Chapo Trap House - 820 - The Neese (4/1/24)

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Will, Felix and Amber dish on the news of the day, including the resurgence of Havana Syndrome, Erdoğan’s historic losses in recent Turkish elections, and that obnoxious article about Stanford campus activism. But honestly most of this is just riffs on Liam Neeson and Steven Seagal. Tickets to the Jaques/Chapo/Seeking Drrangements show at the Lodge Room in LA, Thursday April 4: https://www.lodgeroomhlp.com/shows/show-pig-a-live-comedy-podcast-spectacular-with-seeking-derangements/

All I wanna do is hit the drum, All I wanna do is hit the drum, I watched, I was up all night watching like videos about Diddy's crimes. I haven't looked into it. I've done a lot of research. Bluffery, blubstin. Well, so, OK, so here's what had what happened in his life was crazy. So, like, basically, he was he was like a suit, like kind of not like academically, but like

a sort of social overachiever. Like he was one of those kids where he's like 12. He has a good handshake. Right. And that, you know, somewhere along the way of doing that, you know, he did shit like he would start like a taxi company when he was going to Howard. He was one of those annoying 19 year olds

who's like, I already owned three businesses. Yeah. And somewhere along the way, he, I took notes. Wait, wait, question took notes. Question question. How tall is he? Dead. None of my research got me that I can ascertain. He's about five eight.

So somewhere along the way he meets this guy named Andre Harrell and Andre Harrell is like, hey, hey, did he you should work for my comp the company I work out Uptown Records. And I'm not saying this, um, several insane people have said this, and I think it's probably true. This started like a five to six year period of Andre Harrell, just like viciously business molesting Diddy. Like, like Diddy would like blow this guy in the Uptown Records office a lot? Like, it was like a Bachy-Bahs type thing.

Because Andre Burrell, a record executive named Clive Davis, purportedly did that to him. So this is like, so the music industry is basically like British boarding school. Yeah. It's like you get molested and like, if you go through it, your reward is being able to molest other people. OK, that's what's crazy. After like six years of getting molested, Diddy's like, OK, now I'm a street guy. And he immediately starts killing people. Right. Like it's one of the craziest.

It's one of the craziest, like, you know, transformations in anyone's adult life like ever. Like he probably when he first got that internship, he's never thought like, I'm going to have to have sex with Andrea Rell. He didn't like, no one would think that at the time. And he definitely didn't think like, seven years from now, I'm going to have like goon. I'm going to like, he's he has so many bodies. His bodyguard killed like Suge Knight's best friend. He probably set up Tupac.

He probably like helped kill Tupac. I mean, do you think I mean, I've suspected him being involved in Biggie's assassination as well. Probably because I mean, like I'm never like being in like high school, like when all this went down and it was just like everyone loved Ready to Die. And then and then Biggie's Murdered. And then out of nowhere, there's just like the guy who was in the background of that album going, yeah, bad boy, just comes out with a song. It's a rip off of Sting and all of a sudden he's everywhere and he's like, hey, remember the guy we all loved?

Well, here's his best friend singing. Yeah. Did he was like he single handedly set back grandparents opinions on a rap like 40 years at that time, because he was like he's such a that's a really insane thing about all of this. It's like he's killed.

He probably has killed like 20 people. You know, he's amassed all this human trafficking money. He is like a Jeffrey Epstein figure. He's like he's like V from Watchmen. If V from Watchmen dedicated all his mental resources to like making stand up comedians like put things in his ass. I butt plugs Kevin Hart 30 minutes ago.

And it's all that. But he's also like the worst rapper ever. Oh, he's singing, but he didn't even write his own terrible lyrics. Yeah. That's insane. Okay, but what was the actual, what are the, what are the allusions of, I mean,

was he like holding onto passports? Was it like underage? Was it? So with Cassie, like who, Cassie Ventura, who he, like they separated and divorced That stuff came out in court documents where it's like he was physically abusive I think there was like, you know what Saudis do with domestic workers like the passport thing He purportedly blew up kid Cuddy's car

Angry him for being a good rap well kid Cuddy was like, because he was angry at him for being a good rep. Well, Kid Cudi was like, he was talking to Cassie, like long after they separated. Ooh. And Diddy like was already having her followed around by private security and shit. Uh-huh, that is. Yeah, so yeah, he's, I mean like,

there's this journalist called Jaguar Wright who used it. Like, she like, she would say all this stuff like, you know, He's I mean like there's this journalist called Jaguar right who used it like She like she she would say all this stuff like you know Oh, he like Andre Burrell fucked him and he fuck under bro and like all and I used to I used to be like Okay, so there was a Courtney love who like you know blew blew up his spot early and no one listened Yeah, exactly right. She said all this sex trafficking stuff was going on and I was like, I could probably see it, but this woman just says that he's fucked every guy ever. But then the federal government is like,

yeah, he was doing this basically. They raided his house for human trafficking. So now it's like, I believe everything she said. Did you see Chiwi Dog's tweet about Diddy's verse on Mario Wynans I don't want to know and the music video for it? No. I'm just playing this video. Play Diddy's verse on this real quick. in the house so when you cruisin it's been proven my love you abusing I can't understand how a man got you choosin undecided I came and provided my

undivided you came and denied it don't even try it I know when you lying don't even do that I know why you crying I'm not applying no pressure just wanna let you know that I don't want to let you go and I don't want to let you leave can't say I didn't let you breathe Gave you extra cheese Put you in a SUV You want an ice so I made you freeze Made you hot like the West Indies

Now it's time you invest in me Cause if not then it's best you leave I am very anti-literalism in lyrics That really sounds like he's telling on himself Now keep in mind Shoutout to Chibi Dark for pointing this out in the music video for this He's watching a see he's watching secretly recorded tapes of his ex lovers and has a huge drawer Full of VHS tapes with people's names written on it

Wow, yeah, that's not like he's telling us also blowing up someone's car is a very weak like that's fucking is a very weak, like that's fucking IRA shit. Yeah, exactly. That's such a dramatic way. You don't got shooters, you got bomb guys. Yeah, it's hard to kill people with car bombs. Yeah, it sounds like it never works. Because it's just so many moving parts. You gotta be the Basques to do that.

Yeah, right. You have to know they're gonna be in their car. It can't be anything weird. Like, oh, like, if you, your entire assassination thing hinges on a car bomb, it has to be someone like Luis Carrara Blanco, like a head of state, head of security apparatus where they like, you know, their itinerary, right? If it's a normal person, you can't do that because with a normal person, it's like, well, you think they're supposed to be in their car because they're supposed to like go to the dentist.

But what if they lost track of time because they were reading the Wikipedia article for Jaguars? Chris, like 71 minutes and then it's like, well, now you just blew up a car with no one in it because you're stupid. Yeah. There was. Yeah. I'm looking at the I'm looking at the Wikipedia for car bombs. A lot of them are. I just had it up. I just had it up.

So it's professional IRA like Sir Maurice and Lady Gibson. But it looks like it looks like this is the list of deaths. I don't think Pablo Escobar did a lot of car bombings I mean he blew up a whole plane full of people to hold it that it's got to be way easier to play That proves how bad it is though. Could you there would never be a Wikipedia list. That's like listed people killed by a gun Is gonna be like very low. Yeah, car bombing though. It's like they're probably including successes and failures on the same page.

Mm-hmm. Well, it's me, Amber and Felix. Oh, sorry. Okay. One last thing. I just remembered. Cassie, with Cassie, he purportedly like he like, making her have sex with other men while he watched. Yeah, it's kind of psycho shit.

It's, like, it's psycho and, like, horrifying, obviously, but it's also, like, it's so weird that he's, like, a controlling, like, family annihilator type psycho, but also like that. I don't know, I get, pathologies don't make sense. They're not supposed to, but also like that. I don't know. I get pathologies don't make sense. They're not supposed to. But like. Yeah. Well, I think what we can all conclude from this is that hurt people hurt people. That's the truth.

People in the music industry hurt people in the music industry. It's cool how he was never able to, like, molest Biggie. Like Biggie was a real street guy. He was fat and ugly. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I don't think it's about that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It is Monday, April 1st, and I have an important announcement to make. You know, we've been solicited many offers to sell out the show.

