Chapo Trap House - 832 - Real World Blues feat. Alex Nichols (5/13/24)

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Alex is on today as we catch up with the weekend’s drama over the 2024 Eurovision song contest and ask which is more real, twitter or Eurovision (those are the only two options). Then, some disastrous new polls for the Biden campaign, Trump searches for a VP and praises Hannibal Lecter, and Bret Stephens & Gail Collins search for the true value of a commencement speech and decide it’s about telling kids to get off their damn phones. Check out WFYM radio: https://chapofym.podbean.com/

Take three. Last time I checked, it's still Monday, May 13th. This is our third time trying to record this episode. Before I start today, I would just like to say, apologize for the audio quality on my end. I'm in the beautiful city of Madison, Wisconsin, and I forgot my recording equipment this weekend. Supposed to say I will be docking my pay. So please don't complain in the comments of the show.

But once again, let's start the show. Chopo coming at you. Felix and I, we've got Alex Nichols on. the show today. What's up, Alex. And all right. So let's kick off the show today. I know there's one thing on everybody.

We just lost Felix again. What the fuck? Okay. There was a faulty plug. All right. It's fixed now. Okay. Starting the show.

I know we've spent the whole weekend thinking about it. We've been waiting for Monday to record. It's the one thing everyone wants to talk about. That's right. The Eurovision song contest. congratulations to Nemo of Switzerland for his groundbreaking work. Congratulations to the people of Switzerland and their new title as King of Europe. It's going to go right into it.

The winners of this year's Eurovision Song Contests were coming into number one, Nemo, performing The Code from Switzerland. And then from number two, my vote went to Croatia, baby lasagna, performing the party anthem, Rim Tim Taggi Dim. But unfortunately this year's contest was marred by controversy. That's right. I hate when politics gets involved in the Eurovision song contest. The controversial Israeli performer Eden,

she came in in number five. Her song Hurricane. I don't know what that one was about. Maybe it was about October 7th. It was about that boxer who went to prison. And she said the N-word in the song, but it was okay. Because it was actually woke for the time. Yeah.

I'm just going to wrap up here. it says here. The Swiss singer Nemo, this is from the BBC coverage, Swiss singer Nemo has one of the Eurovision song contests in Sweden with their songs, The Code, a compelling hybrid of opera and hip-hop. It topped the jury vote, helping 24-year-old gain an impressive score of 591 points. I was going to say, I've never felt more proud to be an American than just having to follow the Eurovision stuff this past weekend. What is going on with this? And why do Americans care about this? I mean, it was basically just, when I saw the Babylon B guys talking about how invested they were in Israel winning the songs, the Eurovision song contest, I was really enjoying that this weekend. It's also gay.

The whole thing is like a big pride parade. That's what represents Europe to you? They should hate that. I don't even know fully what Eurovision is. I was, I was not following this. I only saw, like, the post from his rallies that were like, I have 40 credit cards to do fraud. with and I voted 7,000 times, which is like, I don't know why they're admitting that. Like, they're supposed to win your Eurovision.

That was supposed to show that Twitter wasn't real life, but they're just like openly bragging about how they tried to rig it and lost. But then, like, yeah, all the, all the guys who are like, hey, there's a new show for four-year-olds where one of the characters is kind of a fucking homo, they were like following this more closely than the intended audience, which is, I assume, like, 49-year-old gay men who live in Madison, Wisconsin. Well, that's what I've been doing this weekend. You're not that old. I know.

I know. I would, okay, look, I was talking about, I was referring to an archetype, like the, the true crime obsessed guy before his glow up. before they made millions of dollars. I'm surprised that we dodged Eurovision. Like, how does Israel in there and we don't have to be in there? I know. We're very lucky in that regard, but yeah. I mean, we mentioned this when we had our friends from the Germany-based podcast on

to talk about Eurovision. But like, isn't Israel being allowed to compete in the Eurovision song contest, just kind of giving up the game? Like, Egypt and Lebanon don't get entries. They're not doing Rim Tim Taggi songs. They should be allowed to do it. I think anything that was ever. controlled by Europeans should be allowed in Eurovision. Anything that was a colony, every country in the

Middle East, basically everything except Iran, maybe. Yeah, Iran, the Sentinel Islands. Mongolia. Yeah, like four countries that aren't allowed in. Yeah. Deep enough into Africa. Yeah, pretty much controlled by Germany for like two years. That doesn't count. Well, you mentioned the, how important this was to Israel that their, that they're, that they're so Hurricane do well. in the voting. You already mentioned it, but our favorite civilian spokesperson for Israel, Elon Levy,

he said, The real world isn't Twitter. The real world is Eurovision, and Eurovision loves Israel, except for the bigoted juries who probably exist on Twitter. But there's something about the phrase the real world is Eurovision

that I found so charming. Yeah, this seemed like a pretty hastily thrown together, Hasbara opportunity. Yeah. I feel like no one was paying attention. to it that halfway through, they were like, wait, if we win this, we can say that

everyone loves Israel. But they did, like... They did vote for Sanjaya. Yeah. That was their strategy. Yeah, but that, yeah, like, I literally must have seen like 40 posts by Israelis attesting to voter fraud. And not

that, you know, not the kind of joke that everyone's been doing since, uh, 2017 where they're like, I work, you know, I, I, I work in the fucking post office and I'm, killing Trump voters. Follow my new account. I got banned.

Yeah. I'm going to rape Charlie Kirk. Guys, I got banned. Yeah, you got to refollow me now. You got to drop what you're doing. Hold on. Hey, can you retweet this announcement of my new account? But no, yeah, they were openly admitting to it.

You have to use your credit card. That's weird. Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't fully get it. I don't know if you have to pay or not. Is that a new thing? As best I can understand it, there is the actual jury voting, which determines who gets to be the king of Europe for the next year. And then there's like the fan voting, which you can vote as many times as you want, provided you pay for it. Or I don't know, I mean, maybe you're not.

