Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 862: Red Carpet for Putin

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Today's show is brought to you by Adam and Eve.com. Go to Adam and Eve.com right now and you'll get 50% off just about any item. All you have to do is enter the code word glory, G-L-O-R-Y at checkout. 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 Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is cognitive dissonance. Every episode would be 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, August the 21st. And you know, it's one of those days where, like, I wake up and I listen.

I don't pay, the first thing I did this morning was not to go and like read any of my news sites. They just went, I just had a busy morning, and I listened to my podcast, which means I was an entire day behind. in the news. So, of course, when I got to the studio to record, Cecil's like, hey, have you heard about

the new fresh hells that are occurring? This morning. It's this morning. This morning. Trump's judgment against him, the $500 million, half a billion dollar judgment that was against him, the amount was thrown out in the appeals court in New York. So they said it was an excessive amount

and it's going to go, now the case is still against them. And they still said that it's fraud or whatever, but now they're going to make a decision on based on, like whether or not that was, you know, what exact the amount of money it's going to be. And I love the people who apologize for this to be like, what, the banks didn't care. The banks, you know, because they were saying he was defrauded the bank. And you're like, dude, it doesn't matter if you pay money back. It does not.

It's still fraud. It's still, you still lied on the fraud part. Like, that's the important piece. Yeah, I love the, because you, it's so funny. I might, on my right up to the studio, you were literally making this same point. You and Marsh, I was listening to No Rowan. Yeah. And you and Marsh were talking about Stefan Molyneux talking about this nonsense of, you know,

hey, you know, the only time that anybody throws you in jail is if you don't pay your taxes, the only debt you get thrown in for. And you were like, that's not true, the child support as well. So like, he's just wrong, you know, because he's Stefan Molyneux. He's just wrong about everything. But then, like, he was also saying, well, and you can't just pay it back. They still sometimes punitively throw you in jail if it's taxes. Yeah, yeah.

And you guys really drew, I think, a really good parallel that I want to draw here against. I'm stealing from you guys because you're smarter than me. But like, the parallel was like, I can't rob your house, right? Yeah. And then when I get caught, somebody says, well, he gave the VCR back. I'm old VCR.

Sure. He gave the VCR. Yeah, the laser disc player, right? What was that thing? What was that thing? It wasn't compact disc. What was that? MiniDisc.

MiniDisc. MiniDisc. MiniDisc. Dudeus of the future. Dude. Pause real quick. I still fucking love minidisc, and I hate that it didn't take off.

Minidisc is amazing. It is the superior audio technology. And it looked so fucking futuristic. That's why. It looked cool. It was encased in plastic so it didn't scratch like CDs and fucking everything else. They're indestructible. They're smaller.

And we need more plastic. We need more plastic. The world is not full of enough plastic. And they were read right, unlike CDs, which initially weren't read right. Yeah. So like, they were awesome. It was genius. They were awesome.

It was such a cool thing. I love that. Strange days had it as a, as a, as a. it's McGuffin in the movie. And in the Matrix. Matrix. Matrix had a whole handful of mini-discs.

Yeah. Because you never find out in the Matrix what Neo is really selling in the very beginning. It's like the guy knocks on his door. Yeah, just giving minidists. Right.

He's just here's some fucking mixtapes for you. I think he worked at Best Buy. But in any case. Yeah, yeah. So you're right. You can't just steal something from me and then be like, but I gave it back.

Right. They still arrest you for that sort of thing. And so that's why this judgment against Trump. And to remind people, because like the scandals have been so numerous that if you forgot this one, I'll just be happy to give you quickest possible reminder. Basically, Trump got a bunch of loans that he shouldn't have gotten by falsifying the asset values of a bunch of collateral that he had. So he went to get loans. You have to put up collateral.

He said his collateral was worth X. It really was worth Y. He lied about it knowingly. And so did the people that worked for him. and really part of his defense was but I made all my payments so if I made all my payments what's the problem and it's like

look it's still a problem that's still a problem it's still lying it's still lying for your financial gain you might not have gotten that loan like it's a problem for a whole bunch of reasons and if you're if you're basically saying like I'm allowed to defraud banks as long as I make my

scheduled payments on time no you're fucking not and I just want to like draw a real quick, interesting corollary because there's a woman that the Trump administration right now is trying to push out of a federal chair job. Part of the reason they're trying to push her out

is they're saying that she committed mortgage fraud and specifically the mortgage fraud she may have committed, which was prior to her being a Fed chair, the mortgage fraud she may have committed or she's being accused of committing is saying that two properties were her primary residence. When you get a loan on a primary residence, you get a more favorable interest rate than

on a secondary residence because your likelihood of default on the place that you live is lower than on an investment or second home, right? So that's the reasoning for it. It's a lower risk for the bank. It's not just that they want to be nicer to you about your house. They don't care. It's a lower risk. So banks make decisions based on risk propositions, right? It's an interesting moment to live in where we can simultaneously say that person should be fired. They got out, they defrauded the bank and took out a loan. When I defrauded the bank, though, and took out a loan,

it's fine. She made all her payments, you want to fire her. He made all his payments. It's totally fine. You're all liars. It's all double standards. You're just liars.

And this is another example of Trump being able to do pretty much whatever he wanted. And I blame that fucking decision they made, when they made the decision that Trump can get away with things, like that he can't be prosecuted if it's an official act, right?

Like that whole thing that went through at the Supreme Court that it's a horrifying decision because the people who were in office for the Democrats

didn't do it because they were they were not awful, terrible people, right? Trump, during his first term, didn't do a lot of things that he thought he probably wanted to

because he was told by other people that you'll get trouble for that. Don't do that. When you finally out of here, they're going to fucking, they're going to run a train

on you. You better not do that. And instead, now he's like, I can do what I want. So he is, watch now, he is doing what he wants. Yeah. He, he, you know, we have stories in here about colluding with businesses. We have stories in here about him directing people in other states to get more seats on, in Congress.

These are acts that would be, they would throw you out on your ear. Yeah. Any other time. Yeah. You would be thrown out on your ear. And we just, we just, we just, now, we. He's just like, well, nothing, there's nothing you can do for me. This is an official act.

Exactly. And he's shaking down universities for cash. Absolutely. You know, like he's shaking down, like you said, corporations. He's shaking down major universities. He's like basically using the power of the government to bar a merger between Paramount and whoever else they were going to fucking merge with unless they gave him a bunch of money in a settlement. Like he's taking a fucking.

airplane as a private fucking plane. The amount of just straight up corruption is so insane to say out loud, you guys, it's been eight months. Yeah. It's not going to get any better. It's not going to get any better for this point. But when you take all the

training wheels off, he's free to ride wherever he wants now. And this morning, too, another big piece of news, it looks like that map passed in Texas. That gerrymander map. So now we get an opportunity to see if other states are going to follow suit and do what they threaten to do, which is disenfranchised Republican voters in other states.

