Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 827: Zelenskyy Visits Whitehouse

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

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Get Beautiful Anonymous wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Glorial Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way, we bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big or makes us mad.

It's skeptical, It's political. And there is no welcome at today is Thursday, March the sixth and Cecil, do you know what I thought about doing this week? What's that? I was listening to one of my favorite new podcast, the no Rogan. No Rogan is solid. I do genuinely. I love that solid podcast.

And you guys are doing a thing where you can record your impression. Yeah. Are you going to do it? Solid podcast and you guys are doing a thing where you can record your impression Yeah, of the are you gonna do it? I thought I felt like it would be like you should probably Do it you should totally but I'm like we got Andy Wilson to do it. Well now I've got to do it I do it came out of incredulous retirement. I did he keep big he dusted off his WWE belt And he walked out to the ring. I wanted to do it, but I was like, is it overstepping? I was actually going to ask you and the skating guys to all do it. So I had him as extras.

I almost sent it to you this week. I was like, I've got to do it. I've got to do it. Cause I feel like I can do it pretty good. What we're referring to is when I, when we start a segment on, uh, one specific segment on no Rogan, I used to have Bruce Buffer say, it's time. And then I realized a bunch of people sent me a message

and be like, by the way, Bruce Buffer is terribly litigious and he will probably steal your socks. So it's like, I don't want that at all. So I talked to Marsh and I said, why don't we just get people to record it? And he was like, good idea. The problem is, is people do too quiet. So one of the problems is too quiet. Yeah, it won't be too For you will be fine. Right and then you know, I'll probably ask a couple other people not Eli other people. So yeah

Yeah, everybody buddy. Yeah, everybody Specifically call people that he's in the room with yeah, like that's how like for Eli I think the the best prank on Eli would be to get all of his friends in the room with. Like that's how, for Eli, I think the best prank on Eli would be to get all of his friends in a room and then ask all of those people one by one and skip Eli. And just break his heart. That's so mean.

I love Eli, that's funny. That's so mean. That's fucking funny. Tom, this week was really a rough week for American diplomacy for... Not good. For a very long... It's been a long time since it's been this bad. Yeah. If you are living under a rock and you miss the public dressing down

of Vladimir Zelensky from Ukraine, who came over... It was originally, I thought, from Ukraine who came over. It was originally, I thought that the trip was gonna be to sign an agreement to pledge a certain amount of rare earth minerals. For some help. In exchange for some security guarantees, right? There would be no reason for Zelensky to be like, I will give you these,

and I actually listened to something interesting today about this I will give you these Supposed mineral rights in exchange for something of value But the Trump administration was like I should sign it over And we think Putin will probably stop, you know, he seems alright. He'll probably quit. He'll probably cut it out No security guarantees from the US though Something interesting that I listened to on one of my news podcast this morning was that all these mineral rights are Supposed they're imaginary. They're they're perhaps mineral rights. They're not established. These aren't like

Established mines and established minerals. So this is like if there are any, there are's kind of a thing. And there's good reason to think that there are very valuable rare earth minerals, which would be necessary for the production of the chips and other bullshit in Ukraine. It's like when I order a Reuben, if there's a pickle, my wife gets it. That's right. 100%. Like if there's a pickle on the plate. That's the agreement.

I don't, I'll never eat it. It's never mine. It's never been mine. Right. My whole marriage. Yeah, I get it. That's exactly it. I get it.

So like, but why would you sign over all of this thing that if it exists would be of tremendous economic value. Yeah, yeah. Especially if you're a country which will be in absolute like if they if they rebuild when they rebuild hopefully i don't even know that's more of an if if they rebuild as a sovereign nation they're going to need all the money that they can get. Why would you sign all that shit over if you're not even getting a security guarantee out of it? Yeah it doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? No.

So you could see why he was immediately like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. And then they started to pressure him, which was a total setup. I mean, it was an absolute setup. It's 100% a setup. They get the guy there, then they get JD Vance and Trump and they decide instead of putting it out there behind doors or whatever and then you find out about it later or find out sort of what happened later on, they have all the cameras running the whole time. Live.

Which is crazy, right? It's not something they normally do. And it was funny because as soon as this happened, Trump blows up at him, yells at him, J.D. Vance yells at him, some random guy who's dating a reporter who's also dating Marjorie Taylor Greene is like, why don't you wear a suit? And Zelinski's comment to this is amazing. He's basically like, I'll wear a costume after the war is done. Yeah, that's fucking great.

Like, I'll wear a costume. Maybe my suit will even be better than yours. It's fucking amazing. But anyway, you know, you get these clowns and they're all screaming at him. And Trump is, Trump is the worst. Like, he's so bad at bad at he's anybody who thinks he's the art of the deal guy. You're a fucking idiot I'm sorry, man. Watch that man speak to people especially on the world stage. It's it's it's ridiculous. But here's the thing Trump and Vance and them they all scream and yell and and I pay attention to sort of and Vance and them, they all scream and yell. And I pay attention to sort of right wing news sites, right wing talking points.

I'm involved in a couple of Joe Rogan boards now and a lot of them, like they lean really hard right wing. So I'll see these posts from people from those places to see sort of what are the people on the right saying about this, right? Because I know what the people on the left are all like, holy, what the fuck? What just happened? I'm embarrassed. So many people across the country that I saw that were in sort of my sphere all talked about how embarrassed they were to be an American.

Yeah, it's humiliating. It's humiliating. Yeah. Yeah. Most of those people were all like, this is what it's like to have a leader, et cetera, et cetera. But I saw one person who posted an article about Joe Biden raising his voice to Zelensky. And it was on a call, he had given Zelensky a billion dollars in aid, and Zelensky said he needed some more help. And Joe was like, I already gave you a billion dollars. But here's the difference between that call

and what happened in, and they said he raised his voice. They said, they said he raised his voice. The difference between that call and the one that happened in the White House is, the only way we know that happened was because someone who is familiar with what happened told the press. That's how we know.

