Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - #FlyinTedCruz: Breaking Down Ted Cruz's Trip to Cancún While Texas Freezes
Episode Date: February 19, 2021Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss Ben Shapiro coming at Rachel on his podcast (7:00), Rush Limbaugh’s death (21:00), Ted Cruz’s impromptu trip to (and return from) Cancún (29:00), Boosie Bada...zz’s comments about Lori Harvey (43:00), Meek Mill’s leaked song with lyrics about Kobe Bryant (57:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors.
What is that?
Zai Van Lathan.
And it's me, Rachel Lindsay.
Rachel is down in the dumps today, guys.
Rach is we have sad rage today.
I'm not sad.
What's wrong, Rach, talk to me.
No, I'm not sad.
I'm just annoyed, right?
Like, I'm just frustrated.
Every day I wake up and I say,
Okay, it's a new day.
We're going to move on
and then something else happens.
Something else happens like what?
Like talking about in the realm of
of Batch Nation?
Is that what we're talking about?
Yes.
Or just period.
No, just Bachelor Nation.
You're over it now.
Been over it.
But I'm really over it now.
So you started a fire
and now you can't, the blaze has burned too high for rage.
Stop.
But you literally do look like you're drained.
I am.
I'm exhausted.
I'm tired.
I'm like, I think it's just, it's exhausting because it's so illogical.
Like the way that people think, the way people are in my comments, the way people DM,
it's, if I'm sad about anything, it's just the way that people think.
it's we I swear we are just being torn farther and farther apart and over the freaking
bachelor who the hell cares who's hosting the damn show you know what I mean like you're still
like we we we sit on this podcast we talk about the issues that were brought up when in that
interview we talk about you know like how I was feeling the bigger picture how that topic transcends
The Bachelor and goes into bigger, bigger issues.
Yet people are accusing us of like cancel and saying firing and labeling.
And it's bigger than that all because of a show, of a TV show.
And I guess it's just frustrating because people are so upset over The Bachelor.
It's The Bachelor.
What's your favorite TV show?
You're going to be mad if they change out.
What's your favorite TV show, right?
Oh, Snowfall.
Oh, hello.
I don't even know I asked.
Snowfall.
Yeah, would I be mad if they just like changed Franklin
and brought in some white dude to be the host,
to be the main guy in Snowfall?
No, he's black.
Rachel, you got to stop asking these questions about snowfall.
I don't watch the show.
It's getting, like, it's getting,
it's getting disrespectful now.
Franklin is played by dance and injures.
So if they just changed him out,
because of cancel culture, sure, I would be mad.
I would be, I would be, I would be DM in, cancel culture.
I can't laugh at the sarcasm.
I can't laugh at the sarcasm.
I can't.
I can't because what you're saying and you're joking is legit.
Your life.
Legit.
How many DMs would you say that you've gotten?
Would you say that you're getting harassed?
Are you getting harassed by Bachelor Nation?
Would you say that?
Yeah.
I mean, but here's the thing.
I'm so used to.
I constantly speak out.
right? I am not popular in bachelor nation. So it's nothing for me to get hate, to get, you know, people saying the most nastiest things for me. I think what's, or to me, well, I think what's different is this time I'm, I'm a racist, you know? I think that's like the, the most interesting criticism that I get is that I'm a racist. People calling my job, emailing my job for me to get fired from extra. That's different. That's a little different.
You know, every outlet covering it, that's a little different.
Especially when you're being accused of basically doing your job.
Right.
As an interviewer, as a correspondent, my job is to ask a question.
You answer the question, that's what, how's that my fault?
You know what I mean?
And this is one time, like I almost wish a wish that I would have said what I was feeling in that moment
if this is the backlash I was going to get.
Because I sat there. I didn't react. You know, I asked a question when necessary. I tried to be like, well, maybe this is bad. Maybe this isn't, you know, like, are you sure this is what you mean? You know, like, it's not a good look ever. Or, you know, how would you feel, how would it be if I was at this party? You know, I tried. Whatever. It went. It happened. It needed to be seen. But the fact that I was, you know, like professional, you would think that that would go far. And somehow it's become
fault at the events that are transpiring now with Chris Harris.
So that's my fault.
It's frustrating.
Do you wish that he would have never said what he said?
If that's what he felt, then say it.
Right.
No.
Say it.
I feel the exact opposite way about bachelor nation.
Do you know why?
Why?
Because I want to shout out all of my bachelor nations.
We did Bachelor of Nation people.
We did the Reddit Ask Me Anything on Monday.
And shout out to all of the batchies who hit me up and let me know that people can see your Reddit history and your Reddit comments that you've left.
Everyone that hit me up and let me know to go in if people were going to be and delete my old Reddit history.
What did you do?
And delete my old Reddit comments.
Clutch.
Shout out to you guys.
A lot of people use Reddit for a lot of things.
I like other things in my life.
Use Reddit for...
That was my first time using, like having a Reddit account.
Different, you know, there's all kinds of communities on Reddit.
And I've been some of the same communities I pay my...
By the way, I haven't done it in a while.
There were really old comments because, you know, I've been porn free for a while.
But people were like, hey, Van, just let you know.
You should probably delete some of the old comments.
You know, I know we know that you're not ashamed of it,
but at the same time, you should probably get rid of it.
Did you delete him?
Yeah, hell yeah.
That's so funny.
I wish you guys would have let me know what to look at it
before he deleted it.
Right now, but it's too late.
It's too late because you're too busy stomping around being mad,
which is a mad-ass about what's going on with Chris Harrison.
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So I guess you don't want to talk about what Ben Shapiro said.
I guess you don't want to have that conversation.
You want to talk about it?
Go ahead.
No, it's too late.
I'm not used to seeing, first of all, it's so crazy because with the Adidas cap on, it looks like you're wearing, you look like run DMC rates right now with the Adidas, you know?
But it seems like it takes all of the fun about it.
It seems like you're not, the sassiness is gone today.
No, listen, I'm always sassy.
But I'm more so, it's not a sadness.
I'm drained.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm like, I'm exhausted from it.
And every day I'm like, okay, new day, new attitude, new energy.
And then it's like, yo, Rachel, Ben Shapiro.
That's funny.
Vince Shapiro.
Bish Shapiro got at you.
You know what, fine.
We're not going to fuck it.
No, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
I'm going to tell you why.
Because I think it's crazy the way he tried to come at me.
First of all, I had never heard Ben Shapiro.
I know who he is, obviously.
But I had now listened to his podcast.
Not to cut Rachel off.
No, go ahead.
Ben Shapiro addressed Rachel on his podcast.
I think this was Wednesday.
It was Wednesday.
And he said some things.
Actually, let's listen to what Ben Shapiro say right now.
So Rachel Lindsay, right,
he saw and heard in that clip with Don Lemon talking about the awful,
evil Chris Harrison,
who committed the great sin of saying that people deserve grace
and they shouldn't be wrecked on social media.
media. Let me just say if a white person did what Rachel Lindsay did on her Instagram just a few
months ago, that person would have been destroyed, like their career would be over.
Because here's what Rachel Lindsay did a few months ago. Okay, in the middle of the Black Lives Matter
protest, she tweeted out a picture of herself in front of, I kid you not, a Cadillac XT6.
And here's what she wrote, quote, we are living in unprecedented times right now.
I know we cannot escape our reality, but we do what is necessary to take care of ourselves physically
and mentally. For me, I like to clear my head by going for a drive in my Cadillac XT6.
With its Bluetooth connectivity, I can easily connect to my phone to stream almost anything and
everything with crystal clear audio on the standard Bose speaker system. I can take this time
to listen and learn from podcasts that support and uplift black voices. It is so important
that we take the time to understand what and why things are happening in our country.
What are some of your favorite podcasts that discuss these issues? Share your recommendations
in the comments and tell me how you're doing your part to share some good.
These days, hashtag ad, hashtag Cadillac community.
Hashtag Cadillac escapes.
Hashtag be the good.
So there's some privilege happening right here.
It ain't Chris Harrison.
Privilege. Wow. Privilege.
He hits you with the privilege, John.
It's like the, you want so badly, because this is what these people are doing,
these people who are against what's happening right now
in Bachelnation is let's dig up something on Rachel.
Let's find something.
This is the best you could do.
This is the best you got, Benny.
This is all y'all can do is find an ad.
Let me tell you something about this ad.
Do you remember we talked about the ad on the podcast?
Yes.
One of my mini jobs is being an influencer.
One of them is being an influencer.
One of them are sponsorships.
Is that a job, though?
