball banger said you just see him walk there is an intensity there that you don't see in other members when they passed in hallways banger would try to diffuse jordan's fervor by greeting him with the query who are you what are you planning to fuck up today as an assistant red wrestling coach and graduate at Ohio State from 1986 to 1994, he was on campus during the most grievous scandal in the school's history. Over two decades Richard Strauss, an athletic team doctor, molested scores of male students and athletes, especially wrestlers, with abuses ranging from excessive fondling of genitals

during supposedly routine examinations to anal rape according to a university report when the crimes belatedly surfaced in 2018 Jordan insisted that he had been unaware of strouse's behavior his office issued uncompromising the uncompromising declaration congressman jordan never saw any abuse never heard about any abuse and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as coach at Ohio state Jordan issued that denial despite the fact that Strauss often referred to at by athletes as Dr. Jelly Paws was notorious according to many members of the wrestling team for lingering nude in the sauna and showers of them often returning to take a second shower if you saw them coming down for their practices

room he routinely examined them in darkness in his nearby office stood close by them at the scales when they weighed in naked and dressed in undressed at a locker adjacent to Jordan's. There is unfortunately like a very big problem with sexual abuse in combat sports. It's unfortunately pretty universal. Shoga Ring Leonard, the boxer experienced horrible abuse by a doctor who worked through the Olympic team. And it is the same sort of thing you see repeatedly where like these very fucking tough guys, be they wrestlers or boxers or whatever, this will happen to them. And then there's like an unfortunate self- victimization aspect where it's like, holy shit, I'm like this big tough guy. How could this happen to me?

And they just like are too ashamed to tell anyone. But I think a lot of the time it is like coaches or doctors taking advantage of how like being a good combat athlete is like, you are programmed to do what you're told to a high degree. There's a lot of that in the story. I mean, I don't want to get ahead of Will on it, but that there's like the abuse that strows,

again, like not a master criminal here. There's stories about guys going in there, where their nose is broken or their thumb is hurt. And he just like tugs on their penis for five minutes. And they leave and are, there's a bit where one of them is like, completely like basically like, why was he doing this? Like I was there for a broken nose

and Jordan just stands up from a table nearby where this conversation is happening and goes, I don't have anything to do with that. And just like kind of wanders off, but it is clear that that's like, they, their understanding of hierarchy and where they fit into it means that they're going to, not permit this stuff to happen in a, you know,

any sort of like weakness way, it's they understand what their role on this team is. And then you can see the abdication of the people that actually do have some power in this is that much more disgusting. Because these guys are doing what they think they're supposed to do. And I think that Jordan, it's not a very insightful guy. There's not a really insightful portrait of him that emerges from the story.

I mean, I think he knew that something bad was happening and was just like, couldn't be asked to care about it. No, yeah, he could not give less of a shit. Uh, go ahead and have a drink. Can I just read your next paragraph out loud? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Jordan stood apart from his rowdy or beer-swilling teammates.

He was self-denying, sometimes training three times a day, even as he worked for Georgia degree in economics. One thing I want to do with my wrestling is be Meener, Jordan announced as a sophomore, in wrestling Andy Baggett who covered the team for the Wisconsin State Journal observed a story about Jordan in 1984. The more you starve of the Meener you get, Jordan starved himself. His diet consisted mostly of whole grain bread and water. He sweated so hard to drop weight, he sometimes gets shuddering chills, which he cured with a cup of coffee. Small wonder he was such a clawing antagonist.

In the spring of 1985, Jordan was spotted in the shadowy depths of the Wisconsin football stadium all alone, jumping rope until he was in a lather. Just four days later, he became the NCAA champion in the 134-pound weight class. So I mean, the guy is like, yeah, he's a really dedicated wrestler. I just wanna get to this quote as a coach. As a young coach, Jordan seemed to take literally one of his favorite quotes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In this world, the man must be either an Anvil or a Hammer.