Do they just verify one of those deals? Like minarchy, like one of those things that Peter Thiel believes in. Like this is like ideal form of government? Yeah. Well, if you could vote with money. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it should be.

Yeah, there's a nobility that they're the most powerful people in determining who wrote the best song about being Swiss. And then everyone else can pay. That's what minarchy is, I think. Yeah. Peter Peer Thiel is currently creating some sort of incubation labs to create sort of Singapore-like communities in various American cities, of which the government is decided by who can do the gayest song at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, next song competition. But yeah, I'm sad that the,

the UK singer finished almost dead last. The singer Ali Alexander was consigned to 18th place out of 26. And that's his name. Ali Alexander. Oh, what? Yeah, that's unfortunate.

But it's not the guy. No, I'm sure you have his name, right? Is it, Ali London's the guy who got surgery to look Korean, right? No, no, yeah, Ali London is the guy who got surgery to look Korean. Ali Alexander is the, like, worst-looking guy in the world. He looks like Sammy Davis Jr.

That's sort of under-underselling. Oh, yeah, his name is Ali Alexander, but it's like Oliver. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I hear Ali Alexander and I think of the, uh, the fascist black guy. Yeah, no. Oh, right.

Ali Alexander is like, uh, he's the ugliest guy ever. He's the chin guy. Yeah, he looks like it's sort of like. There's a gigachad, dude. He looks like if you. for Sammy Davis Jr. to like get jaw cancer from from Gip over the course of

20 years. And he was like he was one of those, one of the few like conservative media environment me twos because he was one of those guys. He was a match slap type guy. Yeah. He would hang out with like a 22 year old named like Brickston Braxton. Brickston. Brxton. You know,

pizza party Dave or something. And be like, that was that was great doing our you know, our march against LGBT teachers. Could I try to jerk you off in my Kia soul? Yeah, that was the guy.

He's the guy with who has a chin but no jaw. It's very, very upsetting to look out. But yeah, the UK song Dizzy was only awarded 46 points. And the other big controversy this year is, I don't even think that Nemo's win can be considered legitimate because the Dutch contestant, juiced climb, was dequeed.

for, I don't know, some sort of confrontation with the Israeli media. He was taking off the official consideration, and I can only imagine were he allowed to perform what Jus Klein's song about being Dutch would have, I think that probably would have won. But the other big thing from the Eurovision song contest is the Irish entry this year was someone called Bambi Thug, who's some sort of gender witch.

And that was the thing that the Babylon BQD, into is that they were like, oh, like, the contrast between Eden and Bambi Thug is like the perfect contrast between like the wonderful civilization of Israel and the satanic civilization of Ireland. I think we need to send a hundred gecks. That's who we need to send to Eurovision. You know, apparently the Eurovision song contest has always been a home to political controversy because in the, I was reading up on this in the first Eurovision song contest, which was in 1956, which is crazy. I thought this was things like,

I thought this was like invented a couple years ago or something, but it goes back to 1956 and the Spanish entry in 1956, the song was to promote the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, like, well, what else are you going to sing about as a Spanish guy in 1956? Like, not a lot else going on. Hey, we just got calculus.

Hey, hey, somebody in our country got a job. It's in France, unfortunately. The Spanish, yeah, the Spanish Eurovision team is the only people in the country with a job. But then again, the thing about like the Israelis voting like 60 times, like when they're not doing that, they're like dumping boulders into the road to prevent aid from getting to Gaza. I know about the first person to ask this question, but does anyone in the state of Israel have a job? or are they just full on

like Hasbara trolling and spamming votes to Eden and her lovely song Hurricane about the falsely accused boxer? I think ideally that the economy works on Palestinian labor. Yeah. And they come in and they do all the jobs and then they go back to the slave quarters

in their quiet. And then it leaves everyone free to go to EDM festivals. I mean, good job if you can get a... You know how you could tell that Israel's like a completely jobless country is every clip I see of Israelis like hanging out and watching something like I saw a lot from Eurovision this year of Israelis at home all of them have outdoor backyard TV setups. That's that that's you know I know I know hypocritical of me to say this but that is I've never known somebody with a job who does that. No one who's employed is like oh I we should watch TV in my

yard. Yeah, that's a retired person thing. Yeah. For someone who just bought a house because they got hit by a bus. Yeah, well, so congratulations to all the European countries on this wonderful competition. I'm sorry, it was marred by controversy. And better luck to Israel next year. Turning to the United States, a big, big news story this morning, courtesy of the New York Times, is some rather disconcerting polls for Joe Biden, headline Trump leads in five key states as young and non-white voters expressed discontent with Biden. A new set of times in a poll, including one with the Philadelphia Inquirer, reveal an erosion of support for the president among young and non-white voters upset about the economy and Gaza. Now, I think the interesting thing about these

poll results that people have pointed out is that, like, it shows that Biden is trailing Trump in states in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada. But in all those same states, the Senate races there are going to the Democrats. So, like, Biden is losing states where Democratic senators are pulling ahead. Is that good? Yeah. You know what? I think Biden's probably going to win this election.

But these polls are bad for them. And you can tell that it's bad because the scolding has just skyrocketed exponentially. they're feeling pressure right now. And, you know, I mean, like, it's, it's an old story. It's a song we've sung on this show many times before. But, yeah, like they're getting ready to blame, you know, the people who are not saying that they're not going to vote for Biden. People who weren't going to vote anyway.

Yeah. Like 21-year-olds in New York State. That's not who you need to count on. They need to be, they need to be checking with every boomer they know in the suburbs and saying, are you going to vote? They need to, like, drive to their house on election day in, get them out there. That's who you need voting. You don't need to be worried about college students in blue states. That's completely irrelevant. Well, you know, so we're seeing, we're seeing like

over the weekend, like, we're seeing the chorus, the crescendo building up to like preemptively blame, yeah, college students for Biden not winning. And, you know, like, certainly indicative of that was Hillary Clinton's appearance on TV where she said, many young people she's spoken to don't know very much about the history of the middle of the middle. least or frankly about history in many areas of the world. What young people are, is she speaking to? Like people that like people that like Bill rapes? Yeah, when I talk to them in court, they don't know anything.