If you saw how much money you make off of it,
absolutely because it takes time because listen listen it depends to what level that you influence right
some people do make full out videos you hire a videographer a photographer makeup lighting so like you put
you it's a commercial on your social media whether it's a picture whether it's a video whether
it's a boomerang you take time they buy into your likeness and image for you to promote their
product that's a job when people do commercials on television do we take that away from them no it's the
same thing on social media and people make very good money off of it. So one of my many jobs
is influencing on social media. I have a partnership with Cadillac. I remember when I
was like, you got to post something. And I said, I don't want to post something with Cadillac.
And I actually posted more than just that. That just seems to be the one that they focus on.
But I said I wasn't going to do it unless I got to talk about something that had to do with
black people. So I promoted podcast in that one. And if you scroll through the pictures, I promoted
higher learning, right? And that's said, name your podcast. Five, people don't like the way I worded
the caption. Get it. Take all the criticism. But to call me privileged from that for doing that, I did
another ad with Cadillac as well, where I highlighted black owned businesses in the city of Miami.
I was living in Miami at the time. So I showed myself driving my Cadillac, picking up food,
promoting businesses, then coinciding with that, I did a full blog on all black
owned businesses in the city of Miami.
So you can take that and run with that however you do, but the fact that you're trying
to compare what I did in that moment to what Chris Harrison did or to say that I am no longer
allowed to talk about what Chris Harrison did or anything that has to do with Black Lives Matter
or racial injustice or social injustice because I make money off of doing sponsorships is
absolutely ludicrous. It is so dumb. Also that we're talking about this, not.
days after the interview.
I don't know why Benny Shapiro is jumping so
late on the train.
That interview fucking happened a week
a week and some change ago.
Why are we still talking about this?
I'm so frustrated by it.
And I think what I'm also bothered too is
if you listen to the entire clip,
which is like the last 10 minutes of his podcast,
you can tell that somebody brought this information
to him rather than him just really researching
the facts and doing it himself.
You want to take one part of what
I said about Chris Harrison on this podcast and then use it to go toward whatever agenda it is
that you're trying to put out to your slanted audience. You want to take that, you want to ignore the
content and the context of what Chris Harrison did and blame it on cancel culture or say that I'm
not allowed to talk about it because I have my own privilege. You don't get to do that. You can't
defend someone's racist actions, tendencies, and affiliations, and then say that I'm not allowed
to talk about those things. It just, it, it, it blows my mind. And this is what plays into the
frustration of the way that I'm feeling right now. I didn't say anything. I asked a question,
which is literally one of the job requirements of my job as a correspondent at extra. But somehow,
I'm at fault. And when I said Chris's white privilege,
was showing and it was overwhelming. I think that's what I said, something like that on this
podcast, which is why now he's trying to say, I can't talk about it because I have my own
privilege. Chris Harrison has privilege. We don't have to define white privilege, but we obviously
know one of those definitions is you can do or say whatever it is that you want to say and you get
away with it or you're giving a pass or you're giving grace or compassion or whatever words you want
to use because of the color of your skin. Take a stroll in my comments right now or if my DMs,
people are saying how dare you you're a racist you're a bully you're aggressive you're a loud mouth you're angry
that's what i'm given because i asked a question and this man went on a 12 minute rant talking and defending the things that rachel did
but they say what do they say about chris after all the things he said he's a good man he has a good heart he gave you
everything how could you that is the definition of privilege that's him showing his privilege so i feel like
the next time ben shapiro wants to come at me
or Binnie, excuse me, I'm calling a Biddy now that I heard the podcast.
Yes.
Yeah, the next time you want to come at me
because of something you think I said,
you need to come to me with facts.
You need to do your research.
You need to listen a little bit better
and not just assume certain things
based on what your producer has given to you,
savvy or whatever you called her,
because next time you come at me
or you want to stick it to someone,
as he said in this podcast,
don't stick it to me.
Don't do that to me.
You can next time come at me correct.
please, if you're going to come at me with facts.
That ad was funny as hell, though.
What?
The ad, that's what I said.
We talked about it.
If you want to talk about, if you want to talk about my...
You know it'd have been better?
If you want to talk about my caption, it's fine.
This is what they should have done for Cadillac.
They should have, like, drove by the protests and had you looking out with your hand
on the mirror, the thing, like, I'm safe here in the Cadillac.
You know what I'm saying?
That would have been funny.
Like, you're driving by the protest and you got your hand on the window.
That would have been bad.
And people are like, I feel safe away from the chaos of the world and the Cadillac and stuff like that.
It's funny.
Look, man, Rach, Rach, I know people are going to have opinions.
People have opinions about things, you know?
Like, people have opinions.
You're not wrong.
I remember the common section of TMZ.
One of the biggest battles I had at TMZ, I might have talked about this on the podcast before, is
Like people started like getting at me on Twitter, right?
They'd get at me on Twitter.
And I would go back and I would say, suck my dick.
Or I would say, hey, go fuck yourself.
Or I would say whatever, whatever.
I would say all those things.
And I remember Harvey brought me into the room one time.
Harvey goes, hey, well, you can't talk to me.
But you were in the comments?
You were commenting back?
No, I wasn't in the comments.
I was on Twitter.
Gotcha.
And like, and I remember Harvey pulls me to a room one time.
And Harvey goes, yo, you can't speak like that.
It's like we're, you can't do that.
Like, we're trying to sell.
TV shows on you and we want to do this.
I was like, I don't want to do a TV show with you.
Another show, number one.
Number two, you guys don't police what they say.
Like, they come into the comment section.
They call my mother a nigger whore.
They come into my, they do all this.
And you guys don't delete the comments.
You guys don't delete the, you don't police the comment section under the articles.
You don't, whenever people see my name, you don't, you don't have anything.
You guys never have my back.
so I couldn't care less about what it is that you see.
And so for me, it's all hard.
It's definitely, definitely hard.
And I'm very sorry that it's taking a toll on you.
But think about the people that you've inspired and uplifted and empowered as well, Rachel.
There's a lot of people that feel like you're their warrior.
I'm not going to stop.
This isn't the first time I've received hate.
I'm just like, don't come at me and act like I can't speak on black issues.
That's what I think irks me about the Benny show,
is that you want to make it seem like
I can't talk about being black
because I have something that's nice
or because I'm partnered with a nice brand
or I make money off of something that's nice
because the deeper issue is that I used it
to promote something that amplified black people.
Rather than just saying, hey, guys, I'm in my Cadillac
and I'm driving around Miami in this beautiful city
as if I'm ignoring everything that's
happening in the world right now.
Like, I get it. If you don't like the way I phrase it, I can take all that.
But don't try to take away from me my ability to speak on what's happening to people who
look like me and to speak out on behalf of the community.
That's what irked me the most about what he did.
You don't even know me.
You took the time to tweet.
He took the time to tweet about me about The Bachelor.
Like that's what I didn't.
Ben Shapiro?
I didn't see the tweet.
I didn't see the tweet.
Jackson and Trudy put it in the rundown.
He took the time to tweet.
about me.
So you're a 3.3 million.
That's how upset you are about that.
Ben!
Let's see what Ben got going on.
Because here's the thing.
I was like,
why are people writing on this ad?
You know what I mean?
And unlike other folks,
I don't take down stuff
just because people are criticizing me of it.
Right?
Like, I'm proud that I was able to bring
what I felt like
with some awareness
and highlight black podcast
and black owned businesses.
I'm not going to take that down.
I see somebody in the comments
that says,
can someone please explain why the antibillum is racist?
You know, I'm not, we, we've been through this.
Let's do the, let's do the Germany Nazi era party.
Let's go to a party.
Let's not just, we're going, we're going to all dress up like different characters
from the Germany Nazi era.
We're going to, like, somebody's going to dress up like gerbils
and somebody is going to be Hitler.
Like, you know, like somebody, let's just do it.
We're not, there's no ideology behind it.
Let's just dress as people from that time.
And do it in a concentration camp.
Yeah, let's set in a concentration camp.
But not even at the concentration.
Let's set it in, let's do, let's have a Hitler's bunker party.
Let's do that.
Let's have a party.
Hitler's bunker theme party.
And see if anyone, if anyone tries to defend that.
All right.
Because the time is also representative of the cultural norms of that time.
And if anything, the cultural.
norms of the antebellum
period of America
should be something
that we all want to get away from.
Usory.
I expect more from you, Ben Shapiro.
I don't know why, but I do.
I don't know.
I just can't believe he's getting involved
with something like this.
I just, that's just this what,
to take the time between you?
You're disappointed in Ben?
It's just like, I just felt like
you don't even really know what you're talking about.
Your producer brought it to the table.
You thought this was interesting.
Let's get at Rachel.
Let me send my people after her.
All it does is emboldened me.
Okay.
So, yesterday,
Rushland-Bah, conservative talk show guy,
I think he was making,
he's like a giant in that world.
Huge.
I think he was making $80 or $100 million a year.
$85 million a year.
Russian-Limbabar I've known of since I was about in the sixth grade.
