Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 378 | The Matt Lauer Story | Guest: John Ziegler

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

On this special episode 'The Matt Lauer Story' John Ziegler joins Chewing The Fat to talk about his conversation with Matt Lauer. Do you remember the Ronan Farrow story about Matt Lauer well John is here to tell it all. Subscribe on YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca. And now a Blaze Media podcast. You know, way back in another lifetime of October of 2019, you did a story talking about your meetup with Matt Lauer. and how you were, you know, fairly impressed and thought that, you know, his story needed to be told, but was there a place to tell it?

And then it kind of went away. And then a few days ago, here in 2020, in our new world and the new shadow of the pandemic, Matt released his expose on the Ronan Farrell debacle that I'll call it. I'm sorry, his book, and what transpired from there. Walk me through a little bit about the process of how you and Matt got together. Yeah, this is a fascinating element of a remarkable story because obviously, you know, I am not a celebrity journalist. I'm a senior columnist at Mediite. You guys at the Blaze know who I am, but, you know, I'm not well-known nationally. and you wouldn't think that I'm the person that Matt Lauer would seek out, especially if you know that when Matt Lauer was the host of the Today Show, he and I had done three rather high profile and newsmaking interviews on different subjects over an extended period of time.

And they were very contentious. We were not buddies. I felt like he did he did me no favors. I still give him crap about how he handled all of those situations. But I think we had a mutual respect in that I felt like he was the most, and he was the most formidable interviewer I had ever gone up against. And I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews. And so I thought he was really good at doing an interview.

And there were a couple of moments when we were in opposite foxholes against each other, where I kind of felt like I got to know him as a person where, he showed me that unlike most people in the elite media, that he was not a complete jackass, that he was fair, that he at least treated me decently when he could have treated me a lot worse. Well, he may, maybe he actually listened during the interview.

Yeah, right. I mean, and by the way, that's an important point, Jeffrey. I think deep down he knew I was on the right side, even though he couldn't portray that on the air. And so he had a respect for my ability to discern the truth and my courage to stand up for things I believe in, even if they're not popular. And so when the Ronan Farrow book came out, I wrote a column saying, hold on a second, because I'm well aware of how Ronan Farrow works. I'm very well aware of how this subject works. I have a very good BS detector.

And there were parts of the story that made me go, wait a minute, hold on. this doesn't forget about my experience with Matt Lowe. This doesn't make any sense. And so I wrote, I was the only person to write anything remotely skeptical of Pharaoh's allegation that Matt Lauer had committed rape at the 2014 Sochi Olympics with NBC producer. And I know this is going to sound crazy. And I know my wife thought it was crazy because she woke up one morning. And I was on the phone in our kitchen with Matt Lauer.

And I was not surprised when he called me. I was, even though I had not spoken to him for years, I just had a feeling that I was going to call me because I knew the nature of, of this story. I knew he trusted me. I knew, or at least respected me. And I also knew that I had stayed in touch with one of his producers.

And so when he called me and that's how he got in touch with me, that's how he got my contact information. So when he called me, I was not shocked as strange as it was. We spoke for several hours over numerous days, very frank conversations. And it's very, I want to make this clear, because this is not my first rodeo. I've been involved in high-profile situations like this before. And when I get involved, I am not like, oh, gee, wow, Matt, that's awesome.

Your story seems so cool. I am, this is not a pleasant experience. Well, you have to be. I mean, they have to be. Right, but I want to make clear, this is not a pleasant experience for anyone when I do the interrogation. And it was not a pleasant experience for Matt Lauer at all. I mean, I flat out told Matt Lauer things. I guarantee no one other than maybe his wife has said to him because I felt like he needed to hear it.

And I think he respected that. And so at a certain point, he said, why do you come to my house in the Hamptons? I live in Los Angeles or outside Los Angeles. And I'll tell you the whole story. And I won't go on the record, but you know, you can report on it as, you know, essentially, I mean, to call it off the record, I don't know if this is the accurate term. But it was a highly unusual, highly unusual situation where I would write about what we talked about and my impressions of his story. And there were a couple of details I was able to give. interestingly, and I found this in my very long experience, almost no interview is worth doing unless it gets canceled at one point.

And I think both of us canceled the trip before it actually happened. I don't remember if he canceled first or I canceled first, but we both canceled at one point and then finally decide, you know what, let's go ahead and do this. So I did this on my own dime, by the way. I took a red eye to the Hamptons, paid for it all myself, drove out in a rental car to the Hamptons, and we spent about six hours together, and it was extraordinary. It was, and in retrospect, after what Matt released this week, what was really amazing, is that he would not even let me put Ronan Farrow's book on his kitchen table, literally. He didn't want to see it.