But I'm very glad to announce on today's show, we will be joining the Club Random Podcast Network. I mean, like it was a great opportunity. They pitched a show to us. We have to like, obviously, the main show will now be hosted on the Club Random network, now Patreon. And we're going to do some like exciting side projects. Like I'm working on a new project. It's sort of like an interview show where I talk to people about how to overcome their vaccine injuries through smoking weed. I have another show where I basically just review the escorts and sex workers that I patronize and, you know, like, no where to go but up from here. Me and Bill are we're starting our own show on the Club Random Network.

It's called Riffers Delight. It's a four hour show and we have a producer. He just throws his topics and me and Bill, we just go. I haven't found a cohost yet for dumb sluts, but it's coming. Watch this space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No. And my other program is I will interview the escorts and sex workers that I frequent, but I will give them SAT questions and make fun of them if they don't get it right. We're transitioning you into one of those podcasts where there are like 40 people at the table for some reason. I would love us to be one of those shows where it's like, it's 40 people, all guys who are like trying to look

like Andrew Tate, like all guys who are wearing like a very shallow V-neck and bald. And they're like, there's just like a very shallow v-neck and bald and they're like There's just like a bunch of women random women that they hate in the studio at all times. I love those show Well where they just the it's not a show just exists to like be clipped for tick-tock Yeah, we're like a woman will be like, I don't know Sometimes I want to go to a restaurant for a day and a guy's like you fucking stupid bitch Does your house have a kitchen?

kill yourself slut The podcasts that are just like are just streamers that are just made to be on tick-tock I saw this clip yesterday of Aiden Ross talking to this guy and he asked him like the single best question I've ever heard. Do you believe in the Big Bang Theory or the Pangrea Theory? That was awesome. That was awesome. I love like the Sangrea Theory of tectonic and continental drift. But like the Big Bang Theory and Pangaea are not mutually exclusive scientific theories.

The Big Bang Theory is like the most plausible explanation that we have for the existence of the universe. The Pangaea developed existence of the universe. The Pangea developed billions of years later. It's like one doesn't contradict the other at all. No, I believe there were land masses before there was a planet. Do you know, this is crazy. I like fell out of my chair when I found this out.

Aiden Ross is Jewish. I didn't even know Jewish people could be named like shit like Aiden. Yeah. I told you like, my friend taught at Baron Trump's like fail prep school. Columbia, no association, but they kind of won. Columbia Prep? Yeah, it's sort of a lie by omission. Yeah.

Their mascots are just like two peacocks that wander the grounds. Wait, I thought that was the school I went to. So my school did have peacocks wandering. What is this thing? This peacock? It's the cathedral school. But the peacocks are no more, actually. They've gotten rid of the peacock. They've still I mean, that's the whole thing.

Columbia, the peacocks, they're trying to be like, convince people without saying explicitly that's what they are. But I remember her saying, I didn't even know Jews could be dumb. I think it's beautiful. Like it's in 1921, my great grandparents or grandparents, they could never imagine like, not just being assimilated and white in that way,

but so assimilated and so much accepted as white in America that like you could, like a Jewish person could be Aiden Ross. Like it's beautiful, like it's awesome. He doesn't, I've watched like clips of his because of Hassan, like I've been there when him and Hassan have like kind of gone back and forth. And he is like his understanding of the world. It's not even like a regular person from the Middle Ages.

It's like below that generation. Yeah, it's like it's like something. It's something a guy has been kicked in the head by an ox. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Casper Hauser. Yeah. Like he's you know, he grew up outside for the first 20 years of his life.

He's I really I really just whatever he has going on, I support it. I love it. Yeah. It means you've arrived. Yeah. We should do like like a Patrick Bette David style show in the Club Random Network. I love remember the one about him like grilling those guys about like did they like, did they want, like, like, what was it like? What did you learn about first? Real estate investments or being gay?

Yeah, he was like, Patrick Bette David is this somehow not Israeli guy. His name is Patrick Bette David and he runs a show called The Valuetainment Podcast. That's a classic, like like Catholic dad, Jewish mom, like ass name. You would think. But he kept the fucking like the mom's name because obviously the Catholic dad left. He's Armenian.

That's what's really crazy. That's what. Wow. But he like, he's just like this, I don't know. I think he just like materialized in 2019. I don't think he existed before that. I think Pangria. I think he pissed him out. But he was like, he does this like boneheaded podcast

where he just, he interviews just like different people that live in Miami basically. Yeah. It's not like explicitly themed out, but they're just the different types of like stupid people you meet in Miami and like former mafia guys. And he was like, tell me about you. How did you learn how to do real estate and like whatever stupid guys talk about?

What did Spyro do to do real estate? And like they were like, oh, like the TV shows we saw about like selling sunset or whatever. And he's like, but could you do real estate if you were thinking about being gay? And his entire point was like coming out of the closet makes it harder to do real estate. It's just that like people like that you can be like influenced into being gay in the same way you can be influenced into thinking like I'd like a career in real estate. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I kind of respect that more than like the house flipper rage bait that I've been really interested in lately where they're like we've ripped up 70 year old parquet so we can put click and lock Fucking vinyl gray vinyl shit. We covered up this window with bricks

It's clearly like when you look at it to I read the comments where it's like, you know, hate from Duluth or whatever. But like the people who like those, I think there's a really good kind of method to the madness where they're like, people will spite buy an ugly house. So like the people who see it and are like, they don't have an opinion on it aesthetically, but they're like, yeah, totally. Build walls around the open floor plan. I'm going to buy that fucking house.

I'll show you coastal elites with good taste. And I think these people, these flippers do really well. I'm buying the Frank Lloyd Wright house and I'm changing it into like a recreation of the deck of the Enterprise D. Yeah, it's it's very impressive, but it is like they kind of get me with the rage, babe, because I'm like, you don't deserve to own a house. I do a similar thing, but with like one of my favorite Instagram accounts is Chef Reactions. And it's a professional chef looking at like the absolute gore that people like for meals that they prepare like just like

meat meat shapes of very like meat and cheese shapes Yeah, various kinds that are always with like Kmart dressing room lighting Yeah, and like the like I mean it's the equivalent of like the high flash Food pics of like early kind of Instagram. Yeah, Where everything sort of looked chartreuse for some reason. I found there's a place in I don't know Echo Park or something called like Nocturnal Eats or something. I don't remember what it's called. It's one of those like you know dumb slut taco trucks. They're like we're really cool. But all of the food, I will find this place and it should be our art.

All of the food is shot with bisexual lighting. It's the weirdest thing to look at like a cheese fries that look like they're on euphoria. It's really disorienting. And it's like, this aesthetic has gotten out of hand. I hate that the thing you alluded to, that thing where it's like it'll be a pizza place, but it's called best fucking pizza. It's so awful.

It's like the fuck waffle. Like era of internet all became restauranteurs. Yeah. David Simon is just coming up with new restaurant names now. Well, to move on here, today of course is April 1st, the day for day for fools of all kinds. And I thought today like this would be a perfect day. Like some of it seems like the topics that we discussed on this show, they never really fully go away. And even though like this seems like it is an April Fool's bit.

Well, we got the sorry. I should have got that. The not-too-elites. Sorry. Go on. No. So even though this this story may sound like it is an April Fool's joke, I assure you it is not because the stories broke yesterday on the normal Fool's Day. Havana syndrome is back.

Havana syndrome is back. There was a 60 minute story about it last night. And talk about the king of April shenanigans. Michael Weiss has a new article up on some website I've never heard about talking about Havana syndrome and how it's real. Is it Puck? No, it's not Puck. Wait, I've never heard of these things. Why is there a new thing? It's called The Insider.

Fucking that is. It says reports, analytics, investigations. And it says unraveling Havana syndrome. New evidence links the GRU's assassination unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families. And like I think this is coming after like a year, two years now when like the American scientific, like people have have just said like there's no known existing technology that could reproduce these results.

