Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Ice Cube’s Platinum Plan and Van’s First 'Bachelorette' Review

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s dueling town halls, Ice Cube reportedly contributing to Trump’s “Platinum Plan” to help Black Americans, and the season premiere of 'The Bachelorette' before answering some mailbag questions and giving their Unexpected Allies of the Week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher learning. It is I, Van Lathen. Sorry to me, Rachel Lundit. What, what, what, what, what's going on? I was just, it's, can we, can we let everybody know we're recording this early? Oh, yeah, it's early.

It's early. Normally we do this in the afternoon, maybe later, later afternoon. It's a little early. So I was just, just give me a second to get into the podcast. What's up, y'all? It's Rachel Lindsay. Let me ask you a question. You think it's appropriate to be wearing the.

cowboy shirt at this particular time in the franchise's history? So I can't, so I was just supposed to quit on them because they're not doing as well as they have in 26 years. I'm just supposed to quit on them? No, I'm supporting Dak. I'm a loyal Cowboys fan. I always will be. I'm supposed to burn my gear.

I don't know. Come on now. Oh, no. Listen, I haven't felt as bad for a professional athlete as I feel for Dak Prescott in a long time. Just, Dak Prescott, to come back on a franchise tag again, continues to getting franchise tagged by the Cowboys

to not want to make a long-term commitment to him. And for him that have had that type of gruesome injury, we didn't talk about this in the last podcast. I know. Man, that was hard to watch. And you're watching the telecast and then I guess it was Romo. I can't remember. He says, we hope it's a cramp.

And then all of a sudden the camera pans, And you're like, that's not a goddamn cramp. That's the opposite of a cramp. That's like a bone cramp. I almost cried because I felt all of Dax pain. You know, he wasn't just crying over the injury. He's crying because he has given his all to this franchise. He's had their back, even when it was unpopular,

when people were calling him a sellout and, you know, accusing him of being Uncle Tom when it comes to Jerry and taking a knee. and then they don't reciprocate that by paying him what he deserves. I mean, he don't deserve 40 million, but, you know, paying him what he deserved. And he doesn't deserve 40 million. Why he don't deserve 40 million a year? He deserves to get paid more than Russell Wilson.

Let's just be honest here. No. They're giving it out to everybody else. Nobody's getting, nobody's getting 40. Did Deshaun get 40? He's what, 156, four years? My homes, my homes had to have gotten 40 million, right? Okay, it's my homes.

He's one of a super. Super Bowl. I'm not saying you, Dach shouldn't have paid. I don't even want to get into that. The fact is that they didn't pay him. And this is the reason why he was fighting to be paid. Because if you do get injured, you want some type of security. And he doesn't have it at this point.

So it's just really, really sad. I felt all his pain. Shame on Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones and the rest of the Cowboys. I don't know what the appropriate number is, but he is right now, I think they're paying them with the franchise tag. I think the franchise tag right now is 36 or 37. It's like 32. I don't

Is it? It's not that high. Are you sure, Fran? Are you sure? I think it's around 32. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. Let's do.

Let's take it to the internet. Let's take it to the internet. That press Scott salary, 2020. Wow. 30. Wait, wait, wait. Nope.

37. $37.69 million in 2021. So right now, he makes, I think it's $31 million. So guess what? Big right, Rache is right. $31 million. That's what I'm talking about, Rach.

I was hoping I was wrong in this instance. Because that means he made more money. I want to see him make more money. I mean, coming up off of making like $2 million a year to $30 something is great, but now he doesn't have that security. which is what he was fighting for. Well, they say they're going to resign. They say they're going to resign them.

At what price? I don't know. At this point, obviously, they're probably going to use the ankle as some sort of leveraging tactic to get them down. You know, they don't, for some reason, we've seen other quarterbacks.

We've seen the Rams make a long-term commitment to Jared golf. And because they've made a long-term commitment to Jared golf, they now tailor their offense around making Jared Goff successful. So that actually gives them incentive to continue to coach him up and to put in pieces around them

to help him be successful when you see the Rams being successful this year. The Cowboys seem hesitant to do that with Dak Prescott, so that makes this even sadder to me. Do you think it's because of Romo? I heard somebody make this argument that because Jerry spent all that money on Tony Romo

and he never amounted to what they thought he would be and what he would do for the franchise, he's more hesitant. I don't believe this, but I just heard this. He's more hesitant to pay another quarterback in that same way because he gambled and he lost on Romo. I mean, obviously that could be the case, but the reality of the situation is you're playing in a quarterback-driven league,

and if you don't sure up and, you know, not sure up, but if you don't secure that position and know what you're going to have long-term there, it's not, you're not going to be able to win. Now, if you don't think that Dak Prescott is the guy, then, you know, let that Prescott go out on the other. Let him go out in the open market and see if you can find that guy. If there's something about Dak Prescott that you don't like. But to me, you know, I think he's just from a numbers standpoint,

he's accomplished way more than enough to prove to everyone he's an upper extra long quarterback in the league and deserves to be paid as such, you know. He hasn't won anything. Right. You know, he definitely hasn't won anything. But he's been a more playoff appearances than Tony Romo did. Like he's done better than Roma. Yeah, but you know.

Did you know Nick Saban tested positive for coronavirus? I heard that, yes. I just saw that on TV. I did not know that. Sorry. Oh, did you hear about President Trump? He tested positive for coronavirus too. He did.

Yeah. Like, he, like, President Trump, it was like it was the whole, like, White House. They were testing positive for coronavirus. It was Trump tested positive. Chris Christie, a bunch of, like the President or Dame, Did you hear about that? I must have missed that story. Yeah, you missed it, didn't you?

What you're talking about Nick Saban? That was yesterday's news. No, but like, look. Right. No, but here's the thing. I actually was concerned when I heard that. You know, Nick 68, he's in great health. Great health.

Nick is 68, but I was concerned for Nick Sabin. Of course, Alabama plays Georgia this Saturday. And there are rules and regulations that stipulate that Nick Sabin, be really a part of the game at all if he's not going to be on site. But, you know, we know that Nick's going to be sending text messages to Steve Sarkees. I mean, if he's positive, he doesn't need to be anywhere near in the building. Right. Of course. But there was some talk by some people that Nick might try to sneak into a press box and coach in a in a COVID sort of ice coach in a bubble or something like that. He's not, he's not giving up the reins though. I mean, I see it, but come on now for the

safety of everybody else. Let's not be Trump in this situation. It's a big game. It's a big game. Now, I got to get right to it right now. But before we get right to it, let's take a little break. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fanduil predicts. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandul Prediction Markets LLC, a registered Futures Commission merchant. 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt.

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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 trim fire. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. Okay. So we are, we talked about the fact that we are recording early, and there's a reason why we recorded early. We wanted to be able to give you guys rapid reaction to the dueling town halls that happened on Thursday night, which is last night.

We're taping this on Friday morning. So Rachel, I'll ask you, um, I'm I'm assuming that you watched either the highlights or either the full telecasts of both Biden and Trump's town halls. What did you think? I thought we could have recorded this podcast last night. Yeah, yeah. Prior to the debate, we could have done our regular scheduled podcast because I don't know what I was expecting, Van, to be honest with you. I mean, I will say on Biden's part, he. did say some things that I hadn't heard before.