Yeah, this is a fucking nightmare. It's a terrible tit for tat. It's a stupid, terrible tit for tat. I hope the only thing that, I mean, God, I've got to keep hoping. I've been hoping in one hand for a long time. I know, man. And collecting a lot of shit in the other time. But one of the things that I hope is that down the road, we see what a terrible system this is. And we have a nonpartisan system that comes in to make this decisions for us in the future. That somehow we fuck this up. so bad that in the future they're like we got to wipe the slate clean you know that's that whole accelerationist argument but that's the only thing we got left no i know yeah i just want to address it like i think that there's there is a look if if i if i were to take accelerationism at its face

and be a good faith with it right i might i might be tempted to say hey look if things break enough we'll be forced to fix those things i hope that that's the case right i do i genuinely hope with my whole heart that that's the case. My worry is that it is also possible to have a broken system that does not get repaired. I'm not saying that that's not literally what's going to happen. And there's a better chance of that happening than my hope hand, which has been full for a long time. Yeah. So the accelerationists, here's the thing, guys, I'm on your side.

I hope you're right. Like, hope is not a strategy. Yeah. So I don't base my actions on hope, right? because it's not a strategy. But like, fucking fingers crossed, maybe we will all have our come to Jesus moment. And here's the thing, like,

I'm more than willing to look those people in the face if it does, those dice do roll the six sevens in a row you need to roll in order to fix all this. And we get to that point, I'll look them in the face and be like, yeah, you were right. Same, same. I'm happy to say you're right, but I would have never chosen that path.

No. And I think the other thing that worries me about that concept is that what it requires is that everybody get burned the same or enough that we take a kind of collective action that we have not seen possible now in my 47-year lifetime. Yeah. So everybody, but the problem is that what I'm seeing is that everybody doesn't get burned. The burn is disproportionate. So it's lopsided. Yeah, as long as it's lopsided, I don't think accelerationism works. I don't think it is. I think that prying the power out of the hands of these people is going to be the hardest thing that the Senate America ever did next to the Civil War. Yeah.

And maybe, I mean, to some degree, like, maybe it will take some version of a civil war. Hopefully, it's not a violent civil war. Hopefully it is literally a civil war, like a legalistic civil war. Magenta, I have indeed grateful to both you and your brother, Riffraff. you have both served me will loyalty such as yours shall not go unrewarded you will discover

that when the mood takes me I can be quite generous I ask for nothing and you shall receive it in of the dance This story comes from Gizmodo The White House keeps a loyalty scorecard for companies according to a report

This is just McCarthyism man. Yeah, and it's... Remember when we thought that was bad? Well, and this is just straight up grift. You keep a loyal...

And this is exactly what we talked about last week. When we said, he wants to be a mafia guy. This leads right exactly into it, right? Who's my guys? Who's my made men?

Yeah. Who's the ones I can look to to say, you get this thing and you don't? You get this trash contract. That little guy over there doesn't. It's literally...

I mean, it's the fucking sopranos, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the only thing that would make this more soprano-esque is if you see Trump in his bathrobe walk out of the White House to get the paper every morning. Like, nobody wants that. Literally nobody wants to see Trump in a bathroom.

James Gandalfini died down. Yeah, that's true. Let's all pause and think about how that... May or may not have a thing involved with some other things. Can good... I just, here's what I've noticed, Cecil. good things do eventually happen right just just over the course of time it can't all just be bad things dude it's all bad though it's so bad i know i say that but i actually don't believe that every day there's a

brand new hell every day i turn on the news and i think and i think to myself i think this is what happens you know you're going to beat people down so hard over the next four years because every day there's a brand new beat down every day there's a brand new beat down The only thing that the only light that people are seeing, there's a couple of things that I think that we're going to cover that are actually really funny today and that I think are worth talking about. But also Epstein is the other piece that I don't want anybody to ever forget. And I think that we need to keep that in the sites because it makes him upset. Yeah. It clearly upsets him. And that's like the we need more destabilizing. You got to have him. You have to have him. He's a rabid dog. Right. So you have to fucking wave a scarecrow in front of him once. in a while. So he bites that. Right. And if you can make sure that that scarecrow is Epstein, and there's 30 of them around him, he's never going to do anything of worth. He's just, you got to get him on his back foot. Yeah. You got to get him. Because like right now, we're in a situation where he's calling for people's, uh, the removal of, you know, seats from Democratic places. I mean,

they didn't even have a lot of Democratic places in Texas already. And he's going to take away those places and split those districts up even worse. So you're talking about removal of seats, making it so that they have the house no matter what. This is literally a takeover of the government. It's a fascist takeover the government. This is a guy who is, if you let him do the things he wants to do, he's going to really run this thing into the ground. He's talking about, you know, talking last week about moving troops other places. He still has control of D.C.

Oh, my God. You know, there's, he's threatening other, today I saw a tweet from him that basically threatened Colorado that they need to release somebody who was convicted of election crimes for him lying for election. He's like, if you don't, there'll be consequences. Like, this is a guy who's threatening states now. Yeah. Well, it's not surprising, right?

Because he threatened the woman who was the governor of Maine. Yeah. You know, like this is a person who takes it very. personally moves into that personal level like constantly it's we record this show every seven days and honestly and i mean this like there is more shit i'm constantly doing this show with you and we keep we keep notes and we take these notes to put stories in and then all the time i'm like yeah we didn't talk enough about we didn't talk about this other thing yeah because over the course of seven days there's been all these other destabilizing anti-democratic stories that have broken

things down it just takes it just takes a second for it yeah it's like and it's every day And there's one that I do want to make a quick comment on that isn't in our show notes. But, you know, Trump is talking about eliminating mail-in balloting. Yeah, that's another thing. That's a huge big deal. Now, he's talking about doing it. He doesn't actually have the authority to do that, technically. But somehow that doesn't seem to stop him from doing stuff all the time.

So I think you have to take that very seriously. And one of the craziest things, Cecil, one of the craziest things that he said was, you know, when I talked to Putin, Putin said you can't have mail-in balloting and have free elections. And it's like, Russia doesn't have free elections. Russia couldn't point to a free election in a lineup. Thank you. Yeah. They're all Kaiser Soze. Do they're all yes. Every single one of this. I mean, like when I heard that, I thought we should all be shocked and appalled. that Trump is looking to Putin and saying, hey, this guy says

that's not how you run a democracy. Russia is our example of how to create and maintain a functioning democracy. Russia? Yeah. Really? Fucking Ronald Reagan will be spinning in his grave

so fast he could fucking light a fire in there from friction. What is happening? Yeah, man. If you're a Republican, what are you thinking? Russia has been our enemy for decades and decades and decades. We all, I know I've said this before, but like we all hid under our desks at some point in relatively recent generational memory. We literally hid under our desks for fear of annihilation from the Russians.