Yeah, I mean, uh, the ones in cages don't, uh, the ones in cages in his basement don't have the best, uh, the most perfect recall about the Oslo Accords. but yeah, they're getting very colloquy about this. And I guess like this comes on also news over the weekend about, I don't know, Biden's saying that he's going to limit certain weapons sales to Israel. And then like on top of that, the delayed release, they finally delayed the release of a report that the State Department was like mandated to make about are our weapons being used to violate international law?

And they delayed that report. They slow walked it. They released it on a Friday. And the report basically. said it's reasonable to conclude that some of our weapons might have been used in incidents that violate international law, but we don't have the full picture. Like, we haven't investigated it thoroughly enough because we can't Israel, but we're going to take Israel's word for it.

So, I mean, like, it's hard for me to think, like, with these moves, whether it's like releasing this, this report for the State Department or saying we're not going to sell them certain kinds of offensive weapons. this seems like he's doing the worst of both worlds because it's certainly not going to gain him any favor among, I don't know, me or people like me or like, you know, listeners of this show, nor that they want that. But now it's going to further enrage the Israel supporters.

I mean, what do you guys make of the weapons limitation? Yeah, I mean, like it's not really surprising. I feel like we've seen a billion things with Biden, whether it's Israel or not, where a policy gets announced and people are like, see, this is exactly what you wanted. He's doing exactly what you wanted. You don't yell at him anymore. And then it comes out that it's like, you know, it's for like three percent of whatever

that thing is, no matter what it is. And then after 12 hours, they're like, okay, we're done doing it. We can't do it anymore. Yeah, or it gets struck down by the courts. Yeah. Oh, well, we tried. Yeah. But like, yeah, no, I think you're dead.

in that it's the perfect Biden policy because it doesn't accomplish anything and it pisses off everyone. It would be one thing to like, yeah, just go all in and be like no restrictions, like, you know, nothing. But you're preemptively shooting yourself in the foot and opening yourself off to attack from like Israel

and like the few people in America who are like more Zionists than Joe Biden. the like two or three people that include Sheldon Adelson's lingering ghost. Yeah, people weren't going to vote for him anyway. Yeah. But yeah, also just like let's down everyone. And this, the whole thing reminded me of something I read a few years ago where like, people love to say that if we didn't supply Israel,

they would just get their weapons from like any of their numerous other weapons dealers, which, you know, they do, they do have like a, military trade with a few other countries, but no one can supply the type of volume or the type of stuff that works with their hardware like we can. They frequently run out of the munitions. There was a time in like 2019

where they were trying to bomb Gaza and they had to use 70-year-old Indian-made bombs that are just used for training purposes. What do they do with all that ammo? Did they eat it? Are they dumping it out in the road to block cars? just huge crates of ammo. We send them so much shit.

How are they ever, like the fact that they have to ask for weapons at all. Like, God damn. I mean, well, that should be a good indication of how many people they've killed so far is that they're running out of the bombs to keep doing it. Yeah, I mean, the way that they, like, prosecute any air war is like a bad counterstrike player. They just throw all their utility at the start of the round and they're like, does anyone have an extra smoke? Do you drop me something?

Then after it's gone, you send just infantry walking into the city unguarded. What happened? Yeah, so he's looking not so hot in the polls. And I don't know, it's just like, it's just like the bargaining that keeps going on. Like, you feel like you're right about like everyone who's just like, what he's saying now is like, oh, a ceasefire is on the table, but Hamas turned it down, which is literally the exact opposite of what happened like the last week. and like it's been covered in the media like but he but he's saying now like oh we we had a ceasefire but oh like I've done what you people wanted yeah the feel like the back to this thing about like these people who think that like oh like he he did the thing that you're that the protesters wanted

like why are they still mad at him like you have to stop talking about it now but like what the protesters want is like a meaningful you know like an end to this war they want him to be against this war but he's for this war but he's trying to do these half measures to make it seem like it. The attitude seems to be that like, the attitude that the State Department has is that Israel has the right to kill every man, woman, and child in Gaza, but we wish they wouldn't. Yeah.

It's the one avenue where the U.S. cannot or will not meaningfully apply pressure to anyone else. It's, it's somehow impossible. And that's, that has sort of been the line of Biden surrogates in the media. Israel is a completely independent country. they're just a normal country like anyone else. And just like all the other normal countries, the U.S. has no possible way of pressuring them into doing anything.

Which, of course, like brings into question what the point of the entire bear hug strategy was that. Yeah, it's like Joe Biden is president. It's him just admitting like, what am I supposed to do? Come on. Look, look at what I got here. What am I? You expect me to do something? Just pointing at the relationship we have in the Israel lobby.

like, come on. What do you expect me to, what am I supposed to do here? Come on. That's just the whole argument. Like, okay, well, what's the point of having you then? If you can't do anything, if you're just a figurehead for it. Why does it even matter? Right. All the defenses of Biden seemed to boil down to that. He can't do anything. What would you have him do? I don't know, any of the things he ran on. Something with zero consequences. Well, the other line that I encountered this weekend is this like is is the insistence that it will be they will be worth not just for America but it'll be worse for Palestinians under Trump which is you know by all by all account it's probably true but like the thing is that hasn't happened yet and like I just like I

don't know I'm not swayed by the like you know Lindsay Graham was on TV this weekend saying that like Israel could be justified in using nuclear bombs like we did it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which like, aren't they trying to colonize the Gaza strip? I don't know, like, if dropping nuclear bombs on the Gaza strip would aid in that? Wouldn't the fallout, like, reach, I mean, it's like right next to Israel. Yeah, they would immediately send their guys into the fallout. The way the IDF works, they would see the mushroom cloud and they would just be like, march in there. No armor.