He had not read any of it. he only knew the basic allegation. And this is important for two reasons. Number one, it's amazing that he transformed from a guy who didn't even want to see the book to a guy who literally went word by word, line by line, taking it apart with his own investigation. So that was 180 degree flip. But from an investigative standpoint, I thought that was fantastic because I was the person telling him what was in the book.

and therefore I was getting face-to-face real-time instantaneous reaction, which is about as good as you can get from an interviewer standpoint. I mean, if I'm the person telling the subject, hey, this is what Ronan Farrow says, I can gauge his reaction far better than if he's prepared, if he knows what to have what to say, what the holes in his story might be, if there are holes. So that was, from my standpoint, very credible. And so there was,

it was very clear to me after those five or six hours that there was a completely different side to this story than the one that Ronan Farrow told. And quite frankly, my suspicions were that that that side of the story was far more credible than Ronan Farrow's. But I didn't know this for sure yet. We need to do some investigation. And so at that point, Matt, when I got back to the LA area, Matt and I started speaking on the phone almost on a daily basis. I mean, there were several weeks where we, you know, things happened where we weren't on the phone. But I mean, I'm not one to as prone to exaggeration of this kind of thing, but I would guess we've probably been on the phone 100 hours in the last seven months, something like that. sometimes multiple times a day.

And basically, long story short, what happened here was Matt started his own investigation. Matt decided to do the reporting on his own situation and on Ronan Farrow's allegations. And what he found was astonishing. There were numerous things he knew to be false because he was the one experienced it. Not just to rape the allegation, by the way, but just all the details surrounding it, were off or totally wrong. And that's one of the keys to Ronan Farrow's M.O., Jeffrey. Ronan Farrow creates the impression of an incredibly well-researched and

investigated story by giving you minute details that make the reader think, wow, this guy read. He had to have done his research. Oh, he really got, wow, he even knows about, I'll give you a stupid little detail, a detail about the stationary that Matt Lauer used that Brooke Nevels saw in the hotel room in Soshi. And it turns out that was totally false. It's just made up. I don't know.

My guess is that Brooke Nevels once saw his stationary in his office and gave that up as a detail. And Ronan decided, wow, that'll really show authenticity and credibility. and we'll put that in Soshi, and it was actually totally wrong. It's not even what the stationary says. He didn't bring the stationary with him to Sosci. I mean, just a tiny little detail like that, but it's used by Farrow to make it seem like,

wow, he has really done his research. And then the key part of this, Jeffrey, was that there were four people, there were actually more than this, but there were four people who were willing to go on the record with Matt Lauer, who were used in Ronan Farrow's, book as corroboration for Brooke Neville's story. Now, these were incredibly important details that related to her credibility, corroborating her story. And those four people were never contacted

by Ronan Farrell. That's one of my favorite parts of the Matt Lauer article op-ed experience is where, you know, Matt lays it out that did, you know, did Ronan ever, show any real proof of that? No. No, he did not. How do I know? Because I did. It's just incredible. Yeah, it's very, he lays it out very well, but I want to make it clear to the audience what, what happened here. So, so there's these four people that are used for corroboration. Not only did Ronan Farrow and his fact checker never speak to them. Here's the really important part. That would be bad enough from a journalistic standpoint. Those four people tell entirely different stories than are in the book. And let me be very clear, Jevy. What's in the critique of Ronan Farrow's reporting by Matt Lauer is the

tip of the iceberg. You have to understand the context here because these are people who, I believe all four of them are still working in media jobs. Matt Lauer is. is, you know, considered persona non grata. He can do nothing. He can do nothing for these people. This is as toxic a subject as it gets. So these people have absolutely no incentive. Now, there's, I understand that there's a media outlet trying to discredit one of these

stories by claiming a very remote conflict of interest. And I can assure you that's bull crap. I know the details on that. And I actually hope, I actually hope, I hope this news outlet goes with a story. because if they do and if they out one of these particular four people, I think the backlash and what will happen next will actually be better than what was in Matt Lauer's story because I know the truth of the matter. So good luck with that reporters out there.

But here's what we now know for sure that Ronan Farrow did not even check with these people. He simply accepted the word of Brooke Nevels. In fact, he embellished the word of Brooke Nevels, never checked it. And now that he's been confronted on it, and this is to me, you know, the silence is deafening. He has no response. Ronan Farrow's only response is, I'm Ronan Farrow. He's Matt Lauer. Screw off.