That's, it would seem he's taking that quite literally. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's the little, like the idea of like reading that as like inspiration and then just like putting it up Over a picture of Mr. Bean and posting it on Instagram or whatever is Estonishingly grim No, I mean, yeah, he's a this guy's he's really good at wrestling. He really loves wrestling But I mean did you guys see this story this last week when like the speaker the speaker votes were going on

He was like people thought he was gonna be the next speaker of the house. But he's clearly why this story exists. This is like their lead sports writer and literally David Moranis, where I asked to write 10,000 words on a guy that, though, like this came out basically the day after the news broke that his colleagues were like, you will never be speaker of the house. Yeah. When it looked like he might be speaker of the house, there were news reports coming out about Republican politicians getting anonymous text messages saying basically to them in their wives or something just being like listen bitch vote for Jim Jordan or it's Curtis for you. We're going to fucking strangle your dog. And they were like, there are a lot of these. And of

course, one can front you with a Jim Jordan said, I have no idea that this was happening. I didn't hear anything about this. I didn't see anything about it. It's not me. Can I just say that is, I cannot overstate like how fucking hard it is to be an NCAA champion and wrestling, especially in like, you know, the lighter weight divisions. That is where a lot of the deepest talent pools are. But like doing that as a way to become a speaker, that is like such a wrestler way to like whip votes. Like, like, we're, look, we're fucking grinding. We're not doing any of this

gland-heading shit. We have to threaten to kill everyone's dog. Yeah. If you don't do that, you don't want it. Yeah. It's such a, yeah, just such like a dickhead, jocque wave, do we get? Moving on to Sierra, it says, the wrestlers were housed in a syndrome block room with rickety steel lockers in a communal shower area of yellowing glazed tile.

Larkins was also the main campus recreation facility, its doors open to anyone. It was notorious as a place where a voyeur is with new young men in the showers or worse. There were incidents as a public masturbation, peeping thommasome, and sex in its dingy corners and stalls. It was as sexualized in a time's predatory environment, the investigative report commissioned by the university confirmed.

The leading predator was Strauss, a slight, mousy man who haunted the showers. Strauss' interest in the wrestlers was such an open-if-grim joke that freshman heard about it on their first day in the program. As Shicks stood in line waiting for his initial physical, upper-classmen did loud cat calls. Oh, Strauss is going to like you, someone teased. During the exam, Shik recalled Strauss manipulated his penis for almost five minutes while massaging his buttocks. Shik bore it with gritted teeth.

Toward the end of the exam, he made the mistake of mentioning that he once had a blood-infecion. Strauss flicked off the lights and went over a chic again in the dark when chic finally came out the team was whistling at him doc found his new favorite guy i mean horrible to think about the like and like what do you make of this like in light of like the sake of my the cycle rest of the mentality that he has of like

you know eating eating moldy bread and fucking jumping rope until you vomit and like to be a champion. Can you see in that, something of how he would basically think that what Strauss was doing was okay, or just like don't complain about it? Yeah, because it is like... You have to do to be a champion. Not even that though, but a among wrestlers there is an ethos of like, you know, like don't ever fucking make excuses. Don't like just if you lose, say, he was the better man I fucked up. I sucked. Like, whenever you Ben Askren, I always think about Ben Askren was, he said, now retired MMA fighter. He was one of the greatest collegiate wrestlers of his time. But he

failed to make the Olympic team, I think it was. And they interviewed him after and he just was like, I fucking suck. I shit. Like I'm not good. And there are some of the only athletes you'll ever see do that. And it is, it's not just like a sportsy of those. They apply this to everything. And I do think, unfortunately, with Jordan, it's twisted in a way where it's like literally like if you get sexually abused, like you didn't want it bad enough. This is the thing it's beautiful. Hard to use it as a framework for a story too, because I think that's more or less right. I mean, the idea of relentless wrestler, I saw people complaining about the headline

and I get it to a certain extent, because it's not gonna be the headline, it's just like a big asshole who's also balding cold and gym gourd and gym gourd almost. It's still a newspaper, they have to be normal about it. But there is like that, that like sort of tunnel vision approach to stuff. And then that like very,

which I think does sort of come through in the story, I feel like said, like this like, very binary understanding of like, victory and failure and like, doing something or not doing something. That that like, for one thing, it's not any way to, you know, govern.