Just go in and be like, well, a hundred thousand of our guys died for no reason. But, you know, I mean, like, you know, and obviously Trump is very anti-protester, anti-palist, anti-Palestine. Yeah, very bad too. But it's just like, I don't know, I guess I'm not swayed by this like moral bargaining that like assuages your support of the president that's currently doing a genocide with like the even like even likely hypothetical worst scenario of the other guy. That's just not who it comes down to. At the end of the day, it doesn't come down to Muslim communities in Michigan or young people, college students, millennials. It just comes down to boomers like which boomers in the suburbs get out and vote. that day. That's all it comes down to. And it's a way better story to say it's all the ungrateful young people and the protesters. And it's all this shit that we stab Biden in the back. But it's just, it's boomers. It's which boomers go out and vote and how many of them on each side die before the election. That's what we're talking about. It's already decided basically by which of them

have diabetes. And like to that point, you know, like the much vaunted like Haley Biden voter that, you know, we don't even know if that exists in statistically significant numbers, probably not. But that general type of voter, right, someone who voted for Republicans three cycles ago, they are more reliably, like, defecting from the Biden side. Yeah, exactly. Than any of the people that, you know, everyone has written articles about. But yeah, no, everyone knows this.

It's just not as good of a story. And, like, I guess, like, I'm also not in. by this kind of hostage taking, where it's just like, you have to leverage people who are vulnerable in America, like, you know, immigrants or women.

You have to like leverage what might happen to them under Trump with like Joe Biden's victims in Palestine, where it's just like, oh, you have to let, you have to let Israel keep killing people because if you don't, then, you know,

like Latinos, gay people, trans people, women will suffer in this country. So it's just like to play the, to play the, those two things off against each other, I find deeply sort of immoral and unpleasant. Yeah. And there's also the implication that it's not already happening.

Yeah. That there's not already most of the shit that Trump was doing at the border continuing in abortion being banned in all these states and anti-LGB hate crimes. Like, it's not all going on right now. Right. And if all that stuff is so much more important than any foreign policy choice, then why is Biden prioritizing? Yeah. Let's take that. money and spend it on that. Right. Instead of sending it to a country across the world.

There's no onus on the president who has completely cratered his approval numbers and any projections for a government that fucking hates him. And they don't allow gay marriage. No, they don't. Like a lot of Biden voters, they would say that southern states, oh, Mississippi, let them all fucking die because they're red states and they vote red and they don't have gay marriage and abortion. But what about Israel then?

Yeah. I mean, to go back to our episode with Edinjermanentan, Netanyahu is the centrist of the Israeli government. Like, he's the center of Israeli politics. And I don't know, it's just like this refrain heard over and over again that like you, you have no idea it's going to be so much worse under Donald Trump. And look, things can always get worse and probably will get worse. But like, this is not exactly the most inspiring making the case for Biden. Like if you really do care and want Biden to be president, you're going to have to do better than just saying it's going to be worse under Trump because Trump has already been president. And Joe Biden is president now. And like all this shit is like unspeakably evil. And I guess like it's just, you know, I feel like, you know, we've talked about this in 2016. We now have through three election cycles on this show.

And some people have got to decide like as long as Republicans exist, does that give the Democrats license to do basically anything? As long as Republicans are further to the right than Democrats, then like, it doesn't matter how far to the right Democrats go. If Republicans just keep going right. If the alternative is always worse, then, like, doesn't that just give the Democrats and the Democratic White House license to commit unspeakable evil as they're doing right now? And if, like, and if you'll still vote for them, doesn't that just license them to continue doing more in the future? Like, it would be bad to like, yeah, sure, it would be bad if Trump is president. But I would say it's equally or worse. it's an equally bad or worse outcome

that like any president can just do this and establish that as like a new baseline normal and suffer no consequences for it. I think that would be pretty bad for the future going forward or for like progressive or liberal goals. If like if that is just a new standard that we all have to accept is like yeah, look, if you care about the minimum wage here at home,

you have to let Israel commit unlimited mass murder. Right. And under what conditions then would it be acceptable to? not vote for a Democrat. Is there anything that they could ever do that would be, riddle them to a vote? I mean, like, they've already given, the D-Triple C already has like given, already supported like pro-life Democrats against like actual, you know, women's rights supporting, you know, primary challengers. Yeah, we got Henry Quaylar down there. Yeah. Being indicted now. Yeah. Good thing we have him in there so we could protect Roe v. Wade.

abortion's all safe because we supported those guys. It was, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. You have to be such a fucking loser to go down for bribes from Azerbaijan, not even the real Turkey. Yeah, at least Bob Menendez was getting gold bars from Egypt and others. Yeah, Egypt is a classic country. I didn't even hear about Azerbaijan until like 2014. They didn't have that when I was growing up.

Yeah, it should be part of Iran. They're just Iranians. Egypt is probably the most classic country. Is there an older country than Egypt? Iraq. Iraq, Iraq, yeah. If you want to get real technical about it. What country was Yaqub from?

Illinois. Black Israel, black Israel is the oldest country. And white Israel is the newest one. White Israel is the newest country. Black Israel is the oldest. But yeah, I mean, once again, like, I'm like a fucking broken record here. But everyone mad at me in my mentions, I was got to say, like, decide for yourself whether whether the left has any leverage over elections.

I mean, like, because I've already decided I'm just venting my spleen. I'm just the guy talking. I think we already tried, we already tried to intervene in American politics last election cycle. And I think it's been pretty well established that that was a failure. So I'm just talking shit now. You've already like established that we have no influence over like determining a presidential election.