We know all the stuff that President Trump said because we watched it. It's all happening. So there's a big difference between you have to find this out in the back room and it gets told to the press and it's not as big a story versus everybody in the world watched Trump try to dog walk Zelensky. Yeah. And you know, a couple of the things that I think are really worth noting from this, from this moment is it really got testy.

So that the narrative that, that the Trump administration has always put forward on, on the whole invasion of Ukraine has been that it never would have happened if Trump was in charge. Sure. Yeah. He said it a million times. It never would have happened on my watch. Never would have happened on my watch. So at one point, Trump is trying to talk about this stuff

and Zelensky corrects Trump. And he says, you know, actually this all started in 2014 when Crimea was annexed illegally by Russia, right? Well, the problem with that is that that then predates, that predates, so that that if your Trump goes like against the narrative of none of this Russian aggression into Ukraine would have happened. Right. So, but Zelensky corrects them.

And that's really a big part of I think when it goes off the rails and then Trump is trying to like throw out all these fucking Russian talking points. And Zelensky is like, none of that is accurate. Like none of that is fucking accurate. Trump can't stand to be corrected. And then he goes into this fucking transactional mode, right, where he keeps interrupting and saying, you have no cards.

You don't have any cards. He keeps saying the same thing over and over again. And that's a big difference between what Biden was doing and what Trump is doing, right? Biden, I think when he raises his voice and is like, well, we already gave you a million dollars. He's not saying there's nothing in this for me, you have no leverage.

A billion dollars. A billion dollars, a billion dollars. But you know what I mean? The difference, like what Trump is saying is, you have no leverage, so why would I help you? Yeah. Right? That's what you have no cards means,

is you have no leverage in this negotiation Whereas biden is like we've already been very generous here. Like I can't just keep shitting money at this problem forever Yeah, those are two very different things Yeah, you know like trump is like a what what's in it for me? Yeah, I don't know man like the sovereignty of europe That i don't that's what's in it for us as a people is the sovereignty of Europe. That's what's in it for us as a people, is the sovereignty of Europe. Yeah, and to see him spouting Russian talking points, allowing Russian media inside,

I don't know if you saw this. No, what? So, evidently, two Russian media people slipped past the goalie, Tom. We just didn't notice that there was two Russian media people in the room. Sure, man. Sure. Sure, Jan. So, you know, that happens. That happens. There's that comment by JD Vance who's trying to, you know, JD Vance is trying to inflame the situation. Why don't you say yourself, why don't you say thank you? Why don't you ever say thank you? Why don't you ever? And it's like,

dude, if you paid attention to this before you got in office, you would know he said thank you multiple times. Like a million times. There's a super cut of him saying it 88 times to the United States people. And so again, JD Vance doesn't know what he's talking about because he's just all they are is a party of trolling. We saw it this week with the State of the Union or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

You saw him and you saw how they were trying to antagonize the other side. You saw the way the speech was written very specifically to antagonize people. That's the only thing they can do. That's what they got. That's it. That's like, they open their toolbox and that's the only thing they've got. This is their troll hammer and they're going to use it. For these guys, it's a world of nails.

Yeah, that's it. They live's a world of nails. Yeah, that's it. They live in a world of nails. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, it's embarrassing beyond belief. And the idea that someone thought this, I can't imagine that somebody thought this, but I'm sure somebody did. Somebody pulled this ticket

because they thought they were, you know, at least partial issue voter on Ukraine and thought this was the best course of action that Trump should be in. Yeah, man. Yeah, you're not wrong. There are people out there that would definitely have cited, like, they believe that Trump talking points that this never would have happened if Trump had been in charge. They saw, there are people who saw Joe Biden is weak despite Joe Biden's incredibly unwavering support of Ukraine. Right.

So, but they see him as, you know, somehow necessarily weak in this equation. And then they believe Trump's nonsense of like, I'll stop the day one, even before day one, he said, I will stop this war. I'll get this war stopped. And like I think if you are desperate to stop violence that is being perpetrated illegally on people that like you care about and that are part of your history, your heritage, your family, if somebody said, I can stop that better than the other guy,

that makes sense to me. Like you shouldn't believe it because the man's an inveterate liar and he's never accomplished anything ever. But I can understand why you would be sympathetic to that message. Right? That makes all the sense to me in the world. What I'm really afraid of, and we talked about this before Trump was even elected, and I think we're watching it happen in, I almost would say slow motion, but it's been 15 minutes that he's been

president, so there's nothing slow about this motion, is I think we are watching the United States pull out of NATO. Yeah, I think that that's what I don't think you're wrong. I think that's probably yeah. And I think Europe in in reacting to this the way that they have so Europe's like pledged like $158 million or some huge number. I don't remember what it is. I think they're recognizing like, okay, we can't count on the Americans. That as an alliance that even though historically has existed for almost a hundred years, is now effectively broken.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's incredibly upsetting. Well, and you saw immediately that Europe was like, yeah, let's crank it all up, start making weapons again. We're gonna start arming and defending ourselves again. You're seeing the effects of Trump's tariffs are destructive. You're seeing the, it's just, all this stuff is bad. It's essentially breaking most of the United States

in such a fast order. It's hard not to think that he's not somebody who is doing this purposefully for another power. It's hard not to think that. It feels like, look, whether he's a Russian plant or not. Or he's just really stupid and able to be manipulated. Yeah. It's like, well, all right, like maybe he's a Russian plant that's too stupid to know

he's a Russian plant, but like, if in practice you're that thing, then you're that thing, man. You can't look at all the things he's done so far and not be like, and not at least have a graph that shows you if Russia benefited, right? You can go through and be like, you know what? I think Russia's benefited from a lot of the stuff you've done so far. So even if you're not on their side, like, and there's no way to prove that or whatever, you're at least a useful idiot. Yeah, you're like, if you don't think you're a pro-Russian stooge, I can't tell the difference.