There was a guy in my six-grade class.
His name was John Greco.
And him and I were friends.
John Grico was very, very conservative
six or seventh grade, and he used to watch Rush Limbaugh.
In sixth grade?
Six or seventh grade.
Where's this guy right now?
I don't know where John is, but I have to tell you.
I can take a couple of guesses.
Remember, I went to a magnet school.
Yeah, I could take a couple of guesses where John was.
I don't know what you guys were doing in the seventh grade,
but we were getting our political theory on, me and John.
So there's a couple mornings.
I actually, when I was a kid, I actually woke up and watched Rush Limbaugh.
I remember the first thing I saw when I woke up and watched Russell
was he had picture of a dog on his desk,
like a white dog.
I think it was maybe his dog or something like that.
And he would compare the dog to Chelsea Clinton.
He would say that the dog was Chelsea Clinton.
That basically saying that Chelsea Clinton was that...
And she was a child at the time.
She was a year older than me.
So she at that point was a middle school age kid, 13.
Just to be clear.
Just to be clear.
And so that was my first introduction to Russell Dunbar and his brand of conservative talk.
that he was berating a child or that he had done it.
Here's the thing now.
It's difficult for me to go in on somebody when they pass away.
It is.
It's just an old south-southern thing.
It's a deal.
So, Rachel, if you will grant me the latitude,
we're going to acknowledge that Rush Limbaugh passed away.
I'm going to tell people how we met La Rush Limbaugh.
But we're going to talk next week fully about what Rush Limbaugh was
who he was.
And I don't want to,
I don't feel comfortable right now
having a full-throated conversation about it
because the reality is,
in order to have a full-throated conversation
about it, you can't help but be disrespectful.
Because
Rush Limbaugh was, if you say no,
then it's no, you look like you're ready to go.
Well, no, I guess here's my question.
You want to respect the fact that he has passed away
and you don't want to feel like you're talking ill of the dead.
It's just a thing for me.
I get it.
But what's the difference in acknowledging some of his views
and the way he was when he was living?
He said it.
He did him.
It's not like you're saying,
I'm glad that this happened.
You know what the real thing is?
What?
I don't want to get lung cancer.
And I swear, like, there's some weird southern part of me that feels like.
Southern Louisiana part of me.
Southern Louisiana part of me.
Well, you're not from the south.
from Dallas.
Like, there's some weird...
I got family.
There's some weird part of me
that feels like spiking the football
on dancing on somebody's grave,
that there's some sort of enchantment
that surrounds that energy
that's gonna boring back
and hit me later.
I swear to God.
If you talked, if you celebrated his death,
that's one thing.
But to talk about what he did,
good or bad,
bad in this case,
while he was living,
is not bad.
It might think.
recognize factual things that he said and did.
And the things that he, because he said those things and what it, what it incited,
the audience that he grew, kind of had like towards this movement.
I don't think that that's bad to recognize.
See, I understand what you're saying.
But I think of two people that just who passed away sort of recently.
And I am not in any way comparing these people to Rush Limbaugh, because these are two of my
most favorite people in the entire world.
One guy I knew, one guy I didn't.
All right, so Nip and Kobe died.
We're going to talk a little bit more about Kobe
and something later on in the podcast,
but Nip and Kobe died, right?
And as soon as both guys died,
there were people who brought up
the things from their past, you know?
There were definitely people who,
the next day after everybody was coping
what happened to Kobe, how terrible that was.
people that brought things up and talked about certain things that happened in Kobe's past.
When they passed, the way I remember, there was a very specific article written or a very specific tweet or something,
or maybe it was an article written by someone who I respect a great deal.
And I remember I called him and I had a conversation.
I was like, do you think that that's right to do right with everyone's in the middle of their grief over it?
And the reality is that somebody's sad because Rush Limbaugh died.
I don't know those people.
that's why you don't celebrate the death.
Yeah.
I understand what you're saying.
So I guess it's just like, and during that time, I was trying to say,
hey, just let people breathe for a second.
Somebody has passed away, then kind of pick it up.
But those things happened with those guys.
No one made anything up.
I just thought just when somebody passes,
it's just a crazy time to do it.
I guess it's like, if I was a kid and I came up to you and I was like,
I saw that Rush Limbaugh died.
Who was he?
Right. Right.
Most of what you would say is, I mean, you could say he had a successful show and he made a lot of money and he, you know, built an audience.
That's positive.
That's not what I would say.
But the most of, but the things that he did to build that empire, you got to talk about.
As opposed to a Kobe or Nipsey.
I'm not comparing those guys.
I know.
I know.
When people brought up things to them from their past, things that are.
happened. To me it was different. I took it very personally.
To me, that was different because
when you define Rush, you can't define his career
without talking about all the races, homophobic,
xenophobic, you know, like things that he said
misogynistic, you can't, he's any, it wasn't his past.
It was his, it was up until the day. He passed away.
As opposed to Kobe or Nipsey,
you're going to bring up an incident or something that happened.
And it doesn't define their whole thing. I guess like, you know what I'm saying?
No, the point that you are making is
one million percent value.
You're just superstitious.
No, it's just a, it's an old South superstitious thing.
It's just like a thing.
You know, like when people,
it just feels wrong to,
I'm not saying that I'm any better.
I'm telling you I'm actually a hypercontractic.
I'm scared of it.
I'm scared of doing it.
You know what I mean?
I'm scared of doing that.
Even if we just talked about what happened,
that's one thing, and you're right.
It is way different than those other things.
This was who this guy was and what he was proud of, right?
But it's just hard for me to wake up, read that somebody passed away,
go, yeah, that bastard's gone.
No, I would never do that.
There's some people, I guess you should feel that way, you know,
but I don't know.
It's like, you know, once again, something my daddy used to say.
No, I don't believe.
even celebrating people's death like that.
I get you.
It's not a ding-dong,
the witch is dead situation.
I'll tell you what,
there was some people that was like,
nah, man,
we about to get these jokes off.
It was a lot of people.
People hit me up like,
bam, I feel you.
I love you, Van,
but here we go.
There's people,
the poor guy hit me up.
It was like,
I was like,
only God and Grace.
I tweeted,
only God and grace
are stopping me from saying something terrible.
And one dude hit me up,
like I'll say it for you,
dog.
I got all the terrible you need.
And so go ahead and be.
thing. Now somebody who I can say terrible things about, Ted Cruz. This whole Ted Cruz fiasco is amazing.
All right. In case you guys didn't know Ted Cruz is a senator there from Texas. I'm sure you know this by now.
Texas and much of the country is just completely strangled by some of the most severe winter weather in recent memory.
You know, Texas looks like a winter wonderland down there.
And people in parts of Texas have gone long times without heat and without water.
There are literally people freezing to death right now in Texas.
People don't have water.
People don't have the food that they need.
And certain people are working to get them what they need.
And other people like Ted Cruz are going to Canco.
Spring break is coming early in the cruise.
household. There was a picture of Ted
that showed him boarding a flight
to go to Cancun. And of course
you guys can see now, if you're
watching on the internet, that the reaction to this was
swift. It was very swift. And people were like,
what the hell are you doing, leaving?
To go on a trip with your family
to this temperate climate
and have a good time and kick back.
And so many of the constituents
that you represent are
going through something so serious.
So, Ted Cruz
has responded to this.
It's happened earlier today.
And he's done
what any brave politician does
in this situation.
He blamed his own children.
He blamed his own.
I'm so glad I live in California.
I don't want this man to represent me anymore.
The tag girls did what every,
every brave
public servant does
when they're in the crosshairs
of the media
he blamed his kids
he says
it's a statement from
Ted Cruz
this has been an infuriating week
for Texans
the greatest state
and the greatest country
in the world has been without power
we have food lines
gas lines
and people sleeping
at the neighbor's houses
our homes are freezing
and our lights are out
like millions of Texas
our family lost heat and power too.
With school council for the week,
our girls asked to take a trip with friends.
Wanting to be a good dad,
I flew down with them last night,
and I'm flying back this afternoon.
My staff and I are in constant communication
with state and local leaders
to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas.
We want our power back,
our water on, and our homes warm.
My team and I will continue using all of our resources
to keep Texans informed and safe.
Rachel, bullshit or not?
Bullshit.
Since we can't talk about Rush, let's talk about Old Ted.
What a blithering idiot is Ted Cruz?
Even the fact that he thought he could fly a commercial flight and make it to Cancun without being seen.
Did you see him?
I've never seen him wear glasses.
No, he stood his thing.
He had glasses.
He had the mascot.
Think he wouldn't be seen.
And it is now being reported.
that he has booked a flight back to Texas.
Yeah.
You guys ashamed of it.
They said his flight,
he wasn't supposed to come back until Saturday.
Yeah, he just landed.