So it's just people who are mad at like having to see other people call them immoral. And it's just like, look, have the stomach to just like go with the flow, just do you. But just don't get mad at me for saying I'm not going to vote for Biden because I'm not. Yeah, you're doing the necessary evil. It's still evil. Yeah. People can say, well, that's evil. So yeah, like just if the left is irrelevant to electoral politics in this country,

which I think is like pretty well established by this point, then just like take a load off. Stop fucking complaining. It's like whatever will be will be. But you don't want our, want my. support or the left to the extent that it exists in this country. So just relax. It's it's vote for whoever you want to vote. And like yeah, like and start knocking on the doors of those boomer suburbs now. Yeah, that's what's important. Get those people motivated. Get them out there. Get them whipped up. Get them the medical treatment they need so they can make it to remember. Yeah, make sure they live.

I guess as long as we're talking about the election, should focus on the other side. Trump said he, he nixed, he is nixed Nikki Haley for a VP spot. This is from Axios. It says a day after sources told Axios that Nikki Haley was under active consideration by Donald Trump campaign, Donald Trump's campaign to be his running mate. He stepped in and nixed the idea. Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the VP slot, but I wish her well, Trump wrote on his truth social platform.

What do you think? Is this a bungal by Trump? I mean, kind of. Haley was never a great choice, but probably like the lead. electorally damaging choice that he had, right? But that was just, it was never going to happen. It was, he was never going to pick her. And honestly, probably, probably, like for the general, the best choice, but it would have

at least pissed off a few people in the base. Yeah. Yeah. You would feel that he was conceding to the center. If he had a attack to the center that was that obvious, it would have to be something like something completely out of left field like Rod Blagojevich as a VP. Oh, God. Some weird thing like that where he like gets a Democrat that's completely disgraced.

He would do something like that and then get a bunch of centrist voters that way. But if it was something that like Bill Crystal would recognize as attack to the center, he would never do that because he would be giving in. Yeah. Felix, call up your boy. See if he's in, see if he's gotten any consideration. We still have incredible conversations, me and Rob. Or Kwame Kilpatrick, the old mayor of Detroit.

He pardoned him. Trump pardoned him. Oh, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had those great texts that were on the news with his mistress where he was saying, he said, uh, you had me at hello, I think. And then Jerry McGuire 2000, which is not the year that movie came out. See, I would say like on paper, it would seem like Nikki Haley would make the most sense for him.

But I got to say for exactly the reasons you said, Alex, that Nikki Haley is like the perfect president. for the weekly standard. Like she is like the neocon like mold. She is the perfect president for like what the Republican establishment wants in the White House. So if she were a heartbeat away from being the president, I think Trump would be a fool to choose her because if he made her his VP,

they would, they would hit his ass with a heart attack gun. They would kill him. Oh yeah. To get to get her to be president. So I think like you got to like Mike Pence, you got to have a singularly uninspiring dickhead that like nobody really likes or cares about to be your VP.

you can have your number two guy be smarter or or crucially more in any better standing with the neo-con mafia who runs the Republican Party in D.C. because they will kill you. I think that like Tulsi Gabbard is a more realistic choice and I don't think that will happen either. What do you think about like Tulsi Gabbard, Nikki Haley, what do you think about this in light of the, did you see the interview that Vivek Ramsewame did with Andrew? Colter over the weekend where he was giggling along with her. And then she told him, I agree with you. I liked you more than any other Republican candidates, but I would never have voted for you because you're Indian. What do you even say? I mean, like, just depressing all around.

He not, like, he not only was like, yes, thank you. He like, that's how he advertised the podcast. He's like, listen to this one. She says something racist to me. And I agree with her. But's the only reason we're talking about his podcast. Yeah. I know he had a podcast. Yeah. It's like a dunk tank that he's in for racist. I get to just shout abuse at him. I did see some replies to that that were funny that were like, Anne Coulter's not actually based because she used to have sex with black guys and Jews.

And she never had kids. It's true. She never did have kids. And you kind of got to choose. Like either you want a trad wife or you want like a 60-year-old slay queen. socialite. I don't think she would be Anne Colter if she settled down.

She dated Bill Marr at, no, Keith Olberman dated Laura Ingraham. Yeah, Keith Olberman dated Laura Ingram at college. Yeah. But I mean, whoever Trump picks,

you know, it's got to be right for him. Just pick Ann Coulter. Yeah, pick Anne Coulter. Well, actually, there's one figure

that Trump has been talking about a lot recently. And I'm, I'm hoping that he makes it into the VP consideration. That is fictional character, Hannibal Lecter. I'm so glad he brought it back. This has been really fun.

Yeah. This has really been. You know, you could tell the world needed one. The world needed something fun. Silence of the Lamb. Has anyone ever seen the Silence of the Lent? The late great Hannibal Lecter. He's a wonderful man.

He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last thing? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Is this poor doctor walked by? I'm about to have a friend for dinner, but Hannibal Lecter, congratulations, the late-grade Hannibal-Lector, we have people that are being released into our country that we don't want in our country. Yeah, no, in recent campaign stops, Trump has been talking about Hannibal Lecter like he's a real

person, saying of course, saying of him, the late-great Hannibal Lecter. Do you remember Hannibal-Lector? Yeah, that's the part that's kind of confusing. Like, it sort of makes sense what he's saying. He's like, they're letting in people from. insane asylums coming to the country like Hannibal Lecter, which just as an aside, he was a doctor, by the way. Yeah, that's the kind of a genius psychiatrist.

So, yeah, we want those people. It would actually be brain drained from Mexico if Hannibal Lecters came over the border. But he's like, he's saying he's late and great, but he doesn't, he doesn't die in the movie. And Anthony Hopkins is still around. Yeah. I'm not sure what he's even referring to. Has Anthony Hopkins ever made reference to Trump by the way?

No, that was his one thing is he used to say. The actor Hannibal Lecter, he's a big fan of me. And you look it up and Anthony Hopkins has never mentioned him. He's British and he's not a Republican. It would be very stooped like Sir Anthony Hopkins. He's knighted. He's not going to be saying like, yeah, mega. It's the weirdest guy you could possibly pick.

