Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Breaking Down the Tragic Situation in Nigeria, Plus Final Debate Reactions

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay are joined by Saratu Abiola, a writer based in Nigeria, to break down the #endSARS movement and what exactly is happening with the Nigerian government. Then they discuss the final presidential debate of 2020, Quibi going down, and the latest episode of ‘The Bachelorette.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? It is I, Van Lathen. You're listening to Higher Learning. What's up, guys? It's me, Rachel Lindsay. Now, listen, if you're not watching the video, you can't see what's happening right now. You can't see.

Go ahead, man. So, Rachel, multi-job, multi-hyphenate slash Rach. She's a podcaster slash TV host slash pitchwoman slash all of that. Rache is getting her makeup done. Right now as we speak, she's holding a mic in her hand, a makeup hurting, a person that's putting her on as, as Rachel gets ready to go, what are you going to go getting ready to go shoot, Rach? Extra. Extra.

So she's getting, so she's being super extra right now because we're starting a podcast and Rach is getting her makeup done. It's, it's, it's. But here's the moral of the story, thought warriors. I am extremely dedicated to what I do. No excuses, no days off, whether I'm getting my makeup done or everybody can see it. You know what? I'm not going to let my thought warriors down. That's the point, man.

I'm dedicated. I'll be honest with you. A lot of people would expect me to clown right here. No way. That's crazy. I like that. That's what I'm talking about. That's the level of popping that everybody should aspire to be to where you got so much going on.

We're shooting this early, right? We're recording the podcast early because we wanted to make sure that we got rapid reaction to the debate last night. And, um, rage, even though we came in early, still had stuff that was on her plate and she's getting it going right now for us.

I'm like a lot. I commend you. I commend you. I appreciate that. See, I don't know if you were giving me a compliment because I know some of my followers have been coming at you

for trolling me on social media. Yeah. So they're sick of the joke. But what they don't understand is this. And then I came back. And then I came back. and I gave you and Brian a compliment, but that's just a momentary stand down.

What people don't understand is the little brother in me means that if you come at me like that, like Van, leave her alone, it's going to even be worse now. Now I know it is getting to you. Well, not to you, but to them. Right, right.

So the reason why we're coming in a little bit late is because we wanted to watch. the debate. Right. All right. Which we keep making mistakes of making ourselves get up early to react. Like something's going to happen. Like something's going to happen

to react to a bunch of nothing. And we are going to of course talk about the debate. But before we talk about the debate, what we're going to do is something very special here on higher learning. There is a situation in Nigeria right now where the citizens of Nigeria, a large portion of

Nigeria, a large portion of them, are rising up and demanding the end to a special squad of police that are there that they believe are corrupt, murderous, extorting people and putting everyone's safety at risk. Now, we don't know too much about this at higher learning. You know, we've seen the hashtag in SARS, which is the name of the police squad on social media. We've also heard people discuss it. Now, we could have easily gone and done our research on it and came back and kind of unpacked it for you guys. But I think it would be much more powerful.

We actually got a chance to talk to somebody who's there in Nigeria that can give us a download on what the people of Nigeria are going through with this rogue police squad. So we did that. I went to Twitter and on Twitter I said, hey, is there anyone who can come on the podcast and help us out with this? And I was connected with an intelligent and really, really, really observant writer named Saratu, who is in Nigeria right now

and is calling us from Nigeria to explain to all of you thought warriors right now what exactly is going on with SARS. So we are going to go ahead and get into that first, something that's actually affecting and impacting people's lives right now over there and the protests and everything. Then we're going to come back and talk a little bit about the do-nothing debate that was on last night.

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and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety the information. We are now joined by Saratu, who is there in Nigeria. The sister is a writer, and she's also somebody who's been very outspoken on what's actually happening. So without me belaboring the intro here, can you tell our audience a little bit about what exactly is going on in Nigeria right now? Sure.

And first of all, thanks so much for having me. So essentially, we're trying to end SARS. Let me tell you a little bit about what SARS is. So SARS is a unit in the Nigerian police charged with, you know, catching armed robbers. In fact, SARS stands for this special anti-robbery unit, you know, anti-robbery squad, right? S-A-R-S. Now, this was started in response, I suppose, in security. back in the early 90s, right?

So this has been a problem. I mean, they've just took for a long time. Now, here's where it gets a little hairy. So they gave these guys, like, they created this little unit within the Nigerian police, and they gave them, you know, a lot of leeway. They let them get away with not wearing uniforms so they could just kind of like blend into the population, you know.

They still have their guns, though. but they're just not wearing uniforms. They could create checkpoints. They could do whatever. You know, all in a bid to, you know, to catch thieves ostensibly. But as always happens when you give people a lot of leeway, they start to abuse it, right? So these people started to, you know, become a law into themselves. You know, they would basically see anybody on the side of the road and go, hey, you, you know, what are you doing over there?

you look like you could be a thief, come here. And then they throw you into jail and they pin all sorts of attacks on you and say that you're a drug dealer, that you're a scammer, that you're a thief, or that you're a sex worker. And they would, you know, based entirely on their safe service,

they just kind of say whatever they like. Now, Nigeria, the Nigerian police in general is very, very corrupt. And this unit is no different. So what they do is that, you know, what they started to do was to say, okay, you're telling us you're not a thief. Well, give us some money then. And if you don't give us some money, then you're definitely a thief and we're going to throw you into jail and we might even kill you if you're unlucky. Right.

So that's basically what they've been doing for years. They would just sort of like, you know, see you and especially, and you're especially susceptible to SARS violence if, say, you have locks, you know, say you go out, you're looking kind of fresh. I mean, you know, like, hey, where'd you get that money from? You know? Oh, they see you and they assume that, okay, you're like, okay, this person has, like, dyed their hair. Yeah.

And they're like, hmm, is this person a thief because it died your hair? It's just really stupid. It's basically, it's frivolous and it makes no sense to anyone. Their profile. Absolutely. It's entirely, you know, profiling. And it's especially for young people. A lot of the time, you know, with young women, when they get young women,

they would throw young women into prison for sex work, even if they didn't see you, you know, soliciting. Or, you know, it's especially bad as well for if you're LGBT. They would say, oh, you're gay. And they threw you into jail for that. Nigeria, you know, we're a pretty homophobic society. So just like, okay, we think you're gay. So what they would say is, okay, if you're telling us you're not gay, show what's your phone? And if they see, if you're a guy and they see a photo of you with another guy, they'll, oh, so that's your boyfriend, see, gay.

And, but another thing that they do is that they would lurk in chat rooms posing to be gay men. So it's why it's really dangerous sometimes to be a gay man or a lesbian, trying to use any of the, you know, like, I mean, we have Tinder in Nigeria, but, you know, you need to be very careful with those things. Because if, if, you know, some people would use it to extort. SARS does that. They use it to extort people. And, yeah, so there's a lot of really awful stuff that they do. And, you know, if they find you and they, like, if they find you and they find out that you're gay,

then they just start extorting money from you systematically every month to come blackmailed by the police. They can even go to the police. And because Nigerian government has recently signed an anti-sex marriage bill a few years ago, they would say, well, I mean, we could throw you into jail for being gay.

And they would do that. So we have, so there's a lot, there's different layers. There's different layers to it. You know, whether they, and some of these things can be so frivolous. A friend of mine, they accused him of being a drug dealer because his lips are dark. He said that means he smokes weed. It sounds like really, really, really frivolous stuff.

Or like as a woman, like a young woman shared a story recently and said that she, that SARS stopped her and said she was a prostitute because she's driving a nice car. They made her strip. And, you know, naked, they, they, they put the gun to her head

and made her go to the ATM and withdraw money to give them. Naked. I've been stories about how they would, they would, I mean, and it's also like, no one is really immune. There was someone I know,

I mean, she lost her brother. He was 20 years old. So really young, because the guy went to go buy something, on the side of the road and Saras accused him of being a thief but they're looking

for someone with his description and they beat him threw him into a arm took him to their head office tortured him to death so that's kind of

that's what we're dealing with so when young people came young people have complained this is not the first time that Nigeria has done SARS related protests

as far back as 2017 the SARS protest led to the Nigerian government's abolishing size back in 2017. After everything died down again, we simply came right back.

