Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Origins of COVID and the Demise of Dilbert

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Van and Rachel discuss the assessment that COVID-19 may have resulted from a lab leak (16:13) before welcoming vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez to help unpack the news (39:31). Plus, Dilbert creator Scott Adams exposes his racism (1:04:55), and Black masculinity continues to be discussed (1:26:35). Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Dr. Peter Hotez Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Our learning is on. It is I, Van Lathan, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, I'm on Vivans right now. How do you, wait, like day one? Mm-hmm.

How do you feel? She's fucking superhero. Like, very focused? I'm the man. What all have you accomplished today? Lots. I got my tire fixed. Oh, all right?

worked out. Yeah, you're crossing things off the list. Yeah, I get it. I'm the man. And you know what's funny? Huh? What did you say? Did you bring any?

No, you can't have my shit. See, you're trying to get me in trouble. That's what they were afraid of. They were afraid that was to become one of the world's foremost V V Vance dealers. You know, and by the way, I'm not advocating for anyone because I don't, just shut the fuck up, guys. I'm not advocating for anyone to take anything. And oh, Vance, pushing a big former man.

I mean, I'm the one who asked, so they'll probably get on me. We're joking. Yeah, it's, but there's a difference. In a good way. For me? So, this is life-changing for you. I don't know that it's life-changing. I can't tell...

Today it is. I can't tell whether or not it's because I've expected to be more focused and stuff. As he got distracted reading his phone. Yeah. I don't know if... I'm not sure. Super focused.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm not sure if it's a placebo thing or if it's like a. Let me ask you this. How long have you been trying to get your tire fixed? It just happened. Oh, shit. It's not a big deal. Okay. I'm thinking this was so good.

But I had a very, but I had a very productive morning. Woke up early. Take Bozeman out. Come back. Rather than sit around and bullshit, go get the tire fix. go straight from getting a tire fix to the gym. Hour and a half cardio. Leave the gym.

Oh, wow. Go back to get, go back to pick the tire fixed thing up. Come home. Come here, get here on time. Before on time. Your biggest fear was losing your creativity. How do you feel about that? Who knows?

A lot of people have been saying, you know, you're not that creative. Fuck you. But you got some harsh friends. I do. But like what I'll tell you, all right, in the overall scheme of things, what I'll tell you is that I'm feeling a little bit better. I'm happy for that.

I'm happy for that, especially on a shitty day like today. What's so shitty about today? I don't do well in the rain. I am really, I don't do well in overcast weather. I don't deal well with the rain. The cold I can handle, I lived in Wisconsin for years. It truly affects my mood.

I mean, look at what I'm wearing. I'm like in half pajama, furry PJs. I'm wearing Christmas socks. I'm just off today. Christmas socks. What the hell are you doing putting your foot on the desk? Well, you wanted to see what the Christmas socks look like. Who are all the Christmas socks?

That's a gingerbread man. Come on. Oh, I do see him. I feel sorry for your gingerbread man in many different ways. Because he gets eaten? Yeah. And oh, like limb by limb. and people find take pleasure and that.

It's so weird that we, you know, we do this thing to where we we make the gingerbread man like a pal. We don't really fuck with him. Do we do that? Is that in our culture? I mean, have you ever made a gingerbread house?

With white people. I've never done it with black people. Question. Question for the black people. Is gingerbread house is a thing for us? Do we fuck with that? I don't know. I've never made one.

But I've seen the gingerbread man before. Yeah, but we didn't even grow up making gingerbread cookies. See, I would think that y'all would do that type of shit. Y'all look like some gingerbread making ass niggas. I'm not going to lie. Why do you say that? Just because y'all... Why do you say...

Y'all are wholesome in that way. Why is it so... Well, we did other things. What was some of the wholesome things that the Lindsay clan did in the holidays? Sweeters? You guys ever wear sweaters? We didn't do sweaters. We did, you know, we hung up the stockings with their names on.

And we decorate the Christmas tree together. Sometimes I played the piano. Christmas carols. Play piano. Christmas. I'm saying. Okay, see what I'm saying? No, I know.

That's false. So you guys had a piano in your house. Yeah. That's rich as fuck. No, it's not rich. Either you rich or you somebody. You know, I grew up playing the piano from like five to. Either you're rich to have a piano or your grandmother had the piano from like

1954. There's either one. I've never known anyone, anyone in life, that had a piano in their crib. Not one person. Not one person have I ever known I had a piano in their group. I sit down at the piano and you play the piano. You guys got all together and you play the piano

and you sing tunes and family stuff together. That's what you do. That would happen. Yeah. What songs would you all sing? I mean, like only ones I could play. I mean, it was a kid. Like what songs?

You know, like jingle bells. Yeah. So not exactly the prodigy on the piano. Actually, I was in classical music. Interesting. I was playing really, big pieces and up until 10.