Like you could say like Sylvester Stallone endorsed me and it's probably true. There's so many old ass actors you could pick. But an old British guy like that who's like, never makes public statements. Like, he wouldn't even endorse a British election. He wouldn't endorse labor or anything because he's just like a, he's like the queen. Frank Stallone definitely has endorsed Donald Trump. That I'm 100% sure of.

There's no one around to make fun of him now that Norm's dead. He's getting too confident. But I love when he engages the audience about movies. Like, remember when he talked about Sunset Boulevard? You know, I'm looking for like, where, let's get gone with the wind. Can we get like gone with the wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard, so many great movies. When he talks about great movie, like classic movies like Sunset Boulevard,

Norma Desmond, folks, ready for my close up, Mr. DeMil. And he starts doing lines from the movie where you remember that movie? He's having a friend for dinner. Remember the doctor coming up the plane? He's having a friend for dinner. Trump is should be a film critic. It's shades of the New York Trump. Yeah.

Like the guy who loves the queenie, mid-century culture. Yep. The guy he just wants to gab about musicals and shit in Sacks Fifth Avenue. They've mostly gotten rid of that. They've Florida-tized him.

It's very sad. Yeah, yeah. He's lost his connection to mid-century American culture like Sunset Boulevard living in Florida all the time. He's become rootless. I love how like stumped the crowd was when he started talking about Sunset Boulevard.

Yeah. Like all those, like that audience, that those are the people, that are still buying like those Bruce Willis movies that were made long after the ones were filming when he was fully brain dead. Yeah. He doesn't have any lines. Yeah.

All the Bruce Willis movies called like Final Notice that were produced by Lala Kent's boyfriend. 60 seconds to kill. Yeah. Yeah, by the guy Turtle from Entourage is based on who's doing elder reviews to Bruce Willis to make 60 direct to video movies a year. I don't know how you break even on that. Just paying Bruce Willis, that seems like it would get rid of most of the profits. Alex, it's no, it's all, it's all like overseas markets.

Because if you just get Al Pacino or Bruce Willis in a movie and pay them like some, you pay most of the budget for just like one day of them on set. And then you build a movie as starring Bruce Willis or Al Pacino. It does gangbusters overseas in like Asia or India. You should do that. You should do it for. movie madness. Or movie mindset.

That's like if Trump had to endorse movie mindset. Movie madness. It's a fine. Movie madness. Will Meneker is mad for movies. Like how much would it cost to get Frank Stallone? Okay.

Can we dedicate maybe a quarter of this month's Patreon to hiring Frank Stallone to be in a movie? I don't even think it would cause that. Or Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis. is dirt cheap. He is dirt cheap. Movie madness. I don't like the young man very much, but as the young lady, then that's a denny. She's all class and she loves the movies, ladies and gentlemen. But yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think Anthony Hopkins should be Trump's VP. Well, he couldn't be president. That's the problem.

That's the perfect insurance. Yes. I guess he would probably die right away because he would be older than Trump and then it would be the Speaker of the House. It'll be Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson. But they want to get him out. They have to make sure it's someone good. Trump should run on bringing back Dennis Hastert. We've forgiven him.

Why do the, why does Marjorie Taylor Green want Mike Johnson out of the speaker, out of the speaker position? And now like the Democrats are the ones supporting him. I don't know. I think it's personal animus for her. I think it's just personal, yeah. It's grudges that she has and the whole party isn't really. behind her. Now that she's doing the inter-Republican drama things, people are pretty sick of her.

It was funny when she was attacking the Democrats, but when she's doing these speaker races and it's clear that it's just some grudge she has, I guess they can't get rid of her, though. Same thing with Lauren Bobert. It's not like you can run someone against them in those districts. Yeah. Mike Johnson's Covenant Eyes app was interfering with Marjorie Taylor Green's viewing habits. He was sending her an audit of the CrossFit teachers. that she's currently involved in dalliances with. Oh, right. He's the one who goons with his son.

He's the one who, well, yeah, him and his son monitor each other's internet porn habits. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. That's better than what Dennis Hastert was doing. He's doing it with other people's kids. Yeah, he was only doing it one way. The kids should have been allowed to see his porn habits, too. And it would have been normal.

I think. I'm just going by what we were political. are doing. Oh, man. It's okay to jack off with your son. It's okay to kiss him too, like Tom Brady. Because like,

I was thinking about that and it's horrifying as a thought being of like your dad, you know, checking how many times you visited browsers.com over the last week. I think infinitely worse would be having to call out your dad

for what he's looking at, pornography-wise. Yeah, pictures of your mom. It's all just pictures of him fucking your mom. But dad, stop looking at that because it comes up on my phone and I can see it every time. Would that count as pornography, though?

Wouldn't that be godly? Because you're having sex with your wife. I think that creates an infinite feedback loop where the father is looking at footage of him fucking the wife. And then it appears on the son's phone. And then the son has porn on his phone because it becomes porn once the son sees it. You're right. Dad has to tell him not to do that. Then it appears back.

in the dad's phone. They shouldn't have that. It's godly to record footage on your phone of you having sex with your wife as a marital aid to, you know, encourage Canubial Bliss. But as soon as you said it. This routine really worked for me. The one time we got it in. We got it in the hole correctly.

Let's film this so we know how to do it. Yeah, but once you share it with your son, then it becomes. comes pornography. Yeah. Yeah. He shouldn't be allowed to see it. And if he does,

he can't jack off. You have to rush into the room the second of your son sees it to make sure he's not jacking off. I think that's fair for everyone. Yeah. This guy should definitely continue to be speaker of the house.