We have no idea like this is real. And then another report I read last week to show that like all of the supposed victims of a vanishing syndrome show no brain damage or any lasting side effects. I mean, like even if it does exist, it's not that bad. I mean, like I want them to do the fucking like fake white lady disease like Instagram turned out where they're, like, selling jewelry they made on Etsy or something like that.

Like, they need to start, like, going into the Pashmina business. Like, turn that, find the silver lining to your hypochondriasis. Insider seems like the website that Eddie Brock and Venom work for. It's just such your fucking fake website. Yeah, I feel like the opening montage of Venom where they're showing Eddie Brock's life and he's like. Eddie Brock with boots on the ground today in the Mission District chasing a lead.

Everybody knows that Silicon Valley overlords at Google, Facebook, and the likes are asking uncomfortable questions. Homelessness is only increasing into the thousands. I do a lot of things like investigations, analysis, riding motorcycles. Just just just the weather. But I'm digging into the grew. But I just want to like Jacob Silverman shared this this this anecdote from the Michael Weiss piece, and I want to share it with you guys and just

just see if you can find like any possible reasons to be skeptical of this story. It says here, the first sighting may have happened exactly seven years earlier. Contrary to the information that has been made public about Havana syndrome, that it began in the eponymous Cuban capital in 2016, there were likely attacks two years earlier in Frankfurt, Germany, where a US government employee stationed at a consulate there was knocked unconscious by something akin to a strong energy beam. The victim was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and was also able to identify a Geneva-based Unit 29115 operative. The incident occurred within months of Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, in which a stealthy and nearly bloodless seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in February and March 2014 gave way to a roiling eight year long dirty war in the eastern industrial heartland of

Donbass close to the Ukraine's border with Russia. So he just this is just stated that like he was knocked unconscious by something akin to a strong energy beam. They don't know for sure. We're saying it's akin but a strong. Did anyone see the strong energy beam like what? That's a good point. Like what's like a strong energy beam? what that's a good point like what's like Like it's like others others and others an energy beam type weapons or there aren't It's like that thing where you like, you know, you take the straw halfway down the straw paper halfway down and then you blow it

Yeah, like the thing that always drove me crazy with Havana syndrome and like this one specifically because it's the most egregious of this it's like okay, if you're firing like, you know either sound waves or Radiation out right? You can't unless it's a laser Like chances are you're going to like hit a bunch of other people. Yeah. And it's like if you were like firing a sound wave that gave someone like diarrhea, like whatever this is, how like only one guy is reporting that this happened like in this instance that it didn't hit anyone else. It's one of my favorite like later-era Simpsons jokes where they're you know, it's like the CIA or whatever and they're saying What do we get from the satellite footage? It's just a bunch of roofs

It's like if Russia had if Russia had like basically a rail gun that can make anyone depressed That's what we're saying they had why aren't't they just blasting 20 of those at Kiev right now? They're doing better in that war now, but when they started getting owned and they lost all those SU-34s, why weren't they like, ah shit, how many depression rates do we have? Well, different wars require different weapons,

and this is the invisible war, this is the invisible energy war, and they're sapping the energy of our diplomats who wake up and they're like, I have a headache, my tummy hurts. I think I may have been hit with a invisible energy-directed weapon just this weekend, because I went out and normally when I drink

10 to 12 beers, I feel fine the next day. But I mean, like the next day, I don't know what happened. I felt terrible. I don't know. Maybe the baseline for Kiev depression is just way more, you know, Slavs. They're probably impervious to sad shit at this point. That's a great point. That's what they're using it on Western diplomats. That's a great point. It's like people who build up an immunity to arsenic. But okay, like, there's a line,

it was knocked unconscious by something akin to a strong energy beam. Where it's just like, I don't know, maybe like you are rendered unconscious, but you're just like, I woke up and you're like, how were you knocked out? I don't know, But it was something akin to a strong energy beam that I experienced before. But there's another detail in here I want to talk about where it says here the victim was the victim was later diagnosed with traumatic brain

injury and was also akin to a strong energy beam and was also able to identify a Geneva based unit 29115 operative. Like, what does that mean? Like he was able to identify a Geneva based unit, 29115 operative. Like, what does that mean? Like he was able to like so he saw a guy on the street of Frankfurt. Was this right before the energy beam rendered him unconscious? Or did he just see a guy that like they showed a photo to and they were like, does this look familiar? And they're like, my God, it's him.

It's the 29155 guy. Who's this guy again? It was a US government employee stationed at the consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. That doesn't mean anything. Did he work in the mail room? Like what the fuck is this? Why are we listening to this person with like art bell ideas? We don't even know his credentials. He could be a security guard.

It's also like, I'm assuming this guy is probably a spy because like that's the only people Havana syndrome happens to. Yeah, but he has like a brain injury. Yeah. That could just be a normal guy who got clocked a few more times. Yeah. Probably, yeah. They don't specify like how he picked this guy to the up but it's like if he is a spy it's like well yeah I hope you know who's in grew like aren't you supposed

to like they're proving that he was hit by an energy weapon by saying he's like somewhat competent at his job it's like proving a USDA employee was attacked by Magneto look they can identify cows. I recognize that helmet everywhere, anywhere. Yeah. It's also like he did. Did he see the guy during or before the interview? Like it's just like this is just he was able to identify a Geneva based unit. Two, nine, one, one, five.

It's just like, well, it's like now we have to know about Unit 29115, or 155. Like, what would it? It's just more. It feels like a Liam Neeson movie. Yeah, it's just more bullshit. Yeah. Even down to the name of the publication,

where like all Liam Neeson movies are called like, The Guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He would, Liam Neeson would write for insider movie. I would love to see him play a journalist in the Havana Syndrome movie. You know, after the incident, I took it upon myself to stalk the streets of Dublin looking for more Unit 29115.

He's almost never in Ireland. He's always in like Texas or something and they never explain why he has an Irish accent. In that movie, like the Ice Truckers or whatever, his brother doesn't have an Irish accent. Never explained. At one point he says, my Irish ass. And like his brother's like, hey, how you doing? I mean, he has like,

his brother has a traumatic brain injury. Maybe he lost it. I know, Amber, I know you and Nate are big fans of the Liam Neeson Directive Video. Shoot, we love the Neeson. Have you seen, I think it's called Blacklight? No. That's the thing.

He makes three movies a year. He makes about four or five movies a year. This is like, fuck, is it Blacklight? Okay, there's one where he's like, he's an FBI agent who's like the FBI's fixer. Like, they send him in to like do the dirty work, you know. And he basically like he gets wind of a plot to assassinate an obvious stand in for AOC. Because like in the movie, the FBI director played by Aidan Quinn, like like she dips like an FBI agent into like the AOC campaign.

And he's there to undermine her or assassinate her or do like, you know, cointel pro shit. But he falls in love with her. Right. He falls in love with her and he can't he can't do it. That's just another thing I like broadly about his movies is that you think they're going to be super reactionary, but they're just confused. Yeah. And like it just it makes me feel a lot better about the sort of state of dumb guys You know, they're not really like driven by anything too ideological They just want to see the niece and luckily he has such a huge

Like breadth of work I want to be a completist, but I'm not even there yet. He has so many movies, and they're all increasingly insane. The Air Marshall one, I love that one, because people are like, you're not fit to be an Air Marshall. And he's getting wasted. He's like, but I'm the Air Marshall.

It's like, he's not fit to be the Air Marshall. He's wasted. Also, The Commuter. The Commuter there Marshall. He's wasted also the commuter Insider ass Yeah, I love I love him because it's like it's clearly not like a Bruce Willis Situation or a Steven Seagal one where it's either he's being exploited or he just is like in tax that like he clearly Like he doesn't need to do any of these He gets shitty script after shitty script where it's like okay you're

gonna play the world's best luggage man you voucher and you're kidnapped by a cartel and you have to make them like the best luggage at gunpoint so they can transport heroin and then they test the luggage by shipping your daughter. But little do they know you used to be an assassin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, this sounds great. He's not like, like, I forget what like Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant thing it is. Oh, the life is short. Life is short.