Yeah. And there's functionally no difference to the American people whether or not you're a stooge or you're an actual like malicious force. There's no functional difference. Now that brain that you gave me, was it Hans Delbruck's? No. Good.

Would you mind telling me Good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in? Then you won't be angry. I will not be angry. Abbe-someone. Abbe-someone. Abbe-who? Abbe-normal.

Abbe-normal. Abie who? Abie normal. Abie normal. I'm almost sure that was the name. This story comes from the friendly atheist Oklahoma GOP advances bill letting Christian doctors deny services to patients. State representative, Kevin West Bill, would let medical professionals refuse certain procedures that violate their conscience. Now, according to this article, those certain procedures include any procedure. Anything, anything. So anything. Yeah.

And by violate their conscience, they just mean, I don't wanna do it. I don't wanna do it. So I said, God doesn't want me to do this. Yeah. And I'll tell you what I know for a fact. I know for a fact that none of those procedures would negatively affect cis-het white guys.

That's exactly what the key is, right? They want to just be able to refuse service from people they don't like. And they don't want to see. So if you happen to be trans in that state or gay in that state, those are probably going to be the people who are going to be affected the most. And let's not forget that this is also,

I don't think Oklahoma has abortion. I don't think it does. I don't know. Let's look it up real quick. Let's just double check because it's important to know whether or not they do. I don't think they do. I would imagine that they don't know no exceptions for rape or incest. So so Jesus, Oklahoma, Oklahoma doesn't allow abortion already.

So chances are they don't allow any of the other stuff that you know would be involved with most of the, you know, any kind of reproductive care that you would get other than just having a baby, right? So, and even then, you know, you're gonna have the baby and then the baby dies, they still won't take it out of there because they'll be like, no, you gotta like, we're not gonna do that. Yeah, right, no DNC or whatever. There's no place, there's places in this country

where they're just like, we won't do the actual procedure, which is remove that. Yeah, right. You're just gonna be like, yeah, good luck. It're just going to be like, yeah, good luck. It has to rot inside of you. Sorry, good luck. Jump? I don't know what to tell you.

Well, a lot of states at local Homo being one of them because their only exception is for the life of the mother. They require in circumstances like that that you become septic first. Nice. So they actually require you to become septic. So it's like, yeah, we can't treat you until it's like green beret training. Yeah, right.

Gang green beret training. So fucking dire. It's fucking terrifying. It's fucking dire. But it's like this rule is very specifically, I think, aimed at trans and gay people. Yeah, I think so too. And I think like you're going to see people who don't want to offer contraception as well. Oh, people. Yeah, I think so too. And I think like you're gonna see people who don't wanna offer contraception as well. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is what you should expect when we start allowing this sort of stuff to seep into our medicine, right? When you suddenly remove that, then they get a chance to make these decisions. We shouldn't want any doctors in there that aren't willing to do all the procedures. Right?

Yeah. You got to be able to, you got to be willing to do it all. You got to do it all. You know, whether, you know, if you're a chef, you, maybe you don't like scallops, but you still got to cook them. That's it, man. That look here. Here's what I think.

Here's what I really think. I think you should not qualify for any federal student loans at all. No federal student loans. If you're not willing to sign a contract for med school saying you'll provide care. That's it. Yeah. Like you don't get to take federal money and I know you pay it back, but I don't give a shit. Yeah. Like you don't get to take federal money and go through and take a slot from somebody else in that med school who would have provided care. Yeah, who's going to do the right thing. Right?

So like everybody's competing for these slots. Everybody's competing for these residencies. There are less residency programs than we, we, we have less available residency programs. I didn't learn this not that long ago. Then we graduate medical students. So every medical student that graduates is not guaranteed a residency position. And in fact, it's worse than that because we also don't have enough residency positions for people who are doctors who are coming into this country and need to go through a residency

in order to practice here in the United States. We actually have a pretty severe bottleneck and we simply don't have enough doctors. And the reason for that is the number of residency programs available is artificially limited by law. So we could fix that problem. We just don't fix it. And we have an artificially narrow number of residencies. So we have a limited number of doctors. It's becoming a crisis. They're like De Beers doctors. It is like De Beers doctors. Yeah. And it's becoming a crisis, right? And we doctor is forever. It's all the residency programs are owned by like one guy who has like a fucking mine. Yeah. To go like dig out a fucking residency program. Residency. I think they're probably all blood residency. But like that doctor who is taking federal student aid,

who is taking a slot in a residency program, who is taking up space in a hospital, that's somebody you could replace. Yeah, for sure. With somebody who would actually provide care. Yeah, who would do the right thing. Right. You could remember when they Please don't fuck up the whole world

Mr. President You've got the power Be a hero, not an asshole Please don't fuck up the whole world Mr. President. You've got the power. Be a hero, not an asshole. This is from the New Republic. Trump reveals tariffs plan to ruin American farmers lives.

Tom, can you read his tweet here? Where is his tweet at? Here it is. He said to the great farmers of the United States, get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold inside of the United States. Inside. Oh, caps. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun. Have fun. You know, it's amazing. You know, my idea of fun is when we auction off farmhouses because they went bankrupt. That's amazing. That's a great deal of fun. Tariffs round one went so bad for farmers that we had to bail them out Yeah, we had to write big fucking oopsie checks to America's farmers sure like get ready to sell more

But they're already selling all the product inside the United States we can buy we are a major exporter yeah of food stuffs like we it's like the bread basket of the world is a phrase that describes America's heartland for a reason. It's not bread basket of America. It doesn't even make sense. Like if American farmers can't export their goods at a reasonable price and a reasonable margin and profit,

it's not like I'm gonna go out and buy more wheat as I'm an American. I buy all the wheat I need. Yeah. It's not like we don't import that stuff. So like, what are you going to do with it? I'm going to trade it for sheep. Yeah. I guess. I don't know. Do a couple bricks. I get enough. I can build a town. I don't understand. Have fun. Like these farmers are going to be like, Oh, you know, it was great watching the price of my products collapse. I can't afford anything next year. Yeah.