And now we're saying, how do we run a free and fair election? Let's look to, why not look to North Korea for it? The thing is, is like, this is a guy who wants to do whatever he can to rig these elections. He's been trying to do it since he got in. There's speculation that he did it this last time. There is, there's people who are trying to go to court. There's people who are digging into this. I don't know how much juice is behind it.

I don't know how much, I don't, I'm not willing to, unless I see like lockdown drag-ass proof, I'm not going to fall into the metronome of, you know, they want to. this time, it's election fraud. He won this time, it's election fraud. We won it's election fraud. I don't want to do that. If there's actual evidence of election fraud, I'd love to see it. Yeah.

But I'm not going to automatically believe it exists, right? I can believe that the Democrats fuck things up on their own. It's not like, that's a hard, that's not a hard ask for my credulity. You know what I mean? Like, you could just be like, yeah, no, like, I think they fucked it up on their own. that's okay yeah i think i get it so so but but what we have is a guy who is obsessed with always being on top and he will do whatever it takes to be on top i don't know i think i i really am leaning now after this last eight months to say trump will die as king of america yeah yeah

Yeah, yeah. I don't think that's not going to happen. I think that our 2026 elections are in jeopardy. Yeah. Our 2028 election might have Trump on the ballot, and that might is getting bigger by the day. I'm worried about the same thing. I am worried about the possibility long term of even of being able to hear dissenting voices. You know, I watched a video on Washington Post's website of police forces in D.C. Arresting some guy fairly violently, throwing him to the ground, arresting him, and they threw him into basically an unmarked SUV, and they refused to identify what agency of the government they worked for. We're disappearing people now.

And here's the thing. No matter if that person deserved to be arrested, that's not how we do it. That's intentionally not how we do it. That's definitely not how we do it. Yeah. And we don't do it that way because it could be you. Right. And it could be them.

It could be anybody on any list anywhere. That's not how we do it because it protects us from the government. Right. There's a group of people right now who think that they are part of this government. They think they have ownership, but they don't. They don't have any. They think they do because they supported this guy, but they don't have any ownership of this government. And they think that they're part of the in crowd.

and that there is going to be a rude awakening. And there already is a root awakening of a lot of people economically. Right. But there's going to be a ruder awakening later on if they start to collect people and do. And I'm not saying that's not going to happen because I 100% seeing it right now. Yeah, man. You're exactly right. This is like something I've thought about.

And I'm not the only person who's thought about it. But like the guarantee of due process has to be universal or not or it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It is a binary guarantee. So if the guarantee of due process is something that is only applied at the luxury or at the whim or at the discretion of the powers that be, then there is no guarantee of due. There is no due process. And we have lost our ability to petition our government for redress and wrong. And that is a constitutional right that we are guaranteed.

So our civil rights, our ability to say, I am a citizen. And if things go wrong, there's a process I can engage. And I might win, I might lose. but there's a process that I can engage. If that's selective for anybody, it doesn't exist for anybody. So that's a big fucking deal. That's like the biggest deal.

That's what we fucking had a whole revolution about it. Yeah. Every other right. Every other right is predicated first on the bedrock of your ability as a citizen to enforce your other rights. If we lose the due process piece, you don't have a second amendment.

You have a privilege. Every right becomes a privilege that is granted or not granted at the discretion of the powers that be. Without that due price, it's so fundamental to erode it at all is to say that we are living now in an entirely new space. Yeah. And I recognize too, when I look back at the revolution, I think, you know, taking those rights away, all those things that you suggest, do process, you know, having a group of people that are in your space that can do essentially whatever they want. all those things are coming, they're back now, right? We had a whole revolution. But one of the things we had a revolution about, too, was tariffs.

Yeah, man. Yeah, you're exactly right. Like, we had it. Like, hey, man, let me tell you why they threw a bunch of fucking tea into a harbor. Yeah. You know? And that's what, that's, we're at a place where, like, we have decided to roll the clock back to 1775. Yeah.

It's fucking wild. It's crazy. It's not wild good. Don't start, but you can't finish. Put hitting yourself. Put in yourself. Oh, water tastes good. Yes.

Club, club. All right, but there are some voices. This one's from Axios. Newsome, mocks, Trump's, social media, in a flurry of redistricting posts. Okay, not the world's biggest Gavin Newsom fan. But am I the biggest fan of what he's doing right now? Oh my God, yes.

Okay, so I want to put on the big screen some of the things that he's posting because I think it's necessary to serve people to see it. Tom, can you just read really quickly? I'm going to hit show more so we can see the whole thing. Why don't you read really quickly? this tweet from Gavin Newsom. Dana Ding-Dong Perino, never heard of her until today,

is melting down because of me, Gavin C. Newsome. Fox hates that I am America's most favorite governor, Ratings King, saving America, while Trump can't even conquer the big stares on Air Force One anymore. Trump has lost his step,

and Fox is losing it because when I type, America now wins. Thank you for your attention to this matter, GCN. The whole thing is all caps. Calcaps. It's exactly like how Trump tweets. Pitch perfect. It's perfect. It's literally perfect. And here's the thing. Like, I don't like Gavin Newsom. I don't like him. The stuff he's done recently, especially coming out against trans people, he's shitty. He's a shitty dude.

But I will say this. Like, I am starting to collect enemies of my enemy. At this point, I'm not choosy about enemies of my enemy. I'm not willing to throw away Gavin Newsome. No way. Yet, because if he can destabilize anything, good. Yeah. Fucking good. This is like, it is, that's exactly the right thing. Like, we have to constantly destabilize and push this jackhole into his back foot.

We need to make him respond to stuff like this all the time. We also need to make the right who is responding to Gavin Newsom and saying, this is not the way you should behave. This is inappropriate. It's amazing. It's so insane that you do. literally the exact same thing pitch to pitch of what Trump has been doing and the right is losing their full fucking minds about it. He posted an image of himself with Hulk Hogan. So he's got a picture of Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, and Tucker Carlson all laying hands on him. And Hulk Hogan

has a fucking halo. It's so good. It's so good. And it's all AI generated. Right. And it's exactly what and someone commented on this. And we, I can't look at the comments because it's on X, right? So I can't look at it. But on Twitter, somebody, he posted this and someone said, that's blasphemy or something like that. And he said, oh, sorry, wrong image. And he posted the one of Trump as, as Pope. It's fucking amazing. It's amazing trolling. I, like I, like, there's a lot of Democrats I don't like. There's a lot of them I don't like. But if they're willing to take a swing at somebody, I don't like a whole lot more. Happy to see him do it. Like, you know, let's say that next, the 2028, let's say my choice.

was Marco Rubio or Gavin Newsom? That's not a hard choice. It's not a hard choice. Even though I don't like Gavin Newsom, that needs to not be a hard choice. The other thing I will say too is, every step of the way that Gavin Newsom is running, I will do whatever I can to make sure he doesn't win.