When the war with Davis where yeah, I'm a gay homosexual actor with AIDS. I'm sorry, you have AIDS. An African prostitute. This has just gotten a bit heavy. You know, he's you know, he's he's signed on to be Frank Drebben in the Naked Gun reboot. Yeah, he's mad funny. Yeah, he's like a funny guy. He's clearly like not super self-serious.

Yeah. And like he has to know on some level these movies are stupid. But like he's Irish. Yeah, he thinks he probably thinks it's funny to do these movies. It's a good sense of humor. I mean, he's got some competition now. If you're talking about Irish guys with a sense of humor entering the world of action movies, now that Conor McGregor is in the Roadhouse, you see, Felix, have you seen like the sort of like press junket interviews with Conor McGregor?

I don't know what the fuck. I've never seen anyone react to any substance, like how Conor McGregor is reacting to it. It is crazy. It's gonna be a problem though, because the accent is, I dated a guy who went to the same high school as him for many months, and I still only understood like every third word. I feel like I fidget when I'm on camera.

So I'm a little bit like sympathetic to Conor McGregor, but he cannot sit still. It is insane. Like I have a bad camera presence, too. But like there's there's having a bad camera presence and being fidgety. And then there's like what Connor is doing which like He was acting like he's been in an iron lung for less 37 years He's gonna vibrate like through the floor

Yeah, his body frequency will match the atoms in the ground and now I get you full of beans to have He's full of beans he's to have any like gravitas sort of gravitas. He's full of beans. He's to have any like gravitas as like an action star. I will say having watched the movie that he does put it to somewhat good use in, I would say the funniest part of the new road house is just the way Conor McGregor walks, which is like he has spent two days on a horse and has an entire car battery up his ass.

He was like that. That's not even an affect. He was like, he was like that in his fighting career. He's like squatting He's always yeah, he's always walked like that and he actually had he had a very weird sort of wide stance Yeah, even in his prime that you know it worked for him pretty well Play it as a good joke in the movie. It's funny. Yeah, he I don't like coke doesn't coke alone doesn't make you do that nor do steroids but it's like I don't like if if it comes out that he's like smoking acrylic paint Don't make so much of his behavior

It's like he's, this downward spiral for him, right? It started when he was like, he was at his stupid restaurant that he started, the Black Forge. And this was like, he like glassed an 80 year old who didn't want to drink his whiskey or something. Yeah, this like old man, like he offered this old man a shot and he was like, no, that's all right.

And then he beat the shit out and it's like, what the fuck? I just pictured him like smoking acrylic paint now, but like out of an apple. As long as we're discussing action stars who walk and run weirdly, I know you must have seen the photograph of one of the victims of the terror attack in Moscow being greeted

as he like comes out from under anesthesia by Steven Seagal in a doctor's and then under like a doctor's coat. Oh my bet. You would think you were in hell. Yeah. That is a nightmare. It's like this is like the next thing Steven Seagal is pretending to be is like a trauma surgeon.

And he's like, I just want to let you know, we're going to snatch every one of these motherfucking bullets out of your body and we're going to put them in the best as who did it to you. My rocker, you know, was Dr. Ben Carson. He was my son. He told he told my how he uses his hands both to kill and to heal.

See these hands can separate, can join twins. I would put your brain into another brain. I would absolutely watch that movie though. Like Dr. Rinpoche or whatever. These hands can separate, can join twins or they they can join both you motherfuckers together. Exactly, yeah. Which one is gonna be? He's getting more and more cubical too,

I've noticed, just shape-wise. Let me ask you though, if you were the victim of some brutal, violent attack, and you were shot 10 times and somehow survived. And you're regaining consciousness for the first time. What action movie star would you like there to be in the hospital to greet you as you wake up? Liam Neeson.

Liam Neeson, okay. I don't think there's a question there, right? He's charming, he's funny, he doesn't overstep his bounds by any means. Not an action star, but like, I've really liked Bradley Cooper since he's been doing these interviews where he's like, I went to Leonard Bernstein's house

and I jacked off on his bed. And I love him. I love that you can't come out as gay in Hollywood, but you can say that shit and still have a career. Alright, no, no, no, I mean, I guess it's not an action star, but I would like to be received as I come out from like surgery by Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein.

And it would be who loves Snoopy and the Vesta Bill? And I'm just to give me a raise my spirits, you know. Elizabeth Hurley, that's this is just getting ridiculous here. And I'm like, Elizabeth, I just found out I'm your long lost nephew. And I'm like, Elizabeth, I just found out I'm your long lost nephew. Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha! That's the move I would make. I've been very naughty, I've been very mad, Elizabeth, my auntie. I want to start calling Elizabeth Hurley auntie. But, Stephen, like, it's got to be especially weird for a Russian to see Stephen Cheval, because it's like, it's not like he was even famous over there. Like, it's just like all you know. Maybe he's super famous for all the movies that like, you wake up, you're like,

my God, it's the star of Sniper, a special, special ops sniper. Yeah. I mean, he did a bunch of movies in like former Soviet states. He's the star of General Commander. Thank you, sir. You know, he's probably friends with some oligarchs who like own tigers and women. He's the star of General Commander. Thank you, sir. You know, he's probably friends with some oligarchs who like own tigers and women. He's the mercenary. It's the star of the Asian connection.

But it's like, I don't, like no one watches the, like Russia, they have their own film industry and like those Steven Seagal movies, I know that they're made just to cover up like a human trafficking operation, right? Like, I just, like, I know that they're made just to cover up like a human trafficking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I just like all you know that guy from is that he's like the fat guy that the president hangs out with sometimes. Yeah. You have no cultural context for him.

Probably. Imagine you just saw your best friend get their head blown apart by 762 around and you just you feel something wet on your chest and you black out you wake up and This fucking idiot is wearing a lab His fucking 40 Bracelets on he's wearing a stethoscope, but he like puts it on you and makes you listen to your own heart on you and makes you listen to your own heart. He's like, that's the rhythm of life right there. Yeah, I'm trying to think of like the equivalent if you're just like not familiar with this,

like you know kind of who he is. Is it like, it would be like waking up for us to like a Gerard Depardieu or something. Yeah. Like we're like, I know who you are, but this is sort of, but this is weird. Also why are you, you need to take care of yourself. You should be in this bed. You should be in this bed.

You should be in this bed. Thank you, Gerard. It's the star of Green Card and 1492, the conquest of paradise. You know, he was like trying to do acupuncture on all of them too. Oh yeah, or at least Reiki. He was just like hovering his hands over

children with cancer. I bet he does that fucking weird cup shit. Oh, definitely does cupping. Especially the one like the little sticks with the smoke in them. This is like it's just like I would like to recreate Hard to Kill with him. It's like he coaches me back from coming out of a coma or something, which is like acupuncture was a big part of Mason Storm's recovery and Hard to Kill. So I would hope like he just like he's like, I need you to get me these supplies. And then he unscrolls a piece of papyrus and takes like a Chinese brush paint like dips

I need a prescription for motherfucking percocet I'm my favorite thing. Percocet and pangolin. Yeah. I need a motherfucking virgin boy. I love this thing in that, like that's a great movie. There's so many great, like the blood bank line is, that's what got me into Steven Seagal when he goes, I'll take you to the bank center, drink the blood bank.

But the part I like the most is absolutely a part Stephen Seagal demanded they put in the movie, which is Kelly LeBrock, who later became his wife and ex-wife, who plays the nurse, who's taking care of Mason Storm while he's been in a coma. And this is, by the way, this is two minutes after a scene where Mason Storm's family was violently massacred

Yeah, just killed in front of him fast-forward the montage and she's like vitals look good and his dicks as big as ever We're like you were like not even not even 150 seconds removed from like his kids feeling Apart by shotguns yeah, you don't get that kind of style with a Johnny Toe My god, he's got a missile down there Like that was not in the script. My favorite part of the movie. He told her to do that, yeah.

Outside, you know, him working into the screenplay, how big his dick is, and the blood bank line is the scene where Kelly LeBrock has taken this formerly comatose man that she's known for like a day to stay at her friend's gigantic ranch house in some beautiful part of California. And she's like nursed him back to health and it's like a training montage of him running weirdly up a hill and like And then like he's just doing all this shit and like she's watching from the background It's like the camera zooms in on her and she's looking at him and she just goes mason storm Just shaking your head in amazement Fuck, we can talk about Sehgal all day, but I got two quick surveys about people quitting.