Hey kids, Hey, sell the international harvester. We're we're fucking broke. Yeah, we're broke. Yeah. Well, at least we got enough wheat to eat. Well, the other thing that he tariffs, of course, is he starts tariffing on Canada. And Canada, the first time he did that was like, fuck you. So I've seen them pull all the alcohol,

American alcohol off the shelves. And one thing that people don't understand is that there's places in Kentucky where that entire town, that's their livelihood. Yeah, right. And if he starts fucking with a bunch of people all over the globe who look for Kentucky whiskey and they're not getting up in Canada and they stop importing it to the EU

and they stop importing it to the UK because we're the world's pariah because we have a mendacious the world's pariah because we're, we have a, a mendacious vulgarian as our president. I love that phrase so much. Then then what, what happens is, is these small towns go bankrupt because there's nothing, there's not going to be anybody who's going to buy that liquor. Nobody's going to buy that liquor. Yep. And those places have sustained themselves off this liquor sale for, since prohibition.

Forever. Since prohibition. Right? So you're looking at that, you're looking at, you know, and then he's constantly, he realizes it's a, he's, somebody's telling him it's bad because he keeps shutting them on and off. Yeah. He keeps on turning them on and off like it's a fucking computer that's on the fritz.

Yeah, right. Well, what's amazing is like he does this big blanket stuff and then somebody is like, actually, that will cripple the American car industry. So there's a first tariff that he rolled back. Yeah. So like, I read this article that car parts bounce back and forth over the border. Like a single part might travel back and forth over the Canadian border six or seven times.

Really? Yeah. And that's because like, you've got a car part, and I'm just, I'm oversimplifying, but like you've got a car part and it's made, let's say it's made on our side. And then another part's gonna get added to it. I see, so like you're building an alternator as you go back and forth. So it's going back and forth and parts gonna get added to it. I see. So like you're building an alternator as you go back and forth. So it's going back and forth and parts are getting added to it depending on who the manufacturer is,

the suppliers. It's really inefficient but sure. Right. Sure. Yeah. For sure. So like these parts might bounce back and forth or cross that border six or seven times before they make their way finally into their destination automobile. So if every time it crosses a border, it gets a fucking 25% tariff. It's a lot. Not just one. Now all of a sudden that thing is bonkers crazy price time. Like it doesn't even make any sense. Yeah. So he's like, all right, well, except for cars. Yeah. Cause somebody was like, you said like somebody's like, dude, you can't do that. Don't do that. And then I saw today, like just today, I didn't even read the whole article.

I just read the headline on the Wall Street Journal is he was like, except for products that are covered under what is effectively like the new NAFTA. So the trade deal that he put together, it was like called USMCA or something like that. It's fucking NAFTA 2.0, right? He just didn't like NAFTA, so he rebranded it. Well, that's like most stuff, like most stuff was covered.

So the markets have no idea how to react to any of this stuff. Our trading partners have no idea how to react to any of this stuff. It makes no sense to do. On Monday, it's one thing, and by Wednesday, it's a fucking entirely different thing. Yeah, and there's multiple problems with these but this

agriculture one I feel is the one that's gonna blow up the biggest. Oh I think so too. This is gonna be a disaster. Nazis. I hate these guys. State of the Union address Cecil. State of the Union was this week. Did you watch it? I did not, and I won't. I didn't either. I will not, I normally would, I normally would be able, I would watch it and I would take the time out of my,

but I recognize that I'm falling in, and I did this at the end of Trump's last term, I was falling into paying attention to every single word he said, and then like trying to find the hypocrisy in everything he said, et cetera, et cetera. And that's a waste of time. It's literally wasting my time.

And they do things and say things literally to make me upset. So I'm just not gonna give them the opportunity to do that. I'm like, you don't get that opportunity. I will not invite you into my head to make me upset. It just won't happen. If I see him on the news, I shut it off. I like literally shut,

I don't pay attention to the news with him on it. The only time I pay attention to news with him on it is when I'm looking for stories for this show and I'll sit and I'll read a newspaper story. But if it's on the TV, I don't even want, I literally don't even watch it anymore. I'm done.

I'm done paying attention to it. Good, man. Yeah, I've watched most of the stated, I don't wanna say every one, but I don't watch them ever live, but I've watched them like later on YouTube or I've listened to them. I don't remember the last one I missed.

I missed this one on purpose. Yeah, I missed this one on purpose too. And I don't think I've done that before. You know, I don't think I've missed one on purpose before. I just, I recognize that like, this is a man who does not have my best interest at heart. He doesn't have your best interest at heart. Everything he says is going to be lying. Yeah.

It's all lying anyway. So like, what do you need me for? Right. I mean, like, I can tell you right now, it was probably mostly lies. I don't have to listen to it all to know that. And then afterwards there's huge fact checks of like how many lies he told And there's people who that's that's their job and that's fine, but I don't consider this podcast to be that job Yeah, I don't think this podcast is that job. This is a fucking political

I'm not gonna do this like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna run around and follow this guy around But there was a little bit of good trouble that happened there. There was. So Democratic representative Al Green, he protested. He stood up and he protested and he shook his cane in fury. I love that. He had his cane and he's like pointed at the president and then they told him to sit down and he didn't. He's like, no, I'm not sitting down.

He's like, you guys are gonna cut Medicare. You're assholes. And then Mike Johnson basically had the sergeant at arms remove him and now he's censured. And, you know, I saw a lot of people this weekend. I've been seeing this a lot. A constant cry of do something, do something, do something. But I never see anybody say, do this.