I mean, that's essentially what he has said. And even Billy Bush, and even Billy Bush of Access Hollywood fame, who's now on extra. And let's be clear who Billy Bush is. Billy Bush is a former Today Show employee, and I'm probably one of like 10 people in the world that know this, although I did tweet it, tweet it, so I guess my followers do. Billy Bush was in the same bar as Matt Lauer and Brooke Neville's the night of the episode. I mean, so Billy Bush is a borderline witness to this situation, and Billy Bush took Ronan Farrow to the Woodshed on extra the other night, saying that his response to Matt Lauer's expose was completely. inaccurate. So two things from the experience that we're at right now. One is it's been about what maybe even 14, 15 years, boy, it doesn't feel that long, that we've got at a point now where

the media, mainstream media, decides what they want the outcome to be. And then so everything else before that has to fit the narrative to the outcome, not the other way around, right? Jeff, you just said there, that's 100% accurate. 100%. What you just said there is maybe the most important thing people need to understand about the modern news media, right there.

And number two is, when did Ronan Farrow, and I know he's, you know, royalty, when did we nominate him to be all seeing, all-knowing, guru of the world? Because it is the case.

I mean, it is the case. Besides this and even the Harvey Weinstein stuff is, you know, there's a lot of questionable stuff in that story. Then we move on to, I mean, he is, it was him because of him that they squashed, you know, I hate to do the mandatory disclaimer. I know these people are all dirt eggs and they deserve to get all the dirt thrown on that they can. But Harvey and Matt also are humans.

didn't do everything that somebody claims they did. And the same with his dad, right? I mean, they quashed his book, and it was just because of him. I mean, he's the all-seeing, all-new, and guru. How does that go away? Well, that's, I think, the primary motivation for Matt Lauer to tell his story. And one, he wants to correct the record about himself. But I do believe that he thinks that Ronan Farrow is a dangerous man who does not deserve this kind of power, that, in fact, you know, he's now become the moral arbiter of all male, female, sexual relationships in this country, which is, which is when you think about it, as bizarre as it gets, because, I mean, here's a guy who his own personal narrative should actually disqualify him from being the moral arbiter because his entire family, his entire family is, is immersed in the subject of a moral arbiter, because his entire family, is, is, is, is immersed in the subject of a alleged sexual abuse. He believes that his sister was sexually abused by his father and that this is why there's a massive rift between his mother and his father, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow,

and that this destroyed the entire family. Now, how can you possibly be objective about this subject when it is part of the DNA of your entire family existence? And by the way, just to be clear, I don't believe Woody Allen is guilty. I think the evidence is pretty strong that he is not guilty. I mean, I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I don't believe that Woody Allen is guilty of this, which to me goes to this issue of the entire persona of Ronanather, based in him believing a false allegation.

Right. And that was facilitated by his mother during a very brutal divorce and custody battle. So, and there, and let's also be clear, you're not allowed to say this, but I guess on this show, we probably are. Ron and Farrow happens to be gay. He happens to be gay. So that doesn't mean he's not allowed to speak about this, but he has never experienced a male-female sexual relationship as far as we are aware.

And therefore, has absolutely no expertise in the way that it might go down between, let's say, a celebrity and a female who's in the business. I mean, this is part of the reality, the real, world that no one wants to accept here. And so what, where do you think we're like so Matt Lauer lost the job and not because of the rape allegation, right? He lost the job because he admitted to having an A affair or affairs plural.

But NBC were at during that time, I mean, anybody that admitted to, you know, touching the back of a female is worthy of being strung up in town square. so he gets fired and now the rape allegation comes well it's been proven that brook was you know just happy a little pee in a pod talking about her affair with with matt what where did the rape allegation come in what what benefit does that have okay what what you just said is important for understanding the allegation against matt lower because i think understandably people have conflated the

infidelity allegation with the rape allegation. So here's what really happens, okay? Let's go back to 2017. The Harvey Weinstein thing hits. Me Too is all the rage. It's late fall, early winter of 2017.

And let's be clear, NBC is vulnerable because NBC is being attacked by Ronan Farrow as having spiked his Harvey Weinstein story. Now, I still believe Right. What I still believe, this is important context,

I still believe that NBC was correct at the time in not running Ronan Farrow's Harvey Weinstein story because I don't believe it was properly vetted. I don't believe they had enough based upon what the current situation was. And was it vindicated in retrospect? Maybe, but that's not how you do journalism. That's not how it works or that's not how it's supposed to work. So NBC is getting destroyed over this.