Yeah, guys you don't have self-control about what websites they can go to. That's really good that they can control the country. They have to have an app to keep them from jacking off too much. Well, they sound really responsible. That's all.

awesome. Like Mike Pence not being able to be alone with like another woman. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well, it sounds like you are just like a millimeter away from disaster at all times. Like you have to have horse blinders on you or else you're just going to veer off the trail off. You're going to bolt. You're going to bolt. You're going to bolt. You're going to bolt the second we take the blinders off. Like, I don't trust you then. Yeah. I got yelled at so much when I said that like, I think like porn addiction is technically like a real thing. But it's only,

it only happens to stupid people. Like that is a problem. More or less, yeah. There are a lot of people who are, a lot of people who are not equipped to have a phone in their pocket where they can open up porn at any time. Like some people can handle that and some people are below the IQ threshold where

that is like, you can't have that. You can't put that in their cage. They can't have that enrichment. I've never heard of it happen to a smart person. It is literally a problem. that would, you know, a remedial chimp, if you gave a remedial chimp an iPad, they would have the same issue. It is the marker of a very low IQ. And people were like, I got so many DMs that were like, I ruined my life doing this. What do you say to that? And it's like, you weren't going to have

much of one anyway. I'm sorry. Yeah, no one was the thing. Like that's the thing. Like for a lot of those guys, like if you stop jacking off now at age 45, you're not going to get anywhere. I'm sorry. cultivate any other hobbies. You're not going to pick up woodworking now in your 40s. You just don't worry about it. Oh, yeah, like the people that run the country, they're like, sorry, I couldn't vote on passing this latest budget. I was in the throes of a 14-hour goon session.

Yeah, no, this is, it's just, it's not happening to our greatest minds. Like, you know, that wasn't, like, there's no version of like, you know, the Oppenheimer story where he's like, oh, I can't, I can't, I can't split. Adams. I'm looking at lithographs. He was getting real pussy. Yeah. He was fucking everyone's wives at Los Alamos. If you were a scientist on the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer had sex. That didn't even stop him. I don't support him anymore. Yeah. Just to close things out here, I did want to just briefly look at this New York Times piece. It's one of their, one of their sort of like weekly or monthly just conversations between Gail Collins and Brett Stevens. I don't know why

they publish this absolute dribble. But it's about commencement. And I want to bring it up because I was at a commencement on Saturday. Shout out to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2024 graduating class. And one individual in particular who I was there to support. But the commencement speaker was a hockey player who was a badger women's hockey player. And in her commencement address, she was like telling a story about how like, you know, failure is only a failure if you don't learn from it.

And she talks about like, you know, in the 2016 Winter Olympics, when we lost to Canada and like the, then we silvered. And then in the like 2020, she goes through two Olympics where they silvered and they came in second to Canada. And then she's, and I was like, okay, if she doesn't come out with a gold here, I'm leaving because this is disrespect to Wisconsin. It's disrespect to America. But luckily, she did finally win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics against Canada.

So congratulations. to her and the U.S. women's hockey team. But obviously commencement addresses are in the air now. In light of Felix, your comment, if jerking off the pornography could ruin your life, you weren't going to have much of a life to begin with, did you see the thing where that Hasbara account was like,

those students that walked out of Jerry Seinfeld's commencement address at Duke just missed the best moment of their lives. And if that's true, if that was true, just kill yourself right now. Yeah. Holy shit. Take the cap and the gown off and just shoot yourself if that's the peak. Listening to Jerry Seinfeld talk about following your dreams. Jesus Christ. I saw one of those people say, I would have given anything to have Jerry Seinfeld speak at my commencement. Jesus Christ.

I am high, man. I actually got a shout out in the weekly standard this week because they saw my, they saw my, you know, privileged Upper West Side or as I am. They saw my comments about how any student who cares about going to their commencement is a rub. And they got very angry about that because I was disrespecting the, I don't know, like the rights of college students. Yeah, immigrant parents. And I'm like, you know, it's good to know the weekly standard cares so much about the rights of students. I will add, though, I was speaking specifically about students who don't like Israel. I was calling them roos.

So please, I'll accept your apology in the mail weekly standard. but I want to get into this asinine conversation between Gail Collins and Brett Stevens. Brett Stevens says, hi, Gail, it's commencement season. Though at least a few ceremonies are being canceled on account of all the protests, if you were giving a graduation address, what would you say? Gail replies, well, I've given a commencement address or two in my time, but even when things were troubled, I could tell that most of the audience was hoping I'd make them laugh, just in a way that made them feel like it was okay to celebrate their achievements

by having a good time with their families and friends. Brett says, last time I spoke to a graduating class, I tried to compare great arguments to great sex. Not sure how that one went over. So this is what you're missing if you protest. You don't know how it went over? You were standing there in front of 10,000 people, Brett. How were you supposed to, like, it wasn't, was it over the phone? You're in front of an audience.

Also, who laughs at a commencement address? Yeah. You got to be one sick fuck. You're listening to that and it makes you smile. They should just book these children's birthday parties. Like get a magician. Yeah, there should be a clown. Yeah, like the guy at the University of Ohio.

Yeah, like that guy. That guy was cool. That guy made six quarters turned into one Bitcoin. Brett's talking about how great conversations are like great sex. Disgusting. Well, Gail says, well, I wish I'd been the audience for that. Don't know exactly what I'd say to current graduates, except that I'd congratulate them on having made it through a time of international

turmoil, where both presumptive presidential nominees were almost old enough to be their great grandfathers. Brett replies, I'd urge them to do everything they can to cultivate an inner life, especially since social media is always trying to suck it out of them. Commit great poems to heart, starting with those by Gerald Manley Hopkins and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Recite them out louder on solitary walks. Compose dirty limericks in your head. Read more for pleasure, less for purpose. Read immediately Marguerite Eucenair's memorand, memorand, Memoirs of a herodin. Memoirs of a herodin.

So he's assigning homework, basically. Memoirs of a hate. The people who just got their diploma and they're done with school forever. And he's like, all right, here's 12 poems that you need to memorize. How about fuck you? I'm done with this. Sorry, it's memoirs of Hadrian, not memoirs of a herodon. Sorry for misreading that.

