Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Karen Attiah on The Washington Post Firing, Plus Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Van and Rachel welcome former Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Attiah to discuss her firing from The Post after she made critical remarks about gun culture and violence in the U.S. in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing. (0:00)  Intro (9:30)  Release of redacted Epstein files (21:29)  A review of ‘107 Days’ by Kamala Harris (48:50)  Bad Bunny performing at Super Bowl  (55:33)  Karen Attiah joins the show (1:28:06)  Therapy and Young Thug (1:54:01)  Looming government shutdown Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Karen Attiah Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith  Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Howe Learning is on is Ivan Lacey Jr. And it's me and Rachel Lynn. So before we even get started, CT has a white boy hat on. What's the difference between this hat and any other hat? Step into the light.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But hold on. Stay right there, CT. Stay right there. I want you guys to watch this. CT has a white boy hat on. And this is a hat that white boys wear. Now, I'll say this. I'm not saying that I would have ever wanted to wear a hat like this. But every time I see a white boy wearing this particular white boy type hat,

it always, I always have the thought. Because there are a couple of black guys that can pull off hats like this, but they are like Lenny Kravish type niggas. Hold on, hold on. I'm going to put the hat on. I'm going to go get C.T's hat. I'm going to put the hat on. And you've, we've never seen you in this.

because you've worn a variety of hats. I've worn a variety of hats. When I put this hat on, you guys are going to know exactly the type of niggers that can pull this hat off and exactly what I mean by that's a white boy hat. This is not pejorative. This is when I say,

you guys know the white boys you've seen. Hold on, I'm going to put the hat on. I'm going to come back and sit down. You guys should be watching. Like, comment, subscribe, all of that stuff. So this is visual. White boy hat. You guys don't know.

I don't know. Watch. The suspense is It's killing me It's killing me All right Van I'm gonna close my eyes Because I'm sorry CT

I didn't clock the hat When I walked in Give me a give me Let me know what I can open them Just the hat doesn't fit The hat doesn't fit Is his head too big CT? I love this CT

Is giving you white boy direction On how to wear the white boy hat Okay three two So what do you call that So what do you call those hats This the hat with a little When you wear that motherfucker and it's got the little thing,

you know, you guys have seen the white boys and they have the little... You're not wearing it right. Well, I don't know. CT, come put the hat on. But help them out because it looks like a condo. But this is how they wear it. Like CT.

But you have hair out. But CT. Can you take it off you? Yeah, yeah. Everybody, this is CTT. Everybody, CT comes step. CT comes to put the hat on. I wear...

I think you're supposed to have a little bit of a wift. He needs it because he doesn't have the hair in the front. So he has to wear his. That's not true. No, like, CT has long hair. I know, but you're saying I don't have hair in the front is a lot. That's a lot. I didn't. Thank you, C.T.

But can, you know, take that off so we can because, yeah, go ahead. Help him off. So, wait, first of all, CT, put it on and demonstrate how it's supposed to be worn for peak white boyness. I think, I think this hat supposed to be more like with a little bit of a lip here. Okay. So. No, no, that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm talking about, though. I could wear that.

I'm talking about the way you wear it to wear the little hat is in the back. See? See? See, look. Look, turn around. Turn around. It works. See that little, that little, this little piece right there? It works. That's the white boy piece. And that's when I, when I see niggas wearing that type of shit.

Can I see it? Like you, look, that's the white boy piece. So I wear these hats as well. Okay. And I think you have to wear yours like this. Because you have a larger head. And I know this as, because I have a big head. Don't put me in the thing with you though.

Don't. Let me see something. Hold on. I don't want to wear it normal because I can wear normal. No, that's wacky shit. Hold on. Let me see. Maybe I'm into this.

Now, see, okay. But this shows you, this is culture, right? This is culture. Let me tell you what I mean. This is culture. Because this, I've seen, like, some brothers, particularly brothers on the East Coast, they'll wear their hats like this, right? But when you wear the white boy hat, you take this part.

right here. No, yeah, I know. And you put it towards the back. And it's like, oh, shit, I go to Brown. Yeah. I can't do that. I can't wear mine like that. See, it looks, it looks regular from the front.

But then when you go to the back, it doesn't look great. It's like, it's like, look, hey, I'm going to rush. It doesn't look regular. And I've seen black guys wear this, wear this style. I hate it when they do it.

But they're all, I mean, they're light skin. I love these hats. I think it looks cool. I love these hats. I love these hats. I don't want to wear this. Here, come get your hat back. Okay.

CT, do you have lice? I know sometimes life is rampant in the... I think you'll be okay. I think you'll be okay, man. Last night, the girls and I went to see John Legend. J.L. It was a fantastic show. It was at the Hollywood Bowl, which is always just an experience.

Me, Molly, Kalika, Nichelle. I mean, it was the get-lifted tour. Me, Molly, Kalika, Nichelle. Mm-hmm. Hmm. It's the four of us. And we really, I mean, I flew back in town from Florida. So I'm extremely tired today, but it was worth it for a good girl's night.

Shout out to John. He gave us the tickets. And we had great seats. Really enjoyed the show. It's fun? It was amazing. Who did you bring up? He brought out Estelle.

Mm. And the crowd went crazy. Because, you know, like John, he's like, he's a crooner. you know, like we're all like we're swaying. We're up a little bit. But Estelle came out and people went wild. She sang American Boy. She did a new song.

Shout out to her. And then he brought out clips. Clips. Yeah. Pushed to you mouths. Pushed to you malice. They did stuff from the new record. Didn't they get some of the other songs?

They did the new song, the one that's about family. No, they just did that song. The one he's on. Yeah. Yeah. I did not make it last night. did not make it. I am old and getting out

is just tough. It's just tough. Honestly, I feel I'm struggling today. And, you know, but I did say, I will say this about John Legend. John Legend is a gentleman, and he is a great performer. I love John Legend. I did ask John for two different things,

and I was denied on both. What did you ask him? It couldn't have been tickets because he would have, no, no, no, no, no. John is, he's a great guy. He fosters this type of environment where he wants a type of celebration of his music and stuff that's great. John's a great, generous guy, been the cool guy for a long time. I asked if I could sing if it would be possible if I could sing on once again.

And then he was like, that's quite a request. That's probably not going to happen. Then I said I should be able to play, I should be allowed to play piano on ordinary people. And what did you say? He just laughed. See, that's how you know he's nice because he actually responded. He actually responded to those requests.

That's how you know John's a nice guy. Yeah. See, I would have just ignored you completely. One, you can't play the piano. You don't know that. How do you know? I know that for eight. Because if Van could play the piano,

hold on for a second. We would all know. Wait. We would all know if they can play the piano. do that we haven't really discussed. Name one thing. How many things that I can do that we haven't discussed? You don't know that I can't play the piano.

Can I play the piano? I don't know if you can play the piano or not, but you know what? I don't have an H.I. A hating instinct that just makes me go straight up. You can't do something. Can you play the piano? Doesn't matter now. The only thing that matters now is you jump to a conclusion without knowing.

Somebody could tell me right now, I saw Rachel playing the guitar. You don't know. I, this is what I'm talking about. I played the piano for 13 years. Okay. See, I didn't know that. I know you can't play the piano.

I didn't know that. See? I hate her. You're a hater. But let's see how I just said it because I, because I can't. You're a hater. You don't, you don't know nothing. Can you sing?

I'm not, I'm not playing this game with you at all. See, that one I didn't accuse you of anything. I asked. No. That one I don't know. Because you've been gotten right. You've been gab. As the sisters say, I've gathered you.

All right, let's get into the show. It's too much happening for us to. I do want to say something, you know, the last couple of shows we've been. I was going to say it's going to be a Charlie Kirk free show. No, it won't. Because we have Karen. But that's different.

It's different. It's different. It's different. From the Washington, formerly of the Washington Post, she's going to have a conversation about that. We'll be on the show later on. And we'll discuss her firing in the wake of comments that she made, not even so much about Charlie Kirk as there were more observations

about American culture, gun culture, white American culture. And she was literally what she's hired to do at the post. We'll talk to her a little bit later. The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action all the way to the final with Fandul 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. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

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Ask your doctor about trim fire. Tap this ad to learn more about trim fire, including important safety information. We have to talk about he's back where you never left. Jeffrey Epstein. Documents release. You don't want to talk about it? No, no, no, no.

You want to bury it? No, no, no. No, no, no. It's just. Rachel Patel? Who are you? Rachel Bondi? Rach Patel. Rachel Patel.

That might be one of the worst insults you ever gave me. Rachel Bondi. Rachel Patel. That's the best Pam Bondi right there. She always looks like she just looks like that's her. Donnie, get us into the Epstein situation. Yeah, congressional investigators, they recently sent a letter to Epstein's estate requesting cash ledgers,

message logs, calendars, and flight logs that were in the, in the estate's possession. They released a six-page, heavily redacted document that reveals names such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Steve Bannon are among those who appeared. Jeffrey Epstein had gone to jail in the late 2000s, am I correct? Mm-hmm. He was released. He was talking about the first time. The first time.

Yeah, it's like 2008. 2008-ish. He was released. So his first criminal case He gets out of jail He gets a sweetheart deal Really from Alexander Acosta Who was the Southern District

U.S. Attorney from the Southern District And went on to become, I think, Trump's labor secretary Yeah And the reason why this is important Is because there are two batches of sort of Epstein adjacent people. Okay.

People before that and people after that. There are a lot of people before that that say or use the excuses. I didn't know anything that was going on with him or anything that was happening with him. That case comes out. And then after that, I cut all ties with him. Right.

A lot of the things that were seeing, if you're looking at anything that happened after that, you're seeing Musk, Bannon, whomever else that's involved here. These are people that are associating with Jeffrey Epstein after they well know

that there is he's been incarcerated he's been tried he has been investigated for crimes involving minors and things happening with young girls.

So June 30th, 2008 He played guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18. So anyone that's around in the Epstein orbit after that cannot act like they did not know that these allegations were surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. Right, right. Well, yeah, I mean, the only person who's come out and said something of the three men that were mentioned that I've seen so far is Elon Musk, which he's like, yeah, Jeffrey Epstein begged me to come to come to. to his island all the time. I met him one time and I thought he was a creep. So the reason when you're like, do you want to talk about this? I'm like, we obviously have to talk about this because

this is something, you know, that is going on and on and on. I hope they continue to keep, as I told Rokano when he was here, keep their foot on their necks and continue to ask for more information. It's just that I have a hard time with this because it's already come out that they're going to redact Trump's name from documents. And so I'm not saying that I only want to know about Trump, but I'm like, well, what are we not getting? You know, I know we don't have all the documents, but we know we're not getting stuff about him.