I will 100% vote in a primary against him. I will run a fundraiser for someone else to try to win. But if he becomes the ultimate person, then he becomes the ultimate person. And I'm not going to, and there's no way I'm going to vote for J.D. Vance. Right.

Over Gavin News. You've got to figure. Or Donald Trump for a third term. Yeah, or Donald Trump for a third term. Again, like, if we are, we are always presented with two choices. Yeah. All right.

There's another just fucking glorious picture. It's fucking, it's Raygun. Raygun from the Australian breakdancing, Olympic team with J.D. Vance's face. And it's in response to somebody saying J.D. Vance will be in attendance at the President Trump's meeting with Zelensky tomorrow. Are we ready to see another Oval Office showdown? And then Gavin Newsom's office posted J.D. Vance. Dress like Raygun or with Raygun's face on, or J.D. Vance's face on Raygun. And it says the highly unpitantitated showdown. It's got the actual best.

amazing. It's genuinely amazing. And that's the thing is, like, I'm happy to have this guy go at him now. And he's just trying to do it literally to get himself in a position to eventually run. I know that that's what his thing is. I don't

care. I don't want him to run. I don't want him to be the guy. I don't want him to be the guy at all, like in a lot of different ways. But I got to say, like, if somebody is... And here's a thing. if Joe Rogan tomorrow turned on Trump, I would be, I wouldn't be a fan of Joe Rogan, just like, and I'm not a fan of Gavin Newsom, but I'd be happy it's happening.

Yes. You know what I mean? I'd be happy that it's, I'm not, I'm not saying that, like, I'm going to be Joe's best friend. Right. But I am going to say, like, every step he takes, I'll be like, go get him. Yes. Like, we have to do that. Go get him.

Yeah. If we don't support the people who are in opposition to the destruction, to the destruction. of our democracy. We'll lose our democracy. Absolutely. And then we won't be able to make these kinds of choices anymore. Absolutely.

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Go gory. Do you like sports, Frederick? Oh, I don't believe so, madam. I thought we liked stripes this year. What kind of sycophant are you? What kind of sycophant would you like me to be? This story is from the New York Times. Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin.

He still didn't get a peace deal. So there was a summit up in Alaska. It was to really kind of negotiate potential terms for a ceasefire, not a treaty. I don't think anyone's even talking down that line, but like a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, very conspicuously and imperialistically, Ukraine was not part of that conversation.

This is a very 1980s world powers imperialist model of here are the world powers and here's how we will divide up the world. Here's how we're going to make sure that this is. Trump, of course, went into it and he was supposed to have solved this on day one, or even before he took office. What he said is he got a ceasefire

before he even took office. We're eight months in. He's had multiple meetings and phone calls. He's making no progress. Nothing. He will not make any progress. Not until Ukraine capitulates to everything that Russia wants.

Because that's what Russia wants. Well, and Trump came out. So Trump is a fucking yes man. And it's so funny how everybody thinks that he's not. But Trump is the biggest fucking yes man, sycophant of them all. anytime he meets with anybody that he perceives as being powerful, he always caves to their worldview and to their points.

So ahead of time, he said, you know, we're going to have, if Russia doesn't agree to a ceasefire, there's going to be sanctions and all this stuff. Big talk. Big talk. He met with European leaders ahead of this thing. And he said, I'm going to agree to these European red lines. We are not going to cede land. These are the European red lines.

He agrees with whatever. everybody says. Then when he gets in a room, he agrees with that next person. So he got in a room with Putin. And now he's talking, now all of a sudden, there's no sanctions on Russia. There's no ceasefire. The red lines that Europe drew that he agreed to ahead of time, he's abandoned. And what he's basically said is, in order for there to be peace, Ukraine has to cede territory that Russia has already captured, specifically looking for the Donbos region, is what I've read. I don't know what that fucking means practically, except for that from what I've read, the The Dombos region is basically a fortification against further Russian encroachment and aggression.

So seeding that basically just provides a staging ground for additional Russian incursion and for them to sort of like rebuild their forces and do it again. Obviously Ukraine doesn't want to do that. They don't want to cede any land. And they specifically don't want to cede like this thou shalt not pass territory, right, over to the Russians on a permanent basis. But every time Trump gets in a room with somebody, he walks out of the room

with whatever fucking worldview they walked in with. Yeah, every time. Every time. That happens every time. And he's also, like, here's a guy. Let's just talk about the sort of symbolism of this whole thing.

Trump comes in, or not Trump comes in, Putin comes in, lands, and then our military rolls a red carpet up to his plane. Our military people rolled a red carpet up to him. Trump's standing on that red carpet, clapping, doing clapy claps as he's walking up.

I'm not even fucking kidding, right? It's described in this that he sees him coming down and he starts clapping. He starts clapping for fucking Vladimir Putin coming off a fucking plane and our president is fucking gleefully clapping on a red carpet.

That means something. It does. That means something. You know, look at the images of Obama standing face to face versus Trump standing face to face with Putin. Obama's got this scowl on his face. Not interested in really dealing with him at all.

Fucking Donald Trump is doing the squinty eye, gleefully looking at him, leaning over into this handshake, not doing the pulley pole thing. He's leaning over. Putin's got his finger up like, bitch, listen to what I got to say. And fucking Donald Trump is ready to lap up anything Putin puts out. Anything. Yeah. That means something.

It genuinely means something. these people that lied to everybody, right? They lied to everybody about no wars. They lied to everybody about how we can end everything. They lied about prices. They lied about tariffs. They lied about everything. And I think, you know, the more we can pull that veneer away and say,

look, man, they fucking lie to you. This dude said that he could just end this. Everybody, I don't think that it's not like anybody in the world is like, man, that Ukraine-Russia war is pretty great for everybody. I don't think anybody's thinking that, right? Even people on the other side who are on Russia's side don't think it's a good idea. So he said he could do something that he cannot do.

And every room temperature IQ person out there knew he couldn't do it. You knew he couldn't. It was not possible. There was no way he was going to do it. He's saying it wouldn't happen on his watch. And Putin, of course, says, oh, it wouldn't happen if Trump was in office.

Of course you'd say that. Of course you'd say because your lap dog is literally inviting you up for a really sweet, snazzy lunch up in the middle of Alaska to American soil capitulating to you and then the next day

he's in the fucking White House with Zelensky. Yeah, yeah. And he had a meeting with Zelensky that they described, even though there was no fucking progress, that they described is very productive

and the best meeting yet because every room he gets into he just takes on the worldview of that person. And you know, part of the reason I was just thinking while you were talking, like part of the reason this happens, I think, is because for Trump, everything's personal.