Now, like, there's some talk.
And by the way,
by the way,
there's some talk that he was actually scheduled
to come back Saturday.
First of all, let's just take it on his merit.
If the family's going to go down to Cancun
and you're not going to go,
why on God's Green Earth,
would you fly down to Cancun?
just for a turnaround flight to come back.
We know what this is.
We know.
He had a...
Listen, his bag looked like he was staying longer than one night.
Okay?
Ted was ready to get his tan on, his warmth on.
He was ready to have a good old time.
And y'all exposed him and I love you guys for it.
Thank you for that.
Because if you have family in Texas,
if you're living in Texas and you're seeing what's happening right now,
and you're experiencing it personally, it is scary.
I know people who are in closets with their dogs trying to stay warm, too scared to get on the freeway because we don't know how to drive in that.
Texas is not, although it isices in Dallas, it doesn't dip down to Houston.
We are not prepared.
We put sand on freeways instead of salt.
Water pipes can't handle electricity.
There are issues right now with ERCOT, ERCOT, however you want to say it, where they're keeping electricity on in some neighborhoods.
hoods and turning it off in others.
It's like a huge deal.
It's a big scandal.
And the fact that you are supposed to represent
this great state that you call it,
yet you want to abandon it.
As soon as trouble happens, is awful.
You guys, unfortunately,
the people who need to be listening to this podcast aren't,
but if you know somebody forward this on and tell a friend,
you cannot continue to elect someone
who does not give a fuck about you.
And he showed that when he bought his plane ticket,
not just for him, for his entire,
family and escaped and he left.
He showed you exactly how he feels
about you. He doesn't care.
He does not. I just, I can't
get over the fact that he abandoned these
people. Like, watch a video, y'all.
Read an article and see how people's
roofs are caving
in.
Animals are freezing. People
are freezing. They're not even reporting the number of
people that are dying. I mean, it is
it's unreal.
It's unreal what's happening.
So here's the thing.
Jesus Christ.
So it's actually NBC News now is reporting that Senator Cruz booked the return trip at 6 a.m. Thursday.
He was initially booked to return on Saturday.
So Ted Cruz was going on vacation.
Any of a anything that says that he's not going on vacation that he wasn't saying a couple of days in Cancun, it's a lie.
So that let's just talk about that.
That's just a lie.
Okay.
So that part of it is politics and his finance, it's a lie.
Okay, so if we all know with our intellectual minds that that part of it isn't true,
that this wasn't him chaperoning his daughters.
What is it?
Mom was there too, though, right?
Who?
The wife was there.
The wife was there.
Okay.
Like, she's not capable of taking the children.
Okay.
Four-hour round-trip flight or whatever it was.
Since we know that that's not true and we can reasonably conjecture that as in true using
our human brains, then let's just talk about what this means.
Okay.
Because it's very important.
We laugh and we have a lot of fun.
but it's very important to understand
like what something like that means.
That means that there is in emotional,
there's a tangible emotional
and even I would say a political disconnect
between Ted Cruz and his concessions.
Now, I think that if you are willing to leave the state,
leave the state and go on vacation with your family
while people are freezing today,
I think it's very hard to make the argument
that you care about those people.
Now, politicians make all types of mistakes
on both sides of the eye.
Politicians make all types of mistakes, right?
Some of them they make mistakes out of,
some of them make mistakes out of greed.
Some of them do things that they think in the moment
are going to benefit people, right?
But on both sides of it,
what you would want to believe,
what you would hope to believe
is that they're at least in it with you.
I know that that's a little bit bullsh,
a little bit pye in the sky,
but you want to think that at least they're in it with you,
at least they give a damn in some way.
The people of Texas are going to have a decision to make
in the future about Ted Cruz.
And it's going to be very difficult
for me to tell them
or to even suggest to them
that he gives a damn about them.
Because if he gave a damn,
even the optics of that situation would stop it from going to Kankan.
Just how it looks.
Think about that.
Think about just how it looks.
I had an uncle that used to say something that was very inappropriate,
but I'm going to repeat it.
He would say to me, he would be like,
I know you think I'm a liar because I would see him messing around with other women, right?
And he would be like, but I lie because I love your husband.
He goes, imagine how things would be like,
be, if she came home and it was just a woman up in the house and I didn't even care that she
saw it. And he was like, I'm doing wrong, he's, I'm doing wrong, but I'm hiding it from her because
I don't want to hurt it. Now?
Imagine if you just didn't step out.
Exactly.
Oh.
Imagine not.
All right. I get them on here. He'll talk to you. He'll talk. He got a whole theory about
them. But what I'm saying is it's comical that.
that Ted Cruz won't even lie to the people that he's cheating on.
It's comical.
I mean, he's lying in, I guess it's a reactionary lie,
but it's comical that there was nothing.
Nobody that said, hey, Ted,
a beach vacation right now is not going to look good.
You can't get on a commercial flight
and sneak away to the Yucatan Peninsula
and think that nobody's going to find out about it.
I'm sure they did say that.
I don't know.
I don't think anybody did.
Because how could something like that happen?
This is legitimately...
You do what you want to do.
He was probably like, whatever, I'm going to go.
I'll want to.
It's egregious, though.
And look, there are people that...
I don't know if we retain Benny,
if Benny is still listening right now.
If Benny is still listening right now,
Ben Shapiro or anybody else who is conservative,
this doesn't have a damn thing to do with left or right.
To me, this is a dereliction of duty.
This doesn't have anything to do with whether or not right now.
Now, Mario Cuomo's up there in New York in a shit ton of trouble.
And when we have answers to whether or not Mario Cuomo is guilty or culpable,
in and around the things they say that he did,
I will skewer his ass right here on this podcast.
But it's not his time.
It is Ted Cruz's.
There's no way that you can be the party of the working man
and go on vacation as the working man and woman
freeze to death in your state.
It's amazing to me.
Well, this is also a man.
And then we're not even talking about the fact
that he blamed it on his poor children.
Are they girls?
Ted Cruz really, I mean,
you're blaming it on your children.
I feel sorry for them
because we've also seen how he handles his wife.
Right?
This is the same man who supported a man
in so hard,
It's so hard for a man
who not only talks so badly about him,
but his wife.
Trump dogs your wife.
This is the type of man that we're dealing with.
Right?
So I say this to say you can't,
you hope to expect more from him,
but what can you really expect from a man
who lets another man totally and publicly
disrespect his wife and him
and just keeps it moving like it was nothing?
Okay, so I want everybody to do something right now for me.
Let's listen to the podcast.
Everybody's listening to the podcast, do something for me.
Okay.
Bring up a picture of Ted Cruz on your phone, your smartphone device or something like that.
Bring up a picture of Ted Cruz.
Just bring up the picture.
Now look at the picture.
Okay, you see the picture?
Everyone sees Ted Cruz.
I see it.
See the picture.
Tell me right now that Ted Cruz doesn't look like a fart in human form.
He looks like a fart.
I call him fart.
boy. Was this pre-beard or after the beard?
Pre-beard, definitely even more. He looks like a fart.
He has fart-like tendencies.
I remember looking at watching the Republicans when they were doing that thing after Trump
decapitated all in them in the primaries and thinking, wow, that guy, he looks farty.
Span.
He does. He looks like a fart. And that's why he was trying to blow his ass down to
Cancun. He didn't think anybody would smell him, but they did.
It's almost like he doesn't have common sense, right?
I don't know what it is.
Princeton, Harvard, educated, but when it comes to the basics, he just doesn't get it.
It's like he just doesn't have that common sense smarts.
Because otherwise, he wouldn't be doing reckless behavior like this.
Or he just doesn't care.
What does Dan Crenshaw think about this?
American hero, Dan Crenshaw.
What do you think?
All right.
Enough of our boy.
Let's take a book.
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Yo, yo, shout out Baton Rouge, man.
Boosey.
No, no.
So today is the day.
Okay, so we had a day of airing out grievances.
Today just seems to be the day
of recognizing people
who make our home states look like shit.
Are you saying that Boise makes Louisiana?
Carried away, well.
Carrying away with Boosie Boone.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, wait.
Are you saying, are you saying that Boosey makes Louisiana look like shit?
I'll let you introduce the topic.
Can I get to the topic before you get that Boosie like that?
Sure.
Sure.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She right.
You got the, the perfect song to introduce the topic.
Boosey in an interview with Blad TV.
And Vlad, Vlad.
being an expert of what he does,
asked Bootsie about the relationship
between Michael B. Jordan
and Lori Harvey.
Like why?
You want to get booed, look,
I'll tell you what, when I have a thought about
relationship dynamics, the first thing I think is,
you know, what's Bruce to think about that?
Well, that's bad enough for you.
So,
Boosey seems to think that,
it's not funny.
We're focusing too much on Lori Harvey.