2018, another disbandment, came right back. 2018, another disbandment came right back. 2019, another disbandment. Plus a panel report on the police reform came right back. So in 2020,

the government says, we're disbanding them. People are like, yeah, right? No one believes you at this point, because you said this over. and over and over and over again. Even the most corrupt of Nigerian politicians will agree with you that Nigerian police needs to be reformed. They would all agree.

This is just one unit, but there are other units as well in Nigeria that have been guilty of such abuses. In Abuja, where I live, the Nigerian police, along with the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, would find women and accuse them of prostitution, if they see them outside, you know, rape them,

extort money from them, and also, so that's not size, that's just my regular police. So it's, it's, it's, um, Nigerian police has been a bane of our existence, particularly for young people in Nigeria for a very, very, very, very, very long time. The protest recently, um, however, are some of the biggest protests of my generation. I've never seen, I mean, we don't agree on much in Nigeria. We're very, you know, often very divided by ethnic and religious lines.

But Nigerians in general came together and said, no, no, no, no, no. I think we can all agree that these people need to go. And we were thinking weren't even asking for much, you know? I mean, the end of this unit that everybody can agree is awful. It's something that surely we can all agree on. I mean, you guys have made lip service to how this unit needs to go for a long time. So surely, we can all agree that these people need to go. But when we started doing the protests, we noticed that the Nigerian police were, you know,

that, you know, we got intimidation in the part of the police. When that didn't work, they actually sent thugs to infiltrate the protests. Some of them actually started attacking peaceful protesters. Wow, that sounds very familiar. They would like go in there with knives and stab people. They would go in there with batons and beat people. I almost got beat last Sunday. Not this past one, but previous Sunday.

You know, by the police, they sent water cannons after us. They arrested a whole bunch of us. We accused us of being political actors. There was a girl that when my very first protest that I went to, two Sundays ago, we saw a young woman. She was 21 years old. She was being beat up by six different policemen with women buttons and clubs.

And they were screaming at her, who paid you? Who paid you? And, you know, all of this was happening. And the backdrop of all of this, you know, obviously, recently the protest that happened two days ago in Lecky, But really all around Lagos states, we heard word that that military was coming. So in Lagos, there were protests every day for the last two weeks.

And two days ago, folks were sitting down or like, okay, they took the cameras after they had instituted the curfee around noon, right? Now, if you know Lagos well, you know that four hours, sometimes it's not even enough to get home, depending on where in Lagos you live, the traffic is ridiculous in Lagos, and the road networks aren't great. So it can take people a long time. So when the Lagosate government instituted the curfew at 12,

we were already like, okay, okay, folks need to go home so that we don't, you know, there wouldn't be an excuse for violence because we just knew that, look, if we're still sitting around at the curfew, they could use that as a reason to be violent. Soon thereafter, around 3 o'clock,

we saw the security cameras get taken down. And that was when I started calling people and said, I need you guys to leave. I mean, if you're there, I need you to leave. And everybody was sounding caution because we knew that, you know, if you're removing cameras, that's not a good sign. That means you don't want anybody to see what you're about to do. Folks stayed.

And the rationale being, okay, look, we're not going to be violent. We're not going to do anything. All we're going to do is just sit there, sing our anthem, wave our flags, right? Because at this point, for the past week or so, people had been protesting in that space in Leicke, the tour will get in Leakey for like two weeks. Sometimes they were sleeping over and just kind of ticking over that space. So they were like, look, we're just going to be here

until, you know, just to show our commitment, which will not be there. But then around 7 o'clock, the military came in, met the protesters singing the anthem and waving flags, just as the light had. gone off. They turned off the lights in the entire neighborhood of Lecky. Like, you couldn't, like, no one had electricity. Even the billboard lights were turned off. And the military came in and started

shooting. We don't know what the casualty numbers are. We still don't. We don't know how many people died. All we know is that, all we know is that the ambulances that, oh, and also the Lagos State emergency numbers turned off. So you couldn't even call the ambulance. the legal state ambulance numbers. Private individuals had to call ambulances to go to the toll gates. And when they went there, they were not allowed to go through the toll gates to carry people.

So all we do know is that there were a lot of people seeking cover and a lot of people reported injured. We don't actually, we don't have any numbers. We don't have any idea. So that's where we are now. And yesterday, the president made his very first statement since the protest started, basically threatening everybody and saying, look, don't take my kindness for weakness. It's kindness here being my listening to you and not being violent at all time for weakness. Yeah, it was basically like, listen. I have a question. I have a question for you real quick. So specifically, what was it this time that seemed. to get the movement to end SARS reignited? So on October 8th or 7th, one of those days, video circulation came out.

There was a video going around. SARS entered a hotel, pulled out two men, again for nothing, right? And shot one. Just shot him, just for no reason. killed them. Yep. And this was caught on video as well?

Yep, yep. It was on video. I think the video, I've seen the video circulating around. Yeah. And that's the incident that you say has kind of arrested the world and got everybody involved and let them know how important it is. That really, that really reignited things because it's like, okay, these guys are insane. And it made everybody start sharing stories of like what they've experienced.

at their hands of SARS. Like, yo, like that, I totally saw something like that happening like a couple of months ago or this happened to me. I almost died a couple of months ago and so on and so forth. So people were like, look, we need to do something. Saratu, what I find interesting is that, and you said this, and I also saw this in an article that you wrote on your Twitter, that the Nigerian government has announced the disbandment of SARS in 2017, 2018, and 2019, but yet it keeps coming back.

Why do you think that is? I know at one point in your article you wrote, there's no leader of the movement, which is something we also talk about in the States. Is that why you think it's resurfacing? Or do you think it has something to do with the government? What is the reason for this? I think that the reason why SARS keeps coming back,

frankly, I don't think it ever really leaves, is because the Nigerian government doesn't really care about its people. Nigerian government protects, Nigerian government protects property. It doesn't protect lives. There's, we haven't really, we've not really created like a system of government that actually gives a damn one way or another

about the lives of ordinary people. I can't really think of any major Nigerian government policy that has actually sought to protect ordinary people's lives. The Nigerian police, you know, in order for them to actually, this band. I mean, keep in mind that SARS makes a lot of money. That extortion, the guy that they shot, they stole his car. It was a Lexus Jeep. I mean, what's going to happen? Yeah, they stole his car. They just took it and drove off. So, you know, that's a car they're going to sell for millions.

They're going to, you know, what else they're going to do with it? Right. So imagine they've done, imagine, you know, I told you that they, for example, would, you know, extort money from people like the woman I told you about who they basically took her to the ATM and said, all right, withdraw $100,000 for us. And if you don't, they'll kill you. And so I've seen estimates of how much they make. And it's a lot. We're talking millions of dollars from extortion of this sort.

Sometimes it would be something like, we have your son. And unless you give us $5 million, we're not going to release him. and sometimes that son has been killed but the mother or father don't know that so they'll just be like yeah he's here but unless you give us money we're not going to let him out so and then you bring that five million and they say if that five million is not enough

bring another two so like I've seen estimates running about $3 million every month Jesus in extortion so I guess my next question is what do the people of Nigeria need

in order to make sure that this squad, this part of the police, or that there's total police reform there? Like, what do you feel like people across the diaspora can do the diaspora? I always say that wrong. The diaspora can do to help you guys out.

And really just people that are a part of the world community, what do you feel like? What do you guys need? that blows my mind is that the Nigerian government has gotten money from international community. So the UK governments,

the US government, the EU, has given Nigerian government money for a police reform for the past decade. They've financed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've, you know, the UN, a lot of different

organizations, different countries, as part of like supports to the Nigerian government has given, has funded policy reform efforts. At the highest level, the office of the president. And to know, to no avail. So if they're investors in this reform, they need to bring, you know, the Nigerian government to book on that.