And then the things that do come out is it's no secret that Elon Musk, Peter Till, and Steve Bannon all had documented relationships with him or had been around him or had met him at this point. So when you see the information that came out, like, oh, Peter Till and Steve Bann went to lunch with him. Other than, like you said, which is a great point of being associated with someone like this who had been charged back in 2008 and they're still associated with him, what else do you think that you get from the release of this? What do I get from the release of this? The conversation is important to continue the conversation about Jeffrey Epstein. And who he was tied to.

Who he was tied to? Like, why is he sitting down with Peter Till? Why is he sitting down with Steve? There's obviously, you guys, there's obviously some type of tether between Jeffrey Epstein and the most powerful, influential people in American culture, government, and finance. World's culture, government, and finance. So there are two things that are interesting. one, why he was so tied to all of those people.

That's true. And two, why he wanted to be. See, that's the question, right? If you are a billionaire playboy that wants to traverse the globe and have all types of escapades and satscapades and all of that stuff, you can do all of that stuff, right, without involving underage girls, you can do all of that stuff without involving other massively rich and famous people. There are people that we know that have a lot of money

and have a lot of influence that spend their entire lives chasing tail, being rich, doing all of that kind of stuff. Jeffrey Epstein, two things. One, a proclivity for underage girls. And two, a proclivity to involve the most powerful people in the world in that thing. the question is why? Why was this?

Now, I'm not going to ask, I'm not going to get into the mind of people who like underage girls, but I'm just saying like it seemed like he wanted to widen the net of people that were involved in this with him. Well, I'm in no way taking up for these people, but there hasn't been any implication of any wrongdoing or criminal activity tied to the three people will just use that were mentioned in what was released. So, yes, they are being affiliated.

with someone who is connected to terrible crimes, but how do we know that he wanted to be tied to them to open them up to this world? Well, that's what I think people are waiting for, which is, I guess, I'm kind of waiting for this bombshell thing. The one thing I do like about this is that the whole reason this even started is because it was alleged, you know, and this whole, in the deep state thing, that it was the left,

the Democrats that were the ones that were tied to, Jeffrey Epstein and all the things he did with underage girls. And as the names come out, it's like, well, this is a bipartisan thing. This is conservatives that are tied to this as well. I saw Jeffrey Epstein in pictures with Dedele fucking Castro. Like there's no... You did. They don't see it that way.

There's not a specific political cohort that it was allergic to whatever it is that he was putting down. That's what they thought. Yeah, well, honestly, the spin surrounding this in terms of, hey, this is a Democratic hoax, all of that stuff now, that stuff is just the latest stepped on dope that the Republicans are serving to their to their fiends. No one that has looked at this would believe that because going way, whatever you, going way back, if you look at the West Palm Beach scene or the New York scene, all different types of people were in with. Jeffrey Epstein, you just had to have some proximity to power.

Power, money, influence, and you were in that world. There is a reason why those types of people who are in that world want to hang out with guys like Jeffrey Epstein, but there's also a reason why Jeffrey Epstein is going out and courting people of that world. The question that I want to know that I think a lot of other people want to know is who's running him. Like, what is this? What is this Jeffrey Epstein thing?

And the thing is this, nobody seems to want to talk about it. Like, nobody seems to want to talk about what that thing is. No one wants to talk about it. So the deeper we getting into it, it's like a question you keep asking, not because you're getting, not because you're getting an insufficient answer, it's because you're not really getting any answer at all. Yeah, that's how I feel when these stories come out. Right.

So, I mean, look, none of this stuff, the want, here. The thrust here of it is the thing that continues to be almost intoxicating to me. The story continues to deepen as the denials and the lies and the spin continues to mount up. It's the one thing, honestly, that Donald Trump and the rest of his acolytes have not been able to talk their way out of. Right. Because, and this, I know what you're saying. You're like, people can't say that it's just on the left, but you can't tell me that as he was running for the 2024 election and he was like,

I'm going to produce the files. Those people who are deeply MAGA thought that those files were going to reveal the other side. I don't know. I don't know if they thought that. Well, they definitely didn't think it was going to be Trump or they didn't care about Steve Bannon

or Peter Till or Elon Musk. Well, honestly, they thought, I really believe that was the narrative. I don't, I don't think that they thought, that they thought it through. So this is what I mean. I don't think that they thought it through. Number one, just on its face,

if you were saying that anyone that was connected to Jeffrey Epstein was a Democrat or on the left, that just ignores the mountains and mountains of evidence that suggests him and Trump had a pretty cozy relationship. Isn't that what they do, though? I know. So, but what I'm saying is that like, I think that, There was, I think overall, what ended up happening was just a blissful biting off more than you could chew, like getting people engaged into the idea that this was a deep state conspiracy that would expose who's really running the world.

And then going, wait a minute, we can't control the names that are inside of this. Because if it really is that, if that is really what's going on here, then there's no way to make. manicure it. You just got to put it all out into the world and let everybody answer the questions as to why they were either on the Lottleda Express or at the island or having dinner or lunch or whatever with Jeffrey Epstein. Hey, I met him once, whatever. It didn't go anywhere. I met him six times. Now it's getting a little weird. Hey, we, I wrote a fucking birthday letter for him and it has a naked woman on them. Why are you doing that? Like all of that stuff with secrets. We're talking in codes. That's my guy. What the fuck? It's getting, it's building up. And so I honestly think

that the haphazard way in which they go about things in the first place, which is just say shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then spinning on the back end, it just doesn't work here because there's too much there there. Can I ask a dumb question? Who's running the estate? When it's like the Epstein estate is turning over documents, they release this. Who's in charge of the Epstein estate? I have no clue. Okay. Epstein.com. Okay. Okay. Just thought it was.

We, Donnie, we promise the people. We promise the people that we talk about it. Let's get into it. There's a picture of it right here. That's Kamala Harris. Right? We promised the people that we will talk about 107 days. The new bombshell book that just dropped.

Kamala Harris talking about her run for president on the back. You got this picture. This young lady looking up at Kamala Harris. It's one of my favorite photos. You love that photo. I really do. You finished the book. Yes, I did.

Donnie, did you read it? No, not yet. Ashley? Ashley? Whatever. Y'all don't give a fuck. You don't fucking care. Rachel?

What? I just want to gather my words, right? I just want to say this the right way. You're afraid of the chaos? No. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I did. That wasn't the book.

What the, yeah. The chaos. It's in the book. I think my expectations were a little too high for the book. That's where I'll start. I was very excited to read this book. Very excited to hear from Kamala Harris. I think there were so many unanswered questions surrounding this 107 days.

Even just, even before that, her time as vice president with Joe Biden. And I was eager to hear her get into it. I feel like that there's a lot that she could be saying. Yeah. And I was like, this, I am here for this. Was I, you know, it's well documented on this podcast. I said, you know, I was reading some of the headlines and I thought, oh my gosh, like she, I can't see her running again after this. I feel like she's in a lose-lose situation.

All these things. I didn't get a lot out of the book. And that was a disappointment for me. I felt like it was a lot of fluff. And I just didn't get into the details of what I wanted. What I did appreciate about the book is that we'll do a compliment sandwich here. I did, I appreciated about the book that, you know, know, there was some background, right?

Some stories about her and Doug and how they met. Her talking about her family and, you know, her sister and her niece and her great nieces and things like that or just like education-wise or, you know, her rise from attorney general or DA to attorney general and on. I appreciated some of that background, but that's not what I came for. What'd you come for? I, there were certain things I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear about.

her response, the question that Sonny Hosten asked her on The View and why she responded that way. I wanted to hear her talk in detail. The question was it. What would you do differently than Joe Biden? Yes. I wanted to hear her talk about her debating Trump. I wanted to hear her talk about her in detail because she does talk about these things. I wanted to hear about her relationship with Joe Biden.

I wanted to hear about her frustrations, maybe as her role as vice president. I wanted to hear about. about if there were things that she would have done differently as she ran her 107 days. Why she ran it in certain ways. And again, these things are addressed. They just aren't, they just seem, and I don't know if this is the right word, but curated.

Curing. It didn't feel like, I thought this was going to be a little bit more raw because let's be honest, 107 days, very difficult, never, done, been done that way before as far as running for president. And everything had to be kind of perfectly tailored, rushed, all of these things to get, you know, heard of possibly winning the presidency. So I felt like this was going to be, I'm letting it all out. I'm telling you guys what really happened. I'm telling you how hard it was, what was difficult, who was holding me back,

all of these things. And I just didn't get that. I thought it was very straightlined. I thought it was very respectful of the Democratic Party. All of the whole, all the Democrats are upset with her and concerned. She said nothing, I thought, disparaging about the Democrats. Nothing at all, in my opinion. And I thought, I thought it was going to kind of be a forward. Like, this is what I would have done. I didn't have the time to do it.

I felt maybe I was a little too loyal in certain ways. Here's how I would have done things differently. It just was, it was almost like a journal. just a journal of what happened. And that, again, I said my expectations may have been too high. And maybe this is what she always intended. Hey, I want to control the narrative. I want to tell you my side.

She did tell her side. It was her controlling the narrative. I just didn't feel like there was a lot of depth to that for me. So on the book itself, I think the book comes out at a time that is inopportune, for Vice President Harris because there's,

we're in the shit. And she couldn't have predicted what would be had. Well, she did predict. Well, the chart, I mean, this came, her book came out two weeks after Charlie Kirk's killing. True. So for her, she predicted how bad things would go and I got to give her credit for that.

The last time I said, don't tell you, I told you. So I got my ass kick. So I have to give her credit for predicting the time that we would be in. She said all of this. But this book is coming out and we're in. the shit. So the book itself would have had to have some type of bombshell revelation, some type of very specific utility for us to be able to say, okay, this is a part of the cultural intelligentsia

that we need to move forward and exist in the time that we're in right now. Like this is, all right, what are we going to learn from this and whatever? Because we're not in an easy reading type of time. We're in a very reactionary, very direct, very focused time. So to take focus away from whatever litany of issues that are out there that seem to be threatening you and invest into the book, you wanted to come away with something that I think was a little bit more actionable or a little bit more direct. and you don't. The book just doesn't mean anything right now. Now, I'm sure it means a lot to Vice President Harris

because it's her telling her story. I wrote a book about my life, and unless I could specifically make people care about how they see me or how I am seen in them, it might not be something that someone cares about, right? So when I read this book, I was trying to think, what could I take from it? I did take one thing from it, though.