Yeah, man, I know. It's always do something, but it's never do this. And as much as you and I and every other person out there is in the weeds, not knowing what to do, I kind of think the politicians are in the same space because nobody's ever been here before. On the one hand, I'm right there with you guys, deeply sympathetic to the desire to do something. Absolutely deeply sympathetic.

But one thing I've learned the hard way in my life is that there are many times in our lives where we want to do something and we want to fix the thing and our need and our desire and our righteousness around wanting to fix something does not necessarily grant us the power, the authority, or the ability to fix that thing. The way that our system works

is it's kind of an all or nothing system, and they have it all. And we have nothing. We have neither the House, nor the Senate, nor the judiciary, nor the executive branch. The fuck are you supposed to do? I watched a whole segment on the news where a guy just kept saying, well, you got to do something.

And I was like, I'm waiting for him to say, okay, so give me the list of things I should do. Give me the list of things that you should do then. Because I think like it's unhelpful just to keep screaming, do something. Yeah, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I don't know what to do. Like, and I also recognize two people were like, you know, there was a guy who was standing in front of a door.

I don't know if you saw this. This dude was standing in front of a door and not letting a bunch of senators in. So there's a bunch of senators or congresspeople went to, I think it was the Department of Education, but I'm not sure. One of these departments that's close by, right? They all get their coats on and they all decide they're going to go over there because I guess Doge is there. And there was a dude standing outside that wouldn't let him in. He's just some random guy. He just worked there. Just some random.

He wasn't like a security guard. He wasn't a police officer. He's just a guy. And a bunch of people were like, why didn't they just push him out of the way? Why didn't do this? And I'm like, what happens if they arrest one of our senators? Yeah, right. What happens then?

Because we already have no margin of error. Like, the best you can do is maybe convince one of those people. We're in a really bad spot now. I think that a lot of us citizens are doing some great things. There's a lot of protests going on right now, which is great, right? That's an awesome thing to do. You're seeing spontaneous protests at Tesla dealerships. You're seeing town halls get so crazy that they have to stop doing them. I don't know if you saw this this week, but the Republicans sent out a message and said, don't do any more of those. Those are bad press. Do not do those.

So what should the Democrats be doing? The Democrats should be doing town halls. Yeah. Like the Democrats should be reaching into their constituencies, right? The Democrats should be doing everything they can do to bring lawsuits, to get in the way, to obstruct. That's the kind of, and I think that there's a lot of that happening. I think there is too. There is a lot of that happening. I think there is too, yeah.

Right? Like where the problem is that from a legislative standpoint, they can't pass anything and they can't really stop a whole lot. And they've got to make a decision coming up here in the real near future about whether or not they're going to fund the government. And I got to tell you, every time the Republicans have blockaded a funding of the government, I have said the same thing, which is that's not how this is supposed to work. And I'll say it again, you gotta fund the fucking government.

We cannot allow the government to shut down. The Democrats do not have leverage. It won't go well. It'll hurt more people. It will not accomplish the aims that they want to accomplish. I actually think if you don't fund the government, that literally plays into Trump's hand.

100% does. I think it plays into Trump's hand. So I think that's a bad call. Now here's what I think I would have liked to have have seen I would have loved to have seen a show of force where they did not attend That's it yeah, it would have been symbolic. Yeah, but everything in the fucking speech is symbolic. Yeah, there's no there's no strength there So if you want to see a symbol, I actually think it would have been great if Like or if they had like filed in and then right before the speech began, if they all file out.

Just left. If they all filed out in protest, you know, something like that. I guess there are certain things that they could certainly do. And I don't think that that's a, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think like, I will say this,

we looked it up today and there is a group of Democrats that wound up they wound up voting for censure yeah on green fuck those people fuck those people let me read their names let me read their names so fuck Ami Barra of California Ed Case of Hawaii fuck Jim Costa of California, fuck Laura Gillen of New York, fuck Jim Himes of Connecticut, fuck Chrissy Houlihan of Pennsylvania, fuck you Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, fuck off Jared Moskowitz of Florida, fuck you Marie Glusinkamp Perez of Washington, and fuck Tom Suzy of New York.

Now I want to say from this article, most of those 10 Democrats are centrist in the party, belong to either the Blue Dog Coalition, the New Democrat Coalition, or the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. Well, have them problem solve how to get into the unemployment line. That's the thing they need to problem solve.

Fuck all those people. They should be primaried. I think too, like, you know, there's been so much that the Democrats have been like, like any of the Democrats that are voting for this stuff, I'm like, get rid of them. I don't want to see them. Get rid of them.

And, and, you know, I'm seeing like bad shit from Gavin Newsom today. He's talking, he's talking some anti-trans points with Charlie Kirk. He had him on as his guest, as his podcast guest. What? Yeah, so like all these people, I'm just like, you know what, fuck them, fuck them.

Don't need to fucking listen to them. Don't need to pay attention to them. Let's just get rid of them. Let's roll them out of the party in this next couple years. Get rid of all these old people, all these people that are terrible at their jobs. All these people, and I do think, you know, all those people who are paralyzed with inaction,

they aren't doing the things that Tom's suggesting, right? All those people need to go. Absolutely, get out of here. They need to go. Because there's a lot of people, I think, that are doing some of that legal work, which is great, and still standing up in, you know, in committees and on the floor and doing the right thing. Those are people, I think, that, you know, like, yeah,

you gotta keep those people. But I think like we need to have, and maybe we should do some due diligence to look for some things that people can do, maybe that senators can do, just to have a plan of action that's not just calling for them to do something. Be like, do something, by the way,

here's a list of things you can do. That's a great point. Yeah, I think this is a moment where I think a lot of creative solutions need to be created and shared because I don't know what to do. All the rules the the typical rule book has been thrown the fuck out. Yeah man it's a very different system. It's a whole new system. And I saw I've seen a lot of people too talking about like, you know, all this, you know,

they go high, we go low stuff. And I'm like, well, okay, I get that. I understand. We, maybe we shouldn't do that again, but I don't know what, I don't know what any of that really means in context. Does that mean we should break rules? What does it mean? Like I don't understand what that means, right?