Yeah. As a man who doesn't care about this country, he cares only about himself. When he meets with a world leader that pays him respect and treats him deferentially, that's personal. He likes it. And when he likes something,

he responds to that feeling of being liked and being validated. That's why all these people are important. That's why all these people, they took that on. But even before he came into office, Zelensky was doing this for him. even before he came into office.

And Zelensky got treated like a shitbag when he came here. And now he came back and he got treated way better this time. And I think he's just being deferential to him. And then Trump eats it up. He eats it up because he's so easy to play. He walks around with his card staple backwards to his ford.

He is the biggest presidential pick me. Yeah. Fucking ever. Hi, I'm Chris Gatford. And I'm very excited to tell you about beautiful and Arnold. a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number, thousands of people try to call, we talk to one of them, they stay anonymous, I can't hang up, that's all the rules.

I never know what's going to happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survive mass shootings. Crazy funny ones. I talk to a guy with a goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's going to happen. It's a great show.

Subscribe today, Beautiful Anonymous. Oh, bonkers. Bonky. Come on now. Give me the paper. Bonkers. Give me that paper, you hairy, son of a bitch. This story is from NPR.

Government papers found in an Alaskan hotel reveal new details of Trump Putin's summit. What I love about this, Tom, is they find these papers. papers. They contact NPR. NPR has these papers. And they look through them and they're like, well, it says where they're going to be. It says what they're going to have for lunch. It says, it says, oh, who the people are, what their personal phone numbers are, man. And then they call the State Department. And they're like, hey, we found these papers. And they're like, oh, they're like, hey, we found these papers. And they're like, okay, if it's nothing. And they're like, oh, they are. And then they called their book. Like, okay, if it's nothing, here they are. Published. Here they are. Published. on our website. By the way, when you read this article, you can click on a link and look at the papers. They published them online. And I'm like, great. Do that every time. Every time. Every time they say nothing, it doesn't mean anything. To be like, great, it doesn't mean anything then. Oh, it's not classified or confidential. I'm taking you at your word. Yeah. Which is exactly what they did with the signal thing. It is. Yeah. As soon as they're like, oh, this doesn't classify,

they're like, great. We're going to publish the entire thing with unredacted, with all the screen grabs and everything. Yeah. Like, there is not, like, this would be a scandal on scandal on scandal in any other administration and this barely touches the news yeah this is an incompetent group of people they are not competent to hold our state secrets we know they're not because again it hasn't been a full year it's not been a full year and we've already had two signal gates actually we had two signal leaks so we had the big signal leak and then we had like the baby signal leak we're like hey we had his lawyer and his wife all on a on a call together talking about state secret shit with Hagseth and the fucking

first one where they invited the Atlantic guy and then you've got like oh we had a meeting and we left a bunch of fucking phone numbers for government employees just laying around think about how incompetent that is I don't know about you but every time I leave a hotel every time

as I've got my fucking suitcase in my hand the last thing I do is pause and do a quick sweep of that room to make sure I didn't leave my fucking glasses or keys or toothbrush or whatever because I recognize that I am an idiot and I should not be trusted with belongings. And so I do a quick double check.

You have fucking state documents, man. State documents. And also, Cecil, do you still print shit out on paper in 2025? I think Alex Jones was a guest and he needed everything printed out like his story. Yes, and print the internet for me, please. I would like my assistant to print the entire internet for me. Who's printing anything now? The crazy

The crazy thing is Is that that journalist Who was in the Signal thing He accidentally got invited to that lunch too He's like RSVPing through 6th Yes I will have a plus one This is a weird thing to get an Evite card from

Let me ask you a hard question Yeah, okay Would you rather Oh boy This administration Be Whip Smart or this stupid Because here's the thing Oh my God

The good thing about them being whip smart is I was beaten by the best. Yeah. The bad thing about them being this stupid is I was beaten by that. Jesus, dude. It's really an ego thing because I'm much more happy that they're incompetent. Because it's just less damage, in my opinion. It's less damage. It's less purposeful.

That's less on-purpose damage is what I should say. Because they can still do damage being stupid. But I think, like, more conscientious, purposeful damage is done by somebody who's way smarter. I'll take the opposite. I'll take the opposite side of the coin. And I'll suggest that, like, I wish they were whipsmart because somebody, if they were whipsmart, would be able to say, that's a bad idea.

We shouldn't do it. Yeah, I guess it's true. We shouldn't actually, like, be a corrosive generational force for, like, democracy itself, guys. Yeah. So I do, like, and I also, like... A Dunning Kruger cabinet is terrible. It's terrible.

It is. It's terrible. But, like, put the ego part of me. I want to address. Because that's a big part of me, too. I have said this before, and I can't even express how much this bothers me, that, like, the

supervillains are this tacky and this stupid. I, like, if you're, like, if I go to your volcano layer, and it's fucking got a live, laugh, love poster in it, like, I don't care how much you shock my balls. I still don't respect you. Like, I'm still

like, yeah, I'm a, I know you're going to kill my family, but I'm like, fuck your live, laugh, love, fucking your tacky Hobby Lobby bullshit. I don't, like, this, this administration is so incompetent and tacky and gaudy and stupid. And I just look at it and I'm like, God, I want to be, I miss the days when serious people were my enemies. Yeah.

This unserious enemy that is beating me. Yeah. It's just like, it's so bad that the, that the people who you went to high school with and you're like, that person's never going anywhere. Right. They're like super excited about this administration. Yeah, man. It's like, it's like, if that guy was now my boss?

Yeah. Like, have you ever worked for a boss that was like a lot dumber than you in your life? I worked in a university, so no. I have worked for bosses in my life that were significantly stupider than I was. Like, like, a lot. And I'm not trying to be like egotistical. It's just true. It is true facts.

Just true absolute. And it is, it is so disheartening. Like nothing reaches into the bottom of who. you are as a person than having somebody that you run fucking circles around when you're asleep, telling you what to do on a Wednesday. It hurts. That's what Ian feels like for us.

So, yeah, that's how it feels to me to some degree. It's like, ah, God, you? Yeah. Yeah. God. I'm this close to going up there and going post on the whole goddamn administration. This close.

This story is from Reuters. Trump vows to end use of mail-in ballots ahead of 2026 midterm election. We touched on this a little earlier. Trump did, however, say that he is a fan of absentee ballots, which are ballots in case you're curious, that you fill out in mail-in. Yeah. But not a fan of mail-in ballots, which are ballots that you fill out and mail-in. I also would point out that the Republicans did better on mail-in balloting in the last election than the Democrats did. So, well, I think, I think that this is, what this is going to do is it's going to put the

power in the hands of people who have their hands on ballots. And I think that this is a, this is a way in which to genuinely create a fraudulent election. I think cutting out mail in ballots is a way for them to fraudulently create an election and to scare people too. Because one of the things that that you do is you create fewer voting centers in Democratic places, which they've done already. So voter suppression can happen in many different ways, and this is a way to do it.