And I'm beginning with Turkish President Erdogan because his party AKP just suffered a defeat in some local elections and we were talking about before we got on the show. Erdogan, he's pretty old, he doesn't have to do this much longer. But we would like to see him get real. Yeah. It's time for him to get real. And by that, I mean, use Turkey's arsenal against Israel because he's a NATO country. It's been 20 years of this shit. 20 years. Every time Israel does something fucked up.

He is every time for 20 fucking years. Erdogan has been like, this could be the time. I'm getting up. I'm getting up. You better hope I don't get over there. And it's like, like people are still stupid enough to get excited when he says this. Like he really went far this last time when he's like, we could invade Israel at every time.

I mean, there have been Huge protests in Turkey for Gaza. But he's never going to do anything. He's never done anything. And it's like now like, OK, you're not going up for reelection. Everyone fucking hates you. You massacred the Turkish lira and therefore my retirement plan. And like just lob like 20 cruise missiles at Israel. Just do it.

Like what what's going to happen? You're going to lose the election. Oh, well, we're going to kick you out of NATO at a time when Russia is like the scariest thing in the world. You got to make a big scene when you leave a job. We were talking about this when we got on because like currently right now Israel is doing everything possible to start a war with Iran, including killing some Iranian diplomat on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

Well, they the head of Iran's operation in Syria, the NIRGC general. And it's like we know Russia's like Russia just lets Israel bomb Syria whenever they want. We like I'm sorry, Russia has and we said they have like a flight to their Air Force in Syria. I yeah, I don't know the exact number,

but they have a ton of fucking planes over there. They have some really cool planes. I won't get into it. But it's a parking lot is the point. Yeah, like Erdogan, if you if he does this, I'm not even saying he has to like full scale invade Israel, right? If he just like, you know, like a pitcher in the baseball, just give him some some chin music.

Yeah. Yeah. Shove him off the plate on your way out before you get the reliever comes in. It's like you guys block out the sun with your weirdly shaped drones that are apparently very effective. If you do that, everyone will love you. Like forever. No one will remember all the dumb shit you did. True, true. People will stop calling you a watermelon seller.

Is that what people call him? Well, he was literally a watermelon seller. There's a famous clip of a guy being like, I don't want that watermelon. But, you know, you're like 76. You're really tall. So we know you're not going to live that long. The great day and the great day in heart. Yeah. Your wife is just all she does is like pray.

And you had to look what you did. You invaded Syria because Bichera Al-Assad's wife said your wife was frumpy and you won't you won't just like launch a few missiles at Israel. Yeah. Like what do you have left to lose at this point? Well, we'll see. I mean, obviously, this is this is heartbreaking. There's a long time AKP supporter. I mean, they were instrumental in the success of our program. So, I mean, like you wish them the best. You dance with who brung you.

Yeah. I don't want to I don't want to hear anything from the fucking purity bros who sat this election out. Yeah. When secularism comes. You know, we tried to warn you. Yeah. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And the second news about sort of a departure of a global figure is Lizzo's quitting music. Lizzo announced that she's fed up with all the hate and she's quitting music.

And this is coming on the heels of her appearance at Radio City Music Hall, you know, sort of fetting Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. And people made fun of her for that because she was like, hey, like, let's party, y'all, like, you know, while they're doing a genocide. And she's fed up with it. She's had enough of it. She's done with music. I just want to show that I just the other night, I just got into LA and I saw the clip of Lizzo performing at Radio City Music Hall for Joe Biden. And I texted it to Matt and I said, Matt, the Democrats

have activated the Lizzo contingency. And he just replied, my God. Hard to think of a bigger victim in regards to Israel and Gaza. Yep. Then Lizzo. Was that a pun? No, I actually wasn't going for that. I'm taking the heat for this one her fucking handle is Lizzo eats You can't fucking like put that out there and then get mad at me

I think it's funny how her sexual harassment scandal involved eating Like she couldn't just do normal sexual harassment. She was like no you have to like eat food out of a pussy apparently She was like no you have to like eat food out of a pussy apparently She's abandoned body positivity for body neutrality or something. Yeah, I'm sorry. She stole that from me Also, like don't love yourself. Don't hate yourself. Just get hobbies. Just fucking quit looking in the mirror. Generally also Her swimwear line is gonna be worse than Rihanna's lingerie. It's going to be so bad. Well, this is a good segue. I talk about a weird sexual harassment.

This is a headline here. Match slap accuser dropped groping lawsuit after four hundred and eighty thousand dollar settlement. Not guilty. Not guilty. This is just like when Gucci got off on self defense. Match lab's the real king of the streets. I hope you didn't pay them cause they have no success. I love the Teflon goon.

I love it. Like he, they settled this and he's like one down 38 ago. I just want to read a little from this. By the way, 20,000 under half a mil. I'd say that's a win. Yeah. Well, listen, this one in the New York Times says, a Republican operative who said he had been groped

by Matt Schlapp, the head of one of the nation's largest conservative advocacy groups, dropped his lawsuit against Mr. Schlapp after receiving a $480,000 settlement, according to three people familiar with the deal. The operative Carlton Huffman 40 had accused mr Schlapp of grabbing his genital area when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022 He sued mr. Schlapp last year, but announced this week that he had dropped the lawsuit in a statement

He said he had not been paid by mr. Schlapp or the American Conservative Union the group mr. Schlapp overseas instead Mr. Huffman received the six-fig figure settlement through an insurance policy according to three people familiar with the deal. So he didn't even have to pay money out of a pilot. He just has an insurance policy against groping men. What the fuck is he? Is he a dick crabber insurance? How do you use insurance money to settle a groping lawsuit?

If I got a, you know, a sales call from an insurance company that was like, we know that you're always going around in cars and trying to jerk off underlings. I would call him a bomb, Brett. But he's like, how do you take out an insurance policy against you doing a crime? Well, obviously you guys don't watch enough daytime TV. Flo, the progressive lady, the Geico gecko,

they're talking about this all fucking day. The progressive lady, the Geico, they're talking about this all fucking day. He's like this entire match lab thing. I'm kind of I haven't seen it in the media that much, which is disappointing because it's hilarious. I love how his white like he's accused of jerking off or trying to jerk off like dozens of men. And his wife is like, good old cancel culture. It's not like he made a spicy joke.

He's gay. He's doing car pranks on his friends. He's a gay man. That you're married to. Where's her insurance policy? These people said they were motivated to disclose the details because they appear because they were upset over what they described as a victory lap from Mr. Schlapp after the lawsuit

was dropped. When the lawsuit was dropped, Mr. Schlapp released a lengthy statement that did not mention Mr. Huffman and instead criticized unnamed liberals and the left wing news media for coverage of the lawsuit on social media. Mr. Schlapp reposted messages that falsely claimed he had been cleared of wrongdoing and asserted that Mr. Huffman had apologized, which he had not. That's awesome.

That's so cool. They're not even going to move him to the side. That's so awesome. They're just so reactive that they're like, no, we can't like show weakness, which like normally is actually kind of a smart impulse. Yeah. Never apologize. Normally. Yeah. Not only that, you're saying the guy that you groped apologized to you. Like you're a little different than not apologizing yourself. It's also like that only works three times tops.

How many men are going to come out and like, that's not going to go well. It's just so like reckless too. You know what I mean? Like it's like. Just get a fucking prostitute. Exactly. Like you have the money.

Why are you like these guys who like have wives and kids and you're like, hey, just so we have it on record I Would love it if I could you know have you sit on my face? I gotta say though what when did the lawsuit happen and when did the alleged groping happen the groping happened in? 2022 and the was it was just settled so this guy was 38 years old it's probably pretty hard to find a gay prostitute over 30. That's a good point. That could be what he liked.