But the case of the matter is that it's not, I mean, And even beyond that, though, although I think that's important. I mean, if you're financing something and you're seeing that this thing is still going on, you should probably ask yourself what exactly you're financing at the end of the day. But beyond that, we just need to keep their foot on their necks. And keep our foot on their necks. If you're going to say that you, that, you know, the Nigerian government has not demonstrated good. faith at all. But on the one hand, they're saying we're disbanding SARS, we're creating panels,

you know, so that people could, you know, lodge their formal complaints and get, you know, compensation for SARS harm and violence. But on the other hand, you're sending the police and and thugs to beat protesters and to, you know, to violate them and to throw them into jail as well. We, you know, you know, so that's something I would say needs to happen. And another thing is that there's a lot of ordinary Nigerians who are creating, who have created platforms to, you know, to fund and sustain efforts, you know, against police brutality. Feminist co is a really good example of that. These are just young women who came together and said, hey, look, what do we need to do? So folks came together and they mobilized and said, okay, we're going to create a funding platform. and then use the money that we get to pay for food, you know, legal aid.

You know, they created a whole platform, 600 lawyers working pro bono across the country to get out, you know, to get, you know, illegally detained protesters out of prison. They did, you know, they fed people at the protest venue, provided food and water, logistics, they paid for security, they provided compensation for people who were harmed. They paid for surgeries. There was a young woman who had a cracked skull as a result of being beaten by the police

during the protests. They paid for that. They paid to make sure that she was okay. And that's just a little bit of what they were able to do. These young women were threatened by the police and by the Nigerian government for daring to, to, to, support the protests.

And they need to be supported. The work that they're doing doesn't end here. And they realize that they're also trying to be strategize. Because right now, the Nigerian, I mean, the president basically threatened and said, if I see people on the road again, you know, a transfer to what's going to happen to y'all. So we've had to, yeah, we've had to be very, you know, they've had to be strategize. I know, Saratio, you mentioned some places where, you know, people could. could like, I guess, get information.

But I just wanted to make sure that we cover that if there are any websites. Because we want to do more than just post a hashtag. So if there's a place where we can, you know, send funds or where we can go to a website, we do, we want to educate our followers in every single way that we can. Because we don't want this movement to be watered down by another hashtag, which is what we see happening. I hear you. I hear you. Um, um, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your,

your listeners can check out feminist dumb feminist underscore co on Twitter right um they're they've been incredible um and also ensar's response um on twitter those two hashtags have been incredibly valuable um in in terms of mobilizing support for for um for protesters and you know keeping the movement going um it's it's crazy we talk about social media just thinking of the way the government is also people using social media is also interesting as well. I know that, you know, Black Lives Matter in the U.S. and, you know, the Hong Kong protesters in Hong Kong. And, you know, in the article that I wrote on my newsletter,

I talked about the different movements and the way they sort of speak to each other. And the way that we are seeing government responding to them online and offline. The Nigerian government just yesterday actually started a, a cyber operation, which, you know, I think is we're going to start seeing the impact of that going forward. We're actually beginning to see it because what they started doing was to put out, unpurposely put out false information and then have like, you know, other accounts discounting that information as a way of sowing a seed of doubt in the accounts of people,

you know, on the protest. So there's been a lot of stuff. So there's been a lot of stuff going on. So a lot of the things that activists are trying to do now is to kind of, you know, make it really clear what's going on and just to kind of buckle in because this is not going to be over as quickly as you want it to be. So feminist coalition, you know, that's feminist underscore co. And then Nsar's response are really good places to start. And you can donate through that as well? Because we just to make sure if you're donating that the money is going to the right place. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. You can even donate with Bitcoin. Oh, nice.

Yes, because the Nigerian government actually shut down all their accounts. So that's the only way that they can accept money right now, actually. Wow. All right, sister. Well, I really do appreciate you kind of weighing in on this. And I know it's a tough time there in Nigeria right now, but it's also a triumphant time. And I hope that this podcast and Rachel, I'm sure it feels the same way,

can be an ally with you guys. and, you know, that you guys create more allies in order to stop the abuses of human rights that are going on over there, you know? Here, we talk about racial issues that exist inside of the police department, but there are also corruption issues as well. And so these things are common threads that ring true on both sides, you know, of that ocean. So if there's anything that you need from us, don't hesitate to ask. and I hope you'll be okay with us checking back in with you to see how things are going periodically. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Please do. All right. Thank you for joining us today on Higher Learning Service. Yes. We stand with you and we support you. No problem. Thank you.

All right. Yeah. You got to help. Remember, yeah, you know, police abuse and abuse of power by, you know, organized squadrons. It's not a uniquely American phenomenon. It exists everywhere. You know, and here,

it's a human rights issue. Obviously, there's a racial component that exists in America that seemingly wouldn't exist there in Nigeria, but class and corruption will keep their thumb on people's necks or their foot on people's necks no matter what, where the country is, you know? It's just such a sad situation because I'm listening to Saratu talk and it just seems like, it seems like a very hopeless situation.

And so I just really want to commend everyone putting their lives in danger by protesting when not only is SARS corrupt, but the police are corrupt and the government is corrupt. I mean, it is an insane situation out there and we need to do whatever we can to help from a distance. We should. Now, time to get to it.

Last night was the second and final presidential debate. Remember, there's supposed to be three, but the second debate was canceled because of President Trump's plague as I see the makeup artist with the mask and the face shield. I love that. But no, they had a debate last night.

It was in Nashville. And, you know, it was different. It was a different debate than the first debate was. The first debate was the gunfighted at the O.K. This debate was more like, you know, two fourth grader slapboxing. But it's still, it's still, was a difference

in tone and really I guess you could say a more conventional style back and forth that happens at a debate. Rachel, what were your thoughts on? Oh, you mean because there wasn't a tantrum being thrown? You mean because they actually allowed each other to speak and get their thoughts out before the next person did their rebuttal or response?

Yeah, it was more of a conventional debate, but at the same time, I'm really, like I was going through Twitter as I was watching it, and I'm not going to sit here. And you know, I love to say I'm not going to congratulate a fish for swimming. I'm not going to sit here and Pat Trump on the back because he behaved like an adult. And people are simply saying that he won the debate based on the fact that he held his composure for the most part during the debate. But if you paid attention to what he was saying and not how he was acting, you still heard that he was saying so many lies. putting so much information out there that was far from the truth,

but just wrapped it up in a very, dare I say, presidential way, and which further led for more people to be misled as far as what is actually the truth and the information that we got in the debate. Yeah. What you think? Like to your point, like wouldn't necessarily say he was like presidential, like you just basically said, but he's definitely more tame. than he was in the first debate.

Here's the wrap-up about the debate. And we can get into some of the policy points and do the back and forth of it if we wanted to. But I don't want to. And you know why? I don't either. Thank you. I'm bored with it. It's the same stuff.

This was the reason why you watched the debate last night. If you believe the polling, and it's very difficult to in light of what happened in 2016, but if you believe the polling, President Trump is behind significantly in the polls. which you were really watching for in the debate last night was some reason to believe that the gap could close you know, race is tightened within the last two weeks normally

but if you're looking for some spectacular gaff or some spectacular point made last night that could change the complexion of the current election it just really didn't happen. I think most people that went to this debate on one side of things probably we thought that their guy wanted. You know, there were some good moments for each candidate.

There were some bad moments for each candidate. Yeah. I think President Trump obviously wants to talk about anything other than his presidency. Right. And Joe Biden, to a degree, wants to talk about anything other than his past. So, you know, you have two guys up there. And what you really want to talk, what you really want to hear them talk about is really the future of America. And I will say that I'd have to give the Biden-Harris ticket credit for being more willing to talk about that than Trump.

Trump just seems to be on the defensive. There's not much about the current state of America that he can defend. So he really didn't try to defend it. He just continued to commit Biden with weird conspiracy theories and other things. So it was kind of a of a waste of time as we've seen these things be for the last couple of times and we've watched them. Yeah, I mean, to your point, Trump can't really talk about the future. If he's going to try to talk about the, and I use this term loosely, the good that he's done, then he has to talk about the past and say the same talking points over and over again.