You know, he took a strong stance when it comes to transgender and how there should be zero discrimination. He specifically talked about there's a problem with people of color that are transgender and how that needed to stop. So I thought that was a big moment. He, when it comes to court packing, he said he would make a statement on it prior to the election. I was shocked.

I thought that was the most. substantive thing to come out of the Biden's town hall. Don't get me wrong. I thought Biden did a great job up there. He did. He thought a good job. But I think the most substantive thing to come out of this town hall was he said he gave a definitive answer on the court packing and said, listen, I'm going to wait to see what

they do. And then I'm going to give the American people my agenda on what I'm going to do. Do you think that that's, and here's the thing. I love that he made a statement because people are pressuring him on that. They're like, the one thing he's been avoiding. He's avoiding one issue while Trump's avoiding every single issue. But they keep pounding him about that. I'm glad he said something,

but I don't know if he should give his stance before the election. It could turn voters because a lot of people have strong opinions on this. They do. I think it's important, though. Number one, it's important for Joe Biden and his campaign to be able to make the case about not just what is happening, but why it's happening. That's the key.

talking about packing the courts, which is not really packing the courts, talking about adding seats to the Supreme Court or even potentially, you know, annexing Puerto Rico and not annexing, but giving statehood

to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., and adding the senators there, it's important to make the case to Americans about why. And there's a case to be made. You know, if you have a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court, you don't have a representative of America. You have the majority of America being underrepresented by the political

views of the court. And that's a fact. And that's not in any way to besmirch, throw shade on, or minimize anybody who's a conservative. But America is not a 6-3 conservative nation. It's just not. The polling all this. Now, if it's 5'4 and we're fighting for one vote, that's kind of the American way. Six-3 is very, very, very, very across-person. purposes to the way a lot of the country is moving. And once again, that is not in any way to minimize what so many other people in America think in terms of their conservative beliefs. I'm from Louisiana.

I know how people feel down there about a wide variety of issues. But, you know, if you make the case to Americans that what we need is a court, a Supreme Court that is representative of a larger swath of who we are, and this is going to accomplish that, I just don't see you turning off that many voters that are considering voting for Biden. Now, if the Trump voters

obviously, but voters that are considering voting for Biden should at least be willing, in my estimation, to listen to the explanation that doing this to the court at this point could actually be bringing some balance to the Supreme Court and actually having

the Supreme Court be an institution that thinks about the heart in the will of the whole country and it's not just a sort of a trigger for conservatives to pull whenever they want to get something overturned. I think that's a really good point. My fear is that you're well-versed and you do the research and you are trying to understand what's being done. You don't listen to a term like court packing and get a general sense of it and keep it moving.

Most people I feel do that, though. And so that's my fear is if you are in the middle and you're very, has not hesitant, but if you have a strong opinion about court packing and you don't do the research and you don't understand the significance of court packing and why it's necessary to even it out and have that balance and be reflective of what the United States looks like or the people look like and what's representative of their ideals, then it could be a problem. If you don't do, if they don't do that research, that's just my fear of it, right? I feel like people hear these terms, people generalize what they mean and they get caught up

in that rather than actually understanding the importance of court packing and like what and how detrimental that can be when it comes to future decisions. Yeah. Well, I mean, certainly, but also, you know, it's up to the Biden campaign to make that case, right? It's, it shouldn't, you know, it shouldn't, that's not something that should be volleyed back to the American people and relied upon them to make heads or tails of it. It's up to the Biden campaign to make the case about why they would do anything that they would do, not just the court packing, but anything that they would do. So they have to be communicators in that respect in order to get that message to the people that they want to vote for them.

Right. And they will do that. But that doesn't mean that necessarily people will hear it, understand it, receive it, accept it. So it does fall on the people, right? Are you going to understand and listen to what they're saying? Are you going to do the research to understand the significance of court packing? Or are you just going to be like, oh, we shouldn't do that. Like, that's never, we haven't seen that done before for Biden to expand the court. Or, you know, time. We haven't seen it done. It's like that's that's more of what my fear is. But I don't know. Who knows? Going back to, going back to, um, the, uh, town halls, I watched Trumps more than I watch Bidens because one, I thought it was going to be on NBC and I recorded it and I could

not find it. So by the time I came home, I had to watch it live on MSNBC. I was confused by that. Did you, did you? No. Okay. Okay. Um, Savannah Gunthru. But so you saw the highlights. What did you think about her as a moderator? I watched the whole thing. I think that moderating something like that with the president of the United States is a very tricky deal. And I thought she did as best as she could. I thought that she tried to see, it's difficult to be a moderator slash fact checker in the moment.

Right. So you have to, the onus of these news networks, and this is what they are, their news networks, is to put out, seemingly everybody has their sland, everybody has their biases, but to put out seemingly fact-based accounts of what's going on in the country and what people really said and what people really mean and what people really did. And it's just very difficult to do with Donald Trump sitting down there because so much of what he says is just completely untrue or off base. And so it looks like you're going to have a contentious moderator or over-anx moderator or whatever

because you have someone who's trying to in real time fact-check the president of the United States or even translate the president of the United States every single time he speaks. So with that respect, I thought she did a decent job. Why? Did you not, were you not okay with her performance? No, I watched the progression of it. So when she started off, I felt like she was giving him too much leeway. And I feel like somebody was in her ear that was like, just go for it.

And then as you could, as the town hall continued, she really started challenging him. And even after they took questions from the audience, every single time there was a question, and he would answer, like for healthcare, for example, someone asked about that. And he didn't answer the question. He's just condemned Obamacare. And then she came back with, well, actually, you know,

this is what you're doing right now. Or when he talked about DACA, and she's like, your administration has done nothing but cartel DACA. Yeah. I thought that was a good point. So for the first time in a long time, I saw a moderator who was fact, checking him in this town hall debate.

And I thought it was effective. And you could tell she had him rattled. I mean, at one point he was like, oh, that's really cute. You know, it was very condescending to her. So I thought it was effective in the fact that what Trump did last night, I don't think he gained any voters. All he did was empower. That's all he's doing right now is empowering and firing up his core base. He is not bringing over, in my opinion, anytime he gets TV time, he is not bringing over

anybody to his side. If anything else, it continues to make him look worse. Yeah, he, I don't think he's, I think the winning over the independent slash undecided slash disaffected Hillary voter for 2016 strategy went out the window a couple of weeks ago, maybe even a month ago. I think what he's banking on right now is that his base is strong enough in the key swing states in order for him to win the election, that all he has to do is turn out the X amount of Trump people.