Like maybe it's a situation where his fetish is like a tight, like a Republican, like father of two, who wears a quarter zip. Yeah, it's very specific But as we know right wing sickos, yeah, yeah, he's shit match lap He's like an evil gay Republican husband like him and what's that other for the guy who's married to fucking? Megan McCain. Oh Ben Dominich and dominant. Those are the evil ones Marcus Bachmann's the nice one Dominich and Dominic.

Those are the evil ones. Marcus Bachmann is the nice one. Marcus. He just likes picking out outfits for his wife. He's not he's not he's not doing sex crimes or anything. It's like he's like, don't get me wrong. He's a bad like he runs a conversion center, which, you know, you can think we're just saying he's a good husband. I can imagine what goes on in places like that.

Yeah, that is like a Ford assembly line. But like he's just so in places like that. Exactly. Yeah. That is like a Ford assembly line for an old station. But like he's just so much more like fun. Like when he's like, I love when she goes campaigning because I can pick out her outfits. And it like it was they were daring people to say something about that. It's incredible. Yeah. Marcus Bachman was so good.

He was just yeah. I'll be sad when he does. All right. So I said on the last episode I was going to do this episode. And I think we should get to it in this episode. It's the big piece in the Atlantic by Peter Baker Jr. The War at Stanford. And basically this article is like this Stanford fucking Apple polisher. It's like, oh, all the Ivy League universities on the East Coast are getting too much credit for being anti-Semitic.

Now let's do an article about the university I go to. And then like, you know, everyone like his dad was just like, Theo's such a wonderful boy. He's whip smart and Ben Bradley would love his writing if he were still alive. And like this is just like it's such an obnoxious article, especially in light of the fact that like, you know, well, what's the headline I read this weekend? Like Israel establishes kill zone and kill zones in Gaza. And it's just the whole thing is like, oh, like people are too angry about this

and it's tearing apart the college that I love going to. It was dark. I bet he's a male cheerleader. It was one of the most obnoxious things I've ever seen because it was like his parents, obviously, Susan Glassman and Peter Baker, but also like just assorted other lifetime media people just talking about what an important young go-getter it was. And it's just, like, we talked about it last week, but it literally is just like, I like some of my friends, but I don't like the kids I'm not friends with. And it's like, even if this wasn't, this wasn't in the backdrop of a fucking genocide, them just taking out every fucking hospital,

every bakery everything Even if it was about like I don't know like whatever bullshit issue before This has no place in any newspaper. I especially know I wonder too Like is it possible I haven't read this is it is he really a like school spirit fucking dork or? Is this just is his actual, you know, Precociousness just making a name for himself. Like is this just like I would say it's more of the latter than the former but like let's judge for ourselves Into the war at Stanford by Theo Baker for The Atlantic. It begins like this.

One of the section leaders from my computer science class, Hasma El-Boudali, believes that President Joe Biden should be killed. It's a strong opening sentence. I mean, I certainly couldn't argue with that. He goes, quote, I'm not calling for a civilian to do it, but I think the military should. The 23 year old Stanford University students told a small group of protesters last month, I'd be happy if Biden was dead. He thinks that Stanford is complicit in what he calls the genocide of Palestinians and

that Biden is not only complicit, but responsible in it, responsible for it. I'm not calling for a vigilante to do it, he later clarified, but I'm saying he is guilty of mass murder and should be treated the same way a terrorist with darker skin would be, and we all know terrorists with dark skin are typically bombed and drone striked by American planes. El-Budali has also said that he believes that Hamas's October 7th attack was a justifiable act of resistance and that he would actually prefer Hamas rule America in place of its current government.

No, he later clarified- College is just for stupid people. Like, this is just stupid people. No, he later clarified that he didn is just for stupid people. Like this is just stupid people. He later clarified that he doesn't, he didn't, that doesn't mean that Hamas is perfect. When you ask him what, when you ask him what his cause is, he answers peace. I switched to a different computer science class. So like I know what he's going for here, but like I would just like to say on the record that everything Hamza El-Boudali said was unimpeachable as far as I'm concerned.

Because look, Hamas isn't perfect, but neither of the Democrats are the Republicans. Yeah, do you want to beat Trump or not? Yeah. But I like the one, I switched to a different computer science class. Yeah, yeah. How much is that coming up in computer science? Well, I mean, like his point is

he just wants to study computer science, but unfortunately Israel killing 30,000 children has made it difficult because people are angry about it. Is this guy raising his hand? This is like talking about... I think it's kept intentionally vague. This is not in a computer science class. This is at a protest at Stanford that this guy was speaking at, but he makes it seem

like he's just like, everyone get out your laptops and let's start writing. Death to the Zionist entity? Yeah. So it says here, Israel is 7 7500 miles away from Stanford's campus. Thanks for that little, thanks for that little defactoid there. Where I am a sophomore, but the Hamas invasion and the Israeli counter invasion have fractured my university, a place typically less focused on geopolitics than on venture capital funding for the latest dorm based tech startup. Few students would call for Biden's head, I think.

But many of the same young people who say they want peace in Gaza don't seem to realize that they are in fact advocating for violence. I mean, I think they're pretty I think I don't know if they're that confused about it, whether what they did is justifiable or not is like, you know, I don't believe it's justifiable or unjustifiable. It's just what happens when you turn up the heat. Well, I mean, like I would say confidently that what Israel has done is completely unjustifiable. Not justifiable. Yeah, it's not justifiable.

I think that's pretty, that's pretty not difficult conclusion to come to. So yeah, he continues, Extremism has swept through classrooms and dorms and it is becoming normal for students to be harassed and intimidated for their faith, heritage or appearance. They have been, I mean, I remember, I was intimidated for my appearance as a nerd in college all the time. I was singled out for that. It says they have been called perpetrators of genocide for wearing kippas and accused of supporting terrorism

for wearing kiefas. So it's just like fashion police problems on cameras. Yeah, yeah. What kind of hat are you wearing? It can mark you as a friend or foe. It says the extremism and anti-Semitism at Ivy League universities on the East Coast have attracted so much media and congressional attention

that the two Ivy presidents have lost their jobs. But few people seem to have noticed the culture war that has taken over our California campus. It's like, this is just like. Who cares? I believe every president of every university should lose their job. Is the premise of this article like that?

It's inherently different when it happens at fucking Stanford. Yeah, because he's like, this is East Coast, West Coast. Yeah. I mean, I think he's saying like, oh, like, you know, at Princeton and Yale, like they're you know, they love protesting war. But out here at Stanford, we're too busy making dorm based app technology that we're hoping to sell Like it's Cali vibes. Yeah, it says here For months to rival groups of protesters separated by a narrow bike path

Faced off on Stanford's palm covered grounds the sitting to stop genocide encampment was erected by students in mid-october Even before the Israeli troops had crossed into Gaza to demand that the university divest from Israel and condemn its behavior. Posters were hung equating Hamas with Ukraine and Nelson Mandela. Across from the sit-in, a rival group of pro-Israel students eventually set up the blue and white tent to provide, as one activist put it, a safe space to be a proud Jew on campus.

Soon it became the center of its own cluster of tents with photos of Hamas' victims sitting opposite the rubble-ridden images of Gaza and a long tents with photos of Hamas's victims sitting opposite the rubble ridden images of Gaza and a long and incomplete list of the names of slain Palestinians displayed by the students at the sit-in. What was in those tents? Lactate?

What safety? I hate colleges so much. It's such a weird way to contain Actual protest it's such a weird like like fucking like hamster habit trail for political action Yeah, why isn't this just an email to your grand? Published in the Atlantic this is it's like I would rather read like someone's cousin describing a movie they saw. Than this. This is so shit. Like, who fucking, what is your fucking point? Why did this need to exist? If I was his grandparents, I would, I would be like, shut up.

I mean, I wouldn't, if I was his grandparents, I would be like, shut up. I mean, I wouldn't if I was his grandparents, I wouldn't finish this article. Yeah, no, this is one of the most pointless things ever committed to language. If I was his grandparents, I'd be like, I'm sorry that happened or congratulations. But it says here's $10. Go see a Star Wars. Well, this is another like a little like glimpses like the mentality behind this article. Stanford has a policy barring overnight camping, but for months didn't enforce it. Oh my God.