Be mean to them, troll them. What does all that mean? I don't, In practical terms, real terms. I need to know what that means. I need to know what you're saying because people will send you a message and be like, oh, you know, we got to get rid of this, they go low, we go high shit. And I'm like, okay, well, I don't know what that means though.

Right? Like, what does that mean? Does that mean we need to like hire a sniper? Like, what are we talking about here? Well, so here's what I do think. I do think that at least for the next year and a half until the midterms, which fingers fucking crossed, right? I think there can be nothing that even remotely resembles bipartisan shit.

I agree. And I mean that on everything. I don't care if it's a great idea. I don't. Everything that you cannot reach across the aisle. You shouldn't take a meeting don't attend a committee like everything It should be the cock blockinist fucking next year and a half Possible every moment of your life as a Democratic or representative needs to be getting in the way making things difficult Hey

Maybe we can maybe we can make it so you don't have a quorum. Like everything that makes this harder, make everything take longer. Whatever rules processes you can do to get in the way, to make a process take longer, fuck with them constantly. Everything should be the hardest possible thing. If they're gonna hurt you, don't be their friend in your own demands.

And don't let them do it. You know what you are, Stern? You know what you are? You're the Antichrist. What? Yes, that's what you are. You are the motherfucking Antichrist! Take it easy.

Alright, this story is from People 4, formerly Right Wing Watch. Still says Right Wing Watch on there. Hank Kuhneman, who we haven't talked about about a long time, says Trump is a Moses-like figure sent by God to give Christians control of the seven mountains. So the seven mountains, if you guys don't recall, is the seven pillars of Dominionism. And I don't remember what they are, but it's shit like government, media. I think there's science in there. Dopey, sneezy, doc. I think there's science in there. Dopey, Sneezy Doc. I think Rudolph. What's the orange one?

The orange one is sports and leisure, I think. Yeah. Pink is entertainment. Yeah, right. So they talk about these, like you're supposed supposed to control these seven pillars and they are very similar to the trivial pursuit. They are actually. It's really funny.

But they say that you're supposed to control these seven pillars. And so he's going to talk about these seven pillars. Did you ever play Trivial Pursuit? Yeah, I did. I fucking love Trivial Pursuit except for the sports questions. Yeah, the problem is true. Pursuit is you got to be able to answer every single one. Yeah.

And if you want to get if you want to finish and what happens most of the problem is true pursuit is you got to be able to answer every single one. Yeah. And if you want to get, if you want to finish. And what happens most of the time is most people are, they're sort of specialists. So they'll do like, they'll get most of the pie pieces and they're like, well, fuck no, I'm just rolling this die to try to land on orange every time or whatever to try to, or try to land on like the middle. So you can pick one. I liked, I liked that game. If you play on teams. I like that game if you play on teams. Yeah, teams is awesome. Playing on teams is great because I'm pretty good at it, but if it's just me, I'm just like,

well, I'll never win. I don't know one sports answer. If the answer's not Wayne Gretzky and I don't know what that means, this is my answer for everything. Yeah, I think it's not a bad answer though, to be honest. Sometimes it's gonna be right. Yeah.

All right, so here's Hank. God, he's got a doughy face. He looks like Elvis with anaphylactic shock. Yeah. He looks like if he had like an Elvis candle and you melted half of it. God is dealing with things right now. It's a sign, lastly, of the glory of God.

When the glory comes, Exodus 32, he said Moses, get down first recorded. And that's how you want to get down. The thing you do have to get down because the glory hole is it's it's like knee height Kind of look, I'm not sure but I think the glory hole was intelligently designed That's where disco was invented get down what was it supposed to be what about disco? I'm sorry He's making a joke about staying alive. We interrupted him before he was finished with his punchline. Oh God. He said Moses get down. First recorded. Get down. That's where disco was invented. Get down. What was it supposed to do?

Stay alive. That's where the song came from. Keep a nation alive. People have corrupted themselves. Glory, corruption. All of this is coming because God is asking us, what does a nation look like filled with glory? And can I say this Lance? I just feel this. Okay, look at all these guys. Every single one of them has a spray tan on. They look like somebody dropped a bottle of palm

and it exploded all over them. Every single one of them. Look at how like golden brown everybody is. All of them, 201. And you could tell because you just look by their ears and you're like, nah, bro, you're like, you're not that color. Do you think they spray tan together? Do you think they put their little Speedos on?

I 100% think they do it because Trump does it. Yeah, I think they do too. I think they get in that booth. I think they do it because Trump does it. Yes. I think he's normalized spray tanning for these weird, doughy old men. Holy shit.

Do you know what I would never get now? It's a fucking, you know what I'd never get anyway though? As a spray tan. Yeah, right? What you have labored in seven mountains, President Trump represents a Moses type figure who is leading us now back to the seven mountains. In his, it was the mountain. Him is the seven mountains in his it was the mountain him is

the seven mountains so that the glory can come down and be part of the mountain experience and what part of the mountain experience all that's it gander mountain experience you guys if you're not watching this the most distracting thing i've ever seen ever seen are his fucking enormous cuffs and his enormous white collar He really does you know who he does colors three inches high five inches Have you ever seen the movie dirty dancing? It looks like the dead he does feels like the dad and he The doctor who like gives the abortion of the girl or whatever yeah, it's like this is the doctor to your point We can't get caught up in wandering

around again, trying to figure out is Trump really for America's the anti-Christ, you know, we got to stop worrying. I see the anti-Christ. Were they worrying last time? Cause I don't think they were worrying at all that he was the anti-Christ. I love that. He's like, Oh, before we all like, Oh, is he objectively evil? You see the epitome of all that is evil in the world. You know, we don't have to ask that about. Come on.