Yeah, I didn't really get anything. I mean, even when I was looking at Twitter and the comment that people were saying the most, like what people were giving Joe Biden a clap on the back for is that the fact that he said he couldn't get anything done because they had a Republican Congress. It was like that was the moment that people were harping on, which lets you know there weren't big moments within the debate.

So, you know, it is what it is. I think we've learned our lesson at this point as we continue to do the podcast is we don't really need to reschedule for debates. No, we don't. We don't need to reschedule for any debates. That's the moral of the story there. Never do it.

Again, I will say this. I got, the big loser from the debate last night was van. Because? I got meaned last night. Why? Because President Trump... Was it the right van? No, President Trump last night said something about, are you, do you have to smile while she puts that type of makeup on? I do have to smile, yes. Why do you have to smile? She's, is she point, wait. So she can get my cheekbones.

So she can't get the cheekbones if you don't smile? She's telling you to smile. She can't get the right spot. You have to hit a certain spot. This is very, very, this is fascinating. look at her work the brush. Look at her go. He's like, look at her work the brush. Look at her go. This is, I didn't know that it was this different thing. Now she's, she's kind of, she's getting around the mustache area right there.

You got a little, got a little Tom Selleck going on. I get a waxed. You get a wax. To be frank. To be frank. They wax the upper lip. They can wax or thread. So if you did so, like what level of mustache would you have?

Okay. I don't like that we're calling it a full-blown mustache, first of all. There might be a couple of hairs, but I don't like that you're saying they're levels to a mustache. I do not have a full-blown mustache. I might get a couple of hairs here in the corner. I feel like I'm cursed with it because apparently at a young age, I told my mother she had man lips. And then I got mint-lips. God said, boom.

Magna P.I.R.H. Magna P.I.H. Hit you with the Tom Selling. Okay, cool. Well, you know, you have a mustache. But yeah. So last night, Trump said something about coyotes bringing people over the border. And I didn't, by the way, I didn't call them on it.

I just put coyotes with question mark. I saw that. What is that? And people are like, you stupid bastard. You don't know what immigration policy is all about and stuff like that. And I have to admit, you know, people explain to me that a coyote is someone who, I guess, smuggles people across the border. And they were like, do you think it's actual mules, drug mules? And I was like, no, but I know what a drug mule is.

I've never heard about the coyotes before. I've never heard about them. People are like, you live in L.A. You've never heard about coyotes before? No, I don't go to the meetings. But look, here's the thing, though. I'm not saying that it's on anybody else. I'm just saying I had never heard the term before.

And now I'm in a meme. I'm in a meme with a bunch of other, quote unquote, dumb blue checks. celebrities that don't have any idea about the immigration issue, which I'm pretty well versed on immigration, but not, I guess, on the mechanism by which people are smuggled over. So look, I wear it. I didn't know about the coyotes. I knew about one coyote, Wiley Coyote.

And the reason why I know about him is because Wiley Coyote had a never-ending string of cash in order to try to get the road running. People have discussed this. I want a deep dive into where Wiley Coyote is getting all of this money to, to like get stuff from acne. I never thought of it that way, Van. I'm going to be honest with you. You've never thought of that? No.

I was just simply enjoying the cartoon. So you never at one point thought he's ordering new products. First of all, how's he even ordering the products? It's a cartoon. You don't even have to go there. Like, random things happen. I don't think about money and a system. And, no, it's a cartoon.

I just simply want to enjoy the actions that are happening. One time he bought a car to chase the roadrunner in. So when you were a kid, you never thought, how to fuck did a coyote? By the way, we never see, like, we never see Wally Coyote, like, leaving a job, right? You also see the Coyote not on all fours, and he's just walking us.

You know what I mean? Like, it's a cartoon. The imagination just goes wherever it wants to. I know, but you're missing the point, okay? Other things about cartoons make sense. Tom and Jerry are what? A cat and a mouse. Yeah.

They fight. Okay? That makes sense. All right? It's kind of a thing. First of all, a coyote and a roadrunner makes sense that they will fight, but it wouldn't make sense that the damn coyote has technology and bread.

It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It sucks a joy out of the carts. Did you ever enjoy it? But why does that suck the joy out of it, though? Because I'm asking questions. Because you're over-analyzing it. No, I'm not. Yeah, okay.

I'm pretty sure I thought Warriors will agree. Right. Anyway, well, here's the deal. The, the, the, the, the, didn't know about the coyote situation. But the more important thing is the election is less than two weeks away. Right. And, you know, every time Trump and Biden get together, I feel like there's a clear contrast in what kind of America, or you want. I'm not going to force anything down to anybody's throw right now, but you can kind of

see the difference even in tone and substance and character between the two candidates. And if there's anything to take away from the debate, I would assume that it's that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. I think the lines in the sand have been drawn at this point. I think people know who they're voting for. I know they do the bit about the undecided voters, but I think you know what you're leaning towards at this point. Not much is going to change in the next two weeks. Yeah, it doesn't really seem like it is, but I'll tell you one, I'll tell you one thing, man. I will be so happy when this election is over.

But that's the thing, Van. You can't think like that because even when it's over, it's not. You need to say, I'm ready for January 2021. You got court cases that are about to be fought. Amy Barrett has already passed through the Senate. Like, it's not going to stop. Like it's just going to keep going. You got to prepare your mind for that.

Yeah, well, I wanted to go away. I want to go away right now. Now, there was slightly news, big news in the business that happened, slightly big entertainment news. Did you have a show with Quibi? Did you have a show with Quibi? Did you? I did not.

No. Were you offered a show? Did you talk? I had talks. There was, that we had talks. But Quibi had talks. Everyone was getting the Quibi money. Everybody.

Like Quibi, bro, I'm not going to lie, man. Quibi, Quibi was like a fake stimulus package for Hollywood. Because everybody, it was. Quibi was like a, they raised a bunch of money and then they just gave it all away. And then now Quibi's dead. I know a bunch of people who had shows of Quibi and they were like, yo, man, Quibi, it's funny. When people were coming to me about Quibi, I was like, I don't think that shit is going to work. And the only reason why I didn't think was going to work is because,

because I'm not watching whole shows on my phone like that. Am I old? Yeah, it's our generation that's not going to do it, but clearly neither did the younger generation. I think it's also who the younger generation was watching, right? If you were watching, like, YouTube or TikTok stars, do movies or shows in a YouTube format, I think it could have been a little bit more successful.

But I don't want to watch a full movie. Did you ever watch anything on Quibbing? No. I did. and it's frustrating. Like there was this show called The Fugitive that was good, but then I would get cut off. And so you know what I mean?

Like it was, I had screeners for it so I could keep going, but it's a frustrating thing. I think our generation can't tap into it. And the pandemic probably heard it too, but remember Quibi raised, I think it was $2 billion. $2 billion. And they couldn't keep it going. I also think that it was,

the pandemic heard a little bit too, because if Quibi was going to be something that you were going to watch 10 minute bursts while you were on the train or on the bus or something like that, now people aren't on the go as much. And especially they're not on the go in terms of public transportation or being on planes as much or anything like that. So they certainly didn't have any Quibi content there.

So there was also probably a lifestyle thing that might have changed Quibi in terms of stuff like that. But yeah, Quibi's done, man. I think it was also the type of content, right? There was nothing, it was a movie, right? Well, I can watch this actor in a movie. somewhere else on another streaming service. I think that was it too.

It was something different that I was watching that I couldn't get anywhere else. I think maybe it would have, more people would have been drawn into Quibi and it would not have been affected by the pandemic. But no, they were, they were throwing money out to everyone. They were throwing ownership rights out, whether it was your concept. You were a producer.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what else? I thought about with this whole thing is, my brain is weird, right? People's brains are weird, you know? Whatever, Rich. I know that my brain is weird.