Call the phone. Oh my God. Call the press. Call Woodward and Bernstein. The overnight camping policy is selectively enforced. Holy shit. Yeah. If you were my kid and you told me that like out of breath, I would sell you to the circus.

Hey, if you want to get rid of them, just invite like three homeless people there. They'll clear it out. It says here, we've had protests in the past. Richard Saller, the university's interim president, told me in November about the environment and apartheid about protests about the environment, apartheid Vietnam. But they didn't pit students against each other the way this conflict has.

Yes, students have never disagree. If everything there was like it was a big Coca-Cola commercial, everyone holding hands. I mean, like, I mean, they did kill some Vietnam protesters on an American university in the 70s. But yeah, I guess the National Guard weren't actually students there. What happened with the overnight camping policy? Maybe they were enforcing the camping.

Yeah, you're right. Well, I mean, like I feel like if I could like attempt to seriously answer your question about why this article, why this email to Nana and Pep, why this is getting published in The Atlantic. And I think it is because of like the massive and undeniable weight of public opinion among people under the age of 30 about Israel and I think outlets like the Atlantic Need to keep promoting these mother boys. I always get this way before mother boy

Oh god, it's mother boy already to give their readership the impression that young people are not fully swayed by like Palestinian propaganda or whatever right right right It's like it's a new form of his bar where it's like we we can't be like explicitly pro-Israel anymore. We can sort of sneakily imply that the entire Palestinian movement is tarnished by anti-Semitism without

saying it outright. We also make it so like that the default position, the normal position is just like, Hey, it's 7,500 miles away. I don't care. Doesn't affect us, which like ignores the massive, just the massive amount of Israeli lobbying, the presence of Israel in all aspects of American public life and the security state. This can only function on the idea that like Israel is just like another country. Yeah. The call is coming from inside the house.

Like, don't pretend that it's fucking. I still fucking can't stand. Like, again, if I was his grandparents and I got an email this long, even if I was like a racist Zionist, I would regard it with the same observational kind of distance as when like my cousins spent an hour explaining Pokemon to me. Like, it's just so like shut up. Even if I was racist, I would say shut up. Yeah, it's going through it. It's so belabored to arrive at this stance of like, well, you know, it just, it may be,

maybe, you know, campuses shouldn't talk about it. It's it's it's like an Ivy League version of those posts where people like, I'm having a beer and being normal. Yeah. And it's like, OK, well, then can we like stop sending Israel money and weapons? Yeah. Like if it's just going to be like, hey, I don't care. But all of this avoids the economics

of it. Like that's what campus politics do. It's just like this big red herring. It's like just what is the budget of this university? Probably like the equivalent to like some nations. are like. It's insane. And being like, all right, should we have a say in the budget?

Should we have a say who's on campus? Like maybe we've kicked out ROTC. We've decided certain people aren't allowed on campus to lobby for certain things. I think it's fair to say a lot of to lobby for certain things. I think it's fair to say a lot of Israel groups constitute essentially like a soft conscription campaign. Right. Yeah. Like it's pretty like just like,

I dare you to just like try and like reorganize the budget around like not fucking supporting Israel. Instead of like doing this like loser nerd shit. So it's like, yeah, it's like the ship in the bottle kind of protest. not fucking supporting Israel. Instead of doing this loser nerd shit. It's like the ship in the bottle kind of protest. Yeah, it's literally the universities are intended at this point to contain actual political action. If this is just a regular country that's 7,500 miles away,

surely it should be no problem to ban it a foreign nation from lobbying on campus. Right? And again, it's soft conscription. It's militaristic. If ROTC can't be on there, I don't see why the fuck Israel is allowed to be on there. Yeah, a foreign nation. Going on here, it says, when the university finally said the protest tense had to be removed, students responded by accusing Saller of suppressing their right to free speech. This is probably the last charge he is

expected to face. Saller once served as a provost at the University of Chicago which is known for holding itself to a position of strict institutional neutrality so that its students can freely explore ideas for themselves. Saller has a lifelong belief in First Amendment rights, but that conviction in impartial college government does not align with Stanford's behavior in recent years. Despite the fact that many students seem largely uninterested in the headlines before this year, Stanford's administrative leadership has often taken positions on political issues and events, such as the Paris climate conference and the murder of George Floyd. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Stanford's Hoover Tower was lit up

in blue and yellow, and the school released a statement in solidarity. When we first met a week before October 7th, I asked Salar about this. Did Stanford have a moral duty to denounce the war in Ukraine, for example, or the ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims in China? On international political issues, no, he said. That's not a responsibility for the university as a whole, as an institution. I asked Salar why he had changed tack on Israel and not Nagorno-Karabakh. We don't feel as though we should be making statements on every war crime and atrocity he told me.

This felt like a statement in and of itself. So it's like I think it's telling here that like the guy that he's mostly talking to in this in this article is just the university president. Yeah. It's also funny and telling that he said when I first talked to him the week before October set, like what should like sophomore at Stanford gets direct access to the president just on a random weekday especially like Stanford yeah I think he wrote some other article that exposed some Stanford professors malfeasance that got a lot of got a lot of burns I think he's got the I never talked to my

university president nor did I want to I didn't yeah I didn't even know who the fuck was name was his name was Mort I don't know when we met back in November I tried to get salary. I didn't even know who the fuck his name was. I think his name was Mort. I don't know. When we met back in November, I tried to get Saller to open up about his experience running an institution in turmoil. And like Stanford is not in turmoil because like as you said, Amber, they have an endowment that's probably like the equivalent of like some European country. Thirty six point five billion, which puts them just above El Salvador in terms of GDP.

It says, what is it like to know that so many students seem to believe that he, a mild mannered 71 year old classicist who swing dances with his anthropologist wife, is a warmonger. Saller was more candid than I expected, perhaps more candid than any prominent university president had been. We sat in the same conference room as we had in September.

The weather hadn't really changed, yet I felt like- Oh my God, shut the fuck up. Who cares? How could he be a war monger? What do you eat for breakfast that day? If you'd be a war monger, he does the Lindy Hop. He said, yet I felt like I was sitting in front of a different person. He was hunched over and looked exhausted. And his voice broke when he talked about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel and the fact that we're caught up in it. A capable administrator with decades of experience, Seller seemed almost at a loss.

It's been kind of a roller coaster to be honest. Is this a red carpet interview? What the fuck is this? You should be interviewing Conor McGregor. People tend to blame the campus wars on two villains. Dithering administrators and radical student activists. But colleges have always had dithering administrators and radical student activists. But colleges have always had dithering administrators and radical student activists. To my mind, it's the average students who have changed.

Elite universities attract a certain kind of student, the overachieving striver who has won all the right accolades for all the right activities. It's such a surprise that the kids who are trained in the constant pursuit of perfect scores think they have to look at the world like a series of multiple choice questions with clearly right or wrong answers. I'd prefer that than looking at the world as an essay question, which you are doing right now. Yeah, he's blue booking this shit. Or that they think they can gamify a political cause in the same way they ace a standardized test.