Okay. I did take one thing from the book. The book itself is not very useful. It's not. It's not very useful. And again, it might not have been her intention. Right. Our expectations could we thought.

Our expectations based upon a lot of the promotion. The promotion and the excerpts that were coming out surrounding the book might have been too high that she was going to come in and really give it. And it just explains something that really, I think what people want it. was kind of an explanation as to why she lost, meaning that kind of, when I say an explanation as to why she lost, people were so dejected.

I'm not going to speak for people, I'm going to say myself, so dejected at the loss. And they're entrenched in such danger right now. That there was a thought going into this that I would feel better or more hopeful from reading the book when really the book is essentially

Democratic Party gossip. Well, but it's not even that. There's a part in the book where she... The part in the book where she alludes to, somebody told her, don't get too excited. Somebody in the party was like, don't get too excited. You've got the momentum now,

but things can turn. And she was like, little did I know that that would be true. But we never really get into that part of it. when I saw that, I was like, great. I want to hear more from her perspective of what was going, what was, what was wrong? What was, why, why were they so off on the polls? Why was the excitement dying down? What, I, I just wanted more of that. But I will say this. When I think it was on the breakfast club that Charlemagne asked her, you know, I think it was Charlemagne, forgive me, is some media person she was talking to. And they were kind of like talking about how Trump talks to people. and the way that he is. And they asked her kind of why she didn't do the same thing. And she was like, well, I'm disciplined.

And that's what the book felt like. It felt very disciplined. And as I was reading it, I was like, she probably feels like she has to be this way, honestly, is a black woman. And Mark Cuban has come out and he's talked about how he was campaigning for Kamala Harris. And he talks about the way that she is.

off the record versus the way that she is on the record. And he said he felt like her campaign strategy was wrong because they didn't allow her to be a salesperson as much and show kind of that rawness. She was very, I don't want to say rigid, but disciplined. I'll use her word discipline. And comparing that up to a Trump, obviously we don't want her to stoop to that level. It just was such a stark contrast.

And then I was thinking about that. And I'm like, this is where I'm like, as a black woman, she has to be, right? Even a woman, a black woman, there's no way. Like, if Kamala Harris was doing what Gavin Newsom's doing, they would be criticizing her like crazy. There's just a certain standard for black women and there's not a freedom or a liberty or a grace that's given to them that is a Gavin Newsom. People are praising and I like it. I like what Gavin Newsom's doing. A black woman couldn't do that. black woman couldn't do that. And so I feel bad for her in a sense of you have to be a certain way. She's got to be put together and act above it because there's so many derogatory stereotypes that are going to be placed on her if she steps into that lane by any means. And so as I, after I, you know, I'm expressing my opinions about the book, but when I sit with it, I think about it, I'm like, of course we couldn't, we couldn't get that from her in that way. And another thing I was thinking about, I was talking about this last night when I was with the ladies, she's so trained

as a politician. It's almost like, I don't even know if she can get out of that space. Like you and I, we do media, right? But we're not trained journalists in a sense. You more than me doing, you know, what you did and writing and stuff at TMZ, but we're not trained in that way. So we're raw. We don't stick to the standard. We just kind of say what we want to say, how we want to say it. We don't think about it as a trained journalist would in a sense. I think that's a trained journalist would in a sense. I think that's how it is for her being a politician. She's been trained to be a politician, whereas Trump just says and does what he wants.

Sometimes I think she can't get out of her own head or the own box or maybe feeling like she can't act a certain way as a black woman. Yeah, so I think they're all like that. Politicians. Particularly the politicians on the left. It's so weird. The politicians on the left are trying to figure out how to... The politicians on the right have a doubt.

different, a different goal. They're trying to emulate Trump and it doesn't seem genuine. The politicians on the left are doing this weird dance where they're trying to both be themselves, but also be morally and rhetorically superior to some of the lowliness that the right has injected into the political discourse. They don't want to be that, which I understand. understand, but they also want to understand that the American political appetite has changed. So because it's changed, they want to adapt accordingly. And it's a weird game. Yeah.

You have on the right a bunch of charisma-less people trying to recreate the charisma of the president, right, in the way that he talks and the way that he comes off. And they're fumbling around and doing that. You have a bunch of people on the left that are trying to speak more plainly to their constituency. at the same time, they don't want to just resort to some of the things that they think

mirror the other side, and they're not quite getting to that. And you don't have people who are just like being themselves. Yeah. And this is a time right now where politicians, which is

what these people are, need to establish some sort of trust or understanding with the people that they're talking to, which is what I got from the book. This is what I got from the book. The Democratic Party is not broken. It's not broken. We keep saying that the Democratic Party is broken. The Democratic Party is not broken. It's warped. See, if it was broken, then it wouldn't be working for the people at the top of

the Democratic Party. And it is working for them. The Democratic Party is warped because it's not going the way it's supposed to be. The way it's supposed to be going is it's supposed to work for you. For you, for you, for you, for you, for you. It's supposed to work for you. But it's not working for you. There's infighting that's going on about who is the next person to step up, who is the next person to get this, who is the next person to be able to have this honor, how you're supposed to go about this, whose feet you don't want to step on, who you don't want to insult. And they're having these conversations amongst each other. What's not being discussed amongst them really is who is the best person to make sure that people don't go broke

because they get cancer. Who is, what is the best way to message things to make sure that women's reproductive rights are safe? Who, like, what is the best way? How do we do this? People, people, people, people. They're talking about people. And it seems as if those people that they're talking about are themselves.

And maybe, maybe what has to happen is what happens when a bone is actually warped. When a bone is warped inside of your body, particularly when you were a kid, a doctor breaks the bone. A doctor breaks the bone, sets the bone so it heals and grows right. And then it watches the bone to make sure that there's no mal-union, to make sure that it's growing straight. That is what needs to happen to the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is not broken. It's working in the way that it's supposed to be working for the people that it benefits. What needs to happen to the Democratic Party is that it needs to be broken and then set.

And the people that are going to break the party, the people that are going to break the party and then reset the priorities of the party to work for them, they have to be the people. Because it seems as if once I'm reading and looking into all of this stuff, it seems as if to me that there is a lot of cause and concern in the Democratic Party about who's getting what they deserve, like where this is supposed to go, where that is supposed to go. It seems as if they're concerned with their donor base and they're concerned with whose turn it is like I've already said. So the question is, how do you make those same people that are devoting this much energy to who the next person to run for president or senator or congressman or. How do you make these people care about you? You got to break the party a little bit. You got to pull the party apart.

Because, like, I don't really see a ton of shit where that, that I, 80% of the Democrats, polled Democrats, no longer want America and Israel that have the same relationship that they have right now. That's not being reflected in the electorate that is running the Democratic Party. It's not being reflected. And that 80% doesn't exist up there. Yeah. So you got to snap that. You got to pull that apart and rebuild it.

And I think I thought the book would break it. Like to your point, just like using, you know, what you're giving. I thought the book would break it in a sense that it would make people think, or at least the Democratic Party, it would force them to have to face some hard truths about them coming from somebody, not just who was inside the party, but was leading the party. That's what I was kind of expecting. And I thought we were getting there in the book. That's the last thing I'll say about it. Are you disappointed in Kamala Harris?

I'm not disappointed in her. And maybe I use this term too much. I feel sorry for her. I almost feel sorry for her. Because even when, and I thought we were getting there in the book because, you know, she comes out, you know, two people who she maybe doesn't hold back as much on are Joe Biden and Jill Biden. For sure, she does not have the best relationship with Jill Biden.

But with Joe, I kept seeing this waffling of back and forth. She literally, I got from the book that she felt that Joe Biden was selfish in some ways, that, you know, he did not uplift her. He did not promote her. They played into some of the rumors that were coming. These are her words, played into some of the rumors that were coming out about her office and what was going on behind closed doors in the case. chaos of. Remember all of that at the beginning and stuff?

She said that they liked it. They played into it. They didn't uplift. She did something positive. They didn't promote it. All these things. But then on the other end would be like, I love Joe and Joe's so this and Joe's this. And it's like that loyalty, that loyalty of feeling like I have to do this, but this is really the truth instead of just sticking with these are the things that happened while I was vice president while I was running for president. This is who, I mean, it took somebody saying, and this is a quote to her, stop doing that with Joe Biden. people hate Joe Biden. And I would love to question her about these things about, like, did you not see how people felt, how people would, like, you were so fixated on, but I want to make Joe feel good instead of focusing on the issues at hand as she was running for president.

I mean, look. And that's what I see with the Democrats. Even her answer about the trans, the transgender ad that ran during sports. boarding events. She talked about it. That was something I wanted to hear her talk about too. And how the Trump administration spent $40 million on it and they never responded.

And so it's like, to your point. Or they never responded because the Democratic Party has abandoned trans people. And. No, that's the Democratic Party went look. The Democratic Party went

to hell with that. So I'm going to give free game to all the Democrats out there right now. Not to cut you off, Rach. I'm going to give free game to all the Democrats. Sorry. Okay. I'm going to get a free game to all the Democrats out there.

Somebody asked you should men play women's sports. Just look dead at them and go, do you want trans people to die? Just free game. Free game. All the Democrats are, look at this. Look at this. They're going to ask you, man, do you want men to play women's sports? Hey, I got a question for you.

Do you want trans people to die? Do you want a 12-year-old to run away from their house? You want them to commit suicide? Do you want them to get murdered and killed by someone for walking down the street? Because if you don't want them to die, if you don't want them to be killed, if you don't want any group of people to die, to be killed, to be ostracized from society, then what you'll do is have conversations about their inclusion, rather than have conversations about their persecution.

You have conversations that start with the premise that we need to find a way to protect people. Now, inside of these conversations, there might be all kinds of things that we disagree on. We might have legitimate disagreements with the trans community on certain things. But if those conversations are had with the baseline understanding

that what we are looking to do is find ways to cover them in protection. Sure. To make sure that they aren't marginalized, ostracized, or villainized by society. If the conversation starts there, then we can have an entrust and love. But what you're doing right now is having a conversation so that you can give America a boogeyman so that you can go win an election. and I'm telling you that there's a cost. But rather than do that,

what we want to do is Ezra Klein our way through it and make sure that we talk specifically to people that we feel like we cannot win over without endangering a group of people. So the reason why she didn't respond is because she didn't have very much to say. And I'll be honest with you, there are other things. I mean, we didn't even. And that was disappointing.