We didn't need a full announcement for that, but go ahead. But people's brains are weird. So that show Cobra Kai, which I really like now, right? The Cobra Kai Carriety Kid Show. That show was on YouTube for two years. I remember back in 20, it was. It's been on YouTube for two years. Really? Yeah, back in 2018, I actually joined YouTube Red

so that I could watch it. I can watch it at work. I think I talked about this so I could not do work, which led to my glorious exit. But I, for some reason, couldn't get into watching a show on YouTube. And the reason why is because when the show is up on YouTube

and I'm watching the show, on the side on YouTube, it says, Steph Curry goes off for 16 points in 20 seconds. Highlights. And I'm like, oh shit. That nigga, Steph? Boom.

I watched that. Then after I watch Steph go off, his recommended videos was Michael Jordan, as good as they say is. Bam, I watched that. And then after watch that, it says, hey, bikini hall trial. Then I'm like, oh, okay,

I want to see the different bikinis that are on, that are this season. Bam, watch that before you know it. The show that you're watching is in the, a background, whereas, you know, on Netflix, it's about kind of your thing. Like, YouTube is a different type of platform. Meanwhile, while Netflix was, when the show came to Netflix, I was able to completely concentrate on the show itself. And I realized how much I enjoy it. That's not what it is for me. I don't like watching stuff on my phone or even my iPad unless I'm forced to.

I'm on a plane. I'm like, I don't, I want to watch it on a TV screen in the comfort of my home. So I can't get down with the YouTube. I can't, none of that. I'm old school, I guess. I'm traditional. It's not for me. None of this stuff is. Or if I'm going to listen to something on the go,

I'm listening to a podcast. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I get it. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

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love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken, garlic aoli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order. Now, now it's the moment we've all been waiting for. Man, I have to say, people love you and Bachelor-related content. And you know why, Van? You know what it is? It's because you're a fresh voice. You never watch the show.

You don't know anything about it. You're not jaded. You really don't get or understand what's going on. And it's nice for the batchies to have that. Yes. And I got to say, in terms of. batchy batchness, this last episode really lived up

to the batchness to me. I'm not going to lie. There was so much shit happening going on in this episode that I was fucking... First of all, did you enjoy this one? This second one? Yes, I'm entertained

because we've never seen anything like this before. Normally, there's a specific format for the show. We have no idea. what's happening at each turn. Claire's unpredictable, Dale's unpredictable, the men are, the dates are. It's such good TV. Okay.

So there's a couple of things. I want to do a bottom three guys. You can't be trusted after you did. You went through the first round of guys. So I'm going to be, so I'm going to give, first of all, this is what I'm going to start doing. Number one, this is my biggest disappointment of the show. And it's pretty easy.

Brandon. Oh, yeah. I thought he was going to go far. So listen, before the Bachelor started, I looked at the pictures. And by the way, I've learned something. You cannot make any assessments on this show on picture alone. You just can't. It's crazy.

So I personally thought Brandon because he looks like an Abercrombie model was going to go all the way to the end. Brandon fucked up. so bad. Like everybody else gets into these dates with Claire and they do the easy thing. They go, hey, you know, it was hard for me to love while I was in college.

I couldn't love. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't fucking stand to see myself. I don't even know what love is. What is love, Claire? I have no clue. It could be something. Then again, it could not be something. I don't know what it is. But the moment I saw your picture, I felt like

maybe I could find out, easy work. Easy work. That's all you got to say. Brandon is sitting down with Claire and says, yo, as soon as I saw you,

I knew that I wanted to come on this season of The Bachelor. Cool. That works. Then she says, what is it about me? And this nigga goes, I'm here to find out. You're done as fuck.

You just said, that there was something ethereal and amazing that drew you to this woman. Right. And then when she asked you what it was, you're like, well, you're obviously very beautiful and I'm here to learn more. Let's talk about it.

And just the cringe in that moment, when she realized that this fucking boy band member was so full of shit. That's the first time I actually looked like I saw Claire a little bit. There was maybe something behind there. She was a little pissed. And she should be.

This man said, I came for you. Oh, my God. Well, what is it about me? He literally said to her van, can we not talk about this? Oh, my God. Well, what are you supposed to talk about? It's about Claire. It's about you having a connection.

This is a typical man who is very attractive and is used to not have to putting in any work when it comes to women. He lets the women come to him and he solely thrives off of his good looks. That's what this is. Yeah, well, let me tell you something. that shit did not work, okay? My girl. That shit did not work. And by the way, I didn't know that you could just be walked out at any time.

Like, she just, she just, like, that was new to me. You can't. Can I give you some back information? She just fucking picked them up and took them to the fucking car. She called this nigger Uber. She said, like, she literally said, hey, do you mind if I walk you out? thought she meant walk you out of the room. She walked him out of her life.

And then he goes straight to the thing. He started sweating. He got so uncomfortable. Can we not talk about this, blah, blah, blah. Brandon, you let me down, man. So behind you scenes, normally you have to alert producers that you're going to send somebody home so they can have a car ready. I don't know how Claire made this happen

I mean they're in a different location so I'm sure their cars are just available but she was like no you got to go I'm walking you out right now that doesn't normally happen this is what I'm talking about Van Claire's one of the show The bottom three for me

guys that I did not like after this episode were Brandon um uh pointy years swold dude what's his name I got How am I supposed to go off of that? How am I supposed to find the name?

I give him nicknames. Pointy years. Oh, Riley. Pointy years, swole guy, Riley. I don't like Riley. What? Okay, okay, stop. Why?

Why? Okay. A couple of reasons why I don't like Riley. Number one, first of all, Riley act like he felt played when the dude was like, hey, you don't speak for me? Like, I think I speak for the whole group.

I thought that was justified. I'm not saying that. it wasn't justified, but if you're going to go there, go there. You know what I mean? Like, if you're going to go there, go there. Then Riley looked like he was trying to play it up a little bit. Hey, bro, it's not about all that. Hey, bro, don't speak on me. Don't speak on me.

That's it. And plus, you know, just the combination of Riley's Yoda ears and his goddamn arms are crazy to me. I've never seen anything like it before my life. It should be one or the other. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, it should be one or the other. It's off-putting. It's off-putting.

I've never, because normally when you see guys with the ears like that, they're a little like squirmy nerdish dudes, but he's got the Yoda ears and the gigantic arms. It's just weird to me. It's like a weird thing. You focused on the wrong thing. Because unlike any of the other man in the group, Riley actually stood up and said, you know what?

You don't speak for me. He did. Garon has one of the worst parts I've ever seen in his head ever. I have no idea who that is. Garon is the guy who, when they did the dodgeball thing, everybody. Stop talking about the brothers. on the show.

You see why I didn't pick one. Right, exactly. But no, it's good brothers on the show. It's good brothers. It's some good brothers on the show. Garan is the professor at USC. Garin is the professor of journalism. He's cool.

He seems cool. But that part is just too deep and too wide. I don't know if Claire is going to understand that part, Garen. And then there are two other guys. So I was on the fence about what Blake did. Which Blake? Blake is the one that crashed the date. Oh, okay, okay. Canadian Blake.

Canadian Blake. Blake is the one who crashed the date. Now, here's the thing about that. That image, that got Blake arose. And I could see that she was going to, Claire's a little bit, Claire's a little bit, she's a rebel. She's got a rebel spirit. She is. She is. So she was going to respond to him doing that. At the same time, I don't think I've ever seen anyone with a more zodiac killer vibe than that guy right there. He's a little, like he's, like seriously, he's got a

serial killer vibe to him. And a dude who he played, what was his name? I'm looking through the cast right now. The guy who's sitting down with Claire, when he comes over and he goes, yo, can I have, oh, it's Jay. Jay's sitting down with Claire

and Blake comes over and says, can I steal it for five minutes? No. if I was clear, I would have walked Jay out. No, you can't steal it for five minutes. And that's always how I've been, by the way. Even back in middle school, it's like, yo, can I cut in for a little while while you're dancing? I'm like, yeah, you can cut in after end of the road is finished playing.