He's like he wants the bachelor.
to get all the credit.
And that Lori Harvey's body count
basically makes her unwhifable,
I guess. Basically what you're saying is that
he feels like Michael B. Jordan is a simp
by having settled down with
Lori Harvey because
Gordon Nibusi, I guess Lori Harvey
has been ran through, his
words, not mine, too many times.
The reaction was swift.
I'll tell you what.
Boy, I tell you, that's what. I keep saying
the reaction was swift. It always is.
The reaction these days,
is always swift.
They got on Boosie's ass about this.
Do you think that this is, I mean, what do you think, Rachel?
Like, Boosey says that he thinks that Lori has been a little bit too out there to be wife.
And people got mad at them.
First of all, I love that Lori Harvey has these people so hard press.
For some reason, people stay, they want to talk about Lori Harvey and good for her.
The woman doesn't say much, but for some reason she's got people so bothered.
And I love it.
I love that for her.
I just want to say something real quick.
Eight children with six different women.
Wait a while.
Respects women who stay with an unfaithful partner.
Made transphobic comments to Zaya Wade or about Zaya.
Zaya.
Zaya.
Felt pornography was better for kids to watch than cartoons with men kissing.
spoke positively of paying an adult woman
to perform oral sex on his underage son and nephew
bragged that he had secured his son
fallatio from a quote,
bad bitch for his underage son.
What do all these comments have in common?
Barack Obama said him.
Boosey bad ass.
And I say all that to say,
you guys.
Why do we give this man a mic?
Why do we give this?
Unless he's going to put a, you know,
mouse on the track or something.
I don't want to hear Boosie's opinion about anything.
He has absolutely no credibility.
He has no respect,
no regard.
It's almost like he has a hate
when it comes for women.
There's a double standard.
You think Boosie hates women?
Yes, the way he talks about women,
the lack of respect that he has for women,
the double standard,
it's okay for men.
to do all of these things.
But for a woman, the only type of woman
you respect is a woman who stays with her
unfaithful partner. Shout out to
Unk.
By the way, two people that have something in
common, this is some Baton Rouge
logic that you're hearing.
But not everybody from Baton Rouge, but this
is some, and to be honest with you,
here's the thing about that.
If we're being real,
there's a bigger
cultural question that we have to ask
here. Because even in what we're
talking about for a lot of people.
This is why you have to meet comments like this head on.
Because this is how people were raised.
This is what's been drilled into them over and over.
I'm not excusing it.
I know you're not.
But even just like Boosie, just like Boosie, when I was 16, my dad told me, I think
I've told you this before.
When I was 16, my dad told me, hey, when I was 15, he told me if you get to 16 and you're a virgin,
you're not a Lathan man.
So think about that.
You know, after that, like I said before, after that,
every woman is not like a person.
She's not like an individual.
She's a tool for me to go access my manhood.
Right.
And you only treat a tool as well as you have to.
If you're a good craftsman,
you keep your tools shiny and new.
Right, but there's still tools.
So I'm saying, so what I'm saying is that.
And so for me, I had to unlearn that.
And thankfully I was able to, right.
Correct.
I get you adding context to it, right?
But you're also giving me an example of when you were 15.
Boost is what, 38?
38.
38, about to be 39 a little bit.
Yeah.
38.
He's been criticized at great lengths for these comments that he's made.
He's fully aware of the right thing to say, to do what all this means.
Is he?
Yes, he is.
He doesn't care.
fully aware of the right.
You're telling me right now that Boosey is fully aware of the right thing to say.
So he knows what the right thing to say.
Yes, he doesn't care.
I don't think he knows what the right thing to say is.
Please, Boosie, if you're listening, who hurts you?
Who hurt you?
Wait, wait a minute.
But here's the thing.
And this is not to give Boosie a pass for any of this stuff.
But it is to say that it's kind of crazy sometimes to say that somebody knows what the right
thing to say is I don't think that
a lot of people know what the right thing
is they think they're right which is the more
If people are criticizing you
and you double down on what it is
that people are saying
then
his last post
quote
Fuck that I said what I said
Yeah
Boosey is fully aware
Of what he's saying
Of how people feel about it
and the other side of the argument.
Yet he said,
F that.
I said what I said.
He doesn't want to be better.
He doesn't want to do better.
He is perfectly fine believing the things that he does
and staying on that path.
And teaching that to his son and nephew,
as I just pointed out,
those things that he's glorifies.
He has a total disrespect for women.
You can add all the context you want.
I'm not arguing any context.
I'm not arguing against it.
I get that some people are taught that.
but at 38, you are aware of the other side of it.
Fair enough.
You know, he has daughters.
He does.
You know what I'm saying?
You got daughters.
Is this how, it's like, this is the message that you want to send to your daughters?
Or is it different?
So soon I'm saying, it's awful.
So this is what I will say.
But I can't, I can't get behind this.
This is what I'll say.
First of all, Mike and Lori are a beautiful.
Yes, we are.
stunning, amazing couple.
Mike had the classier's
response to this.
He finally did.
He went on Instagram.
He said he loves it.
Dedicated his love.
This is after Mike has,
he went all out.
By the way, Mike,
I appreciate you making us all look bad.
Valentine's Day.
He bought out a whole aquarium.
A whole aquarium.
Do you know how many niggas
went out and bought fish tanks after that?
Do you know how many guys were like,
baby, I can't give you a whole aquarium.
But these goldfish,
they name is.
Trudy and Jackson.
I was going to say, take him back.
And his goldfish mean, I love you.
You know what I'm saying?
It's not an aquarium.
I don't want it.
And bought stuff like that.
Mike made us all look bad.
But I'll tell you this.
Two things here.
Number one is Trudy and Jackson,
the two goldfish.
Number one,
the reason why you can never excuse comments like this
is because it's not,
even about trying to reclaim Bousie.
The reality is Bucie is who he is.
You know, Bousie survives some things,
and the fact that he's still breathing reinforces to him
every day that he did it the right way.
So the two things.
Number one, we have to make sure that people don't grow up
in those environments, right?
We have to make sure that people aren't grasping
and holding on to their masculinity
as a way to survive something.
or some bullshit code or some bullshit way of treating other people as a way to mask,
how they feel about themselves, how they feel about their surroundings, how they feel about
their environment, that they're not pouring into themselves things that are toxic, right?
And then vomiting them back out on people who are unsuspected.
We have to make sure that we do that.
So part of this is a cultural edict and part of this is a very specific individual one, right?
And so that's why you meet the comments like this head on.
This is not, obviously, me and Busy go back away.
This is not me excusing him at all.
This is not me.
Everything that he said about Lori was disgusting.
It's wrong.
And it victimizes not only her, but a generation of women that are here now and that
will follow that want to just be able to live their lives in whatever way they want.
Forget about whatever you.
Nobody's being heard.
Nobody's doing anything.
And you don't even know if half the things you think,
are true or actually true.
You don't know nothing.
It's an ignorant statement.
It's a powerless one,
and it's one that to me is
just born out of whatever it is
you think you know, which is not much on this.
You don't know their relationship.
You don't know her life. You don't know none of this.
Part of this also comes from the fact
that Busy is continuously put in the situation
where he is opioning on things,
giving his opinion, and he has a great big,
a great big microphone to do that.
Part of that is Vlad.
Now, there's nothing,
there's nothing wrong with,
there's nothing wrong with Vlad
having conversations with Busy,
but this is what happens
when these conversations,
when these questions are asked.
There's a reason,
hold on, let me ask you,
let me finish this.
You keep asking me to have my dad
on this podcast.
Absolutely.
That'll never happen.
Never.
Tell me.
And do you know why?
I don't, but now don't play with that, man.
Do you know why?
You know why I'll never platform my father on this podcast?
Why?
Because I know what he might say.
Okay.
My, me and my dad, like me and my dad have a very specific relationship.
Me and my dad to me is a hero of mine.
He's a protector.
He's all of these things, but he's a lot of other shit too.
Love him the death from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.
But he's from Maryland, Louisiana population 2,500.
He was born in 1955.
There's a very specific experience that he has.
And so for me, part of me not offending the viewers and the listeners of this podcast
is making sure that I don't put them in a position to be offended.
And putting him on this podcast.
That's real.
Without cutting a bunch of shit on and doing all of that stuff,
Like that, that's not for him.
His thoughts and the way he looks for a world,
those are inside thoughts.
You know what I'm saying?
And I'm not saying that I'm not saying that there's anything like that.
But, you know, look, and by the way,
this is the best thing that could have happened for Vlad.
This is the best thing.
Look, Vlad is out there doing his thing, millions of views, all that.
And that's why he did it.
He did it because he knew.
So I get it.
I respect that.
Like, you're not going to put your,
you're not going to question your dad for ratings, right?