Like we didn't get into, look, this is. a political person. I voted for Kamala Harris and I did it with glee and happiness. For sure. For sure. But we're talking politics here. We could talk about Palestine in the book as well. We could talk about the fact

that, you know, in the book it said, I told Joe that we should have a different type of tenor in tone when it comes to dealing with Palestine. Well, you know what? I just got to be honest with you guys. Why you guys were pussy footing around it? People were getting their faces burned off. And I'm not the vice president of the

States, and I'm not the president in the United States. I'm a guy with a microphone talking with very little stakes. But I can say this, that the people that we entrust to make tough decisions, they make those decisions. And if those decisions are wrong, children get their

faces burn off. Children here don't drink clean water. They get killed by the police. The question is, as we become basically Cowboys fans All right

we got a time I was at a concert I was at a concert Let's see there you go Mike Parsons As we become Cowboys fans which is

a group of people who are over generations rooting for the reputation of something instead of what it really is It's a good point When we become Cowboys fans for the Democrats Is there a point

where we're going to wake up and go You know what we see the world differently the way that you guys are governing it. Can we have a conversation about it? Lest we not be able to go to CBC and get kicked off and left to the side. We could go to CBC.

Did you think you were going to get that in the book? Because what I find interesting is having read the book and hearing her talk about Palestine and how she felt about it a little. But then the clip that's going around where the heckler came to one of her she's talking about the book and the heckler came

and criticized her and she stands up and she's like I'm mortified at what's happening but I'm not the president and not insufficient exactly that's that and it's like so what

so put it in the book but that's really my point about the book right because that's not enough you wrote a whole book and while you were writing this book you could have said exactly what you indeed tell that I understand you're right you're not the president it's a shame it should have been you

it should not have been Donald Trump but I can't applaud when I hear you say I'm not the president when you just wrote a book so what would you have done how do you feel how do like I think that's really gets down to what some of my frustrations were with reading the book um I to all the protesters out there hold power accountable so you know whole whole power accountable. Right now, the one that's making, the one, the people that are making the direct decisions about, uh, what happens in, in that region of the world, foreign policy is not Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.

It's President Trump and his people. So, you know, I saw them protested. I saw President Trump protest in a restaurant a couple of weeks ago. Hold power accountable. However, I'll give you an example. Mm-hmm. Like George Bush. He's not the president.

Right. but he was president during Hurricane Katrina. So if we protesting George Bush, I'm with it. If George Bush is somewhere and he's selling pains and I walk by and I see George Bush selling pains, I'm going to go, hey man, the watercolor that actually, you know, doesn't look too bad. Fuck you.

I see you paling around. Hey, go fuck yourself. So, and he's not depressed. I mean, so if you lay at the feet, that type of tragedy, then yeah, that might be a protester too, particularly if somebody's

going to run for office the next time. I do think that that'll change. We spent way too much time on this, but I think that this book, our relationship with the Democrats, the party that is supposed to fight for specific things, the party that we caucus with,

I am not a Democrat, I think that we have to always be an examination of it. We have to always take the information that we get about the people who we are voting for and compare it. to the vision and version of the world that we want.

And if it's not aligning, then we need to break it, reset it, so that it'll grow in the way that we want it to grow. And I'll end it. I said a compliment essential. I'll end it with this. Listen, we had different expectations in reading the book. I think I'm still going to support Kamala Harris. So I was always going to read the book.

I think if you're reading the book and you just want maybe to know her a little bit better, maybe understand some things, maybe because she does. All the things we're talking about are disgust in the book. They're just not in the way that we thought or wanted them to be. But I still think you should go get the book and you should read it. Bad Bunny is doing the Super Bowl. You like him? I like Benito.

Benito? I like him as a wrestler. Remember of the WWE? I'm unfamiliar with that part of it. But this is the last Rock Nation performance and they chose Bad Bunny. There you go. You thought they were going to go with Jay-Z? I thought they were going to go with Jay-Z, but I think a lot of

lot of people did. But this is also a statement. What's the statement? I mean, Bad Bunny's, and I don't know the exact quote, but he's not coming to the U.S. to do his tour because of what's happening with immigration in the United States. But he's like, well, I guess I have one in me. I'll do the Super Bowl. And the fact that they chose him, knowing that that's his stance.

Revolutionary choice by Rock Nations, what you say? I don't know if it's revolutionary, but it definitely is a statement. There you go. I mean, Kendrick Lamar is a statement. Credits of Rock Nation. Kendrick Lamar's a statement. Having Bad Bunny is a statement. He clearly is against what the United States government is doing to Latino people in this country.

So having him, and I don't know if he'll have some kind of protest in his performance. I like it. I like Benito. This is my thing. This is my message to Bad Bunny. Man, bad bunny, just go in, bro. I'm talking about. What do you have to lose, right?

They can't do it really. the bad bunny. I mean, they're trying to do it to everyone. But you know, Bad Bunny feels like he's in this situation. I was flying over SoFi one time and it was night. And I looked down, I'm like, yo,

what the fuck is going on that sofa? It going crazy at SoFi. It was colors and you know how when you fly over it, you can see, it was colors and all the sofa was lit up and it was going crazy. And I'm like, it wasn't a game or anything like that. It was a bad bunny concert going nuts. Filled to the brand.

You know. He puts on a great show. He puts on a great show. People don't even understand what he's saying and they go to the concert. That's the Latino Taylor Swift or Taylor Swift is the white girl bad bunny either way, right? I'm telling bad bunny, man, man, bro, go hard. I mean, just fucking do it. Go like insanely all the way straight at ice, straight at train.

straight at hate. He kisses guys in his show. Doesn't he kiss dudes every now and again? Yeah. Every. He's dressed up as a woman before. The whole nine. I'm talking about just,

nobody does this with the NFL and all of that stuff. Just come out and mash on the testes of power. Just come out, do it bad, man. I haven't seen them, the Trump administration respond to this or Trump himself. But I wouldn't be shocked if, like, they try to have ice outside the Super Bowl. Ice in the Super Bowl?

Outside the Super Bowl. To get bad bunny? No, they're not going to get bad bunny, but, like, as their way of being, you know, protesting or being defiant. I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't, like, some sort of antic like that. But I love, love this choice.

Look, I didn't know who they're going to choose. I think it's, I think it's a good choice as long as bad bunny just goes completely crazy. So this is Rock Nation's last year. So this is it. Who do you think we're getting next year? Crosby stills and Nash. Fucking,

Crosby stills in that next year. It's going to be. It's so going to be. No, it's going to be the niggas who made the lynching song. They're going to do the Super Bowl next year. The racist as white dude with the tats everywhere and the other guy, that's going to be the Super Bowl next year. It's over.

I'm telling you, if, if, so, so I will say this about the Rock Nation Super Bowl deal. It wasn't worth in any way neutering Colin Kaepernick's message and making it. It wasn't worth that. But the NFL now, now is the turning point USA will do the, the fucking Super Bowl halftime show for the next five years. It'll be by Praker you or whatever. Like, it'll be something like that. That's it. It's over.

So you're done. That's why I love this choice. So, you know, I'm in the sense of that, it is meaningful, but Bad Bunny, I'm telling you, He has to. You're the one. You got it. You got it, Bad Bunny. You got it.

Go the whole thing. I hope he's cursing the administration out of Spanish. Just like just all like. Put a dildo on and do all. Like, I don't want to, yeah, everything should be totally Puerto Rico and Spanish. in Spanish. Nothing. Nothing American. Van Layton

coming up on Thursday, top five things Bad Bunny should do during his Super Bowl performance. I like this. Top five things he should do. Just piss people off.

Just go fucking nuts. Go crazy. Crazy. I'm sick of this shit. We have Karen Atia. Karin Atia? Because I saw Karen and Karin. I saw Karen, but you can ask her.

We can ask her. She's going to join us in a second to talk about being censored and an attempted canceling. Have we ever had somebody on the podcast that's an attempted canceling? We ever had somebody on there that they've canceled or attempted to cancel? I'm sure we have in five years. Think about it. Who have we had on the podcast? They tried to cancel me.

Always comes back to that, doesn't it? Well, they did. Who tried to cancel you? Bachelor Nation, Ben Shapiro. Remember all this? Ben Shapiro tried to cancel you? I was on, he was talking about me like every week on his show. Because they were like, I was getting threats.

Wait a minute. You don't remember this? Ben Shapiro was talking about you on the show. After the Chris Harrison thing, all the right-wingers were. Well, how come we didn't get into the couple? Why did we fire back at Ben Shapiro? I didn't listen to full. We did.

Actually, I think we did talk about it a little bit. No, man. I actually think we did. We let them off the hook. We let them off the hook. We let them off the hook. Why didn't we fire back at Ben Shapiro, man? I think you really feel sorry for me during those days.

It was tough, man. It was tough to watch you go through that because everybody was anti-Rache. I was like, why are y'all being anti-Rach? You motherfuckers you. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Cream. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming.

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one of those people is joining us today on higher learning former Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Atia joins us. She was, for some sure you guys have heard, fired by the Washington Post after social media posts that she had made were deemed unsuitable by the post in breach of their social media guidelines, terms. they fired her. And now the last thing I read is that you are engaged in legal action against the post. First of all, thank you for joining us. I am a big fan of yours. Before we get into everything that happened, tell us where things stand with your legal action against the Washington Post. That's the latest thing that I've read from all of this.

Yeah. So just to be specific, you know, I'm a proud. guild member, post-guild member, labor union. So shout out to the unions out there. So we have filed what's called basically a grievance. And there's a particular process in which, you know, we are engaging in specifically looking at our contract. And there's specific rules that the post has to abide by

when they decide to move to terminate an employee. So at this juncture right now, that grievance has been filed. And then in addition to that, a team of lawyers to send a letter basically exercising, you know, the possibilities of perhaps escalating. But right now, as things stand, the Washington Post and the Washington and Baltimore News Guild has filed a grievance. and we're waiting for that next step of the process. So basically, long short, I'm not taking this lying down. Good. Were you surprised at the post decision?

I think now everyone is looking at how people have been treated and a rash of firings and expulsions from college campuses over people's reaction to the death of Charlie Kirk, the killing of Charlie Kirk. Were you surprised, though, that they actually fired someone who is as accomplished in this space and as well regarded as what you've been. Yeah, of course, it was a shock. Particularly, you know, in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting,

anyone can go back and read my blue sky post. I was doing my job, right? Like, I was commenting generally on America, and my training as a journalist, the same training. I've gotten over 11 years at the post, my training, when a breaking news event happens, particularly of violent, sort of emotional, there's a lot of reaction, there's a lot of, you know, just speculation and misinformation. My training is actually to exercise restraint, right?