And that coupled with the people who are disenchanted with the Democrats and who will stay home or who will vote third party will give him a slim victory. You know, he hasn't, he's not going to even try to win women. It doesn't seem. He's certainly not going to try to win black women. I think he's relying on a certain class of voter to really, really, really turn out. And then also probably some other shenanigans like voter. suppression and better intimidation to make up the ground that he can then come back and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and he wins. Uh, if he runs, if he wins, if Biden wins, it could potentially be a landslide. But if Trump wins, it's going to be a razor thin margin. So I think that he thinks that his people are enough to kind of get him, get him to 270. So I mean, we'll see if he's right. To me, to me, you know, to me personally, it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

It seems as if what the president really wants is to plunge America into a state of dysfunction to where nobody knows anything. We don't know who won the election. We don't know, you know, we don't know who's safe. We don't know who's unsafe. We don't know anything. And then that way, his friends can come in and steal it for him. You know, we talk about packing the court. We're not talking about the fact that Trump isn't giving the American people.

people a chance to decide who their Supreme Court justice is. He's putting the justice in. And so he's putting the justice in like they talked about last night in hopes that if it gets there, that in some way, Barrett will make a kind decision to the president if the election gets to the Supreme Court. That's exactly what he's hoping for. And that's what people need to understand. The week after is just as important as the day of the election because that's when they're

going to be arguing that case in front of the Supreme Court. That's why they're rushing this whole thing. You said that that Trump isn't really You said he's not really going after new voters I'm paraphrasing

You talked about He's not necessarily trying to go after like the suburban women anymore The Black women But what about the Platinum plan You don't think he's trying in some way To attract new voters I think the platinum plan is

Well, and we're going to talk about that I think the platinum plan Is not necessarily trying to attract new voters, it's because the, I think that it's more, it's an interesting question. I think the platinum plan is more trying to get people who, well, you know what, there's no other way to say it. Yeah, you're right. The platinum plan is trying to attract new voters, but it's in a specific pool. Like, let's be real.

Very few people are fooled by the platinum plan. there is a small percentage of black men. Be honest with you. And as a black man, I am disappointed. There's a small percentage of black men. Trump's some numbers say between 15 and 18 percent support amongst black men. So there's a small percentage of black men. What's wrong with y'all?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a small percentage of black men who are being fooled by the platinum plan. I suppose that they're new voters. I don't know how many of them are going to actually get out and vote. But I think the platinum plan is less of a voter strategy and more of a distraction to sow division within a community that seems to be pretty united on who Donald Trump is. But yeah, I mean, a lot of those brothers that they might have not voted before or they might have voted for Trump in 2016 or more than that, they might just be proselytizing the virtues of Trump.

But yeah, to your point, you can consider them certainly he's trying to fire. up some brothers that hear $500 billion and then run out to the polls to vote for him. I think that that's fair to say. Oh, it's also a number. I mean, it plays into the statement. What does he say time and time again? He said it last night in the town hall.

Other than Abraham Lincoln, I am the only, I've done more than black for black people than any other president outside of Abraham Lincoln. That platinum plan plays into that narrative. It's another thing for him to say, look what else I'm trying to do. I'm trying to, you know, close the generational wealth gap, you know, between white Americans and black Americans with this platinum plant.

And then, you know, you can segue into the next topic. But we know one of the, one of the props he's using to do that with. Yeah. Our brother, Ice Cube, Ice Cube, who is, to me, one of our, man, look, when you, when you're talking about sort of societal theory and the way you look at the world. And this is probably part of the problem. Ice Cube was one of the guys that helped frame that for me. When I really started to get into hip hop,

like seriously to where I could really understand it, 91, 92, 93. Ice Cube represented a rapper who was gangster, but also had a keen eye for observation in terms of the way things are going to world. You know? And he just, he was a, it was almost like nuanced gangster rap.

was incredibly aggressive and incredibly to the point. But the themes and Q's music were always sociopolitical. Sometimes they were religious. You know, you saw Cube with, you know, a lot with the nation and, you know, things like that. So Cube has a reputation of being one of the more serious and thoughtful guys that's out there. And so when obviously you guys know what we're talking about, you know, Ice Cube, it came out that Ice Cube, Katrina Pearson put out, that Ice Cube was in communication with the Trump administration.

He has a contract with Black America and that they said that, you know, Trump, he listened to him, he talked to them and some of the things from the contract for Black America went inside of the platinum plan. And that Ice Cube, a lot of people took that as being that Ice Cube in some way is an emissary now for the Trump administration. Cube says that he put out that both the Democrats and the Republicans reached out to him to talk about his contract with Black America, which was formulated with a lot of people, including the doctor over there, excuse me, an economist named Sandy Dherty, and that the Democrats said that they would talk to him

and move more about it after the election. And he said that the Republicans listened to him immediately and tweak some things in their platinum plan to include some things from his contract with Black America. So being that that's the case, now that we have all of the information Ice Cube has responded to that, we're not just reacting to a headline that we see on Twitter. What are your thoughts? It's like, and I mean, people were going crazy over this. This was everywhere.

I even have friends saying to me, are y'all going to talk about this on the podcast? I think the fact that Katrina, that's right, Katrina Pearson is the person who released the fact that he worked with the trumpet. administration in regards to the Platinum plan or he met he met with them to talk about his contract for Black America and try to implement some of those ideals into the Platinum plan shows you that Ice Cube necessarily wasn't trying to get this information out there that he worked with the Trump administration and they wanted to let everybody know that they work with Ice Cube somebody who has been very against Trump and his administration in what they've done and it goes into the thought that they are using him for a prop.

Because this is the thing. The platinum plan was introduced during an election year. It's not an initiative that he's been trying to push through his presidency since he wants to claim that he's done so much for black people. It's a last ditch effort to increase the black vote. It's not a plan of execution or action. It's just a plan of campaign points and promises that will unlikely be fulfilled if he becomes the president in this election. And it's like I understand. ice cube's heart and his mindset and that he wants to see growth and to better the black community.

But you had to realize that you're a pawn in his plan. He's not trying to help the community. President Trump has shown us time and time again that he only cares about himself. Just look at how he has handled the COVID virus with hundreds of thousands of people who have died to this virus. He does not care about the black community. And I just don't understand how knowing his history. track record, knowing who he is, that you can think that this plan will be carried out if he's

elected. I don't understand how for you to be so against Trump and seen what he's done. And so against politics, right? He's constantly talking about you can't trust anybody, but he wanted to speak to someone who has the power to help black Americans to close the generational wealth gap. But I don't understand how you can trust him. And I don't understand why it was so imperative for him to do it now and why he couldn't wait until the election was over to determine who was going to take office in November, which is apparently what the Biden administration told him, right? The Biden said they met with them, they talked with them over Zoom or representatives of his camp and they said, we'll take it into consideration, but we, and I'm paraphrasing here, but we don't want to do it

until after the election, which I, frankly, I understand, right? Like, we're down to the wire at this point. But I just don't understand how he really thought when he's not the first person, to go meet with Trump. Like Steve Harvey did it, right? And nothing has been done and come out of it other than them taunting that they are putting up the fact that they met with these people. And, you know, they're taking into consideration. But at the end of the day, nothing is actually done.

And as smart as Ice Cube is, and as he's been such a force, even you're telling your own example, in the black community, I don't understand how he really thought that this was going to make a difference or how he feels he can truly trust Trump. will make a difference by the meetings that he's had. I just don't, I don't get it. It just seems so opposite of what Ice Cube is about. Right. You're, you are correct.

Now, for me, a couple of things. Number one, I owe Ice Cube an apology because when I first heard it, I had a knee jerk and I tweeted something that was very objection. I tweeted house niggas with attitude. Oh, my gosh. And by the way, that is one of the worst things that you can do. There's no space, no place. I'm going to look at it right now.