Now, in my view, they need a scout. They need to prove how down with Me Too they are. And so in the midst of this moral panic, Brooke Nevels comes forward to NBC. Now, to be clear, context is really important here. She comes forward to NBC with a lawyer and speaks to two female NBC human resource people. So this is not a situation where she's going in to the office of Dan Draper, mad men, you know, in the 1950s or 60s, this is, and one of the things that really, I find hilarious is that people seem to think that in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, an

politically correct, female-dominated media outlet you could possibly imagine. I mean, I've been in there in Rockefeller Center. I've been on the show, you know, today's show three times. I know the culture there. Not to mention, all I have to do is watch it. So the idea that somehow, you know, she wasn't free to tell her story in its full is absurd. But what's the story she tells? She tells them, I had an affair with Matt Lauer, and we had to.

sex in his office or in his dressing room and you need to know about this and there's no talk of rape there's no talk i mean she acknowledges that it's a multi-month affair uh there's no evidence at all that the word rape ever gets used or anything remotely uh involving a lack of consent so uh so matt lauer gets asked matt did you have a sex with a fellow NBC employee in your your your dressing room and Matt says yes. And in the midst of that moral panic, and I believe seeing an opportunity, I mean,

let's be clear. Sure. They get a, they get a, me too scalp. They get rid of a massive contract. I mean, and the television world was changing.

Remember, ratings are going down. Fragmentation is taking a toll. And so the, the era of the monster anchor with the huge contract, was essentially coming to an end. I mean, I don't, people need to understand the bigger picture.

Think about all the people that got decapitated at NBC in the last several years. I mean, you've got Brian Williams, Bob Costas, Matt Lauer, Chris Matthews. I mean, these are all, they're all white males making big money. And they all got to, you know, to one extent or the other, Brian Williams somehow is still surviving, but not making anywhere near the money he used to. Megan's in there, too. I know we're talking about just white males,

but Megan's in that mix somewhere, too, right? She was involved in all of that mix up at NBC too, right? Megan Kelly, yeah, that's a different story. That's what I know, but I'm just, I'm getting, mixing up all that. Well, no, that's fine. But anyway, just to be, so I'm just trying to create the context for the incentive structure for NBC at this time.

And NBC has, actually, a perverse incentive to get rid of Matt Lauer at that moment. And now Matt... He gave them the proof. He said, yeah, I did it. But interestingly, Matt still doesn't buy into this. Matt, in my opinion, Matt is still a little naive about the situation at that time. But you got to remember, I understand why that's the case. When you are the king of morning television for 20-some years and being treated the way,

that he is. I mean, my gosh. I mean, these people are treated literally like royalty and you think, you think the people around you really love you. I mean, I guarantee the same thing happened to Bill O'Reilly at Fox News Channel. I mean, you know, I don't think Bill O'Reilly had any idea what was coming down the pike for him. Because it's almost like you're an animal in a zoo where you lose your survival instincts. You start to think everyone around you loves you. when in fact they'll knife you in the back in a moment if it's in their in their best interest to do so and that was proven right and so so lower gets fired and um you know his marriage falls apart he's got obviously understandable family problems and he goes essentially goes away this is one very short

statement and he goes away and and and i think he was okay with going away i mean wasn't happy about it but I mean, I think he accepted it. And then all of a sudden, Ronan Farrow calls him up and says, hey, I've got some reporting on you that I want to check with you on. And they meet before the publishing of this book. And, you know, that was that meeting based upon my conversations with Matt and another person that was in that meeting who was a friend of Matt's, who happens to be a lawyer, was rather extraordinary because Matt is shocked to find

that Brooke Neville's allegation is going. gone from consensual sex in his dressing room to now an act of rape at the Socioelympics in 2014. And essentially he's like, well, how does this, how did this happen? What are you talking about? And now we're, let's be clear, this is 2019 now. We're five years after the Sochi Olympics. And Ronan Farrow tells Matt Lauer and his friend, and this is almost a verbatim

quote, that Brooke Nebel's view, that their sex have been an act of violence against her, came to her, quote, unquote, in hindsight. In hindsight, not a year hindsight, not hindsight on the day she went to NBC, although, you know, she's now trying to claim a different story on or at least her lawyers are on app. No evidence that that's true.