Is to say not get ahead of the facts. So, again, reminding people that on September 10th, there were two shootings that day, right? There was a really Kirk shooting. There was also the shooting of school children. in Colorado. So in my mind, and I'm processing both these things as emblematic of where America is

on gun violence, on political violence. And so my commentary is very general, right? Like the rhetoric, this is not who we are, lots of prayers, political violence has no place here. Of course, I was like, violence is wrong, political violence is wrong, it shouldn't have a place here, that murder was wrong.

I actually expressed shock, obviously, at the Charlie Kirk shooting, especially how graphic it was. Yeah, it's terrible. And it's like, my commentary is very general. We're a sick country when it comes to violence and guns and our rhetoric about, like, you know, empty cliches. That isn't getting us anywhere clearly. And that was a lot of what my commentary was about. My only reference to, well, it wasn't even a reference to Kirk. I mean, was specifically, yes, about.

about the demographic that carries out a lot of these mass shootings, most of the mass shootings statistically, the right-rearing extreme violence was white men. So I said basically, you know, part of what keeps this so violent is coddling the violent white men who espoused hatred, who espoused violence, who carry out these things. Nothing in my mind, that was nothing new.

That's just facts. I was just commentary. So, yeah, and I went out about my day, no backlash, no, you know, anything. I know what it's like to have spicy. Right. You know what you're in the shit on Twitter. You know, like, when, hey, I'll just mute that. I'm done finding it.

Yeah, you know when you're in it and you don't feel like you're in it from what you said. Yeah. You know, I've, again, part of my job, you know, particularly as an opinion journal, a student who give opinions and to have that based in fact. And that day, I was just doing my job and commenting on the patterns. And I went on about my own day. And then 12 hours later, I get a missed call from the post. And then two minutes or so after that subject line termination notice.

Wow. Conversation. I was locked out of my email immediately. Oh, wow. You know, after 11 years of I've consistently been. I'm going to I've consistently been about the truth, whether as an editor

or a columnist, about speaking up uncomfortable realities, but speaking up about this country, to be almost treated like I was trash and not only trash, but that I posed a risk to the post.

after years of putting my safety on the line to advocate for freedom of journalists, safety of journalist Jamaka Shook, the journalist who was murdered almost this week. Actually, it was almost the anniversary of his murder. To now say that I'm a risk to the post for expressing myself under as an opinion journalist is, it hurts.

Yeah, it's, I was not prepared for long story. sure I was not prepared for them. And I'm so sorry. We can't even imagine what it is that you're going through, especially when you dedicated 11 years of your life to a certain place and something that you're passionate about and about. And I mean, what you were talking about is literally exactly what you're hired to do. And I kind of want to take a step back. We touched on it kind of when it happened here on the podcast, but can you talk about what the shift has been like with at the Washington Post, since Jeff Bezos kind of changed the editorial or opinion department that you're in, can you talk about that shift in what it's been like and just also the loss of black journalism and voices and kind of to how we got here.

I know you said you were surprised by what happened, but just the shift that we've seen in the Washington Post. Yeah, what can I say? I mean, I was brought on actually right when. Jeff Davis bought the paper. So I was sort of a wave of, honestly, producers, editors of color, young folks, actually. I was brought on, actually, I was brought on to help the social media policies in the opinion section. So I was actually helping to teach other journalists and columnists how to use social media. But the thing about at least I can speak for myself, I actually came on as a, like I was almost hired because of my previous work doing press freedom work,

doing kind of analyzing press freedom around the world. So like this has been a key part of sort of my involvement with the post. my writing about journalists, marginalized communities, all that has been like what the posts, but I've won awards for the post for, they proudly claim. The Polk Awards, the NABJ Awards, all of these things. And particularly with the arrests and Iran of my colleagues, Jason Resign, to Jamal Khashchee. I mean, my experience with the Postal, has been of the Post being a champion of democracy and freedom of expression and journalists

having the right to speak without being silenced, right? And the thing that people have to understand about opinion journalists, which I think is something that gets very lost, is that a lot of us are former reporters, actually. So like, we're very, still should be, like, very bound We are very bound to facts and data and reporting, whether it's piggybacking off of our news colleagues or doing our own reporting. But the privilege, the honor, the sometimes burden of being an opinion journalist is that we get to go beyond just the who went one more why, the facts, the hard cold facts. And we get to be able to say, okay, here are the facts.

here are the various arguments. This is where I land. This is wrong. We're able to be partisan. We're able to advocate. We're able to basically write about the world as we really think it is and how it should be, not just as it is. So it's not really lost on me that at a time when particularly black federal workers

are being perched from federal. workforce when black and brown communities in our backyard are being profiled and taken off the streets. It's not lost on me that there currently are no full-time staff, black opinion columnists being able to look outside our window and say, this is wrong, this is bad, this is what needs to happen. It's like taking out a line of, of defense, of also the ability to put on record, you know, documenting what's happening literally, you know, in the streets. So I think this is, in some ways, this is a lot bigger than just me losing a job. This is a profound case, not only for free speech, but to be able to document

history to document black Washington history in this moment it's it's I teach about the erasure of history and to actually be living through it kind of myself is I still really can't get my head around it a bit

why do you think it's so difficult for America to have a conversation about the phenomenon of the lone wolf white male mass shooter. As we speak right now, there were a rash of shootings that just occurred. A couple of different places. You might have not known anything about where the shooter was from

or what the shooter was doing or all of that. But you knew one thing, that they fit a certain demographic and a certain profile. White male lone wolf shooters are responsible for breathtaking violence in American culture. You talked about that,

and it was something that the post cited as a reason to get you away from the paper. Why can't we discuss that? Why can't we discuss the specific danger that is posed to us from that profile of person? Right. Yeah, and again, this is something that has been documented by the FBI,

former FBI director, Christopher Ray, specifically talked about white men and extremist violence. Well, I mean, it's not even just not being able to talk about it. I mean, we're now in an age where the government is now moving to scrub its own data, right? And we saw the DOJ removing the reports about right-wing extremist violence, right? I mean, I think a lot of things, obviously, if I read, still at the Washington Post, it would be a column, but here I am talking about it. I mean, you know, it's, it's the notion that being able to name a problem and being able to name, you know, the demographic, you know, overly represented in a certain types of violence that for me, as I said, you know, In my commentary, I was just being descriptive and I was accused of being disparaging.

Anyone can go back to my comments and see or post-guise and see. I was talking specifically about violent white men, right? I mean, I think we have this issue in this country that one group has been excused, coddled, allowed to wield force over sort of the rest of us, right? And in a lot of ways, and this is something that I've written before in my columns in my social media commentary. I'm not the only one. This is not new. But we're entering, I suppose, it's like we're entering this period where it's the force of the government and media dictating who we're allowed to talk about. And again, I was the columnist.

I was of race. My beat was race, gender, international affairs, human rights. So for the bigger question for journalists who were made at the post, for journalists in general, educators, researchers, are we not allowed to talk about white men anymore? One of the things, I mean, seeing your, I don't know if it was a, if it was a blue sky post or tweet where you talked about how the only people who've reached out to you are, are you, I don't know if you've reached out to mainstream media or put some fillers out there. I'm curious to know the answer to that. What the response has particularly been, but it's been independent media.

It's been black podcasters. And as we've been having a conversation, you know, obviously since the Charlie Kirk killing and in light of Jimmy Kimmel and seeing the attention that that's getting, knowing that you as a black woman, as an established journalist who worked for a prestigious publication, can't get her story out on mainstream media? Can you talk a little bit about that and who you've reached out to and maybe what has been the response in regard to that? Yeah, well, I think the immediate first people who reached out one side, because I posted this on Substack, the news of my fire. Yeah. I posted it on Substack and I tweeted it out and sort of put it on Blue Sky. So, and then it became news. And first, I think the first person who reached out to me.

was, I think, Jim Acosta, who, if people know, you know, left CNN, started his own substack and his own kind of mini independent empire. It was Jim Acosta, and then I think Don Lemon was pretty quick. And shout out to them. Thank y'all if they ever see this. Don't know Jim, but we know Don't know Dawn well. Yeah, yeah. So Dawn Lemon was the first.

exclusive sit-down interview with me and we were sitting in a cafe in Washington, D.C. And yeah, I mean, I can say I was trending on Twitter, I think. I was definitely trending on

Blue Sky. And it was damn near impossible for the first couple of days to get anyone to agree to just a one-on-one with me. And by anyone, I mean TV, major TV. anchors without like going so deep into names, let's just say like the first sit down TV,

sorry, American TV, first sit down, I had finally with CNN with now Katie Fang, who's now part of my legal team. But yeah, there's a chilling effect for sure. And the fact that the ones who are eager, brave, supportive, embracing, almost, have been the substackers, have been the podcasters, you guys, have been content creators. And so it's just, again,

back to y'all's question about, you know, my trajectory. It was almost, what, eight years, seven years ago, this week when my colleague, Jamal Khashokji was killed. Boom, I was on, on air with CNN, literally maybe almost the next day or two days after sitting in the studio

was Brian Stelter. I'll never forget that. And I was, you know, back to back to back on network news for months at a time. And this time, it's almost like, almost radio science. I have been able to be on NPR. You know, I have been able to be on foreign media. A lot of interest actually in foreign media in this, which is, so it's a global story. But the major TV mainstream anchors sort of primetime, that sort of thing. Yeah, it's been like pulling teeth. Is that the Trump effect? Do you think they're scared?

I think they're scared. And, you know, I think that there's, there's, I mean, I can't speculate, but I think that's a part of it. I always think in general topics around race are tricky. I, but the Kirk effect, I mean, I'm not the only one, obviously. There have been teachers that have been Docs Matthew Dowd of MSNBC. And then they got Jimmy, they got Jimmy Kimmel. He's been reinstated now.

But it's like that death being weaponized against media, against journalists, against comedians, being used as an attempt to try to silence free speech. that combined with the free speech of black people and black journalists being especially challenged on top of that. So, yeah, but, you know, I'm still going to speak. I'm still going to, you know, I think it's also a testament to how powerful still, like the alternative media is becoming. And sort of, as I told Don, it was that, well, this is maybe the new era.

Right. You've mentioned Jamal Khashoggi a couple of times. I want to ask you about something that people have been talking about recently. There is a comedy festival that is happening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And some of the biggest names in comedy are performing at this festival. And a lot of people look at that as sort of a sanewashing of the Saudi Arabian regime, which many people believe was responsible for. for the death of Jamal Khashoggi.