Oh, you are gamifying, like this is a resume padding. Yeah, well, I mean like as you'll see in the next paragraph, like as I said earlier, I think this is like the thrust of this article is to assure his parents and grandparents that like the student activism of like people who are against the war or pro-Palestine, that it's just sort of like trendy and like they're just so they don't really believe it. They're just sort of pretending to because it's cool. There should be a show where they subject this guy to different batting cages and they increase the speed of the ball every week. By the way, the people who say you're just into this cause because you want to be cool are the least cool people on earth. So what he's saying might be true for some people, let's say for a few people, they're

bandwagon ears. What does that make you? Yeah. A big virgin dork. He goes, it's not that there isn't real anger and anxiety over what is happening in Gaza. There is and justifiably so. I know that among the protesters are many people who are deeply deeply connected to this issue, but they are not the majority. What really activates the crowds now seems less like a principal devotion to Palestine or to pacifism than the desire

for collective action to fit in by embracing the fashionable fashionable cause of the moment as if a Centuries old conflict in which both sides have stolen and killed could ever be a simple matter simple matter. Why? No, why? Why does this get to be an article that he's just imagining what's in the minds of everyone at the protest? How is that a premise for anything? There's nothing you can't do anything where you just imagine the mental state of like a

few dozen people you've never spoken to. Well, he found one like edgegelord at his computer science class, and he's like trying to get the reader to extrapolate everything from that. This could be head here, says the real story at Stanford is not about the malicious actors who endorse sexual assault and murder as forms of resistance, but about those who passively enable them because they believe their side can do no wrong. You don't have to understand what you're arguing for in order to argue for it. You don't have to be able to name the river or the sea

under discussion to chant from the river to the sea. Oh, for fuck's sake, geography bitch. The Mediterranean and the Jordan, can I weigh in now? Also, I'm sorry. Can I weigh in now, Theo? It's an apocryphal fucking story, but they've said, I mean, like it's probably apocryphal. I don't know, I can't confirm it,

but there's like a thing where, I think it was during Iraq, like the's probably apocryphal. I don't know. I can't confirm it. But there's like a thing where I think it was during Iraq, like the first two years or something, where they went around asking Americans, could they find Iraq, I think Afghanistan, and maybe North Korea on the map? And the people who were more likely to be able to were the people also more likely to wanna invade.

Don't trust people who know geography. Yeah. One of the one of the highest sources, like one of the demographically, one of the highest, like demographic groups that most supported the Vietnam War while it was going on were college aged males. Yeah. Who were like educated. Because you have to be going.

You have to be educated to be that fucking stupid. They could usually be able to be able to find the Gaza strip on a map is like less impressive to me than to know that it exists and people are dying there and to be like, oh, that's wrong. Well, and it's also just like it was just way easier for them to get out of the draft. Yeah, it goes, this kind of obliviousness explains how one of my friends, a gay activist, can justify Hamas's actions, even though it would have the two of us, an outspoken queer person and a Jewish reporter, killed in a heartbeat. I will support anyone who promises to end your writing career. I don't care if they kill you, I don't care if they chop your fucking hands off. Anything to prevent this from happening again. This is the real never again.

I never want to hear this article ever again. A similar mentality can exist on the other side I have heard students insist on the absolute righteousness of Israel yet seem uninterested in learning anything about what life is like in Gaza I can tell you what life is like in Gaza. It's We have pictures. Yeah, it's nasty brutish and sure. I'm familiar with this is a great line I'm familiar with the pole of achievement culture after all with this is a great line. I'm familiar with the pull of achievement culture. After all, I'm the product of the pole. I fell in love with Stanford as a seven year old lying on the floor of an East Coast library and picturing all the cool technology those West Coast geniuses

were dreaming up. I cried when I was accepted. I spent the next few months scrolling through the course catalog giddy with anticipation. I wanted to learn everything. How many swirlies would it take to reeducate him? This guy should be conscripted into going to one of Diddy's parties. Well here's the thing too, if he like fucking supports what Israel is doing, join up. Yeah. I would love it if Diddy traumatized him so bad that he can never write again. All right, well I'll stop traumatizing you, Felix.

I just want to read two more things from this article. But my frustration with the conflict on campus has little to do with my own identity as a high achieving Jewish kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure. That's just completely irrelevant. Across many conversations and hours of formal interviews I conducted for this article, I've encountered a persistent anti-intellectual streak. I've watched

many of my classmates treat death so cavalierly that they can protest as a pregame to a party. Indeed, two parties at Stanford were reported that were reported to the university this fall for allegedly making people say, fuck Israel or free Palestine to get in the door. He's just mad about not getting invited to parties. We're literally, he's just saying that. What are people supposed to do after a protest? Like wear an armband of mourning and just sit,

not look in a mirror for a week. What the fuck are you talking about? It is great. A spokesman for the university said it was unable to confirm the facts of what had occurred, but that it met with students involved in both parties to make clear Stanford's non-discrimination policy applies to parties. Again, again, real quick, like he has said he said he's done what hours of interviews? Yeah.

Where's a single other voice besides this like one person? The university administrator. And also, when he published this article, he was like, I spent the last six months writing this article. When were you going to class, dude? Yeah, yeah. Do your goddamn homework.

How did this take six months? Yeah. There's no way he's talking to you. He didn't even talk to the guy who said the stuff, who I bet he's fucking misquoted or very selectively quoted or whatever. Or the guy was hung over, it's college. I love college.

But like, why wouldn't you wanna talk to that guy? Like at the very least being like, what do you say like Hamas? What do you mean? Like that would be a good question to ask someone. I would say anything to get him to stop talking to me. Yeah. Like I would, I would take any position, anything.

That's what that whole intro scene read as to me is this Theo guy badgering this guy being like, Oh, so you think Hamas should be the government of America and him being like, you know what? Yeah, fuck it. Hamas should be the government. Yeah, I felt like someone getting frustrated in the middle of a conversation. You're absolutely right. Like it just, it's just completely, it's made up. It's woke toddler for like fucking right wing Zionist dorks. Like depending on the context or the time of day

Theo Baker talked to me, I would say either, I rock with Hitler. Um, you know, I'm an AKP supporter. I like Modi. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, I think- AKP supporter. I like Modi. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Anything to make a fuck off. I think Pedro Castillo was the 8% of Peruvians who approved of Pedro Castillo by the end.

I don't care anything to make you stop. I don't. Yeah. I'll stop with just like one last one last sentence from this article. As a friend emailed me not long ago. I have a friend I swear as a friend emailed me not long ago, a place that was supposed to be a

sanctuary from such unreasoned has become a factory for it. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Then go to Math Club. Who care? What the fuck are you transfer universities, man? Like go to University of Arizona. Yeah.

No one knows what any of this shit is there? Okay, go there go there Like there's nothing you can learn about right you are Genetically an annoying and bad writer because you have no soul You can never say anything that's interesting the The moment you say something that is interesting, the Mahdi will return. It would be the mark at the end of time. It doesn't matter where you go. You could go to college in Kazakhstan.

It wouldn't matter. You will produce the same quality of article. Well, the entire thing is just about college. He's not talking about Gaza. He's not talking about what's happening to Palestinians right now. Like, it's like, hey, you wonder why they did that shit? Wouldn't you have a, like, wouldn't you start from that premise at the very least to say,

like, is this reasonable? Is this not reasonable? Like, he kind of like just skipped the biggest part of the conversation, which is the genocide part. Yeah. Well, he says the so-called genocide. I mean, he disputes that categorization. But yeah, I mean, I guess like just like to summarize this article, I mean, I just think like this is part of this ongoing bargaining process among liberals

who consider themselves good Democrats, but like, you know, still love Israel. And it's this bargaining process where like they know they can't come out right and say, I think it's good that we're annihilating the people of Gaza or annihilating Palestine. So they have to find like this endless receding horizon of complexity and nuance. Yeah. The reason this took six months is because it became less and less fucking defensible what Israel was doing. He kept having to rewrite it so that he sounded more balanced

against the most horrifying thing that's happening right now. Yeah, and like and yeah, like I said, like and also like this this this attempts to kind of like wish away both like the the reality of the horror of what's happening, but the reality of people's strong feelings about it and the idea that like these are this is an issue in which like you we are not going to like find some sort of Resolution in which both sides will be happy to like engage in reasoned debate over I would love to college in conclusion stop going to college. I would love to see You know deadliest warrior come back, but every week. It's a different deadliest warrior taking on Theo Baker I would love to see Theo Baker versus the Taliban, Theo Baker versus the RA, Theo Baker versus

ATOC, which we never saw. Steven Seagal? Yeah. I mean I'd be fine with him like versus the IDF. They're not gonna be nice to him either. Here's like this. I'd like to see an episode. I'd like to see Theo Baker versus a real job. Yeah. After this shit done, you're gonna wishing for a motherfucking W-2. Yo ass Finna be is divided this campus. Oh man. All right, we'll be out of time. We're good?

We're way good. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, we got, come to Jacques' thing on Thursday. Yeah, April 4th. Yeah. We'll all be there. I'll put links to it in bio. That's all we got.

Okay, cool. Till next time, everybody. Bye. Bye. You don't have to go to college.