For downloads, for subscribers.
Vlad did it
and he asked this question
because it's like
why are you even asking
about Lori and Mike
because he knew
Boosie would say something
out of the side of his net.
He also likes talking to Boosie
that's his man so it's a whole thing
but this is kind of what you
this is what you get
at a certain point
what we have to do
is shoot it down
talk about it
tell everyone and talk
to Boosie about it
like we'll tell you right now
Boosie this is Van
you're all fucked up, homie.
Wrong. That was fucked up.
Can't do that. Stop.
Please. You're making the whole
city look bad, dog.
Chill. Please.
Love you to death. Love your brother.
But relax.
For real. So he's not coming on this podcast.
Unless it's for a performance.
You don't want Boosie on the podcast?
To give him a platform to say some crazy shit?
No.
I'm asking. I'm asking. I told you.
I was a lot.
We can probably have him in a certain capacity.
Right.
Just the music.
A performance.
Just the music.
All right.
All right.
Let's take a break real quick.
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Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of, and it turns out it's more common than you'd think.
Paroni's disease, or PD, for short.
PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis.
This can cause a curve or the bump during an erection, and for some men, lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health.
It may also lead to anger and frustration, to preemptive.
depression, lower self-esteem, and even withdraw from sexual activity and physical intimacy.
Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD.
The actual cause of PD isn't always known.
In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity.
The good news is, PD is treatable.
If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it
and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment.
To learn more about Peroni's disease, visit talk about p.d.com.
More rap news.
This was interesting.
We told you we'd get back to you to Kobe Bryant in this podcast again.
Meek Mill is in some trouble right now.
Meek Mill has a song coming out with Little Baby,
and a part of the song leaked.
He says, and if I ever lack, I'm going out with my chopper,
it'll be another Kobe.
Of course you guys know that Kobe Bryant died around this time last year,
a little bit earlier than this last year,
in a horrific helicopter accident with his daughter.
So the double entendre is going out with my chopper,
for you guys who don't know,
a chopper in this case,
AK-47,
and in the case of obviously Kobe and Gigi,
it was a helicopter.
So Meek is saying in that line
that he will go out with his chopper,
go down shooting,
as did Kobe go out,
Kobe went out in the chopper, the helicopter crash.
This leaked yesterday, the fact that this line is in that song,
and Meek traded all night long last night,
and he trained it all day, basically, today.
Before we even get into this, I talked to somebody with direct knowledge of this situation.
When I say direct knowledge, I mean direct, direct knowledge of this situation,
as direct as it can get.
This version of the song was never meant to come.
out. This is not the version of the song that was coming out. They told me that the process by
which Mick records is that he goes into the booth and he freestyles, right? And he freestyles,
he relates to somebody. So there's a lot of stuff recorded. That line got thrown out there.
Some people heard it and they were like, nah, we can't do that. He was like, nah, we're not going
to do that. That's not what we're going to do. But the files remain. Also, he says, the only reason why stuff
like that would be flying in his mind is because where he's from, they say stuff like that.
They'll be like, yo, you know, I'll go out from my hood like Nip did or something like that.
They don't mean it as disrespect.
It's like not a disrespectful thing.
He wasn't seen it as disrespect.
It was just about the line for him.
And that there are people that feel like this has really nothing to do with the line itself.
This has more to do with somebody trying to get meek out of the paint.
And that's why this came out.
But according to who,
I spoke to, this version of the song was supposed to be unreleased and it was never to come out.
The release version, somebody, they had caught it, they had discussed it, it wasn't going to come out.
Now, does this change anything that you were thinking about the situation?
Yeah, I have a question.
So was the song not supposed to come out because he said that line and he was like, no, forget it, that's not it?
Or just because he didn't like the whole version of the song?
No, no, no, no. The song still will be dropping, but not that version, that verse won't.
Why was that, is that version not the song that's coming out? Is it specific to that line?
Yeah, no, no, no, because he re-recorded his verse because that line is not in his verse.
Because people were like, that's not, you can't, like, they all listen to it and they're like, no, you can't do that.
Like, that sounds bad. I don't know. I mean, here's the thing. If somebody,
it's hard for me to say
what was in somebody else's
thought process. If the person
that has direct knowledge
of this is saying that once
they freestyled it because that's the way he
records things and once he heard
himself say it, they were like
no, then that can't be the case. Then I guess
I have no choice to believe him.
But, I mean,
I guess that
that I'll give him. So I guess
yeah, I guess it changes my
mine and I don't want to necessarily speak on the same way it was the argument that that's
just what you say from where you're from to me still doesn't make it right if the rest of
the country or the rest of the world doesn't see things that way because what was so disrespectful
about it is like it's not just Kobe it's his family that he lost on it and that is affected
by it's the other eight victims that are involved in their families it's it's also making
softening something that was so tragic that we all can
remember it like it was yesterday.
And then I just feel like, just to reduce Kobe to a lyric in your song like that in this
way is just the utmost disrespect.
Not saying you can't rap about Kobe, but rap about Kobe and his death in this way.
I'm not sure what the end goal was here, but I just feel like you didn't think this one out.
It just sounded like, I will give it to him.
I'm not good.
If that's somebody who has direct knowledge to it, if that's what they're saying happened,
then fine.
But my initial reaction is, to me, there is no excuse.
Initially, that's how I felt there is no excuse for you to say these type of things.
You're a lyricist, you're a rapper.
You're not new to the game.
You've done this before.
And that to me, that's where your mind goes.
And then the song has in parentheses RIP Kobe.
So it seems like you're making references to Kobe in this song.
And this is the reference that you made about his death, making light of it.
I just, it's, it was, it was bad.
It's bad.
And the thing is, is I get what you're saying,
but Meek has tweeted some things subsequently to the backlash.
Not that he's addressing it directly.
I didn't see what he tweeted.
What are you saying?
Hold on, I'll tell you, it's alluding to,
he said somebody's promo and narrative and y'all follow it.
Y'all internet antics can't stop me.
shit like zombies land or something.
That is a reference to the song.
So to me, I hear what you're saying.
Oh, by the way, I'm not saying anything to me.
The line is completely disrespectful.
Yeah, but she's completely disrespectful.
But to me, it sounds like he's kind of like,
that's what y'all are paying attention to.
You know, like almost as if we're...
Like belittling people's concern over it.
Yeah. You don't, like, for me, if that's...
really wasn't my intent, then that's what I would be saying. Like, if I'm a fan of Kobe,
if I looked up to Kobe and people are misconstruing what I said about somebody that I, that I respect,
then I would be out there saying like, no, that's not quite like what it is. But to hear,
here it seems like he's like, like you said, belittling it, making light of it, almost like very
flippant about the whole thing when so many people are upset and hurt about this lyric.
Yeah. It's not even for us. It's the family.
Right. Once again, I guess my thing, which I talked to a lot of people about, was the fact that Kobe has a teenage daughter and Kobe's family got drugged through this today. So here's the thing. If in fact somebody leaked this to hurt me, right? What was said in the line of that song is inexcusable. I think there's a cultural rules about that, you know? Now, if it was never meant to, if it was said, then it was never meant to come out, then that changed.
things, in my opinion, right? It changes things a little bit.
There's a lot of things, you know, you might say or you might do and you don't want
them to come out. Hey, how many times have you been on a podcast before where you've said something
and you come back and say, take that out?
Would you be defensive though? Because he sounds defensive. He sounds defensive.
I wouldn't be defensive. I would only be defensive if people were coming at me and I said,
hey, you know, I said that. I realized I went a little too far and I told people before in that
you can't control it. I told people, hey, take that out. Because sometimes if you say something,
live, then you can't control it.
You got to eat that. But if I say something
then I come back and I'm like, yo, take that
out, or I didn't mean to say this,
or I didn't mean to do that.
Can you take that out?
And then, well, then it wasn't my intent to hurt
anyone. So, me,
Van, I love my two
favorite words
in the English dictionary are I'm sorry.
Kalika knock on
this door right now before I even
open the door. I go, I'm sorry, baby.
Because I know.
I know. I know.
Before, hey, I'm sorry, my bad.
Okay, cool.
Like, now we can move forward.
So I have no problem to apologize,
and I've been doing it since I've been speaking.
But a lot of people do, right?
I guess what I would say is
whoever leaked this today
or leaked it yesterday to hurt me,
you were successful.
But you also heard a lot of other people.
No doubt Vanessa
had to relive.
that. No doubt the teenage daughter,
Kobe's oldest teenage daughter,
had to relive that.
So while we're playing these internet games
and we're going back and forth like this
and we're trying to hit our marks
and kill who we're going to kill,
just be careful about the collateral damage.
You spraying up the whole house
and other people catching strays.
Anything that was said, it's fucked up.
Once again, what do I do?
What do I believe in?