Now, I'll be honest with you with this. Me criticizing this would be a little bit hypocritical because I'm a big boxing fan. And in the last couple of years, there is a large portion of boxing that has taken place in Saudi Arabia. There's a whole Riyadh season card. It was just a gigantic fight a couple of weeks ago,

Terence Crawford and Canela Alvarez, that was partly promoted. and put on by Turkey Al-Alishe, who is, of course, a prince of Saudi Arabia. So we've seen the Saudi Arabian influence happen in wrestling, in sports, all over the place. So, you know, for you, though, when you see the criticism of that, when you see the criticism of this comedy special, when you see this criticism that says we, Western people, should be a little bit more discerning or critical of the Saudi Arabian regime before we engage in cultural handshaking with them. What do you say to that?

What do you say to the criticism over the comedians that are performing or people that might criticize me or other people for watching the boxing and watching other stuff? Yeah. I mean, yeah, sure. It's all sorts of things. It's been golf. Golf, of course. You know. Live golf.

And, yeah, I live golf and this attempt for a long time of, you know, sports washing. Sports washing, yeah. And this is on top of, you know, Saudi Arabia trying to position itself as this sort of tech AI, this mega city that they want to build. You know, and even while I was working with Jamakashikji, he was always cautious and critical of these sort of grand promises that the, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was making to the world while there was still even poverty and suffering in Saudi Arabia, right? You know, it's and you know, I actually just posted about this on blue sky. Jared Kushner and is part of a deal along with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to buy

electronic arts, which is the major publishing sort of company behind a lot of of video games. Madden, Call a Duty, you name it. The Sims. I was a big gamer, right? So it's like,

it's really seeing this partnership between American cultural institutions and Saudi wealth, well, actually very specifically kind of more right wing

in sports, like culture, aligning with the funds from Saudi Arabia. meanwhile, it's like we've forgotten about what they do to journalists, what they do to, and not just journalists, Jamakashoggi was an American resident. He lives here in Virginia. And that alignment with these forces, with the Trump forces that are actively silencing people here,

I would just say, okay, even if you don't know much about Saudi Arabia and you don't remember, as much Jamakashoggi, although people do. I'm like, a fact of the joining forces, people with the government and administration that is looking to silence media right here. Right. Makes things profoundly scary.

It's out there. I wrote a manuscript, a full manuscript on Jamakashokti for Harper Collins. It's out there. My book was, let's just say, They stopped the editing on that.

They tried to show the book, basically, Harper Collins. That happened here. Those are the same folks that are sponsoring these sports events that are sponsoring, you know, or being in partnership with possibly controlling the video games that kids get to play. And I just think people should pay attention because all these things are interconnected. you think things are going to kind of stay over there or stay in the sports world or stay

in Saudi Arabia or they'll only go for Saudis. They won't come, you know, for Americans. I think again. Last question for me. I'm just curious, 11 years at the Washington Post. Have you heard from any of your colleagues?

Have any of them, I don't know if publicly or privately come to support you or, you know, maybe, yeah, in any kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, of course, the guilds put out a strong statement. I've gotten a lot of messages of support from current employees, former colleagues, old bosses and stuff, support there.

You know, I still, I'm, I, in a lot of ways, had the time of my life at the Washington Post. I was able to have, it was just such a cool experience to be able to ask people questions for living and to be able to meet writers from all around the world. And it made me a better thinker, a better writer, a better human working there. So, you know, if there's grief, it's the fact that I kind of had, at least for some time had an opportunity to use the power of the pen to do good and help people. I've heard, I think what's been hard, not hard, but heartwarming is many of the people, as I said, independent media that are now interviewing me about this case were writers that I edited.

And they're telling me in the interviews, they're like, you were the first one to give me a shot to be published in mainstream media. And now they're the ones interviewing me about being forced out of a place like the Washington Post when at one time I was responsible for giving people voices or amplifying their voice. So it's, well, at the same time, I'm not going to shut up. I'm not going anywhere. You know, I'm still, there's still a rush of emotions. I mean, I'm still like, you know, again, being fired via email of all things. And then, and then seeing my little profile on the Washington Post site, almost immediately being changed to was a columnist instead of is a columnist.

It was like meeting my own obituary in real time. Like having to sit with that, but then also having to sit. sit with people who were really rallied. I mean, Barack Obama tweeted about my case and this story. Even though I criticized him for my last political column, I was allowed to write. Actually, it was a critique of Obama and his immigration policies. And yet now he's standing in my defense. So it's like, hey, I guess it's a testament to, even though there are a lot of people who don't agree with me or you didn't even like my work or those who liked my work, or those who liked my work, at the very least thing you, I stood on business and I stood 10 toes down.

I was always open to being corrected. I was young when I took this position at first. But I haven't changed. I still believe in the power of the pen to do good and to combat injustice, and that's not going to change. These institutions can change with the wind or whatnot, but it's the real test of what your values are doing what you know needs to be done when it's hard,

not just when it's easier when your team is empowered. Like, that's not how this works. So I'll be alright. It sucks now, but I'll be right. We're going to help you be all right. You're definitely going to be all right. I was fired. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Really? Yeah, man. It was a closer fuck at first, though. And we're here for you. Anytime you need to talk, anytime you need to come and tell your story. Or promote anything. promote anything, we will be there. Oh, you got something to promote right now?

Of course. Go, go for it. All right, all right. So people can follow me and I'll be posting updates on my situation in my case on substack. So my substack is called Golden Hour. So you can find me there. And then also, so like I said, this is not the first time I've been canceled. I was teaching a class on race and media at Columbia University.

And they canceled that course. So I decided to go ahead and teach. It anyway, so I will be teaching race, media, and international affairs independently online under my Resistance Studies series. I've just decided, you know what, these folks who want to try to control what we say and speak and write about race, no, like we have an opportunity with the internet, with Zoom to be able to reach even more people. So I'll be teaching that. The enrollment is still open. There's only a couple of days left at Resistensummer School.com.

And I will begin teaching next Monday. Wow. So, yeah. So I'm in my, I keep saying I'm in my rogue radical professor era. Good for you. One of Dallas's finest, by the way. Where did you go to school? Oh, so I grew up in Desoto.

I know it well. I know it well. Oh, okay. Duncanville. Oh, so you're just like neighbors. Yeah, I used to date the boys in Desoto. I always go back to that. The Eagles.

You graduated from DeSoto? No, I actually went to this tiny, like, school, like, in Desoto. It doesn't even exist any. I went to a tiny school called Canterbury or a physical school. But we used to go to Desoto and Duncanville games all the time and all my friends were there. Okay. Where did you go to? Phil City.

Okay. Oh, I went to First Baptist Academy to answer your first. Oh, I don't know. First Baptist. Oh, first Baptist. Okay. Christian school ladies. Yeah, I know Christian.

Karen, thank you for joining us on High Learning. We really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate that. No problem. Thank you, Karen. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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This is what he had to say. My big sister, my big brother, my dad, my mom, my OGs, I listen to y'all. It's really a slap in the face to me. If I, you know what I'm saying? I just was telling my girl that, like, I don't think you need a therapist. I don't think I need a therapist. I feel like I feel like I feel like I'm not a man if my girl get a therapist. It's like, damn, you actually call somebody and listen to what they got to say over me.

Instead of just listening to what I'm telling you. I just feel less of a man. It feels less of a man of his girls in therapy. Young Thug says that. This is an important thing to talk about. Yes. So I want to say something. I just want to define therapy.

So you guys know what it is. Therapy is treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. Everybody is in therapy. Everyone. Every single person right now is in therapy. The question is whether or not you're in good therapy or not. So everyone's in therapy. The drink is therapy.

The outburst is therapy. You're treating yourself for whatever's going wrong. All y'all are in therapy. All of y'all are in therapy. y'all, you're in it, you're in it, you're in it, you're in it. The question is whether or not you have the best therapy, whether or not you have therapy that's qualified therapy that's devoted their life to this therapy that can pinpoint and give you structures and strategies to specifically get your brain and your body out of what's going

on. So everyone is in therapy, some type of it. As human beings, we seek out answers for things that are alien us. Some of those answers exacerbate those things. Some of those answers help us work through those things. All of y'all, whether you want to be or not, it's a part of your life. You in therapy.

That's the first thing. And he even says it in this clip. He says, I want her to come to me with her problems, come to me with her issues, right? So it's not that he doesn't want her to talk about it. he wants himself, young thug, to be the conduit to every single answer that she might have. That's a nice way to say it. I mean, it's not, that's what he said.

Now, I'm letting all the brothers out there know, that's not the right way. Not to me. No. That's not the right way. Number one, your woman is a person and there are a plethora of answers. that are out there is things that your girl wants the answers to that you are not qualified to give her. You're just not. There are answers that are that young thug.

I watch Young Thug and Hank have the podcast and I watch Young Thug. That was a therapy session. Yeah, it was. That was, I watched Hank be able to give Young Thug answers that nobody else would have been able to give them. There are things for as great as an interviewer and as great, of as respected as Hank is in the community that he can't give them answers to, how your brain is compiled and comprised and all of that stuff. There's people that have dedicated their lives to this.

And if you want your girl or anyone in your life to be healthy and happy, you want them with the highest quality answers to problems. Okay. True. All true. The reason I said that's a nice way to put it when you said he wants to be the conduit. So at first when I saw this, I was like, oh my gosh, here we go. Right. I really started thinking about it.

And I'm like, I say what you said is nice because we both do therapy. And you know, when you get into therapy, the issue isn't the issue. Right? It's deeper than that. It can be trauma from childhood or any kind of experience that had. You dive into certain patterns that you may have. I wrote this in my book. I went to therapy for the wrong reason to impress somebody.

I went in to try to save a relationship. I felt like I saved myself at the end of it. It's deeper than that. And the more you start talking to someone who doesn't know you in an intimate way or in a business way or a friendship way or whatever it may be, they can look at the outside and have different conversations that someone who knows you in a different way can. What I got from young thugs saying this were two things.

Obviously, societal norms, expectations, you know, the way men are supposed to act, the way some things that are within our community, black men in our community and certain thoughts you may have about therapy. We've had them very much show through certain guests on our podcast. So there was that. But then the other part of it was I felt control. To me, if you don't want or you don't trust,

or maybe there's a fear of your significant other going to talk to somebody else about issues she may have with you or in general, and you only want her to tell you, that is control. And to me, that is very scary. That might not be his intention, but the fact that you are like, nope, you need to tell me everything. I need to know exactly what it is. That's control.

And I really want to call that out because that is a scary situation to me. If your man or your woman is like, no, you only need to be talking to me about our issues and not realizing that maybe it might be something bigger and deeper than that. That's problematic. But also I thought. But you know a lot of people like that, right? For sure. You know a lot of people.