I deleted it. There's, there's no space, no place, and no forum for black people to call each other Coombs, house niggas, and Uncle Tom's because they disagree with tactics. That was an emotional, stupid, and weak move by Van Laithen, and I take full responsibility. Ice Cube is a brother and a man who believes that he is. is trying to help his community. He is somebody who's always been there for his community. He is somebody who has always been in a position where he tries to reach out.

Doesn't mean he hasn't said offensive things. Doesn't mean he hasn't offended other communities. But he's always tried to invest back into his community. Having said all of that, that just doesn't mean he's right here. Right. It doesn't mean he's right here. It means he's doing what he thinks he needs to do. Right? He says black progress is a bipartisan issue. I completely understand and I completely get that.

What you said is key. Consider what you're talking about. You're talking about a president who's been in office for three and a half years. For three and a half years, have you heard from President Trump any initiative to enrich black people with $500 billion, which is not enough money, by the way, to cure the ills in the black community? It's not. It will take way more than that. If we're talking about reparations, it would be way more than that. Whatever. Have you heard about that? No, you heard about it in an election year because it's a chip use dangle out there. Now, if President Trump goes out there right now and says, you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to give $500 billion to black people. And I'm going to get it started in the house where it probably wouldn't pass.

But let's say I get it started in the house, right, with the Republicans in the house. And I hold a gun to the Democrats head, right? I hold a gun to the Democrats head saying, hey, I want to get 500. $500 billion to black people tell me I can't. So it's going to be up to the CBC and then, you know, Pelosi and all those people to say, we don't want to do that. Well, that puts the Democrats in the bad position. That's a clear Trump car for, you know,

excuse the point. That's a clear Trump car for them. They could get that done because they can get that done or risk turning off X amount even more of black people, right? Then if they could get it through the. House, it would get through the Senate, and then he's the president. He'd sign it. Now, why hasn't that happened? Why hasn't $500 billion for black Americans? Why hasn't $100 billion for black Americans? Why hasn't $50 billion for black Americans? Why hasn't any of that happened? Well, the reason why that

happens is because if Trump actually goes out and tries to accomplish that, $500 a trillion, $50 a billion, a large part of his base is going to flip the fuck out. Right. If he, you know, if he, you gives $500 billion to black people, a large part of his base is going to lose their rabbit-ass minds. And don't think that Trump hasn't handed out billions of dollars to people, because he has. He's handed out billions of dollars to the farmers. He's handed out billions on more than one occasion, billions of dollars to bail out the farm, not to bail out the farmers, but to assist the farmers in some of the things that, to be honest with you, he got them into with his trade situation with China.

So the question is, in terms of the soy and stuff like that, the, the question is, you know, is this tactic useful and is it going to work? I think that's the thing with Ice Cube and some other people that I wonder about. It's not about talking to people just to talk to them. It's about, do you know who you're talking to? And I'll say something else. When I talked about how Ice Cube framed my view of society, and, well, the music framed it,

and the hip-hop music framed it, and some of the things that he said made me go dip into these books and read more, find out more about who I was, find out more about who my ancestors were, find out more about the conditions that I lived in. The music did that for me. It really did. And all of those guys did,

but I want you to also remember that I was 11. And so being that I was 11, there were things in ways about the world that I didn't understand yet. I'm 40 now. And what I've done from the time that I was 11 to the time that I was 40 is I've taken the opportunity and the time to educate myself on how the world works, how American political theory and American political life works, and also the history of cultural and world political figures.

and the ramifications of those, the scissors of those figures. I wonder sometimes if there hasn't been, you know, as we've lived the generation where we've made the cubes and the snoops and all of these guys, heroes on par with Malcolm and Martin, because let's face it, over the last 30 years, right? Over the last, let's say 20, let's 30 years, over the last 1990, of the last 30 years, you can,

if you start talking about African American black male heroes, you're going to talk about a lot of athletes, you're going to talk about a lot of rappers, and you're going to talk about some actors, right? You're going to talk about people like that, maybe a couple of businessmen. But you are not going to talk about anyone

nearly on the level of Stokely Carmichael or Malcolm X or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And I'm not talking about specifically because those men were so brave because their time demanded their bravery. I'm talking about the fact that those men were actually geniuses. Those men were actually unbelievably educated on everything that they spoke on. You could listen to them and talk to them and understand what they were doing and why they were doing it and what the machinations for that was. You didn't have to wonder, does this dude know what he's doing?

You didn't because it was what they devoted their life to doing. It was their job. It wasn't something that they do on the side. You know what I mean? Like literally, you know, Ice Cube jumping into politics, which is something that he should do and something that he needs to do as a black American and as a black American figure of note and importance, it would be no different than really Martin Luther King Jr.

or somebody else from outside of that world, getting super involved into the machinations of Hollywood or hip-hop. You know what you know and you don't know what you don't know. So I'm not saying that none of these people should have an opinion because to be honest with you, I am not well-versed enough to go talk to the president about what black people need. But there are, there are, there are a lot of people who do have that expertise.

Yeah. I think what makes it look so bad is that he didn't tell us, right? So it looks like he was trying to hide it. We had to hear from the Trump administration who seemed to be bragging about it more than, especially it coming from a Katrina, that then rather talking about how it was really an important meeting to benefit the black community it more so seemed like, oh, guess what, guys, Ice Cube came here. And I rather, I think it could have gone a lot better to the community if he had said,

sat down, however he wanted to do it on his socials and an interview. Maybe he would have done it with Chris Cuomo. He said he had an interview set up with him and they canceled it at the last minute. Or he actually said he was banned from CNN at first. I don't know if he saw that. Which they say isn't true. But you can imagine how different this conversation could have gone if he controlled the narrative. And I think that that, I mean, people still would have been,

up in arms and there would have been the critics, but you would at least heard from him, and he would have been controlling all of it rather than now trying to kind of backpedal, not backpedal, but trying to play catch up because of the Trump administration said it first. Yeah, I mean, look, that's the whole thing. I mean, I probably, Cube learned something. Cuba's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. He's out there. Cuba's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. He's out there putting his reputation, his riches, his cultural, Castro cachet on the line for what he believes is the empowerment and the enrichment of his people. That's exactly what he's supposed to be doing.

Yeah. But the reality is that there's even a way that you do that. And what we have to do is we have to see some of these brothers that we've empowered by buying their records, by going to see their movies, by buying their jerseys, we have to see them be willing to then turn around and empower the people. who do this every single day. And when I say empower them, I don't mean have them craft a plan and then you go out and tout. That's not what I'm talking about.