Like, see, after the road has ended, then if she wants to go with you for a song, yeah, you don't cut in while I'm dancing. This is my dance. That's what never makes sense. on the show. They always let them cut in. They never are like, very rarely someone's like, you know what? Actually, no, can you give me five more minutes? And then the person, they, I don't know why. It wouldn't even be five minutes. It would be, yo, breakout.

Break out. It's my time. All right. And also, the one guy that she went with the date on, they went to, they were on the beach. Jason. Is that him? No, not fucking with him at all. Didn't him. I liked him. I didn't like him at all. And I liked the date. Can you give me a reason why? I didn't like him at all because it was just, it's too much sob story shit. I feel like these guys. No, but I feel like these guys got to let her get her shit off a little bit more. It's too much about them. Like, they're trying to want up her every time she talks about something that happens wrong. She goes, oh, you know, back in high school, nobody. And he goes, you should have seen me in high school. It was even worse.

Nobody wanted to talk to me, a big ward on my face, blah, blah, blah. Let her, like, listen. I don't feel like these guys are great listeners. You got to listen to Claire Crawley. You have to crawl your way to Claire Crawley's heart. And I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why. The reason why is because fucking Dale has such a goddamn lead. This whole show, once again, is really a jerk. she goes off with all of these guys, right? Right. And then as soon as she sees Dale,

she just pushes them on the ground, straddles them, jumps on them, and kisses his face off. Like, to me personally, like, these other guys would have to thread the needle perfectly in order to beat Dale. Can you do, oh, I have a question.

Can you do subterfuge? So, like, if I was, If I was on the Bachelor right now, right? If I was on The Bachelor right now and I saw what was going on with her and Dale, I would like be doing my homework on Dale. You know what I mean? I would like have private investigators

looking through Dale's financial portfolios. I bring up Dale's credit score. I do all kinds of stuff like that to because it's a competition, right? Can you do that? Is that within the rules? Can you go into people's personal shit and try to like...

When you're on the show, do you realize you are cut off from the? the world. So you can't call nobody? You have no phone, no internet, no TV. You don't even have music. That makes a lot of sense. You know why? I'll tell you why. Because all of these guys, they talk to each other too much. Well, that's, they're called man chats. They have to, right? They talk to each other too much. Like, I don't, if they were distracted, you wouldn't get the emotion and the stories. They want, it's a, it's a social experiment at the end of the day. Like, they got to get in there. So even when you don't, you don't. You don't. You don't,

don't see guys in the room talking. That means they're with a producer. And the producer's like, tell me about the first time you fell in love or something like that. Or did you see the way Claire looked at Dale when she walked in the room? How'd that make you feel?

Do you feel like, it's stuff like that? You're always talking about your feelings. Now, let's talk about the dodge ball game real quick. Your thoughts. People were split on this. Split on it in terms of what? They thought it sexualized the men and they thought it was a double standard.

People were really mad at Claire for this. Okay. Well, first of all, I wasn't mad at clear at all. And I'll tell you why is because I watched, I used to watch MTV's Beauty in the Beach, which was a spring break show that MTV had back in the 90s. Do you remember that? I do not.

You don't remember Beauty in the Beach? I don't. Wow, that's great. And I remember, I got to a certain age with Beauty and the Beach, and I was like, is this okay? And the reason why I asked if it was okay is because I got to an age where I was like, you know, I'm sure the ladies want to do this,

but is it okay for us to just throw a lady out there and a bikini and whatever and just gawking her for whatever and do all that? It's not like I'm not going to watch it because I am going to watch it and I'm going to enjoy it, but I'm like, is this all right? So whenever I see somebody flip that, Claire is now she's got the power.

She wants to see some. she wants to see some dick, and that's okay. You know what I mean? She's got them right there. First of all, they're making fools out of themselves for her. They're dressed up in all kinds of weird things and playing volleyball, right? They're doing it. Let's see how far you can make them go.

Now, my question to you is if it was on the other side, right? And because let's say somebody else was the bachelor and the girls were playing some kind of game, could he make them have like a strip twerkathon or something like that? Would that be okay? That wouldn't happen on ABC. It wouldn't be a strip twerkathon. It was manned ass on ABC. All these guys were in jock straps.

I've never seen anything like that again on the show, showing how creative the producers are trying to get being in quarantine and planning dates. I don't know if I, I think if I was on The Bachelor and they told us to strip down to like bikinis, I wouldn't do it. You wouldn't do it. It's one thing if we were on the beach

and we're already in our bikinis. playing volleyball or dodgeball or whatever. I wouldn't strip down for it. I will say a lot of people were mad at Claire for doing this, saying it's a double standard, you know, like this shouldn't be done. And I said, last season of The Bachelor, they had a wrestling match with the girls, and they had them dress in lingerie.

Sweet. Which episode? Peter's season. Okay, cool. That's what I'm talking about. And my point is, is don't, first of all, it's obviously not Claire's idea. This is the show who's planning these dates for Claire, but they've done it with women and they've done it with men.

So there hasn't been a double standard by the show because they've done it on both sides. I loved the date. I thought it was great. I thought it was super creative. I was kind of mad I couldn't be there to judge it. I couldn't be one of the judges for the date. I'll tell you something, though.

I think it's also very practical that she had them stripped down after the volleyball game, after the dodgeball game, no. I'll tell you why. because you got to get married to one of these guys, right? That's what you have fantasy suites. I know, but by the time this fantasy suite comes, you don't get to take everybody to the fantasy suite, right? You get like three dudes to the fantasy suite,

and you might hit the roll of the micro penis dice. This way, she gets them all to strip down, right? And then she can weed guys out. I'm telling you, some guys just going to go home and you're not going to know why. But the real reason why is because it's going to be some guys. She already got in her mind. I can't wait to see

for you to see who goes home after this episode. Like, there's going to be some guys to get walked off because she saw him in the volleyball game and she was like, uh, I don't think so. You know what I mean? Like, there was

so much that was going on. This guy, Yusuf, is a fucking terror. He is so, like, he was, he was so, now I have a question about a guy like Yusuf. Is Yusuf, is that real? Yes. Yosef is so lame. I can tell you what happened. He comes back. He's so upset about the volleyball game and having to strip down. Yosef, what's

wrong with you? And he wasn't even there to see it. Wasn't even there to see it. This is probably what happened. He heard about the date. He was like, I don't, I'm not okay with that. Producer was like, let's go to a confessional. I'll take that. We go into a confessional. Now, tell me why I bothered you and they just keep pushing. Yeah, I can totally understand how that is. You have a daughter that could be very uncomfortable. You wouldn't want you. That's how that happens. Yeah.

And then he goes for it. He goes for it. He goes for it. Now, and then there was easy. Easy last night thought that he was going to get the rose or whatever like that, but he didn't get it. And the disappointment was palpable on Easy's face. Easy, who I guess is like the cool guy at the house.

Now, are we allowed to talk about allegations surrounding Easy. Go ahead. Are we? Are we? Because there were, listen, because I was ready to like Easy and there were,

I got hit up by some women in the DMs that wanted me to address the fact that some lady went on Twitter and accused Easy of past non-consensualities. So is that something? I mean, look,

It is what happens in a situation like that? So there have been other people on the show where, like, my co-host on Bachelor Happy Hour, there was a guy on her season who there was a full-out case that they missed. Like, it wasn't a tweet. It was a case. And so they removed him from all aspects of the show, like once that came out. Since then, they have an insane, insane criminal background check to, like, avoid these things from happening. It is my understanding that there was a tweet, maybe a series of tweets, and those tweets are no longer there.

And there has been nothing else to come out past the tweet. So it's one of those situations where, and I just recently found out about this too because people were messaging me, it's one of those situations where there is an accusation out there. I know for a fact that the franchise is investigating it, but there has been nothing to say either yay or nay at this point. And so I think that you have to be very careful when you want to cancel people over something until you figure out what's the truth behind it, whether it happened or it didn't because you can ruin a whole person's life on a tweet if we don't even know if it's substantiated or not. That's what I'll say about that. Just have to bring it up because they were bringing it up and easy seem like a cool guy on the show. But, you know, if you got some if you got some shit in your past, you can't be that cool. So it's kind of a whole thing.