But it doesn't take away. It doesn't. But I want to finish this point too. The other part of it is, I think that there is a fear of what that person may confront in therapy or what she may learn about herself, about you, and it might change the dynamic of the relationship, which then goes back to control again. If you're the one only, if you're only telling me what your issues are, I have a way of controlling the way I respond, controlling the way the relationship may go. it's in my hands. I'm knowing, I'm all knowing. If you go talk to somebody else, there's a fear of, I have no idea what they may tell you, what you may learn, how they may manipulate the situation. I'm using it because that plays into the fear of it, the word manipulation. But yeah,

it's deeper than that. And so I felt like this was a little alarming when I heard it because you have to trust what you have in your relationship and trust that maybe that's your significant other, since we're talking relationships, is just trying to better themselves or heal so they can be better for you. And he might not have, if he's never done therapy, he might not be able to speak to it in that way, so I understand that. But if I am not healed, then I cannot be the best partner for you. I can't bring my best self and be what you may need in this relationship. And that's what sometimes the beauty of talking to somebody outside of it. And, you know, again, I'll give him a little bit because he may not understand therapy because maybe he's never been.

But you saying she only needs to talk to you, that's our, they already need to be in therapy. So I have many things. Many things. Okay. I'll tell you why I don't assign as nefarious and intent as, as you might in that situation. But did it seem controlling? In the aggregate, of course. Of course it does, right?

but there are a couple of things here. Let's say Mariah, the scientist, broke her leg. Let's say she broke her leg. She's twerking and she cracks something. God forbid that that happened to her. So a beautiful lady, great performer, all of that stuff. And she went to the hospital for the broken leg. I seriously doubt young thug would be like,

hey, I can't believe you went to the hospital for the broken leg. I'm supposed to be the one that recess your leg. Come talk to me. I'm supposed to be the one. I feel like, I don't feel like a man if I'm not the one that is reset

my girl's broken leg. I don't feel like the same way. That, he would not say that. He would probably pick her up and carry her to the hospital. I don't know, maybe he has medical experience,

but he would pick her up and carry her to the hospital. One thing that's at play is therapy is looked at as different than a broken leg. A broken leg is looked at as something that a doctor, someone with expertise and intent needs to fix,

and your brain is looked at as something that you should be able to fix lest you be weak. The question is, why does that exist? One of the reasons why it exists is because sometimes in our communities, what we are taught is that strength, dominance and achievement are the end goal.

And once you have them, everything that comes beneath that, you must have figured it out. So if you listen to the life story of somebody like Doug and all of the things that he went through, what he goes back to is I won at every single time. They couldn't kill me. They couldn't put me in jail. They couldn't stop me from shining. He talks about the house burning down and all of that stuff. but every single time it happened,

he was able through talent, through guile, through luck, through perseverance, was able to get to a point to where he can take care of himself and not only him but his family and other people around him. So that means whatever the hunger games of his past were, he was able to survive. So because he was able to survive, he has the answers. I can't tell you how many brothers I know

that will tell you with certainty, like certainty, how to get through something. And when you ask them why, they go, it didn't kill me. And I'm like, but how do you know that you did it right? How do you know that it's not still bothering you? How do you know that your relationship with your son, with your father, with the people around you that it isn't still affected by this?

Sure, you survived it. But did you process it? did you get through it, right? Did you actually deal with it? And how do you know when you've done that? And so when I'm looking at him, there is certainly a part of this that's like, there's certainly a part of this

that whether he meant it or not ends up being controlling, certainly, of course. You got a problem, you come to me. But think about that. Think about what that means. That's an attempt to provide safety. That's an attempt to be like, hey, sure. I mean, that's a, look, it's, it's no different than a mob boss that like if you,

if you watch mob movies or pay attention, they get mad when you, when you're in trouble and you go somewhere else. They get mad. One is because they want you to be indebted to them, which is another thing, which is part of who he is, is the one that constantly provides. and has the answers for people. That's who he's made himself to be. And another part of it is their version of the world

is it exists to where you have a problem, you come to the guy who can solve the problem. That's what I am. If I'm not that, then I'm not really anything. Part of this is about how he views her, but most of it, in my opinion, is about how he views himself. It's about what he thinks about what he's gone through

and what he's overcome. And when I hear that, there's one last part of it. There's a deep distrust from a lot of us in the community about people who didn't grow up exactly the way we did. Sure. And that's why if I'm sitting down and I'm telling you, hey, man, you know, I can see things in you that I see and myself, the first thing that happens is you didn't go through what I went through. you haven't been through what I've been through. You haven't survived what I've survived. So how could you possibly know?

It's like, I have anxiety. I have anxiety that I can't point to. I can't tell you why the anxiety exists, but it's the way my brain is made. So I understand when you do something. I understand when you fix it. I get all of that. But what you're going to say is,

I've been shot, I survived, I'm bulletproof. I've been broke, I'm poor, I'm a financial genius. I've been broke, I'm rich. I'm a financial genius. So I won't talk about the last part about, you know, the distrust you may have of somebody who hasn't been through or has similar experience with you. But the first part to what you said, first off, I totally still think it's controlling. But I thought the interesting part of what, when as you were talking and I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. But I think the interesting thing about what you said is to come to that conclusion of I've done this.

I've done this. is a lot of eyes. I've done this. I've done this. So therefore, I this. It's self-centered. And so what the, what's the issue being talked about here is your girl wanting to go to therapy. It's not about you. And so I think the reasoning, this is why I'm not disagree with your reasoning, but the thing is, is that somebody else needs something. And instead of thinking of them and their needs, it plays into the control of, well, I've done this and I've had this success or I've had this result. So therefore, let me do this rather than putting your partner and their needs and what maybe they want first. And so I, but I think this is all rooted in a person who is not

familiar with therapy, which is why it was great. You gave the definition of it at the beginning. And so he's just speaking from his experience. I don't, I don't think it's a bad intention, but I want him for me to understand when you say something like that, how that comes across. It feels this way. And if she can't go talk to anybody else,

then what is that? Then what is that? We don't disagree. This is what I'm trying to do. I get what you, I get it. Yeah, what I'm trying to do is before, and once again, I'm not saying this, before I indict it,

I'm trying to, it's difficult. It's important to say, hey, this is a controlling. It's important. I'm not disagreeing. Let me back up. I think we're giving a male perspective and a woman's perspective. So I'm not indicting him as a woman. I am telling him how it comes across.

Certainly. That's the point. And like I see things in relationships now and I go, huh. Like being older, I go, interesting. And I try not to be as a reality. active as I used to be, when I see women say certain things, I go, okay, well, that's important for you to feel safe. It doesn't actually make you safe, like whatever the thing is. It doesn't actually make you safe, but it's important for you to be able to see that so you can feel

safe, right? And sometimes when I see brothers, I say, the thing that you're talking about is not actually adding to your self-esteem in any way. Because your self-esteem, is actually how you feel about yourself regardless of accomplishing. Your self-esteem is how you feel about yourself regardless of accomplishment. It's being okay with you if the watch isn't on, if the bracelet isn't on,

if it's being okay with the makeup of who you are. It's really self-esteem to me is understanding the basis of humanity and to me the basis of humanity is intention. Everyone here is here intentionally. Your self-esteem to me comes from the fact that you are part of a grand universal experiment of emotion and consciousness. You are a person.

You are the rarest thing that has ever existed before. A trillion years in the future, there won't be another Rachel. And a trillion years in the past, there won't be another Rachel. You are here for a unique experiment of walking through this. world growing, learning, and affecting people. And that in and of itself makes you worthy. Not one more thing. There doesn't have to be another thing. There doesn't have to be a thing that you accomplished. It doesn't have to be a thing that you become. The fact that you are here means that you are worthy. You are worthy. That's self-esteem. So when I see people that go

around through life and have existed in a scarcity matrix to where only one person can have a pair of Jordans because nobody else has the money. Only one person can have a pair of sleep. Only one person can have a meal. So if only one person could have that, then the most important person is the person that can provide it. Really? These same guys that I see, they love they big mamas. Because she always had a little something to eat. She always had a little place for you to stay. She always had a hug for you, always had a little bit that she could give to you. She was the OG. A lot of these guys that we're talking about, their grandmonds were they OGs. They were the ones that could put you on something. And when they were gone, the guys in the streets or the guys that you looked

looked up to were the guys that could answer problems for you and solve problems for you. It's all the problem that you're not having nothing. It's all the problem or you can't be fly. It's all the problem when you get to that point, your manhood and your self-esteem

is actually grounded in you being able to do that for somebody. And when you can't do it for them, when they go get it from somewhere else, it feels like a slight to you. It feels like you're saying, wait a minute,

I've been through all of this, I've worked through all of this. Now I'm in the position to be able to do something for you and you don't want it. Not what does that say about you? What does that say about you? me. I think that's a really good point because the last thing I wanted to say about this is

both of those things can be true, right? Your girl or guy can go get therapy and still come to you and talk to you. Might help them talk to you in a better way. But just because they are talking to somebody else doesn't mean that they still can't talk to you to. Doesn't mean that they still can't come to you. So both of those things can be true. Well, yeah. And I would hope that, you know, If she needs therapy. I don't even know if they're still together, whatever. For whoever it may be, both of those things can happen. I'm just letting everybody know.

It's called all kinds of things that you can't do for your girl. You know, you can't give her the BBL. The doctor got to do that. Can you imagine how funny that would be if your girl's like, I need a, like, I want to get the BBL and you go, girl, how could you get the BBL, have another man's hands on your ass? I got to put the BBL in. that be misshaping asses all over the place

and we can't have that. Therapy is a resource. I think we should all do it. Sometimes our therapy should be in community with one another. We should talk, but when my brothers hit me up, I go to therapy. So sometimes I can talk to my brothers about the virtual therapy.

One person got to do it. You know who I am? Give them that, give it to them at the bottom. Then therapy plug later. I get it. You know what I'm saying? I go to therapy. I get the package.

You know what I'm saying? Then my brothers hit me up. I'm like, yo, man, I got some of this healing. Is what I'm saying? Come talk to me, man. I'll drop you off. I do the hand-in-hand. We could do it on the slick.

I got some of this healing. No stepped on shit. Got that pandemic. That's how I hand out there. I got some of that healing. Because God knows I need it. I'd be crying. Look, it is, it's, it's, we're all trying to do better.