You just, you don't have to ask that about most people. These guys, I love that they have this fucking end time cult. And then they're sometimes not sure who fits in their bingo card. I love too when you're like, is that a hero or a villain? I can't tell you that your mythology is so fucked. If you can't figure that out, wandering and let the glory come down on the seven mountains expression. That's right, baby. Show me your mountains. I'm going to put my glory all over those mountains. That's right, baby. Show me your mountains. I'm gonna put my glory all over those mountains

That's right. You fucking dirty girl flashpoint mountain haver. That's fucking late. That's gonna help reform us. Amen God I here's the other thing about that stuff. I fucking never heard words that have meant less stuff to me Yeah, that's not I'm there with you. I listen to that stuff, Cecil, when I hear those fucking preachers, I'm like, this is fucking jabberwock, man. It was brilling in the shivvy flow or whatever. But the thing is, is like everybody eats that shit up and look at all those guys. They're all in suits.

Yeah, man. They're all making money. Oh yeah. Even these guys who can't even fucking put a sentence together. Yeah, man. Their credit cards are not getting declined getting declined. They are doing fine. I am the very model of a modern major general. I'm information, vegetable, animal, and mineral. I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical. From marathon to waterloo

in order categorical. I am very well acquainted to with matters mathematical. I understand equations both simple and quadratical. About binomial theorem I'm teeming to with matters mathematical. I understand equation both as simple and quadratical about binomial theorem I'm teaming with a lot of news lot of news Got it with the many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse Okay, this is actually good news. This story comes from somewhere. This story comes from the Irish Times. RFK Jr. commits to measles U-turn amid deadly Texas outbreak.

Like all of you, I fucking hate this guy. I hate him. He's done an irreparable amount of damage. But I do want to say that amidst the measles outbreak, which is just getting worse by the way, because that's what's going to happen. It's not getting any better. Oh, man. It's like spontaneously going into remission.

Tom. Yeah. Like for those of you guys who don't know, measles is the most contagious disease. Most. That's it. Like there's nothing. And so the like the infectivity or contagiousness of stuff is measured by its R naught number and like very simply from as I've understood it, the R naught number is essentially like

how many people statistically statistically, one infected person is likely to infect. Something like COVID has an R naught and it depends on the variants that have come out. But it's around two and a half to 3.8. It varies, like I said, like depending on from what I've read, depending on which variant, because some of them are more contagious than others. Measles is 18, 18. It's the most contagious thing,

straight period that is out there. Measles can like live in the air, it can live on surfaces, it can live like, you could like be in a fucking elevator and get out of the elevator and an hour later, someone could walk into that elevator and get measles that you were just, it's crazy

contagious. If only there was a solution. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, you know, we have the vaccine we've had for a long time. The MMR vaccine. There's a lot of people who have been convinced by bad actors and by very, very, very stupid people that the vaccine is unsafe, that the risks of injury from the vaccine are greater than the risks of injury from measles, which is just not true. There's a reason why we made the vaccine in the first place. We made the vaccine because we knew that it was,

it was killing people, which people have already died of this measles outbreak. People have already died in this measles outbreak. People have already died in this measles outbreak. So like when people say measles isn't that big a deal, you can always point to the very recent death from measles. It's not just that, it causes other, it could cause other problems with your immune system later on in your life.

It can cause really, it can cause blindness and it's unpleasant, right? It's really unpleasant. So a bunch of people have this and RFK is even rolling back his very serious anti-vax stance which he's had for a long time. This is a man who's constantly said in all these different places, in fact,

he was quoted as saying, like no vaccine is safe. I'm miss speaking like perfectly, but that's the gist of what he said. That's not an exact quote, but that is the gist of what he says. Essentially, no vaccine is safe. There is no safe vaccine. He said that.

He's on the record as saying that. So this is our health and human services guy who's now saying, well, I don't have an answer. There is no answer other than like, when the rubber hits the road with a real epidemic, all those people who all talk shit about not vaccinating your kids, I 100% think at this point,

several of those people who were convinced to not do it are gonna do it. Yeah, well, like the thing is like RFK was one of the 12 most prolific purveyors and disseminators of vaccine disinformation and misinformation. One of the most influential anti-vax people measured on social media. An enormous amount of all the anti-vax stuff that that is floated around came from 12 people sure and RFK jr. Was fucking he was one of those people yeah Now all of a sudden oh like turned around and I'm glad he turned around

I'm glad because there are people that will listen to him Yeah, there are people that will say oh shit, and they'll go to get their kid a fucking vaccine Because that's the only thing that is gonna help yeah, that's it. It's gonna save them That's that's it's it's a fucking vaccine, or maybe you get measles. And it's awful to get the measles. There's this idea that floats around too, and you see it on social media a lot, that kids used to get sick all the time and it made them tougher. It made their immune system stronger.

And there is some evidence that some amount of exposure, particularly to bacteria, to funguses, to allergens, does have a positive impact on building a strong immune system. It is important to note that the evidence is exactly the opposite for viruses. There is no advantage at all on getting a virus. Getting sick with viruses is always worse than not getting sick with viruses. All of the, everything I've ever read on this, there's no virus that you get that

like you would not be better off had you not gotten it. You would always be better off not getting that virus. If we could skip getting all the viruses, that's the thing we should do. We're so cavalier about this stuff. And we're cavalier about it even as the evidence continues to mount for severe post-viral syndromes. There's a growing body of evidence that suggests that there are a lot of autoimmune and other conditions which have their roots in childhood viral illnesses. So like it's to our benefit to not get sick. And what a crazy thing that we have to say out loud. Like, Hey, you know, what's better?

Not getting sick. Yeah. Yeah. But we do because like there's an idea floating around that like, ah, you know, like you just got to catch yourself a little bit of the measles and you know, how else you gonna strengthen your immune system? And it's like, that actually weakens it. Yeah.