We had them on our podcast. That's how I found out. People are mad. They were like, how could you have easy? And it's like, oh, my gosh, we're not supporting him by any means. I didn't find out until after. But the thing is, is they're doing the research to figure out if it's true or not. Right.

By the way, no show has ever made me as wrong as what the Bachelorette is making me. Because I hated Bennett, the Harvard H-Bomb guy. Like I admit, I'm fucking with him. I like Bennett. I'll tell you why. There was a little the little vignette that they did

after where Bennett showed his room off. Come on, man. Bennett is the man. Bennett is the man. Bennett showed his room off. I don't know. I don't know why Bennett

has a better room than everybody else. I don't know how that happened. Do they let you pay for the tier of your room? I know that's a really nice place down there where you go down there

and you get like a nice they give you like your own pool. When you were there, did you get your own pool and hot stuff? Yeah. His room was bigger than me. mine. Right, right, because he's

fucking bigger Bennett. He's bigger Bennett. It's who he is. And so I remember, I saw that, but it wasn't just about the room. It was about the fact that Bennett, when he invited old boy in there to go through his room,

he was gracious about it. Like Bennett was, he was. Bennett was being cool, man. Binning was like, hey, this is all my stuff. Try some. This is all myself, do this. Bennett was, he was generous. And you don't expect that from the, you know, Harvard, douchebag,

type guys, but he was very generous. He wasn't like he was stunting on the dude. He was sharing in his Benadness. And I really enjoyed that little scene. Like that was a little, because I was very on edge after the episode ended. I'm not going to lie. Because of the previews for the next episode. Oh, you have no idea.

You don't love Benet even more. You've no idea. The previews for the next episode, I had me very, very on edge. Yusuf seems like he's going crazy. Oh, my favorite scene, though, of all, of the entire episode, was when Blake, Zodiac Killer Blake, I'm telling you something's not right. Something's not right about the guy.

You asked what he did. He's a park ranger, I believe. Perfect fucking occupation for a serial killer. Perfect occupation for a serial killer. Perfect. you know what I'm saying? A wildlife ranger, something like that. A wildlife ranger.

A human remains found. In Canada. In Canada, where there's actually more land than there is people. Right. That's what I'm saying. Perfect occupation. That's all I'm saying. But when he came back and he had that rose,

the collective shock on those guys' faces that he got the rose. and the way he almost had to break it to him that he had the rose. He was like, well, I don't know how to tell you guys, blah, blah, blah. And then she finally gave him the kiss because when she curved him on the kiss at first, I felt for him. There is nothing like, that's called,

in Baton Rouge we called that the fade away. A girl hit you with that fade away. You try to kiss her, and she goes, she go all Michael Jordan on. How many times did you get the fade away? Everybody's gotten to fade away. I said how many times? It's not a ton of times.

I mean, sometimes you get the fadeaway. Sometimes it happens like it happened to Blake. Sometimes you get the fade away, and then you still get your kiss at a different time. But sometimes you get the fade away, and that was your only shot. Does that erase the fadeaway? Is it almost as if it didn't happen

if you get that makeup kiss? Kind of, but like, it doesn't change the moment the drive home and horror from the fadeaway. It's happened to you several times. If you get hit with the fadeaway, if you get hit with the fade away, you kind of, now look, okay, so here's,

there's different types of fadeaways, right? This is how you know it's happening. This is funny. It's funny when stuff happens to people and it affects them emotionally. So this is, I know you're having fun with that. Yeah,

when you're rejection and making people feel weird about themselves. Go ahead and laugh it up, yuck it up. Yuck it up. Yuck it up, Rach. Here's the funny thing about the fadeaway. The funny thing about the fadeaway is if you, let's say you try to kiss a girl and she hits you with the fade away, but then y'all still all hugged up.

You think maybe she's just not ready to kiss. That's cool, right? Or your breath smells. Well, that's bad. Yeah, that would be a bad one. But let's say she hits you with the fade away and then that's the end of the date. Like, if y'all hugged up or whatever

and you try to kiss her and she's like, whatever and she's not into it right she doesn't want to go there right now it's all cool it's all her it was you know it's whatever but let's say it's at the end of a date and you're going in for a kiss and then she hits you with the fade away and then you have to get right in your car and drive home like you turn the music off you row the windows down and you just let the air soothe you know what I'm saying you're like god damn man this that was a mistake you dumb You move too soon. And so when she hit in with the fadeaway, that was a relatable moment.

But still. You felt the air on your face. I felt the air, but he got his kiss later on. Do you think that she is taking Dale off behind the cactuses out there in Palm Springs and getting busy? No. It's no chance that she's getting busy. They, they, she at least touched it. Because they go crazy.

They go bananas, her and Dale. Okay. I don't think she's taking them behind and touched it, as you said. I think that she's been in quarantine for, what, four months when she started filming the show. She has been fixated on these profiles and imagining things up about these men. And then finally she sees Dale. She gets to him and she's like, oh, my God, I knew it. He's just as beautiful as I thought in person.

He picks her up, he grabs her. Maybe she got a little pat in on the grab. I don't know. But she's drawn to him because she's been thinking about this man for four months. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Remember when they had to do the little Shakespeare thing and all of the guys had to sit down there and they had to talk to her

while she was up in the thing? How haven't been not talked about this yet? Yes. Yes. Okay. First of all, that was embarrassing to me. I was embarrassed. It was a love language date.

It was a love language date. The love language date. I was embarrassed for almost every guy that had to talk, right? Because, first of all, in the love languages, aren't they like different? Yeah. I think that was words of affirmation. Words of affirmation. Dale was by far the worst.

The worst. Dale was by far the worst. Dale could have said anything. Dale could have literally walked up there and been like, Claire? I like big butts and I cannot lie. These other brothers can't deny that when a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and a round thing in your face, you get strong. And she would have, and she literally, she would have slipped on her own juices down the thing.

Because he got up there and was making no fucking sense. Like other dudes was getting up there freestyle rapping. doing all kinds of stuff like that like cool. I think even I think pointy ears went off. Riley was rhyming. Yeah, he was spinning poetry. Yeah, I think because that was that Yoda shit.

He had that Yoda shit. I'm telling you, that's the way Yoda does. His thing, he was up there like, love you, I think I do. Love you, it is true. And that's that he was doing that Yoda shit. That's that pointy ear, baby Yoda. The Mandalorian comes back next week.

He was doing that ad for no reason. They do not add. Disney Plus does nothing with us. But he was doing that yo shit. But then Dale got up there. It was like, fuck. I just, but she was, as he was talking, like, yo, something leaves her eyes. I want, she was looking at him.

You know what it's like? I got a perfect example of it. Perfect example. Did you ever see Twilight? I did. Go back and watch Twilight. And watch, because this was me and my brothers. I know what you're going to say.

Actually, not me, my brothers. Me and Kleega used to get drunk and then go see Twilight, right? It's the most fun you can have. The most fun you can have. Go back and watch Twilight and look at the way Bella looks at Edward. It's a very good comparison. It is like she, whenever Bella would be around Edward, like it would be, I would be in the theater in the arc like drunk.

It's fucking hilarious. it's like it is hysterical. He coming there with his sparkly skin and she was, she'd lose it every time. You know what I mean? And so that's the way she looks at him every time. It's a rap. And I love the show is so well made

because they cut to the other guy's faces every time. And these dudes look miserable. Defeated. Can we talk about the puppy perfume? See, you thought Dale's speech was bad? How about Dale's gift? Remember, then they had gifts. That's one of their love languages.

And people were bringing like pictures and my baseball from my last professional game and boxes and all these sentimental things. And Dale's like, I hear you have dogs. Here's perfume for the dogs. Right, yeah. What the fuck, Dale? Yeah, she loved it.