So if I take away mail-in ballots and I take away maybe early voting in certain places, and I reduce all the places, like this very highly populated place in, let's say, let's pick a state that has a relatively red population with a large

number of people. Let's say Texas. Oh, huh. Let's say that in Texas, in like Dallas and, you know, what's another big Houston, they diminish the number of voting places so that the lines are through the roof. Right. And then they make it difficult for you to go and difficult for you to handle that voting day

and lots of problems in those blue areas. They make it really easy for people to sit this one out, to not want to play. Right. To, you know, when you take away convenience for voting, you make it hard to vote. You just make it naturally hard. harder to vote. So they will, and they will do this in every place that is Republican-led,

because we're talking about how he's going to do an executive order. And you were saying, that might not hold any water. And who gives a shit, other people will be like, hey, man, we're states we handle how we do this. So there might be a fight in the Supreme Court. And even if Supreme Court agrees with this on principle, lots of these states, now that they know Trump is in charge, they're just going to do it anyway. That's exactly it, man. Like, they're going to, once these signals, this is what I want you to do, then his loyalty testers go out and make sure that all of his little fucking sycophants follow through. So even if he can't do it from the top down, yes, he can. Right? He exerts that

power and control. There's another important piece to this. We've seen him take troops from DC and send people there and send federal agents there. What's to say on the day of voting, he doesn't do that to polling places, especially in blue states. Yeah, man. Oh, God. I know. Yeah. What if what if you go in and then that suddenly there's border control guards all standing around every polling place, making it a really uncomfortable moment for everybody who has to walk in and do this. They can make voting really, really uncomfortable

for a lot of people. And this is just another way to do voter suppression in our country, which we already have. So now they're just supercharging it. I mean, you're exactly right that the undeclared martial law that he's obviously willing to engage in

is not outside his purview. Yeah, he's definitely going to do that. We're talking about things like stem cell research, fetish rights, oil drilling, gay marriage, that kind of thing. I mean, we'll even reverse suffrage if you want. See, we are willing to go far for you. We're willing to go very far, very far. We missed this last week. It's a big deal.

ABC News, Supreme Court is now formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex ruling. This is Kim Davis. You guys might remember she's all over. A former clerk who refused gay couples. God. She's the one who brought the appeal. You know, I have to do it. There were a ton of people who are like, well, you know, it's not going to get that bad. We all right. We have this. We have that. They're not going to be able.

They're going to roll back the clock. Amen. They're going to take, they've already done it, right? Like women's right to have reproductive access to care has been eliminated. Gone. That right is gone. Whether you have it in your state right now is a privilege because the right to it has been stripped from you, right? So the ability for gay people to get married.

And I was thinking about this when I looked at the story. It's not just marriage that is this important. What this also is is a symbolic moment of recognition of the equality and sameness of people who are gay. When we allowed for gay marriage, what we said is this relationship is just like other relationships, both legally and socially. And so it immediately, it really kind of codified a space, like an internal space that people began to occupy, where it became like verboten and uncool and, you know, illegitimate in many social ways to look at gayness as something to otherize. This not just strips people, if this goes through, this not just strips them of their right to marry, but it also accelerates an othering.

And it allows for that othering And it encourages that othering Because it says there's a reason You're not allowed to be the same as me now And it's because you're bad Gay people have to drink from a different fountain Yes Yeah, that's exactly it

There's a fountain in the back That you get to drink from And it's you don't get a marriage You don't get to see your dying loved one Because we don't allow that in this state or whatever You're gonna see a roll You would see a rolling back Now according to this article

two of the votes that they would need are 100% not interested according to this article and according to the insiders in the Supreme Court Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh do not want to hear this.

They don't want to hear this thing again. And that's two votes that they would absolutely need in order to flip this thing over. Who really does want to hear this is Clarence Thomas because he even said so in a previous ruling.

So in a previous ruling he's like, hey, by the way, I think that other one that we did was unconstitutional. So somebody should bring that back. And they are using that writing of that ruling, Clarence Thomas' single objection, only person who wrote single objection on a ruling to go ahead and bring this case. And he wrote it very specifically so this would happen. He knew he knows the system of government.

He knows how the judicial system works. And so he was like, if I write this, if I build it, they will come. Yeah. It was an invitation. It was an invitation to bring this case. And they went out and found the trolleest troll that ever trolled anything in Kim Davis, this chronically, tragically unhappy, awful person who wants to ruin everybody else's life because she has such a shitty, awful, terrible life.

And so she wants to ruin everybody else. She had three failed marriages. She wants to make sure every gay marriage fails. Yeah. She's garbage. This is a garbage person who broke the law. That's what happened. This is not a right of conscience.

No. And you're absolutely right. This is a trash person who broke the law. This is a fucking person who thought that their personal rights were more important than other people. Again, where my libertarians at? Thank you. Where you at? Thank you. Maserradi by turbo, royal blues, six cylinder.

No, you can't trust Italian. The shit just falls apart. This story comes from Politico. Cuomo's seeking a Trump bump. Where, how do you do that? Off a key? Which bump? Like, when you rub over it,

him. Are there a lot of different bumps? I feel like he's lumpy. I definitely feel like... Trump? Yeah, like there's... Like, there's a... Like, he just kind of looks like a pulsating cyst, so I figure there's like a lot of those on there. So Cuomo

lost the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani. And now, instead of just saying, well, all right, I... there was a contest. I'm part of this party. There was a contest and I lost. Now he's going to run as an independent. And running as an independent, he is

clearly hoping to just draw. I don't think he thinks he can win. He wants to split the vote. I think he wants to, I think it says vindictive. Yeah. This is personal and vindictive. This is trash. This is absolute asshole behavior.

Yeah. This guy, not only do I hope he loses, I hope he is assigned to the fucking dustbin of history. Yeah. I hate this guy. I agree. Fuck this guy forever. But what I do think is going to happen, and I genuinely believe this, I think that he'll lose. I think that Mamdani is going to win.

I think that that is very likely to happen based on the numbers that we've seen so far and I think Cuomo will be campaigning with Trump in 2026. Yeah, you're not wrong. He'll be another one of these fucking Tulsi Gabbard fuckers.

You're not wrong. I think that's exactly and I think he's, yeah, he'll be on Tulsi's coattails essentially. He'll be following her around, following her trajectory in this administration. I don't disagree. I think that, you know, like, like what we see from some of these people who have been part of the Democratic Party

is what you see is that they don't give a fuck how they get that power. They don't fucking care. And I just want to see those people washed away. I don't want to see those people ever again. I want to see them washed away. And the thing is, like, I don't want to be one of these people who's like,

fuck this whole system, because this whole system is rigged. But man, this guy is starting to feel like this whole system's rigged. Yeah. This guy's, this guy's, this guy's, this guy's, rise and then continual attack. I just want to see him go away forever. I don't want to see him part of this system. I want to see him go away.