That you're wrong. And I think too, the people who are consistently sending that message are often outside of things that are, that are sort of the target group that can be severely damaged by these things, right? Right. So often it's people who, you know, if I were to get the measles in an adult,

it's probably not as bad as if I got it as a child. And so that's a person who should be advocating for the child, but instead are convincing people not to vaccinate. Same thing when it goes to like people like Joe Rogan and his listeners and those types of people who bash on COVID vaccines. Those are people who for the most part probably won't be as affected by the COVID itself

than if you were an elderly person. Like that's the type of person who really benefit very much better. Everybody benefits from the COVID vaccine, but the person who would benefit more would be an elderly person. And the people who are the loudest saying not to take it are the ones that are in the area

where it's not really gonna hurt them if they don't, as much, you won't hurt them as much. So, those are the people I think you want to trust the least on that. And like, what always cracks me up about that shit too, is like those people are like, well, I'm young. And I always think to myself, you understand that that's not a perpetual state of being, right?

Like you will, at some point, One day. Yeah. Don't you want to live in a world? One day you will crack open your first bottle of Centrum Silver. That's gonna happen. It is. Don't you wanna live in a world where like when you're old,

the young people have lived in an ethos that has not said, let's discard you? Cause I wanna live in that world. Yeah, right? Like, isn't that a better place? Isn't that a better place in the world? Even just selfishly. Even if all I care about is me

Unless I'm a complete asshole that doesn't understand how time works. That's a better place I have to understand it like I'll be better protected Another watch a woman eat is surely one of the most sensual acts Yes, I'm sick it It is surely one of the most sensual acts. What if I take you to the kitchen and fry it well? Yes. Oh, William, so much loudness. Can we not go somewhere I can relate to you? Oralee. All right, this story is from the New York Times. Hegseth orders the Pentagon to stop offensive cyber operations against Russia. So I guess continuing our ongoing capitulation

to President Putin. It might be, you know, one thing they do mention in this story is that if you are getting ready to have a conversation at a, you know, negotiating table, you normally wind down your operations, be like, you know, it's not like a magician where you're like, nothing up my sleeve, and then you're the background, you're doing everything you can to try to thwart them.

You try to very publicly slow everything down so that everybody sees, hey, look, we're just here to talk, we don't wanna try to make a deal with you, et cetera. But the weird thing is, is that there really isn't anything that we need to deal with them for. The only thing that that would happen would be with Ukraine. So that's the only thing that would happen. So why are we doing that then? And also normally what happens is the other side does a very public thing too, and they didn't. Yeah, right.

So it's just one side, which makes it again us look back to the beginning of the show and be like well is he useful idiot or not? Yeah, well look all I know is that since January 20th We have had the non-stop slamming of fucking Putin's Dick into our fucking uvula, and we've been grateful for it the whole fucking time and begging for more. So I'm not surprised as like the president of Russia throat fucks Trump on TV in front of us that we're like, yeah, that's amazing. Keep throat fucking me. Like that's it's like, yeah, what are we, what are we, we're in the middle of a negotiations exactly what you said. Like, what are we getting?

What do we want? Well, what do they do? And they didn't do anything. Right. And then we're capitulating to them. So why, why do that? Other than somebody gave the order that happens to be following orders from somebody who isn't,

doesn't have the United States as in their benefit. Like they're not, they're not thinking about the benefit of the United States when they're giving that order. I would be very, very, very surprised Cecil, if by the end of 25, beginning of 26, we didn't have some kind of formal or semi-formal alliance with Russia and we are not pulled out of NATO.

I would be shocked. How shitty is that? It's horrible. It's the fucking worst. How shitty is that to, you know, gosh, what is it? 70 years, 80 years after World War II, we've neglected our allies and embraced fascists and dictators.

Authoritarian evil dictators. I mean, look at Trump's been very open about praising Viktor Orban, the fascist dictatorial strongman of Hungary. He's been absolutely praised Kim Jong-un. He's praised Putin. He likes these guys. This is his model of leadership. It's unsurprising.

It's really fucking unbelievably upsetting that America would ally itself in any way, even in a symbolic way, with the worst of what the world has to offer. What I've been reading too is that this may be the thing that really is our downfall, even if we don't do the things you suggest. Because breaking trust with your allies like Canada and with, you know, the EU, if you break trust with them, it doesn't matter if a Democrat wins after Trump. Yeah. Because that's only a four year reprieve from someone being bad. Right.

So they will build a world without you if you don't make yourself part of it all the time. So you need to be part of their world consistently, not fluctuating based on presidency. That's how you build allies. You can't just do it as a on-off switch. And so this really fucked us for, it'll be generational.

We probably won't ever really be as tight allies. We might not even be out by the end of four years, we might not even be allies with these countries. But we aren't gonna be as tight allies if someone else gets in and, you know, change and tries to change things. Yeah. I think internationally, we are always on the cusp of,

we are constantly teetering between which version of the world is going to be most powerful and furthered. And that is a democratic version of the world, a sort of progressive European and formerly democratic version of the world, a sort of progressive European and formerly American version of the world that really push things like freedom, liberty, democracy, things along those lines as general ideals that we should use. And granted, they've failed in many ways in practical terms. But I mean, those are really the ideals that have been versus a world run by strongmen.

And throughout most of human history, the world has been run by strongmen. That's how most of the world has functioned. And it's only been in relatively recent times that we've presented to the world a new option, a new way to think about how government and societies could run. And that's always been tenuous.

I think that that's always been tenuous. And when you have the largest economic and military power in the world, beginning its descent into strongman alliances, that threatens the entire global order. Sure. Not good. No global order. Sure. Yeah. Not good. No, not good. Not good.

["Psychedelic"] All right, we're gonna be back on Thursday with a long form article about psychedelics. So it's a Rolling Stone article and Tom's gonna read it for our patrons. So come back on Thursday and check out our long form, and then we'll be back a full episode on Monday. And we're gonna leave you like we always do

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