I believe in respect for those who are gone.
For all kinds of reasons,
I believe in respect for those who are gone.
So I'm just saying,
there's a lot of people,
a lot of people who suffer
when y'all trying to shoot each other
and take each other out.
Just be easy.
We're going to hit this one real quick.
I just want to know what you think about this.
So Jody Foster, you know Jody Foster.
Do you like her work?
Wait, stop.
Stop.
Don't Google nothing.
Are you telling me right now?
that you don't know who Jody Foster is.
No, I know who Jody Foster is.
Silence of the Lambs.
I just don't know the story.
Oh, I was about to say.
Look how mad I got.
Hold on, let's do this real quick.
Trudy, Trudy Joseph.
What's your favorite Jody Foster movie?
I'm just not really into Jody Foster.
I'm not going to lie.
I'm not really into it.
Yeah.
Jackson?
I guess it's just man.
Silence of the lambs,
but I'm sort of in the same.
same about as everyone else.
Jesus Christ.
Y'all just shitting on
Jody Fawson.
Not everybody like consumes
movies the way that you do,
Van.
Also, Trudy and I were born in like the
90s.
So what?
No, no, no.
Hold up.
Hold on 80s.
I was born in the 80s.
I don't know.
I don't know anything about Jody Foster.
What, John?
Most of her most popular
movies were out when I was like four years old.
So what?
What that mean, though?
What that mean?
Hey, let me ask you a question.
Jackson, you're getting defensive.
Jackson, you have a defensive.
seen the Empire Strikes Back?
Yeah.
No.
Oh, it came out 19.
One of the most
Piper movies of all times.
It came out of 1980.
I seen Silent to the Lamb's.
Oh, what did you know?
Right.
What's your favorite,
what's your favorite?
What's my favorite?
Jody Costa.
It's a great movie,
but I like a movie called The Accused.
It's hard to watch,
but it's a really, really good movie.
It's like, she's got a lot of good movies.
I also like taxi driver.
Taxi driver, she's a little kid in that, right?
She's a Maverth
with Mel.
Gibson. She's a lot of different movies. Nell. You guys ever see Nell before?
I've heard of it.
Jody Foster has a lot of good movies. No, not knocking her. I'm just not familiar with those movies.
Anyway, speaking of Maverick that she's in, which is a movie I actually do love. It's Jody Foster, Mel Gibson, and James Garner. James Garner was not passed away. This is the movie where she met Mel Gibson, and she went on Mark Merritt's podcast and had these things to say.
about Mel Gibson.
He's a great actor with a deep, deep person saying,
I think that's probably what's gotten him into so much trouble in the past.
The fact that he's so deep.
He's not saintly, and he's got a big mom,
and he'll do gross things to your nephew would do.
But I knew the minute I met him that I would love him the rest of my life.
All right, so just real quick, while we're just remembering Mel Gibson and the depth
that he has. Mel Gibson's death wants to let him to say that
the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.
Mel Gibson also told his wife, his thin girlfriend,
Oksana, and I'll never forget this because
of all the racist things that I've ever heard,
this is amongst the most impressive
what Mel Gibson said to Oksana.
He said a lot of things to her, and he was also incredibly
physically and verbally.
abusive towards her. But one thing that he said to her is among the more effective and
impressive racist things I've ever heard before. He said to her, because of the way she dressed,
she dressed, he said, if you get raped by a pack of niggers, it'll be your fault. All right,
I just want to go through this sentence real quick. Because this is a, this is a,
truly vile
wordsmith of racism.
If you get raped
by a pack of niggers,
it'll be your fault.
So the interesting thing is
Mel Gibson found a way
in that statement
to make nigger
the least offensive word.
Normally, if you throw the N-word
in there, that's the heavyweight
champion of slurs.
But when you say pack,
pack.
I contend that in that statement, the PAC is worse than that.
Because PAC means, like, we've all heard the N word, right?
But PAC means you think of these marauding, animalistic, subhuman demons that run in packs
and are looking to do nothing more than rape a white woman.
I remember when I heard that I actually sat back and went,
Jesus, like, Mel, it's talented.
That level of racism takes talent to say that that way.
Or it's deep rooted.
It didn't pop up.
It ain't a one-off.
It ain't a one-off.
You've been feeling this way.
Yo, you couldn't be writer.
That's his granddaddy's racism that he's,
that he, hey, just let you know,
watch out for a pack of black people.
They run in packs.
Watch out for it.
They scurry around.
They come out at night.
Packs.
Crazy.
So,
uh,
look,
she loves Mel Gibson.
She says she loves Mel Gibson.
She accepts,
except Mel Gibson flaws and all.
What do you think?
What do you say about this?
I guess my first thought is
I'm really glad I'm not familiar
with any of Jody Foster's movies.
I don't want to be.
I can't be, I can't be supporting or, you know what I mean?
Like a behind a woman who's going to excuse this type of behavior.
I mean, it's literally, she says he's, he's a problematic person,
but he's warm and affectionate and he's loving and he's a good friend.
He's a good friend to you.
He's not a good person, though.
That's what this comes down to.
Ismail Gibson a good person.
And from what you just told me with other things that he's done,
where he's gotten drunk
and had these
anti-Semitic rants,
I don't even know why you would step out on a limb
and put your reputation and neck on a line
to defend a demon like this.
Like this man is,
the things that he is saying are,
it's pure hate,
and you want to say,
but he's a good person.
Remember how you said about your dad,
these are things that you say on the inside?
Same with Jody Foster.
Keep this to yourself.
I don't want,
Okay, my dad's not quite Mel Gibson.
No, but I'm just saying, like, you don't say these things out loud, is my point.
Now, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make, I'm not trying to put them on the same level.
Please, forgive me.
I don't want you to have to me.
He's got some antiquated views, and he'll say some things that are to the fence some people, but he's not quite bad bad.
I just mean, what he says is for everybody to hear.
Sure.
That's, that's, Jody needed to keep these.
First of all, nobody cares.
Nobody cares about your friendship with Mel Gibson.
Just keep that to yourself.
keep that within.
This is not what the hill
that you need to die on.
Knowing what he's done, what he stands for,
what he has done in the past,
I don't care if he's a good person
or a good friend of you.
That's what she said, a good friend.
I don't care.
I'm shocked because she said this.
Question for you,
is it okay to love problematic people?
Are we allowed in this day and age to love bad people?
Yes.
Do we not have problematic family members?
We all have problematic family members.
But forget about family moves.
That's a given.
Forget about that.
Okay.
Problematic friends.
Problematic friends.
People that are your friends that mean something,
you don't have any friends in your life who are problematic.
I guess I'm thinking Mel Gibson level.
No, forget about Mel Gibson level.
I mean, he's God's special boy.
He depowered.
I'm sure I do.
He's the only white man in the history of the world to depower the N-word.
He made a word more racist than N-word, and he's white.
We did it.
but Mel Gibson also succeeded in doing it.
So what I, like what I, so I'm asking,
she loves him, she's out front with it,
and she doesn't care.
Is there something wrong with that?
I guess I'm more just like, no,
I mean, if that's how you feel fine,
but then don't get upset when the backlash comes from it.
Because it's almost feels like,
it's one thing that you feel that way,
but when you step out and you say it in public,
it's almost like you're defending him
and the things that he's done in the past.
Right.
It's, we don't need to see this, Jody.
I don't need to hear it.
I don't need to see it.
I don't care that you have a good friendship with Mel Gibson.
Keep that to yourself.
Keep that private.
Why are you announcing this to the world?
You know what I mean?
Even if somebody had asked me this on a podcast,
I would have just been like, you know,
Mel and I have a deep history,
and I'm just going to leave it at that.
I know him in a way that most people don't.
and just keep it there.
But you defended him.
That's what she did.
Interesting about Mel Gibson.
So Jody Foster is not his only, his only ally.
Robin Donnie Jr. is very close to Mel Gibson, too.
Robert Robin Johnny Jr. went through his substance abuse battles.
He's trying to make a comeback.
There weren't a lot of people who would work with him.
But Mel Gibson put him in a movie called The Singing Detective,
which helped relaunch his career.
He then goes on to do a movie called Kiss Kiss Kiss,
Is anybody Black defending him?
Is anybody Black standing?
In the past, they did.
In the past,
who was the Goldberg did.
In the past,
who'd be Goldberg
defending Mel Gibson.
She did.
How far,
how long ago?
This was after the original,
after the pack,
the past comment.
I don't know if it was after the pack,
but after some of the stuff,
she definitely did defend them.
She defended him on the view.
My hat actually just broke.
You okay?
That's how big your head is.
What size hat do you wear?
Seven, seven, seven, eight.
Seven, seven, eight?
Seven, eight.
My shit just broke.
Look at that.
Seven, no, let it fly.