He's a shitty dude who, you know, wound up killing a bunch of people during COVID. He's not a good, he wasn't a good governor. No. And he's not, he wouldn't be good for New York City. I want to see. And the way that there's a, there's a centrist group of people out there that are so afraid of him, Donnie.

So afraid, man. So afraid of this guy. And you're like, come on, man. This guy isn't saying anything that isn't. I mean, I don't know that this guy would be far left in other places. He feels like he would be centrist left in other places with some of the stuff that he suggests. A hundred percent. I think that the powers that be that run the Democratic Party are missing their moment.

They are misunderstanding the moment here. And they're doing exactly the wrong thing. And that leads us to our next story. this is from the new republic establishment democrats are going to torpedo the 2026 midterms this is a good article this is a good article yeah if you have an opportunity my suggestion is to read this article because it points out that not only the the people who ran in the in our last election did pulled some really shitty dumb things that they did at the end cobble a meeting with liz cheney and campaigning with liz cheney for as long as she did was a huge misstep a huge misstep for the

young people in this country. Terrible idea. And not going against corporate donors and things like that. Very bad missed up. And I think this article points out a lot of problems that came up this last election that don't seem like they're going to get fixed. Yeah. You know, like I am generally, generally of the mind, especially in politics, that it is a mistake to vote. When we lose, right, it doesn't matter with sidron. When you lose, I think very often the tendency is to say, what did we do wrong? Yeah. Instead of saying, what did we do? they do right? So we blame the losing side for losing rather than crediting the winning side for winning. I hate that, generally speaking. I think that that is almost always the wrong way

to think about how politics works and what, it's just I hate it. It makes me crazy. It's blaming yourself for not locking the door when it gets, when your house gets robbed. The robbers robbed your house, man. Like that's, they were a hundred percent responsible. The winning. winning team one, let's look at what they did right. In this case, I do think that the Democrats are a fractured party. They don't have a strong message. They don't have a strong angle. They don't have cohesion. They don't have leadership that people are excited to get behind. Mamdani is a great example because Mamdani's polling numbers are astonishingly good. It's not even close. We covered this weeks ago that like when they added up,

He got more votes than everybody, even if you added everybody else's votes together. Wildly successful in that primary. And still, he is not being endorsed by major figures within the Democratic establishment. The Democratic establishment is confused about what their message is. They're even confused about who their core constituency is. They don't know who to appeal to, so they don't know how to make that appeal. That's going to be tragic. The only thing that we have, I think, is the sort of zero-sum gamesmanship of voting against.

That's probably the best we're going to get in 2026, and that's a bad strategy. It's a terrible strategy. And I think, you know, there was a push in a couple of different elections, vote blue no matter who. That's got to be reciprocated in these other elections, too, by the Democrats, right? Yes. So the thing is, is like, Mamdani's the blue one. Yep. go for the blue one stupid

don't fracture yourself don't fuck yourself this is this is essentially treating and it's sort of going again it's sort of doing all the things that we decried over the last several years like don't don't

sit this election out don't try to split the party don't you know what I mean like let's try to let's try to build a coalition all those things that we thought were important the sort of really died in the wool corporate Democrats are now doing that again

with Mamdani and they might do it again for the 2026 election. They're doing exactly what we decried before and I'm going to be consistent and say that's fucked. Fuck you.

Get rid of them. And I would be so happy if they start getting rid of these really corporatist Democrats that are not trying to embrace this populist message which you pointed out they got right.

The Republicans got it right. Now, did they deliver on any of that stuff? Absolutely. They didn't. They didn't deliver on any of it. Do better. Embrace the populist message and do better.

Do a better job of creating those things that you say you can create and do the actual work to do it instead of just getting it and grifting. Go ahead and do that actual work. And then the people will, I think, that could totally change the face of the party. But what you have is a group of people who, you know, are really comfortable. Yeah. They're really comfortable. It doesn't matter who's in charge. It doesn't matter if Trump's in charge.

These people are very comfortable. Right. Get the comfortable people out of there. Get these people who have been, you know, 25, 30 year senators, 25, 30 year Congress people. Fuck them. Get rid of them.

Get rid of these people who are complaining about how much money they're making in there and how they can make like fucking insider trading and not get in trouble. Get rid of all of them. And like the Democrats have to figure out too. And like what are the lessons we should learn from the winning team, right? And like the Democrats have to figure out.

that the big corporate donors, the big corporations, the CEOs, the heads of like industry and state, what we have to know now is that they never cared about any of the principles. We don't have to appeal to them on principle. We have to appeal to their desire to be appealing to power. We've seen them all shift. They shifted toward DEI. Now they've shifted away from DEI. They don't care about these things. They don't give a shit what's happening. You also, in 2026, have to concede that they've shifted. They've shifted away from DEI. They don't care about these things. I don't care about. You also in 20206 have to concede that your major corporate donors are not going to back the left because they don't have any principles. So they're afraid and they should be. If I was a giant

corporation, there's no way that as a giant corporation, I could say, I think we should go against the Trump administration. The Trump administration has shown itself to be punitive. It's shown itself is willing to single out not just companies, but the people specifically that work there. You're not going to get Facebook. That's a great line. That's a great idea because you're right. You're absolutely right. But what we can do is take a lesson and say, all right, we're not going to get those. We don't have to appeal to them now.

What we have to do is win. If we win, they'll come to us. We know that because they're just they blow in the way. Because they're craving. Right. So if populism is what America wants, there is a left side populism. Let's appeal to populism. Let's embrace populism, but let's embrace

a left-leaning populism. We already, we don't have to try to chase these guys that we can't catch. It's like the fucking pretty girl at the bar that you asked out has already said no, she's with this guy. Stop trying to court her. Stop it.

And the thing is, is you're absolutely right. These people, the moment they saw Trump was in office and even companies that have been for a long time what we would consider left-leaning companies, look at Target. Yeah. They immediately capitulated as soon as he was in office. Not because they care about DEI or gay rights or any of the stuff that they've said they've cared.

about forever. They don't give a fuck about that. No. Right. It was good that they did show that idea of respect because it normalized those things to make them worthwhile. But the moment that someone was in power that they said they didn't have to do it, they just literally stopped doing it. Because all they wanted to do was make money from the beginning. They never gave a fuck about any of this stuff. So what they're willing to do is go and capitulate and beg Trump. Look at fucking Tim Apple, bringing that fucking Apple in, right? Here's Tim Apple walking in with his little fucking solid gold statue he wants to give to Trump because all he what he wants to do is make his company money.