But this is five years hindsight. And most importantly, Jeff, here's the most important hindsight part of it. after after she is attempting to write her own book and after she has spoken to Ronan Farrow. And I believe it is my personal opinion that the book combined with the conversation with Ronan Farrow creates a mutual self-interest where they both convince each other that this was an act of rape. And that because it works for both of them. and by the way, it fits in Ronan Farrow's, not just his reporting MO, but it fits in his view of male-female relationships. This is a guy who truly seems to believe. He truly seems to believe

that if you have a powerful, famous male who has sex with someone in the business, by the way, incredibly important to point out, Brooke Navarre never worked for Matt Lauer, never even worked for the Today Show, certainly not at least not at this time period. She was not even working for NBC News at this time. She was working for this Peacock Productions. So they were working for the same overall company. Right. Yeah, they were under the same umbrella.

But there was no direct, you know, Matt Lauer did not control Brooke Neville's career, right? And so I think that's important. But in Ronan Farrow's view, he views any powerful male who has, sex with a far less powerful female is inherently in his view inherently at least somewhat rapy. I mean, and that's not an exaggeration. Because, well, in his view, he really believes that. Yeah.

In his view and many others, sadly, with this power broker mentality, he had held power over me, you can't say no, right? There's no way for you to say no. I got news for you, Ronan. You know, I don't know about your wife, John, but my wife is able to say no to whoever the hell she wants and when she wants. It's an amazing thing. It's an amazing thing.

You can say no. It's just incredible to me. No, exactly. And I strongly disagree with that entire premise of the way Ronan Faro looks at this. I'm not saying, by the way, that there aren't situations in which someone does have direct power over a woman, although I think those days are probably pretty far gone because at this point, you know, I don't know who could possibly get away with that in this environment. But I understand, I'm not naive. I get that there are situations where that can be some sort of a sexual harassment situation. And I am firmly, and by way, I don't even have a major problem with NBC. firing Matt Lauer. That's not the issue. I mean, I have a major issue, though, when you turn that allegation into rape and because you have a book to sell and because your Harvey Weinstein story is old news, and because, by the way, you have a massive vendetta against NBC because you believe

in this bizarre conspiracy theory. That's what Ronan Farrow is. He's a conspiracy theorist. He's actually worse than a conspiracy theorist, Jeffrey. He's a narcissistic conspiracy theory. He thinks the whole world is against him. He really does. And he believes that NBC was out to get Ronan Farrow. And now he's now, you know, paybacks or a bitch. He's going back after NBC and using Matt Lauer as a weapon. And, you know, I want to make sure people remember, after this book came out,

Ronan Farrow went on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow and dramatically announced, or I guess Rachel Maddow announced that NBC had agreed to let anybody, any woman out of a non-disclosure agreement that felt like they were being restricted to talk about their sex abuse, whether it was by Matt Lauer or anybody else. And at the time, I said, okay, you know what's going to happen? Nothing. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen.

How wrong were you, John? How wrong were you? Hundreds. Hundreds. Hundreds. They came out of the woodwork. Right. It's the, the crickets are still chirping. Zero. Is there ever any? Was there ever any? any at all. I'm not aware of anybody that has come out against anybody, but certainly not against Matt Lauer, because we would know about it. And it did not happen. And we're obviously far enough away from the event that this was going to happen. People, not even, you know, allies of Ronan Farrow

predicted that it was going to, you know, there would be this outpouring, these floodgates would open and all these women would come forward. And therefore, the case would be proven. That has not happened. and it didn't happen because there was nothing there. And it was all because of a conspiracy theory that was put forward by Ronan Farrow because he has an agenda against NBC and to create these conspiracy theories that are not based in facts or logic and are frankly nonsensical. John Ziegler is the man we're talking to at Zygman Freud on Twitter. You can follow him there.

Where do we go from here? and the words of the song 100 years ago, where do we go from here? I believe Alan Parsons Project. Where do we go? Well, you know, great question. There's been very not as much follow-up on this as there should have been in the media because the media doesn't know what to do with this.

I mean, they would love to have found something journalistically wrong with what Matt Lauer reported. As I've already alluded to, I think there's going to be, I believe there might be an effort to try to do that, I think it's going to be remarkably weak and it could very well backfire. There's been some more reporting about Ronan Farrow that I found to be fascinating. The Washington Post a couple of days came out with a story that, guess what? Some of the things he said about Harvey Weinstein were not accurate.