We're all trying to do better. And one thing I do like, I like that he's sit down and having these deep conversations. He's really talking. Because nobody gets deeper. He's really talking. Nobody gets deeper than Ryan Clark on the pivot. Pause. Pause.

Jesus Christ. I love Ryan on the pivot. Ryan on the pivot is this is real, this is real OGN. Can I say something? Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about bad OGN, but we haven't talked about.

good O' gene. This is good O'GN. Ryan, Fred and Channing on the pivot, they're not all, you know why it's good O'GN? It's good O'GN because it's not always perfect, but it's always sincere and they always meet you where you at. Yeah. That's good O'GN. It's like, hey, we're doing our best. So we're going to explain to you how we think doing our best got us. I'm saying? Like, we're going to talk to you, but that's all. Good O.GN is not always having the right answer. Good O.GN is just like, hey, sit down, young brother. Let me talk to you.

You've been through a lot. Let's have this conversation in seriousness and love. There's other people that do good OGM, too. It's a lot of good OGM. We should, we should. We should. We should. We got to balance it out.

We got to balance out. That was a good call out. Pivot's doing some great OGM. Let's call out the good. Who else is doing good OG? You know, I give you, can I give you who I think OG a decade is? Ed Gordon, man. That's a good OG.

I'm sorry, man. I'm not doubting you. I fuck with Ed Gordon. I haven't seen him in a second, but me, Ed Gordon will talk and every time I'm, you're getting something,

you're getting something worthy from him. That's a good OG. We're going to save a place on the podcast for some good OGs. Some good ones. You think Barack Obama is a good OG? I mean, sure.

Sure. Yes, he's a good OG. I'm not even going to do that. Yes, he's a good OG. He's a good OG. All right, we got to go. There's more stuff to talk about. There's all kinds of stuff that's going on. We got a show coming up. We got Maxwell Frost on the show on Thursday. There are also some people that want to be Congressman, Congressman Maxwell Frost. I'm going to get Maxwell Frost's Democrats that he likes. We're going to get, Maxwell Frost is going to do something on this podcast. These people should be ready for. for it. So just listen to it. We need the Democrats that Maxwell Frost likes. So we're going to have a new segment and it's just going to be called name them.

Yeah. Okay? So this is a part of the name name them section. You just call it, you ask a very direct question and you say name them. Hold on. I love that. I love that. No, no, no. Oh, oh, no. Because I feel like we've had a couple of conversations where

we're like, say it, do it. Come on. And we'll see who's about it and who's not. Before we go, I do have to do one more thing. I'm sorry. I apologize. Donnie, I just sent you something. So, no.

Hold on. Donnie, I just sent you. This is going to be real quick, real quick. The government shutdown is looming. Like Laura, who they've been kicking her ass on Twitter. As they should. Now, I'm not one for the personal attacks, but like, she gets it. She won for the personal attacks?

Exactly. That's why, yeah. I don't even know why she stepped into the ring. Yeah, the goose is good as the gander gets the goblin. But I also wish, like, we just wouldn't pay attention to her. Because it's like, for what? You're a fucking intern. You need to get paid in what you do.

All you do- I'm talking about Laura Lumer? She's an intern. First of all, we can't, we can't do that. We can't disparage the interns. No, no, no, no. She isn't, the way she is going for the Trump administration, I don't think she gets paid for what she does for the Trump administration.

So she literally wants the attention. She wants to smoke. She wants to just be as outrageous as she. possibly can because she's not getting attention in any other way. So I almost wish this is one of those things where it's like, let Jasmine get at her because she's coming directly at Jasmine. But like, why the fuck are we paying attention to Laura Lumer? You don't give a fuck about her?

No, I don't. President listens to her. Well, and that's why he got up there and said they're eating the dogs and eating the cats. This is Laura Lumer. Okay. Like, the government shutdown is looming. We're going to talk a little bit more about that with Maxwell. Frost and you know what people some people think that the Democrats should vote for the

shutdown which I actually agree with Ezra Klein. I've been on Erzor Klein's ass and the Democrats should vote for it. Other people say that they shouldn't face the nation. I listen to the Sunday shows talking about the shutdown. The Democrats are going to be meeting with the president to discuss the shutdown. I want you guys to hear this. I want you guys to hear what was said in terms of what the Democrats are asking for

and what Donald Trump is asking for in conversations with the shutdown. We're not going to spend too much time on this, but I just want you guys to hear this. This was alarming to me. Donnie Poy. Robert Costa spoke this morning to President Trump. Robert, Bob Costa.

Top leaders, both parties, both sides of the Capitol are coming to the White House. Did the president tell you he thinks a shutdown can be avoided? A shutdown looks likely at this point, based on my conversation this morning with President Trump. He says both sides are. Stale me. Democrats want to extend health care subsidies that were part of the Affordable Care Act, but President Trump said his focus on health care is on preventing undocumented migrants

from having access to any of the U.S. health care system. Now, it's illegal for any non-citizens to have that sort of access. He just said it. He already just said it. Just so you guys know, there's a fight around health care between the Democrats and Donald Trump. The Democrats, for all the ways that we criticize them, are arguing for extending subsidies that come along with the Affordable Care Act, like financial existence for people to get help when they're sick. Donald Trump, his focus on health care is to make sure migrants don't get

it. So I want you guys to understand how profound a statement that is. There's one group that is trying to make sure that a certain cohort of people gets health care. Their most important thing is who gets health care. And then there is a different group that the most important thing is who doesn't get it. We are talking about supporting life for the human beings of earth. We're talking about you got cancer. We're talking about you have diabetes. We're talking about you have a broken leg, ingrown toe, Joe Burrow, turf toe.

We're talking about all different, we're talking about the health care of your bodiness, the bodiness that you reside in. Yeah. Like the help that you get when you have thing happen in brain or foot or ankle or finger, how you're going to pay for that? There's a group of people that are saying,

we will shut the government down if you don't give more money to people so they can pay for body thing. And then there is another group of people that is saying, I want to make sure that this group of people can't pay for body thing. And that's the most important deal. You guys, it's the little things.

Sometimes it's in there. That is fucking breathtaking. I'll tell you right now that if it meant that 34 million people would get health care or however many it was, if to me, if that meant that like even there were 10,000 to 15,000 people who fucked around and got cared for, it would make a damn bit of difference to me. First of all, that's not happening. These services are illegal for people under the law, so that's not happening. But think about the breathtaking lack of humanity.

There it is. That it takes for someone to say, I don't give a fuck about who does get treated for cancer. Excuse me. I don't give a fuck about who doesn't get treated for cancer. I give a fuck about who does. I give a fuck that this group of people don't get it fixed. and that would make me hold it up for the people who need this type of deal. I heard that and I was like, the people that support that, do you guys not hear what's being said?

Yes, they do. And they don't look at, well, they shouldn't be here anyway. That's literally, I'm not saying. I'm not even talking about them. I'm talking about, I'm not even talking about the migrants. The situation of the migrants, hey, guess what? The right. Like, that battle you won.

You won. They're kicking people's ass on the street. for no reason. I'm driving down the streets of LA. I'm seeing people looking around. They're scared. They're upset. You guys are running a terror campaign against brown people in this country.

And you got what you wanted. You guys have gotten so much other stuff that you wanted. You fought so hard for the ability to say nigger on Twitter. You got it. Like trans people like Mark Marend said are on the run. All your persecution and stuff, we're batting down shit left and right. like superintendents of schools accomplished black men

getting locked up weird weird playing whackamole with all of this we don't even know we're spun around and all of this stuff right now but do you even care about your own children getting health care can't you just stop the hate for a second

and be like I want little Jimmy to go to the doctor like can you just for one second not play the us or then game and be like yo I care if my wife gets treatment men for breast cancer. Because the way they have them thinking is it's not us that's the problem. You want to put them over us. Truly, that's literally what it comes down to. Like, no, of course I care

about the health care of my children. But you guys want people who aren't even supposed to be here to get health care. If you would just not be big on that, then we, like, that's literally how it goes in their mind. So we're about thinking about. I'll tell you this. Now see, see when you start coughing, y'all going to be like this is what happens the choice has been made and then the coughs come later on is going to be cough cough cough cough and then every then we're going to go to 60 minutes and probably not 60 minutes we're going to do a deep expose of all the rural hospitals that have closed and exactly the way this is fucked you over and we're going to be asked to have empathy on the other side for this when i'm telling you right now you could do something to stop it even though maybe you can't because maybe you're the lot has already been cast. That's the way to end it. Take the thing caps off, but do not stop learning. Thank you for Karen Atia for joining us.

Atia. Atia. Say it again. God damn it. Oh, Donnie. Just to let you guys know, Call of Duty is not made by EA. The games that are made by EA are Madden and college football and all that shit.

And I'll tell you something right now. college football 26 is not as good as the old one. Okay. Well, we were wondering. See? But why do you do that? All right.

I'll be better. You don't give, like, the game, see, this is why I'll talk about when I'm talking about the game. The game is important to me. I know. And I'm happy that you have it. When you talk about the stuff that you do

like with chicken nigger and you guys go around having different pieces of chicken and eating them with different sauces, do I hate on that? Just did. One of your favorite things to eat is chicken. You just did.

You literally say chicken diggers. What do you mean? You literally have the worst example that you gave. But can I be on? It is funny that y'all hang out with the Raising King people. It's funny. It's not like that. Yeah, I can't.

Just on the cool overall, before we go, overall. Isn't it just funny to hang out with the fried chicken empire people? I don't think of it like that. I'm not thinking about that. how do you think about it? They just, they got, it's chicken money. I don't hang out with him.

And I, but I, but I don't think about that. Like, she's a friend. She's, she's a friend, a chicken friend.

So I don't like, see that first before I see the other. Okay, just like, okay. Let's say I was cool with the Sanders family. Okay. And you asked me,

Van, what are you doing this weekend? I was like, I'm going down to Louisville to hang out with the Sanders. I'd be like, okay. And then you were like, who are the Sanders?

And I'm like, this is Colonel Sanders and his, his descendants. That would be funny. I'm not saying it's not. His descendants. I'm walking around. Everybody got that fucking black tie on. Like, that's funny. The descendants is funny.

The descendants of Colonel Sanders. Ronnie Sanders, the third. Lonnie Sanders. Brianna Sanders. Jean, the whole Sanders family. We down there. It's chicken. Anyway, they think caps off, but do not stop learning.

I'm Van Lentzy. I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Bye guys. The descendants is crazy. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Get ahead of summer with custom window treatments like solar roller shades from blinds.com and save up to 45% off during the Memorial Day Early Access Sale. Whether you want to DIY it or have a pro handle everything, we've got you.

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