He can give a fuck about anybody else. He doesn't care. All he cares about is the shareholders and that two meetings a year where he has to stand in front of him and say he made more money. That's all he cares about. He doesn't give a fuck about anything else. And all these people, what they want is they want to just keep making money. And they realize that they can make a fuck to.

ton of money under Trump because he's going to fucking bend anything he can and break any rule because he doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. So they recognize it's even their bread is buttered way more on the other side. It's that. And also on the Trump side, there's carrots, which you're, which you've, and then there's enormous sticks. Enormous ones.

There's enormous sticks. So anybody who goes against the Trump administration, like look at Harvard, look at the incredible amount of pressure that Harvard as an institution is under right now. as a result of its pushback against the Trump administration. So companies are always amoral. Their job is to make money. They don't have values. A company can't have values.

It's not possible for a company to have values. A company has a fiduciary responsibility to make money for its shareholders. That's the only value that it has. And that is its value is to increase its value. We make these mistakes of saying this is a good company morally. This is a bad company ethically. They're just places. These are just legal entities.

It's not even real. What we want is their money. That's what we want. If the left wants their money, concede that in 2026, you're not getting it. You have to win first. You've got to win first. So that means you've got to get a grassroots message out. The article that we were just talking about shows that there are candidates who at the grassroots level,

without taking corporate money, are outraising those that are taking the corporate money. The message and the money is in populism right now. Be left-leaning populists. And the thing is, is like, the moment you win, then those companies have to be populace. Yes. They'll come back. And they have to fall in line with what you want. Right.

Because we've now laid the groundwork that these companies will capitulate. So guess what comes back immediately? All the things, all the social ideas that you had before. Yeah. We are all going to die very brilliantly. This story is from nature. MRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility.

RFK Jr. and his merry band of assholes have canceled $500 million worth of contracts meant to fund MRI research, primarily for respiratory diseases, but not entirely.

MRNA technology offers an enormous wealth of potential benefits to treat genetic disorders, cancers, to allow us to mobilize in ways that we've never been able to before, vaccines for things that are seasonal, that adjust and change very, very quickly. The scale up and scale down potential for MRNA is vastly better than anything we've ever had before.

And we are disinvesting in the best medical technology that will happen in our lifetime. In our lifetime. I think that that is a true fact. at the same time, by the way, that many bacteriological caused diseases are on the rise and resistant to antibiotics. We are in a more precarious place than we've ever been. The conditions for a pandemic have never been better. They'll just continue to get worse as populations get clumped together and clumped together and clumped together and globalization becomes more and more of a thing, the ability for disease to spread and move. We are

hurting ourselves and setting a fucking we're putting tinder out and just waiting for the match to strike we were this was god i think you suggested maybe it was in jill july when we first started hearing about the covid from china you had said god could you imagine if there was a pandemic under this administration and then there was right um and there was and we saw how bad they handled it they were bad at it. They had professionals in those positions at the time. They had people who knew what they were doing. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Could you imagine a pandemic while RFK is the guy who's going to be, he's going to be doing the lion's share of the work. Yeah. He's the one who's going to be directing all these people underneath him who are, you know, supposed to be scientists and

doctors to handle this. And he's throwing away because he doesn't, because he, he, All these people are so fucking stupid that they think that this is a dangerous technology. They have been told these lies through influencers. We made influencers a thing. And then we made influencers convince really powerful people that untrue things were true. And now we're reaping the benefits.

I mean, like, I don't say you can blame this on social media, but I will say that the rise of idiots on the Internet saying untrue things has contributed greatly to our unpreparedness and what could be a giant step back in medicine I don't think that you can't say

that that that caused this. I think it's really hard for you to say that dumb people saying shit because dumb people printing a book is different than dumb people saying shit on the internet. Like that guy who made that, what was that Kevin Trudeau who wrote the fucking shit doctors

don't want you to know or whatever, you can't tell me anything that's in that book, right? You can't tell me anything. But I bet you, like, there's a lot of things that Mercola has said that has worked its way into the public consciousness. There's a lot of things that, you know, these anti-vaxers have said that have worked their way into Joe Rogan, who's worked their way into all these other people who've listened to him.

That's happened. Yeah, man, I know we've talked about this before, but like giving democratic access without editorial control of any kind to a bullhorn like the inner. internet has not yielded good results for us. It has yielded bad results, socially, scientifically, medically bad results. I want to point out too, and I don't want to be like a total freak show about this, but when we talk about the next pandemic, that could be COVID. Yeah. Like there's, it's not like we have to wait for the next novel virus to appear. No, you don't need a new one.

COVID continues to mutate. Could be the flu, Tom. It could be the flu. It's been the flu before. Now we have COVID, which, by the way, still kills a shit ton of people. We, for some reason, pretend it doesn't. I don't really understand why. But if you compare COVID to a very bad flu year, COVID still behaves like a very bad flu year. Yeah, every year. Yeah, every year we're dealing with, and think of how bad it would be if none of the population had gotten vaccinated. Yeah.

Right? Like people say like, oh, well, COVID's not as much a thing anymore. It's like, yeah, man, you know how many people in America got vaccinated? You know how many vaccines they've passed out worldwide for this thing? 13 billion vaccines have gone out. So, yeah, you know what? A lot of people have gotten vaccinated, and that has helped tremendously with COVID. Yeah.

And it is still the case that, like, we are looking for, like, in the fall, the last couple of years, new COVID vaccines have been released. And those COVID vaccines that were released, they were responses. to the variants that circulate, right? And the hope is that you will see the variant that circulates and say, we're going to produce a... And everything is a chasing game, right? Everything's like, you're doing a thing now

for something that happened to then because you can't predict the future. So the new variants that are circulating, they make... They say, okay, we think it's probably going to be this one. This one appears to be the strongest. Let's make a vaccine booster. And that usually happens in the fall.

We don't know yet whether there will even be a fall booster. Yeah, they're saying there might not be. For COVID. It's a big giant question mark. The longer it goes on that we don't get boosters, the more our immunity seems to wane. That seems to be what

the science is suggesting. That's not a good thing. Like, it's not a good thing. We don't have to have a new novel virus. We can just mistreat our response to the existing threats. And then find ourselves in lockdown again. And find ourselves

where a million people are fucking dead. And there's no guarantee it plays out the same way. To just abandon science means that we are unprepared to handle problems. Problems, viruses, bacterias, they don't care about the dollar. They don't care about money to interest. They don't care about political interests. They're just amoral organisms. And they just behave the way that they behave. That's RFK. That's RFK and amoral organism. All right, let's get to wrap it up for our main show this week. We're going to have a patron show on Thursday, and we're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics' greed.

Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-babelon bullshit. Couched in Scientician, double bubble, toil, and trouble, pseudo-quazi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal. free energy healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death and towers, tarot cars, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, wizards, vaccine nuts.

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