And that sort of, it does come through that that's like not anything that Jordan is really interested in doing. Like not just, I mean, John Boehner being the guy that's held up is like sort of the avatar of reason in a story. Like first of all, that lets you know what you're dealing with. But it is also this, at least John Boehner drinks.

Right. Yeah. So that's another thing that comes through in this story is that not only is Jim Jordan like a 5'6 and a half, 135 pound hyper violent aggressor type, he's also Stony Sober, doesn't curse, doesn't gamble. There's a bit in there where you wanna do the Mark Coleman bit, where you about to read that.

No, no, no, you used to write. Oh, wait,, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you And then he does it. And he pins Mark Coleman. And Coleman tells this story that he was like, I thought he was gonna rip my toe off. Like I thought my knee was gonna blow out. So he's clearly like that. I guess he was that good a wrestler, but he's also like that much of a fucking pitbull of a human being. He's just also like, he couldn't even take the money.

Like he was like, he- He could have had his champion wrestler. And then was like, I would like to go to Panera. Yeah, that, I just like to go to Panera. Yeah, that I just so people have contacts Jordan won his title at 143 pounds. Coleman was one of the first UFC heavyweight champions. Yeah, he was like 200 pounds. Yeah, he was more of a natural to a fiverr in modern MMA status, but still a really

fucking big strong guy. Everyone who ever trained with him said he was enormously strong. It had incredible technique as a wrestler. Like one of the best. Also, incredibly nice guy. You wouldn't expect it. You wouldn't expect the Ohio State wrestler who achieved so many accolades to be such a nice guy,

but people have always said just a sweetheart of a man. And this little scary rodent, almost fucking rips his leg off. Yeah, for Canara. I mean, like, we get into that, his sort of a victory at all costs and this kind of like hyper aggressive binary thinking. I mean, I think this, this quote sums it up. I'm just gonna, just just before grounding it

uh... they write when vascular return to the practice room he said he met jordan and a cluster of other wrestlers doctors rousas hands are cold as fuck he was grabbing my balls and everything vascular called complaining according to vascular some of the wrestlers erupted in laughter but jordan put his hands up and said i've got nothing to do with that yeah mic flouche and older wrestler came came to Ohio State after military service, recalled standing in the locker room doorway one afternoon when another wrestler complained in the presence

of Jordan, how Strauss had groped him. Jordan responded, if he did touch me like that, I'd have broken his neck like a piece of balsa wood. If you said he could not forget the specific language or used, it just sticks with you because it's just a weird phrase. So once again, it's like the idea of like, if this guy jacked you off for five minutes and stuck his fingers up your asshole, it was because you were weak, or you should have killed him,

or you should have pinned him or something like that. Yeah, oh God, yeah. Hard to know what to do with that. I mean, honestly, the other bit that I would flag from this too is that like, he's just like that. It wasn't like a circumstance. I mean, I was circumstantial in the sense that he was like, you know, raised in this culture

all the points of Felix made there are very valid and correct. He just never fucking chilled out. This is his approach to every single thing that he's done in public life. And that's, again, there's only so much there to write about. There's not, as with any sufficiently obnoxious reactionary type, at some point, you're doing them a favor if you're trying to mine their psychological motivations for this, like some people are just the sum of their actions, they're exactly what they appear to be.

And yeah, that's what comes through. You read 10,000 words to find out that this guy's an asshole. Yeah. Well, I think I just about sums it up. All right, I think we should leave it there for today. Sure. Sounds good. All right. Until next we should leave it there for today. Sure. Sounds good. All right, until next time guys. Bye bye David. We will link to your review of going infinite in the show description. Thanks very much. All right, cheers guys. Till next time.

Bye bye. Yep. Bye. Bye. Resort with Jimmy Resort with Jimmy Resort with Jimmy Resort with Jimmy Where do you make?