What we have to do as black people, what we have to do as people in America, period, is we have to find some sort of way to elevate critical and intelligent thinking again. Like there's no reason to be listening to President Trump over Dr. Fauci, ever. Ever. It's just it's it's it's it's it's it's it's there are doctors who do this. This is their life. Our best shot is with them. And when you're talking about economics, when you're talking about politics, there are black people all over the place that this is what they do every day. This is what they do every day. You have Kim Kardashian, God bless her, who's trying to be the face of prison reform, right? The reason. The reason. reality is that as this is not to take anything away from that because that's a beautiful work, but she's getting talking points from someone as she tries to understand more. But the reality is that there are people who've been doing this for so, so long. And we have to find some way in our culture specifically, but in American culture, period,

to elevate the voices of people who know what the fuck they're talking about. And so the reality is that a lot of people would say to Ice Cube that he got played a little bit. Because what he was trying to do was do something in a bipartisan way that ended up being very partisan because one party spiked the football on it. Now, it is also up to us as black people, which is why I was so whack and lame for what I did, to give grace to people who we know are trying to help. Now, if you think Ice Cube is out there with some hidden agenda or whatever, I've seen no evidence it is of that. God bless you. I don't think that there's any truth to that. I don't think he got no hidden agenda.

I don't think that Ice Cube is secretly MAGA. I think Ice Cube wants to see little black kids that come from where he come from, have what they need, right? Yeah. So if you think that, then whatever. But what I will say is that, you know, even people like me, you got to stop being so emotional about this.

Van Lathen first, stop being so emotional about things like that and have critical, conversations about where you feel like people are doing things right and where you feel like they could use a little tighten up. And then I got to be open to that same criticism. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, well said. Like I said, his heart and his mind were in the right place. I just think the strategy was off. You know, why didn't it have to be now? Like I said, why couldn't it have been after someone was elected? So then it becomes a part of their

initiative as a president rather than as a talking point for their campaign promises that will unlikely be fulfilled. So, you know, we'll see what happens. I hope that this didn't discourage Ice Cube, and I don't think it will. He doesn't see like he's a person who's affected by it. But what I hope is that that people will see what he, what the purpose was behind it. And then maybe we can come together and create, maybe not necessarily a different plan, but how we can effectively implement that in the next administration. Because he's not wrong in what he's trying to do. It's more of like who he was trying to do it with and what their purpose is.

Right. Also to the Democrats and the Republicans. If, of which I am neither, I am not a Democrat, I am not a Republican, right? To the Democrats and to the Republicans, if you want to talk about healing, changing, uplifting,

empowering, be it financially, culturally, or however, the black community, you do your homework on who you need to be talking to. Don't just go run, and talk to famous rappers. Don't just go run and talk to famous comedians. Don't just go run

and talk. I mean, you can talk to all of those people, right? Just to get like a clickbait moment, right? But if you're having real substantive conversations, go talk to Sandy Derry himself, a guy who helped Ice Cube Craft his platinum plan, you know, an economist from North Carolina, go talk to him I think he's actually at Duke, but go talk to

go talk to him himself. Talk to other people who are in. Talk to Philip McHarris about police reform. Talk to Alicia Garza. You know what I mean? Talk to people that know what it is who've been doing this for a long time. Get in rooms with really smart black Americans

all over the spectrum, some conservative, some liberal, and figure out what it is that we can agree on and then agree to disagree on to actually address things that are going on. Talk to David Gross. Talk to all of these people, right? Who are out here building in the black community.

Not saying that Cube and the rest of the guys who are famous aren't, because we all are. But talk to the people who know how to make the bricks and not just how to place them. Like we need people who can formulate those things. So, you know, they have to be serious about it too. We see people talking to a lot of celebrities and a lot of people. but those aren't always serious conversations. Those are for optics, too. And there's a lot of heavy lifting to be done in the community,

and it has to be done in a serious way. So economists, political theorists, abolitionists, people who work every day on the ground of criminal justice reform, empower those voices. And as a community, we need to empower those voices, too. Or else we're going to get conversations with rappers and ballers for the rest of the time that we're here in America. I just don't know how far it goes for us.

We want all of those people to be active. They have to be active. We need Ice Cube to do exactly what he's doing right now. But on a national political stage, it can't be only Ice Cube that gets FaceTime with the campaign, right? Did you delete your tweet? I did delete it. I did delete it because it goes against a personal edict that I have. I don't know why that was just a, that's like one of my lowest clout chaseiest moments because I don't come out with the Uncle Tom shit.

I don't come out with the house nigger shit. don't come with the coons shit. There's a fighting words. Fighting words. You don't, there's no reason for... At least you can admit it, though. There's no reason for us to do each other like that. I never do it.

I didn't even do it to Yeh. And I, Cube certainly didn't delete that. I got caught up in the whackness, and I fucking apologize. Yeah. Like, and I, and I apologize to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, who didn't even fucking see it. Of course not. But I also just apologize to anybody else who saw that, because,

because that's not the way we need to do each other. We just can't do each other that way. We got to be, we got to have more love for each other than that. All right. Now, we're about to take a break, but now we're about to get into, whoo. Here it comes, guys. Oh, I just realized what it is. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, I just, wait, we got so caught off in what we were talking about. Oh, my gosh. We're about to take a sharp left turn. Sharp left turn. All right, but before we do it, let's take a break real quick. 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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Yes. You guys, I want you to know I'm hearing these thoughts for the first time. I'm listening with you guys. Take it. Y'all, he has notes. He has notes. I took notes. Okay.

Before you start, after watching a full first episode, can you believe I did this show? Oh, good question, Rage. Not really. Okay. But like the Rache, I know I can't really, I'm going to go back and watch your season. Please don't. Because I'm definitely going to because I couldn't see Rache in all of these different situations.

I couldn't see it. All right. I couldn't see Rage in these situations. But like, because it just seems so unrached, you know what I mean? Like you, there's a lot of it's, it was good. I enjoyed it. I did. I enjoyed it. But a lot of it seems very produced.

A lot of it seems very produced. And you're a very unproduced person. You never know what Rachel is going to do, except for on Instagram when you're, oh, here's a bag of peanuts from, hey, exactly, it's a Grateful Cup. The QRC and, you know what I mean? Oh, they love it. They eat it up now. Yeah.

They tag you and everything I do. Tag everything. Van Lathen. Van Lathie. That's QVC, Rage, man. Let her get up money. Okay. So here's the batch recap from Van Lee.

First thing. Claire kind of fine, man. I'm not going to lie. Claire got a little bit of body. I wasn't expected to see that. She's kind of like, I liking Claire to, you know, what a dad must feel like going to a PTA meeting with his son. You know, he goes to a PTA meeting and then the, you know,

let's say he's a single dad, right? And he's going to a PTA meeting because his ex-wife has said, Hey, I go to all of these things, and you never go. You never go to the PTA meetings. I go to all of them. Now, you need to go and meet Ms. Crawley. And dad goes, damn, I don't want to go meet Ms. Crawley. I got this game on tonight, blah, blah, blah.

All right, all right, let's go meet Ms. Crawley. And all of a sudden, you get to the PTA meeting or to the parent-teacher conference even better. And all of a sudden, she gets up and she goes, hi, I'm Miss Crawley. And you know how teachers dress. They have like that blout, that little teacher blouse on, with the pants, you know? And you go, and you look, you go, oh, damn, okay, Miss Crawley? That's how, she's, she's sexy, she is sexy elementary school teacher fine.

That's what she is. She's got like a sultry vibe to her that I like really, like, it's like a mature, sexy. I get it. I get it. That's how I was described. Yeah, but you could still see her teaching you some fractions or maybe getting a little lit in Cabo. Either way, she can.