She put a little bit on itself. Yeah, she loves. loved it. She loved it. Dale could have literally came in bleeding from one ear and gone, I read about this guy and he cut his ear off and melded to this lady. And that's what I wanted to give you. Here is my ear. And she had took it and put it on a necklace around her fucking neck like in goddamn platoon. Look, if you guys never stopped the tune, watch it. But don't watch it. Don't wait till after the pandemic because it's depressing. But look, but, but, but, uh, But here's the thing.

Overall, I couldn't have been more entertained. I'm not even going on. It's a good show. I'm glad you enjoy it. I'm enjoying it. Van, next week, next week, you're going to love it even more.

It's going to be your favorite show after next week. After next week is going to be my favorite show. It pops off from the first minute. Because Yosef about to go crazy, huh? It's so good. Yosef about to do. He's doing his thing. All right, we good. Yosef about to do his thing. I, um, you know, looking around, I'm trying to see if I missed anything. No, I didn't. I personally thought not a lot of Chris Harrison in the show, right? He doesn't pop up very much. You don't really see a lot of them. He does this, he does this thing. Comes to Rose ceremonies and if there's like an emergency or something, you know, that Claire doesn't want to do. So my apologies in this episode are going to go to Brandon. and Bennett.

Brandon, I apologize for believing in you. You went out worse than anyone ever in life has gone. And Bennett, I know the H-Bomb, Harvard thing,

you brought that up. It was dushy as hell. But you cool, dog. I will watch a game with Bennett, man. I'm sure Bennett's a Republican, but whatever. I would watch it,

I would watch a game with Bennett, man. I would hang out with Bennett. Bennett seem cool. Me and Bennett could put those little things on our faces and just chill. Mask is what they're called.

And I heard that Bennett is was the coolest guy in the house. Awesome. So your assessment is correct. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya. including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. All right. We got to do some mailback really quickly, Jordan. We're going to take two mailback questions.

What you got? Okay, so this is a Bachelorette question, and I have the exact same... I'll leave it to the expert now. I have the exact same question when I was watching it. From Stacey Miller-Cuns. Rachel, when you were the Bachelet, did you have to remember every guy's name right away?

No. No. What happens is a producer will come to you before and they'll, and she might tell you, you know, Brian's coming up next. Or in a rose ceremony, what you don't see is you say three or four guys' names and then you walk out. And then they give you four more and then you walk out again. So, yeah, no, I hit people with a lot of, I didn't remember names still about more than halfway through. I hit the Bay, the boo, the hey you, hey there.

That's what you go with. Oh, I guess one more thing I got to say about the bachelor before you move on. Oh, no. He's so into it, y'all. Are people screened for mono? Yeah, we get tested for everything. Because there's a lot of kissing going on.

You get all like the sexual test, the psych test, the criminal background test. Did you kiss? Did you kiss a lot of those guys? I did. It's a lot of kissing. Kiss a lot of kissing. But you know what?

If you think Claire's seasons a lot, I don't think she's kissed that mini man. She kissed like five guys' last show or something. She kissed a lot. There's 30-something there. I guess that's true. I guess that's true. Okay, next Melbaugh question.

From Brianne Hunley. This is one of Brne Brown's rapid-fire questions at the end of her podcast. What's on your nightstand? Ooh. Lashes. Okay. Lashes, nipple covers, jewelry. Because I get undressed.

I'm being very honest. Some jewelry, a book, and a lamp. My watch, a diffuser. Oh, I have one too, yes. Yeah, my watch, a diffuser, and my phone. Easy work. All right. What else?

Last one. What's your most frequently used emoji? No, mine's not bad. I just was reading your face. Mine's basic. It's the squinty eyes, like your eyes are closed with the blush, the blush on the cheeks.

Yeah, mine is the laughing emoji. Which one? Straight on or head tilted to the, side. No, just the one with the eyes crying. The laugh one with the eyes crying. Because if you send me something, I really don't want to talk to you. I just say that it's funny to make you feel good about yourself and then we move on. I've never gotten that. So I feel crazy.

You never got it. Right. But people send me stuff like, why are you just telling everybody what you do? Well, whatever. People send me yourself and they're like, oh, Van, did you see this man? And I'm like, ha, ha, ha. And they go, why are you laughing? And then I don't That should be in the Am I an asshole segment? And yes, you are. Okay.

Yeah, maybe. Who knows? Do you have an unexpected ally of the week? I don't. Do you? I do. And it's an important. Okay.

My unexpected ally of the week is a guy named Jeff Sturdy. Jeff Sturdy is a basketball coach and a football. coach and a teacher in Racine, Wisconsin. Earlier this week, I got this direct message from Jeff Sturdy. Van, love the podcast with Rachel. I am writing with a heavy heart. I'm an educator in a pretty diverse area. Now, 10 years in, I am struggling today.

A young man who I love dearly, taught, coached, and tried to guide to positive life choices, was murdered last night. As a white male, I know I'm not the role model he needed, but in this moment, I feel like, and we feel as a community, that we failed him. This young man was a father and brightened every room he ever walked into. He deserved better. I am truly at a loss. While I know this isn't necessarily a political issue, it's certainly systemic. What can I do?

How can I serve my city of Racine better? Thank you for letting me vent and influencing and challenging me. me to grow as a human being. So I then sent my phone number to Jeff and Jeff and I talk. Oh, wow. Yeah. So here's the thing about that. And I'm going to say this without, you know, breaking down as we've so frequently done

on this podcast, just in an emotional time, you know, for everyone and everything that's going on. And the guy's name is Marcus Caldwell. and, you know, Jeff sent me a GoFundMe, where's family the GoFundMe is out there. You might be asking, why would we, why would we give money to a family

that we don't even know this experience of tragedy where we're experiencing so much tragedy? The only reason why I'd say that is because tragedy gets compounded. First, you have the physical tragedy of the transitioning and separation from someone, then you have a financial tragedy of trying to care for that person and what they leave behind.

So I'm going to send some money to Marcus Caldwell's GoFundMe. And if you feel compelled to, I guess you can too. But, you know, no pressure, whatever. The reason why this struck me so much is because you forget that people care. You spend so much time in your life devoting your time to caring. and trying to figure out the reasons why you're in the situation that you're in, that you actually forget that there's other people who care to. They might care in different ways.

They might care for different reasons, but they care. And any time that you care about anything, you hurt. There's going to be pain. The most bold and brave thing you can do in this entire world is give us. fuck. Jeff is an educator. He's a teacher. But when we talked, he told me about the reason why he decided to give a fuck

about this kid. Why he decided to care. And I appreciate it. I didn't appreciate it because Jeff is white. I didn't appreciate it because you know, I'm looking for validation from any community or that it means more because

there are a lot of people who are black that cared about this young man as well. I appreciate it because it moved Jeff enough to ask if there was a way that he could stop somebody this from happening to somebody again. That's an ally. An ally isn't beating yourself up about things that happen or what you did wrong and making it about you.

An ally says, hey, this is something I want to address. This is something I want to do. And how do I make sure that this doesn't happen to anybody ever again. Jeff, I'm glad we've got a chance to talk. I'm glad we got a chance to connect. And for anybody

out there who cares and who gives a fuck and who gives a damn, I know it's hard, but we need you not to stop. And when I say we, I mean all of us. So that's my unexpected ally of the week. I am grateful for that

man and I send my deepest condolences out to the family of the young brother whose life we lost. So there we go. All right. We're coming back, Rach. I mean, we're coming back next week.

Next week, the podcast is we coming back. But the Bachelor, the Bachelor is coming back. The Bachelorette is coming back. And, of course, there's going to be enough news, enough fuck shit for us to discuss in and outside. of the culture in and outside of this crazy, elastic world. But one constant is that Tuesday night, we're going to get to see Claire and Dale make fucking fools out of a whole house of grown men.

And we cannot wait. All right. Take the thin caps off, but do not stop learning. I am Van Lathen. I'm Rachel Lindsay. We out.