Just let it.
It's just weird.
I'm going to blame that.
I'm going to blame that on Mel Gibson.
Seven, seven, seven, eight.
Well, I'll tell you something else.
Is that like the top of my head?
I'm sorry.
You have it toad us.
I can't.
But look, I will say this.
So last year or a couple of years ago,
Mel Gibson was nominated for a Best Director,
Academy Award for a movie called Hassaw Ridge.
This is why.
This is why.
It's not just.
because of the, but this is the difference between
when you talk about privilege
if Ben Shapiro, Ben is still listening.
This is a difference of privilege.
This is a difference in privilege, Ben.
Is that
when somebody who's black
runs a foul
of greater mainstream society.
Not only does society cut them off,
right? A black old, black or Latinx.
But everybody else has to cut them off too
or else they become him.
Yep.
a guy like Mel Gibson
who, and even to a degree
of a guy like Michael Richards, right?
You would think that after what happened to Michael Richards
at the laugh factory that he would have never worked again.
That's not true.
He did work again.
Did it?
Larry David put him on Kirby enthusiasm, right?
And so the reality is that
in a lot of ways, these things are just simply different.
Simply, simply different.
Now, there have been some guys
who you can point to that you would have
of thought would have been completely canceled and they haven't been.
Very few people are actually canceled.
But the reality is that this is kind of the neat.
Mel Gibson,
Jody Foster isn't care about what Mel Gibson has said about Black,
that he actually beat Oksana or that he said that about her.
It's good to her.
Her friend.
So the question is, to you, last question on this subject,
should we be more like that?
Like Jody?
Yeah.
Should we be more, should we,
care less, should we be more like that?
Should we be less likely to cut people off
because we fuck with them
and forget about what everybody else thinks?
As a culture, should we be more that way?
It's hard to make that black and white, right?
I think it depends on the issue.
One, to me, Mel Gibson saying that,
that's really all I really need to know about you
because of a pack of niggers.
you know what I'm saying?
Has he come out and
Can't believe Mel said that?
Has he come out and apologize?
Did he ever apologize?
He ever say anything?
I don't know.
He came out.
He blamed it on the alcohol.
He did a whole.
Okay.
He gave me Fox.
He blamed it on the alcohol.
He did.
He blamed on the alcohol.
He did the, I remember doing the interview.
I think he was with Barbara Walters.
He apologized for the anti-Semitic stuff
from the alcohol, but I don't know if he ever apologized for the
reasons of towards black people.
Now this is so.
if that is the case, thank you Jackson.
Goldfish Jackson.
Yeah?
No, I would never stand beside this.
I just...
Well, she did.
I guess here's the thing.
There's one thing to stand beside someone and say like,
listen, I'm your friend.
I'm not going to neglect you while you're down.
Like, I'm going to be there for you.
But it's a whole other energy to give to publicly speak out and defend someone.
You know what I mean?
It puts your neck on the line for them,
which is what I feel, what Jody was doing in this,
this podcast interview or whatever it was.
You know what I'm saying?
There's a difference to stand beside someone and say,
I'm not going to kick you while you're down because I have love for you
because, you know, we're bonded in a certain way.
Bachelor recap, real quick.
I'm not going to go in too much of it here.
Okay.
Okay.
Good show.
Good bachelor show.
All right.
You like this one.
Weird seeing Chris Harrison.
Yeah.
You think the show should have addressed it?
No.
I don't think they should have trusted because
I just think that everybody knows what's going on
and I don't think the show really cares.
I think the show has to kind of ride
this out to the end.
But it made you feel uncomfortable watching him.
Yeah, but nothing that they said
was going to make me feel more comfortable.
Okay. That's fair.
And also, this is personal.
You know, he disrespected my sister.
So, like, this is personal for me.
There's nothing they could have done
unless they put the emoji over his face,
which would have been hilarious.
Yeah, that really would have been funny.
But I have to admit,
Matt James is going to have a tough,
he's going to have a tough go of it here in the future.
Because?
It's obvious that Rachel Kirkconell
is going to win The Bachelor.
Obvious.
Obvious that she's going to win the Bachelor.
They're going to have a match made
and antebell in heaven.
It's obvious that she's going to win.
The Allo Black was,
singing.
And a little band,
Allo Black was singing.
So remember I said there was a sing.
Yeah.
Allo Black was singing.
And Matt just whisked Kirkanel away to get serenated.
By the way, it's just so crazy.
The Bachelor is just cursed.
The guy's name is Allo Black.
Allo Black.
Allo Black is singing to them.
Black people are singing.
Like, I thought Rachel Kirklandel was going to square dance
Like it was an antebellum party or something
Al-O-Black is singing to them
And it's basically women of color in the other room
Crying
So bad
Crying
He was just like, girl, I can smell the old South on you
Let's go listen to this aloe black
Which by the way, which by the way, look, that's just the way happened.
He didn't know at this point
He didn't know. He didn't know.
He didn't know.
Smell the old.
Let me tell you why he's getting the five winning this time.
He's got a five?
This really wasn't as weeny an episode if I'm being real.
Okay.
So why a five?
Because he said Piper.
Yeah, that was a little shocking.
Like, I can't tell you how upset.
That's how I know I'm a batch.
I was in there.
Bozeman got, Bozeman was scared.
Bozeman was scared because he sent Piper home and I was like, yo, fuck you.
Like, I was mad.
Like, I can't believe I thought Piper was, I thought she was great.
She seemed like she was going to, I like Piper.
So now she doesn't, so this is, I, and she just didn't make the cut towards the end.
He sent Piper home.
Very, very, very, very.
upsetting. Now, question.
Five winning rating. Other than that,
kind of like a whatever show. A lot of cloud hanging over the show.
Five winning ready. I'll ask you a question. If
Matt James picks
Rachel Kirkman,
what do you think the immediate
backlash will be?
Well, I think people are already
expecting him to pick,
Rachel, like you said.
I don't
think there's going to be immediate
backlash for the pick.
There's going to be immediate backlash
of are they still together?
Interesting.
We should see. Wow.
Five. Okay.
Okay, so here's the five winning.
You know what, let's give him four.
Give him four.
Give them four. He's trending better
towards these last couple of episodes.
He's three out of his four women,
the women left for hometown or women of color.
Are they going to go to their hometowns?
Normally they would.
But they don't.
But they can't because it's COVID.
Right. COVID.
So the families come to them.
Right.
Stupid.
All right.
All right.
So we got to skip mail back because we're running long here.
It was a lot of topics we had to cover.
Yeah.
Do you have an unexpected ally of the week?
I do.
Would you unexpected allies?
You guys don't judge me too harshly on this, but I'm giving it to Megan McCain.
Remember, we've been down this road before.
It is of.
The week.
Megan McCain, never in my wildest dreams that I think I would say this.
I'm a huge fan of the view.
Love it.
Watch it.
Record it every single day.
This week, The View covered what's going on in The Bachelor.
Whoopi brought it up.
She introduced it.
And who had my back?
Who called for repercussions and that changes need to be made?
Who said that it was disrespectful and couldn't believe that they were talking,
just to a black woman and listening to the things that she had to say,
but a former bachelorette,
it was Megan McCain.
Sonny did as well,
but Megan McCain had my back,
went on a rant of how disappointed and upset she was
at the way things were handled,
at the actions displayed by Chris Harrison,
and the way that he treated me in that interview.
So my unexpected alley, never did I think this would happen.
But that is the name of the segment.
unexpected key word.
I'm giving it to Megan McCain.
Wow. Okay, so I had one,
but based upon that,
my unexpected ally of the week is going to be
Ben Shapiro.
Wow.
It's been Rachel Lindsay.
See you guys on my next week.
You are not my co-host.
You are not my friend.
Can't believe you brought Megan McCain to the board.
No, actually, actually, no, it's not.
my unexpected ally of the week is everyone down there in Texas.
This was unexpected just because we didn't know that this was going to happen.
But everybody who is joining knowledge with people in their communities who are trying to make sure that people stay warm, that people say fed,
that people say encouraged during this time.
So I didn't know that you guys would need to be allies to not just be,
to the human race
into our country,
but you all are
no matter what political
affiliation you have,
no matter what sex you are,
no matter what gender you are,
no matter whatever you are,
I hope that everyone
can figure things out down there.
And if I can be of service
in any way,
I'm sure Rachel feels the same way.
Yes, please check my social media.
I've been posting how you can donate,
different shelters that you could go to
in different areas of Texas,
because it's pretty much widespread,
which is what's so crazy about it all.
So please continue to check.
I've tagged also the Instagram,
a page that's continuing to update
on different resources
for those who are really going through it
right now in Texas.
All right.
Tell you think kept up,
but do not stop learning.
I'm Van Lathen.
I'm Rachel Lindsay.
We have.