You can go either way. All right. Okay. So these are some things that I wrote down. The 6-8 dude was a complete duff for me. What was his name? No. No.

You can't be 6-8 and show that much ankle. That nigger ankles was showing. You shouldn't wear that if you're that tall. He's 6-8, and it looked like he was wearing pedal pushers or caprice. You know what I'm saying? You're just too tall to do that. He did go home. 6-8.

Get your ass out of here. Got to have to call a special cab to get him home. Benet, did you say, did you know Bennett? Bennett, was he Harvard? The Harvard guy? Yeah, yeah. I haven't hated a television show character as much as I've hated the Harvard dude. The Harvard dude sucks.

Like, H-ball, this means you go to Harvard. I call it the H-Bomb. You fucking nerd. Why are you a fuck about that shit? Like, what are you talking about? Like, oh, they don't care that you went to Harvard. It's not about you. It's not about you. It's going to the H-Bomb.

I went to Harvard. And then he came out when he got out of the thing and he was walking towards her. He looked like he was like going to a party with Al Capone in the 30s. He had the little sash over the, like, the tuxedo and stuff like that. Not fucking with him at all. That's definitely producer. driven. What is?

His whole vibe. His whole persona. I don't like it. I think it's dumb. Didn't dig him at all. Then there was bubble ball guy. Oh, yeah. The ad maybe?

Is that maybe? Is it Ed? Okay. A bubble ball guy, I think, gives me serial killer vibes. Because. I think he's from Miami. I think that's the one thing. is one thing, okay, is one thing to like show up and do your whole deal or whatever.

Another thing to be in the bubble ball and like be birthed to the world, like the bubble ball ended up looking like a vagina at the end and you just slide out the bottom of it. Talk about you're going to come see a car. I don't like all the theatrics and shit like that. You know, one dude pulled up in like a station wagon. This was actually toned down. They're normally more extravagant than that. that. I don't like that part. I didn't do that. Brian didn't do that for me. That wasn't.

What did Brian pull up in? The limo, like they normally do. And he started speaking to me in Spanish. And then he said, do you, did you understand any of that? And I said, no. And he goes, you ever dated a Colombian guy before? I said, no, not Colombian. And he was like, oh, you're in trouble. Something like that. And I was like, oh, I like, I like, I like, I like, I like trouble. Oh, I love it. Saucy. Did you know, let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Did you know from the get-go that Brian was the favorite? He was, I gave him my first impression rose.

So you saw that later in the show? I saw the first impression rose. Yeah. We're going to talk about the first impression rose and that whole thing right there as well, because this is a fucking joke. This whole season is a joke, by the way. It's a joke.

Like she, yeah, like, no, she, so, like, I wish y'all can see how he's looking at his notes. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So the guy's name is Dale, right? Dale. Dale. She physically orgasmed when she met him. She did.

She is, is she physically orgasmed? I'm Dale. Oh, hi, Dale. Like, it's over. What the fuck? Dale, like, it's, I never, I didn't know that it was that. It's over. That's never.

never happened before. That has never happened. Yo, she freaked out when she met Dale. She lost it. And by the way, when I saw Dale, Dale's the X, like Y receiver or a football player dude, right? Right, right, right. He looked better on the show than he did in his picture. In his picture, he kind of looked a little whatever. But on the show, I think of Dale's swab as hell. Yeah, it's why she fell weak. She lost it. Oh, damn. She like, she really was like, like, Dale is. by far the leader in the clubhouse. That's never happened. Normally they're like, after you know the man, they say,

do you think you met your husband? And you're like, get out of here. I don't even remember anybody's name. Not Claire. She said, she blacked out. She was shaking. She was sweating. She said, I think I just met my husband. She blacked out, blacked out. She just, yeah, she, she blacked out. It was too much black. She, she actually carmeled out because that nigg got kind of like a little carmel. But I was always watching that. I was like, yo, why am I still looking at this? It's over, you know?

A couple other things. Number one, I won't say this about the show. The first, like half of the show, the first, like hour, not hour, but the first part of it was large, there's a lot of filler that was kind of in the show, right? The COVID? There's a lot of filler. Yeah, the whole COVID thing is a lot of filler in the show. Normally what happens is they go to, they pick a certain group of people and they go to their hometowns,

and they film a package. So it'll be like, oh, me, Rachel, she's in Dallas, and it'll show me walking copper, and it'll show me, it showed me in the courtroom, the courtroom. And then it showed me at work. And so you see, you get to know who they are before. That's normally what you see. But because of COVID, they change the whole thing.

I see. So it makes sense. There is method to the madness of what went on there. There was some snitching that was going on. Did you see that part? Always happens. Yep. Always happens?

There's always a situation like this, every season. With Tyler C, who found out some things about Yusef, all right? We're not as a big mystery about Yusef. Do you know everything that happens, by the way? Do you know? I don't know everything. But you know a lot. I do know a lot.

Do you know what the mystery with Yusef is? What happened with Yusuf? The rumor is that he was DMing girls before. that he was getting at girls on the gram or something like that. That's it? That's the whole thing. That's it. That's it. There's nothing more.

I mean, later on, I think there's some things that happen, but that's what happens in the bubble. Right. So you can't. The juice is just this. So that's it. That's the whole thing that he was the deemment of the girls. Okay, I thought maybe, like, I thought maybe Yusuf was like a grifter or something like that or an ex-actor or something. And look, I guess, I guess my whole thing is either.

I watched Dale get the first impression rose, and I knew that that was going to happen. But I have to admit, her response to Dale really took a lot of the intrigue out of the show for me. Okay. Okay. Because I'll tell you why. Because I now feel like I know.

Okay. I feel like I know that Dale is the guy that she ends up with. Dale is the guy that she runs away with. Now, I have questions. about this. These are the questions. If Dale and Claire decide, if it is

Dale in fact that she runs away with, right? And then Tasia comes in, as has been rumored. My thing is, if I'm Dale, I say to Claire, I say, let's not run away. Why will we run away? Let's play it out. Fuck all the other dudes.

Why? Just be on TV. Play it out. Why make it short? When it could be, long. Play it out. Play the whole thing out. Like, I'm thinking to myself, because it's so clear now, Dale would literally have to come in here and go, let me tell you about my hero, a guy, inspiration to me, a man named Adolf Hitler. That's what he'd have to do in order to not win her at this point. Really, really, he could come in. Dale could come in right now.

Dale could be like, you know, how they do the little slow music. And then it's like, you know, I got a story to tell. Dale could be like, just to let you know, yeah, I spent some time inside. You know, yeah. I spent about five years inside for actually human trafficking

all over the world. I was going from place to place to place to place. And like, you know, that movie taken. Yeah. Yeah, they based it on my organization. That's what we used to do. We used to go all around. And she would be like, wow.

Dale, how did you overcome that? You know what I'm saying? Like there's almost nothing. There's very little that he could do. So it takes a little bit for me. I like the first episode. I enjoyed it. But it took a little bit out of suspense about it

because I wasn't expecting it to be that obvious who the guy was. It's not. I mean, you always know who's a frontrunner, like a few. This is a bad season for you to first start on. There's never going to be another season like this. The reason I think it's rumored that she left,

with him so early is because they're in Palm Springs. It's 120 degrees every single day. Normally you're traveling the world, right? In my season, we went to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Switzerland. You travel all over. Well, if that was the case, they probably would have stayed to the end. But what's the point? You know what I mean?