And look, John, I know, I know you did. I know I did for sure. There's so much, so much in these stories that just you read it and you go, that can't be true. It just can't be. And you find out that's why you don't, why it can't be weak? Because it isn't. Well, I have found that to be the case in a lot of different stories, especially involving this subject matter, Jeffrey, as you know,

where, you know, if it seems like it can't be true and there's no evidence to support it, then there's a good chance it's not true. I mean, strange things happen all the time, right? things that seem ludicrous do in fact occur, but guess what? They have evidence to support them. I mean, the ultimate example I always use is, you know, it's bizarre and nonsensical that O.J. Simpson would kill two people, including his ex-wife and leave the bodies for his young children to find the next morning.

That's insane. But guess what? There's a mountain of evidence that that occurred. Right. Right. And similarly, if some of the things. that Ronan Farrow has reported were true, there would be a lot more evidence to support them. Yes, there were. And so what I have found is, you know what, I've actually been wrong more often in

my career by not following my gut instinct than I have been by following it. I mean, in fact, I would say the times when I was most wrong, which haven't been that often, is when I did not trust my own instincts enough. Because common sense still really does almost always rule the day. You know, rationality still matters.

And, you know, in most cases, if something doesn't seem like it makes sense, it's because it didn't really happen that way. How many times? How many times have you said, I knew it. I knew it. And

it's just sort of gone forward, no question. So, John, we've got, you got the Penn State story under your belt, huge story. You've got this Matt Lauer story under your belt, huge story. What's next? What we're working on? Well, you mentioned. Who are you? Who, what living room or kitchen are you sitting in right now other than yours?

Well, actually, I met my in-laws beach house right now. But, you know, look, I'm sure I'll probably get involved in something like this again. But just you mentioned Penn State, and I know you're very interested in that, and you've been supportive with my work on that. You know, that story hasn't ended yet. Wow. And if it hadn't been for the coronavirus, I think there are, in fact, I know, there are people here in the Los Angeles area who are more confident than I am

that a major push to tell that story in its totality would have come to fruition by now. Now, whether that will still happen post-virus, I don't know. I will say, and I've never talked about this publicly, but I might as well do so now, that during the lockdown, we have been in a deep dive production of a documentary podcast on the entire Penn State Joe Paterno, Jerry Sondesky's story. It's not like a normal podcast, not just, you know, hey, we're going to talk about something for an hour. no edits. I'm talking about hours and hours and hours of episodes with documentation and audio interviews

and heavily edited to make it as compelling as possible. I've got a co-host who is a very credible person here in Los Angeles. We have someone in the podcasting industry who is funding and producing it. When and how

and if that'll ever see the light of day? I don't know. But just so you know, I haven't given up on that because that to me, that whole story, there has never been a story of that magnitude that is more different from the truth than the Penn State Joe Paterno, Jerry Sondiske's story. Never. There's never been one. Never been one. And Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book last year in which he did an entire chapter on that where he cited my work. And, you know, know, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't come out and fully tell his opinion as I believe it to be, but he essentially said that Ziegler's at least 90% right, if not 100% right, and that people

ought to listen to him. And so we'll see. I mean, I'm, I'm a pessimist on this subject, especially in, and the way the media works in general. But I do know that if this, if this podcast ever sees the light of day in the process. venue, it's going to blow people's minds. Because the whole, the real story there is the most unbelievable story that I have ever been in contact with. And I've seen a lot of doozies. And it's not even close. It's not even close. And it's a very important story because I think it's happening in a lesser degree in many other ways. But this one had so many elements of the storm that made it so much larger than any other. And we still have four people,

three Penn State administrators, and Jerry Sondesky is currently in prison and is going to die in prison, whose lives and reputations are still on the line here. And there's still court, Jerry Sondesky is still appealing. The former Penn State President Graham Spaniard had his conviction thrown out by a federal court. And the state of Pennsylvania is still fighting to reinstitute it, which is ridiculous. I mean, so there's still a lot of things going on in that story, but it's, it is the most remarkable tale. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, this is, this is, this has been, this, this has been hell. I mean, I was a young man before this thing started, and, and, and now I'm an old man, and it's not just because eight years have passed, it's because of what this

story has done to me because of all the injustice and insanity that I have faced both publicly and privately. Well, I could well understand how you're suffering at your in-laws Beach House, but, hey, John, I actually, I want to talk to you some more, but I'll let you go. I know you want to get back to the beach and, you know, we've all got other things to do. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today, John. and take care of yourself. And when something else happens with this, I definitely want to spend some time.

Anytime, Jeffrey. Good to talk to you always.