Imitate the writers or artists you most admire. You'll find your own voice in style in all the ways your imitation falls short. Don't post self-indulgent glam shots of your, yourself on Instagram. Please stop photographing your damn meals. Who does that? That's like, what the fuck? That's a complaint. That was a complaint about his generation, really. Like people Brett Stevens age, they were the ones that are photographing their meals and putting it on Instagram. Those never millennials or zoomers. Yeah, I would just like to stress to this graduating class of 2024. Please stop photographing your meals. And not every movie you get out of Redbox is,

quote, the best movie ever. Develop more in discerning tastes when it comes to the film as you watch. Is that really in there? No. Okay. I had to check. And Brett says, also, think of TikTok as your generation's cocaine and get off it. Work hard on keeping a few good friendships, not gaining thousands of followers. Issue envy, cynicism, and virtue signaling.

Ponder the meaning of the word, Hinenai. What does that mean? Make only enough money so that you don't have to think about it much. Preserve an independence of mind and spirit and nurture a contrarian opinion or two, especially if it goes against your own political side, but definitely not any contrary in opinions about Israel. What does this word, N and I mean?

It's probably Hebrew. Okay. I'm looking up now. Yeah, no, no, it's the Hebrew word for I'm ready, Lord, or also translated as here I am. It's just common sense. All of it is common sense.

Here I am. They eat when you're hungry, but not too much because you might get full. And sleep when you're tired, drink when you're thirsty. All right, thanks. That's awesome. I'm sure these 22-year-olds are just,

jumping at the chance to hear that kind of shit. Then the other half of it is like a rage comic about Justin Bieber. Stop taking hipster selfies with your Starbucks. What? Yeah, stop taking pictures of your meals. What the fuck are you talking? Like, that's how you can tell he doesn't know a single young person on Instagram

because he thinks none of them do cocaine. And they just take pictures of their meals. TikTok is your generation's cocaine. I think he's bragging. I think he's bragging here. They still have it. He's like, my generation had real cocaine. Yours has TikTok.

We had clay lutes too. But he's like 40s. Like he's not even at old. Didn't he grow up in the 90s? He's a damn, he's a 90s kid. How old is Brett Stevens? I heard a, uh, I heard a rumor once from a conservative media source. It was one of those where it's like, okay, like this is, you know, who'd you hear this from?

The rumor was that like Brett Stevens, uh, fucked Barry Weiss and that's why she left in New York Times. Wait, he fucked her? Yeah, it was one of those ones where it's like, okay, I don't know how much I believe this one. But it's funny, it's funny to imagine is true. Yeah. So why'd she leave? She was sleeping with the boss.

I figured she'd get better at column space. Apparently, like they were mad at her for some reason. They were like, hey, don't fuck Brett Stevens. You know you're a lesbian. Is this a lesbian? Yeah. That's the other problem with it. The five colleges.

She's going to sleeping with him. It came down to her and Dan Quinn in the lesbian Olympics. That's so weird. Again, I don't know how credible it is. The rumor I heard about Brett Stevens through a media source. And again, like Brett Stevens having sex with Barry Weiss, I need much stress that this is all alleged a hearsay that I'm now passing on as just simply a story that I heard. I heard on the day where everyone was calling him a bed bug. He shut himself in his office and cried all day long.

He was crying in his office and wouldn't let anyone in. Oh, I believe that one. Yeah, that one's a slightly more believable. It's crazy to be that guy and be worried about people liking you. To get to that point at that age and you're like, people have got to think I'm cool. The center, right, New York Times columnists who scolds people all day. Like, I just, I got to have people on Twitter thinking I'm cool or I'm going to kill myself. Well, I mean, that's why he's telling, that's why he's telling people to get, avoid, get liked in real life.

You know, that he wants, he wants a, I like that he said cultivate a few good friends, not thousands of followers. Because he's like, and when his Brett Stevens has a couple people in a lot of people in life who's like, Brett, we love you, you're doing great. It doesn't matter that like 10,000 people on the internet tell him to eat shit every day of his life. Sometimes when people say Twitter is in real life, they're actually saying the opposite. What they're saying is like, I'm exposed to the opinions of millions of people who don't have to be nice to me. And I want to go back to real life, which is me and my mom in my brother. And I just say stuff to my mom and my brother. And they say, yeah, you're right. That's real life. It's like, no, you have that completely backwards.

It's not real life. Eurovision is real life. That's right. And Eurovision loves Israel. And we love Eurovision. All right. Let's leave it there for today. I've got a flight to catch. I'll be back later this week.

We're talking a little bit more about Jerry Seinfeld, but later in this week. So stay tuned for that one. But that does it for us today. Thanks again to always enjoy to have Alex in the house today. Yes, sir. Or any day. Thank you, Alex. And everyone, once again, please check out Chopo, FYM.

our brothers and sisters. WFYM Talk Radio, new podcast out today. We talked about glory holes for most of it. They are on the... Can give us a little preview? Did you come down pro or con? Pro.

There's a great bit about Azizan Zari trying to do the fish hook move through it, through a glory hole. Trying to pull someone through like a fish. Yeah. They're at the forefront of finding new grotesques, the likes of which, None of us knew even existed.

Yeah, people say they can't eat while listening to it. Talk about people who photograph their meals. Oh, boy. They started the lingal craze. Imagine, Fred Stevens just giving a commencement address to like the graduating class of the group home that most of the people that you talk about. They would need that advice. Yeah, Lingle would actually benefit from a lot of this.

Yeah, those guys are the people who need to not be on social media. That's who you need to tell that to. Not people who just graduated from Columbia or Berkeley. Like, I think they, they, those people have the right balance probably. They can figure out how much to use your phone.

Yeah. People who just graduated from like the best universities in America need to be told. Yeah. Like, people who couldn't get into any college. Make sure. Those are the people who need to worry about like not being on their phone 18 hours a day. Yeah.

Make sure to eat a vegetable every now and again. Yeah. Clean your room. Change your pants. clean your leg wound Yeah, go to the doctor if it starts seeping again Leg wounds are not inherited from family members It's just an injury

It's just an injury You can't get it from your grandparents All right gang Till till next time Bye bye Bye bye