In Palm Springs? I wouldn't stay. Why are they doing it in Paul Springs? Because of the bubble. I know, but why they have put it? the bubble in Palm Springs. They know how hot it is. Do the bachelor people not have the weather app?

They know, like, oh, I'm saying, like, they know how hot it is in Palm Springs. Why do it in Palm Springs? Why not do it somewhere with the more temperate climate? There are a lot of places you can do. Well, they are now for math season. They're filming that already right now. They're in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the bubble.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think with, I think it was just logistically, it was easier for them. But this is a bad season for you to start on because... No, it's great. I love it. All right. Okay.

I'm glad. Like, Dale Diggler is his name. Dale Diggler. And why is it that? You never saw Boogie Nights. Everybody that saw Boogie Nights, they know what Dirk Diggler was about. Dirt Diggler was about Diggling the ladies. And that is, and that is Dale.

And by the way, Dale know he the shit. And the rest of the guys around there, they sense it too. They do. They sense it too. By the way, I told you the guy with the heart on this. Remember I called it? You said he was going to stay till the end. Wait, is that the chef?

Yes. Oh, yeah, my bad. That was in my notes. I was like, Ben said he was going to stay to the end because he could cook. And I don't even remember what else. He went home immediately with the heart. The heart on this thing. They sent him home.

So you're not good at this. You're not seasoned enough to guess. I'm not seasoned enough because I got a little bit. Oh, I do tell you what? You know who I like the most? I was going to ask you who was your. favorite. Easy.

Oh, we had him on the podcast this week. I like Easy the most. I think that Easy has a shot if he sticks around for Tasia, if in fact that's what happening, because we can't say that it's happening. It's a gracious part of the Bachelor Nation. But if Easy sticks around for Tation, Easy has a big shot at Tasia. A big shot at Tasia. I like Easy.

I like easy. You can tell who the producers like because who they give the most screen time to and they let narrate. show. Easy's the narrator, which means he's respected in the house and by production. Yeah, I like Easy. So I hate Blake. I don't like

Blake. Blake makes me sick. The one who DMs her secretly? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I don't like Blake. Blake broke the rules. He came down with the hammer on Blake. Blake broke the rules and told the truth. I'm sure there were others. You sure there were others who did that? Is that

happened to you? No. What Claire has, we didn't have. So you have to realize this is all different. Normally, I was announced early. I ran into one guy at the gym three days before my season started. And he said something like, I'll see you soon. And I was like, he must be on my season. That's as close as a guy.

And I thought he was cute and he was black. And I was like, I'm not telling anybody because I don't want him to get kicked off the season. And then he told everybody. But no, normally Claire got to creep on her man for four months. before she met them. That's why do you think she was so? I don't think she told me she didn't talk to Dale. I talked to Clara quite a bit.

She told me she didn't talk to Del before. She'd tell me if she did. She'd tell me. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed your first episode. I did. I got to get even more in depth with the next one. I think I'm going to start doing character breakdowns like we do on the wire podcast I do

because I got to admit I like the episode. it was a fun watch. But the Dale thing took a little wind out of myself because it's so, I wanted to, I wanted this episode to be me figuring out who it was going to be that, that she ran away with. But as soon as she saw Dale, she had his baby right then and there. So I think the producers are playing into the rumors. She had his baby right then.

You didn't see that? She became pregnant. The dress expanded. and a bouncing baby boy came right out of her womb right then. And it was like, hey. Wait till the second episode. I've seen it.

When you watch the second episode, other people start to rise up. Interesting. Oh, are you telling me that there's a chance that it's not Dale? I think the producers are smart and playing into what everybody's saying. Listen, there's the reason this show's been on

for so many years. They know what they're doing. So you start to see other people and you're like, okay. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I'll tell you what, man, if it's not Dale, if it's not Dale, Dale had to say something really fucking stupid. Along the lines of the stupid things I said earlier, by the way, that's not to make light of human trafficking. Or maybe he's not. Maybe Dale is some sort of maybe, what could Dale be? What could he be? Well, you know, the guys are saying in

the house, there's like the preview of them, they're like, Del's one way in front of her and he's totally different with us. That happens a lot. That's what he said. He said he shows out for the cameras a little bit. Yeah, did they, like, do, like, let me ask a question. Do you needers ever get to locking in there? Like,

is there, like physical fights inside the batch? Has there ever been, like? Yeah, there's definitely been fights before. For sure. I want to see. I want to see some niggas

get to hooking in that bitch. I remember there was like a big argument because they, you know, they had like a guy who was from Mississippi, never dated black women on my season and was saying some crazy things to the dudes in the house.

So, like, There was some, I don't know everything, but I heard them yelling at one point when I was in the mansion one time. And I was like, well, I'm going to go say something. And they wouldn't let me. And I got frustrated. So this is, there's a point in my season where you see me crying and I'm upset. But they used the crying and made it seem like it was something different. But I was like, I want to see.

I want that I go, it's y'all's fault that I, that you gave me this pool of black man. And I'm not, and I'm not happy with it. You need to go back to casting and do it. over again. And I was telling them, I was like, you're forcing me to do things that the world would force me to do. You didn't give me a good pool of men and you should go back and start over again. And so I was upset that they weren't allowing me to do what I wanted to do. I was upset with the black men on my show because most of them did not date black women. They cast a black men that were not in a black women. I was upset about that. Okay. So that is, Dale gets the first impression rose. He probably made the strongest first impression of any character.

in Bachelorette history. I can't say that because I've only watched one show in the history of life. But I'm on. I'm on it. I'm on it.

It happens. The show moves fast. So I got to change my watching habits a little bit. I'll be more thorough next week. But I enjoyed what I saw and I am intrigued by this whole Dale thing.

I'm intrigued by it because it doesn't seem quite fair. Just be honest with you. It doesn't seem fair. Doesn't seem fair. A lot of guys switch up their lives, come to look for love in The Bachelor, sees one dude, all of a sudden she has twins,

and now the whole thing is over. So it's very interesting. It's very interesting. This is what I will tell you. What you're realizing is the men are watching this for the first time that were on the season. So they're probably having a fit

at seeing her reaction to Dell. Because at some time, they didn't see it. So what you have to look forward to, Van, that you don't know about, is there is something called the men tell all. And it's a reunion where they sit down with the host, Chris Harrison. And it all comes to a head. Yes.

Chris Harrison, who, by the way, before we can move on, Chris Harrison seemed taken aback by the fact that she reacted so strongly to Dale. Even he was like, whoa. Whoa, slow down there, Claire. All right. She said, I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

I just met my husband. Damn, Dale. Dale got to be feeling good. good about himself. All right. Now, bum, bum, boom, boom. It is time for one of our favorite parts of the show, El Melbag. Your mailbag questions, we are about to get into them right now. Jordan, take it away whenever you want. First question from Avalon Hernandez.

Please tell a story when you sent a text message to the wrong person. Oh. Oh, I know I've done this before. Do you have one? I do. You can always remember your stories. Go ahead. I do. So when I was doing the Teamsy tour,

so when I was doing the Teamsy tour, the guy who trained me to do the Teamsy tour was Mike Leonardo, who is a fantastic television producer, right? A fantastic television producer and someone who mentored me through the tour process of learning how to do the tour. Mike Leonardo is just an amazing guy who really helped build and brand the TMZ tour and was a part of me sort of learning how learning the roads to TMZ. He was a big advocate for me.

He was a great guy. He worked on, I think it was Ellen for a lot of years. So he might have some interesting stories there. But Mike Leonardo was to do. Anyway, after the tour kind of got going, Mike left. And the guy who took over to the TMZ tours was Andy Maurer. Andy Maurer is was also a

fan is also a fantastic guy an amazing dude but he has a very close personal relationship with Harvard. Andy is Harvey's partner and so when remember Andy is Harvey's partner they've been together for years

right Andy is a fantastic human being an A1 like top flight fantastic human being who also was, you know, helped me a lot and talked to me a lot. But when Andy first took over, it was like a little bit of a, because I was so loyal to Mike, right? And so I remember I sent a text that I thought I was sending to one of the other tour guides,

but I sent it to Andy. And it was like, damn, man, we really, really need to get Leonardo back. This whole fucking thing is going to go to shit. Now think about it. this is a text that was sent or something along those lines. This is a text that was sent. Not only to your boss, when you think you're talking to it, this is a text that was sent to someone who is very close to the CEO of the entire company.

And I remember when I hit sin and the text went through, I was like, I laughed. When I saw where I sent it, I laughed so. hard because I was like, nigger, this is how you going out here? You something like, like, man, you're really, really going out like a real deal

A1 top like chump. They're going to fire you and you're going to be telling your homies, like I got fired because I accidentally texted the boss the wrong thing. That's that. That is the best story. That's the only time I can remember that happening. I can't remember. I know I've done it. I just can't remember.

I can't. Sorry. That's too hard. That's too hard. I know I've done it. We've all done it. We've all done. All right. Cool.

Next mailbag question. From Joanna Zaldivar. On a scale of one to ten, how petty do you consider yourselves to be? Ooh. That's a great question. That's a great question. Uh, shit. I'm definitely going to say an eight.

Yeah. Maybe a nine. I'm pretty peasant. petty, man. I'm not going to lie. It depends on what you mean about petty. I'm not maliciously petty, but in terms of just, I'm not maliciously petty. I'm mischievously petty. I feel like there's levels to it, right? In my mind, I'm a straight up 10. Right. But do I act on the pettiness? That's another thing. That's where it goes down. I don't know if I act on my pettiness, but I definitely think it. I like go through the whole thing in my mind and then I'm like, no.

Like I start to reason it out. Do you act on your pettiness, man? Nah, so I act on my pettiness. Well, no, I've told you so many stories. I'm bullshit, man. It's a 10. I've told you guys, too many stories of pettishet that I did for me to turn back now. But it's pettiness.

But see, I would never be petty with anyone who I didn't really know personally, right? So if I know you personally, I know you can handle it. And I know you know me, I would be petty with you. But just pettiness for the sake to watch the world burn, that's never been me. Like, I mean, I can remember times where I was dating somebody and we broke up and I purposely did things because I knew he would see it or it would get back to him that would piss him off. That I'll do that kind of petty stuff. Now I don't have to. You know?

Now you don't have to. I don't have to. You don't have to. Back then. All right. One more. Where is the weirdest place you've been recognized? Weirdest.

Weirdest. Oh, in St. Martin. St. Martin on vacation. Really? Landed in St. Martin. Actually, not St. Martin. Grenada, should I say. Landed in Grenada.

We get a vacation. We're going to get the, like, little ATVs that we about to ride around on. You know what I mean? And, like, we ride around the island and stuff like that. And had somebody go, oh, that's not true. I'm lying. the emergency room.

Was this your recent visit when you thought that you had testicular cancer? No, the emergency room. Like, the grenade thing was whatever, but the emergency room was different because, like, I had had a panic attack some years back and I went to the emergency room and they're hooking me up and doing all of that stuff that they do and all that shit. And then I'm in an emergency room. And after I get all, all, like, you know, they level me out and stuff like that, the nurse goes, uh, and you've all, you're all.

the guy from TMZ, right? And I'm like, thinking of my mind, get the fuck out of here. But that's probably the weirdest place for me. I don't know if it's the weirdest. I mean, I was recognized in Norway. I was shocked.

People ran up on the street. Most recently, Aruba. Some girls floated up, floated up to me in a cabana. But I don't, I think, and I can't think off the top of my head and I know y'all are going to get tired of me saying this. It's more of who recognized me

that I think shocked me that I was like, whoa, like you watch the show or you know who I am. That's more of who it's been, but I'm trying to remember who. I was shocked Corey Booker knew who I was. Okay.

Okay, Corey. That shocked me. Yeah, it's more of like who's a fan of the show. You know, like you never know. A lot of people like to watch The Bachelor's, their guilty pleasure. So when I'm doing interviews with certain people,

I'm shocked that they're like, oh my gosh, Rachel, when I pop into like the Zoom. More of that. Well, that's it. That's it, Mailbag. That's it. That's it, Melbag. Rachel, unexpected allies of the week.

I'm going to go simple with this one. I'm going to give it to Savannah Gunthry, who moderated Trump's town hall, mainly because a lot of people were upset. that NBC decided to air it at the same time as Joe Biden's town hall and ABC announced their time and date first. So I agree with that. I think it's ridiculous that they did it for ratings rather than so the people could be informed. But Savannah stood out because I love the way that she handled it.

She challenged President Trump. She made him uncomfortable and she fact-checked him when he said stuff. She did not let him get away with just talking in platitudes and generalizations. So I appreciated that. She's my unexpected ally of the week. mine is Alex Caruso from the Los Angeles Lakers. It's not unexpected that he would show up,

but the white boy let us. No, I'm just joking. He didn't lead us. No, he didn't lead us at all. He didn't lead us at all. But the white boy, I'm so happy to say this, Alex Caruso, NBA champion. He literally looks like he works at 24-hour fitness.

He looks like he works at 24-hour fitness. He does. Alex Russo looks like the dude who, when everybody's shooting around at 24-hour fitness, when we're all playing, he's in his 24-hour fitness gear, right? And he's like showing somebody around the gym, right? And then he sees us playing basketball. And then as he's showing him, this is where guys play basketball and stuff like that. And all of a sudden he grabs the ball.

He gets up and dunks it. And we go, oh, shit. And he goes, yeah, I played the Texas A&M and stuff like that before I became a personal trainer slash nutrition coach here at 24-hour fitness. You know what I'm saying? That's what he looks like. He is cut from central casting, but Alex Caruso,

he's made himself into an NBA player. He is my unexpected ally of the week for the world champion Los Angeles Lakers. If only he could play for the Dodgers. By the time y'all hear this podcast, the Dodgers might be on their way back home to L.A. All right. That is it.

Thought lawyers. You can take your thinking cops off, but please do not stop thinking we need. you to use those brain waves. I am Van Laithen. I'm Rachel Lindsay. All right learning is open.