What? Whoa. I told you I'm off today. Oh, that came later. I was like, whoa, whoa. I could imagine the judge being like the guy from Whiplash.

You ever see that movie? No, I haven't. You ever see? I could be like the judge. Like he made you play the piano, huh? he did. No, he didn't make us. I don't know.

I mean, I was a middle child, right? So my oldest sister was playing it. So naturally, it was, I was going to play. And my oldest sister got out of it. And my parents were like, absolutely not. You were not quitting the piano. So I played from 5 to 18. And I was really, really good.

Really good. 10 and 11, like classical music, sonatas, all that kind of stuff. And then I got into sports. I mean, I was already doing a summer track, but I got into sports. We took piano off in the summer. And so I fell off. But I played for Sunday school all the way

until I graduated high school. Sunday school all the way you graduated high school. So we were at the NAACP Awards this weekend. Yeah. We were there. Me and you, Kaleika, Brian. We all went. And I had a great time.

The whole time? Do we get into the story? No, we don't. But like I said, this is the important thing. remember I love black people. I do too. Love them. Love black people. So being there, we saw Jonathan that night, we're able

to talk to him. We saw, I saw, shout out to everyone I ran into, get your dings ready. Vanessa Bell Calloway, Wendell Pierce, Malcolm Lee, my brother's from, Ernie Leisure podcast, which is a podcast you guys should be listening to. Carrie Twig.

Ryan Coogler. Ryan Coogler. Shout out to Coos. Rand The Coogs talked to him a little bit that just so many different people. So many different people had the chance to stand out there and talk to because we were standing sort of

outside the inside of the thing. We weren't standing out. We were in the NWASB. Yes, we were in the lobby. We were waiting for the bar to open. And then we realized, man, you keep running into people. This is great to see people. It was a spot.

Yeah. You could say we created a spot. I don't know if I would say that. You would say that. I wouldn't say that. I will say that. We created the spot. And then it became a thing where everybody's out there chilling around.

We never actually went and got sat down inside of the NAACP Awards to watch. And just being at an award show like that with so many amazing people. And I don't want to live out of Jamel. I saw Jamel there too. Oh, yeah. Tiffany Cross, everyone. Being there with so many amazing people, it reminds you how much you love black people.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And sometimes you love black people so much that you're okay with being treated poorly by them. I don't know what you're talking about. And that's an important thing to say. You know, I heard it was not a black person who was over the whole thing. Wasn't, who was it? Grant Cardone?

No. Everybody mad at that niggas, so I was figuring, like, why not just throw him under the bus? Why? Because he said something. Do you know who Grant Cardone is? You know who that is? The motivational speaker? I never knew who that was.

Apparently, he said something like when he talks to white people, he talks regular. And then when he talks to niggas, he talks different. He talks street vernacular. So I'm not a big fan. Brian is really into motivational speakers. So I learned who he was first through Brian. And then I did his wife's podcast, but she pissed. me off because I was, I asked her, I was like, I'm going to say to you my wedding date,

which was private. And I said, but you, she was, I said, bleep my mouth out. Because I was like trying to, you know, she's building up her podcast and was like trying to do thing. And I was like, oh, but bleep it out. And she was like, oh, okay. Yeah, she's like, yeah, she said, thank you so much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I went to her, their penthouse, all this stuff. So we were living in Miami. That's where they live. Podcast comes out. Bam. Exclusive. Because I had a deal with People magazine. She gives all the information in the podcast. And then it was like, oh, I'm so sorry, we'll take it down.

It's too late. It's too late. Mrs. Cardona? So I got a thing. So you don't like them. They did that to you because you're black and they treat you like a street name. Well, apparently based off what you just said. Well, so I don't know.

I even know. People were mad at him about it, but I don't know. So look, we all went to the NAACP Awards. It was in, was in Bazaama St. Joan and somebody else who we saw shout out of those. We went there, my friend Cameron Fife. Everyone that was me. I'm sorry, I don't like leaving people out. So we go to the awards.

Fridgett, frigid. We saw our breath. LA is on some different shit. I don't like it. They're not used to it. We come from temperate climates. Yeah. I've done this before.

I didn't move out here for this. Yeah, it's tough. And it's been going on too long. And then this was. really the most terrible thing that happened for the entire night. I'll tell you guys. So we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse after and it was great. We're all dressed up. The people at Ruth's Chris thought that we dressed up there to come to Ruth's Chris. I'm sorry Ruth's Chris Pasadena, but we had somewhere to go before. So we all ate together.

We're having a fun time. We're talking. And I order cheesecake. I order all the different stuff that we get to go. Because we're going to, what we're going to do is we're going to go. We're going to eat the cheesecake when I get home. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You get two different bags because you guys have some stuff. You have some stuff. I get home looking through the back.

Kalika's looking through the bag. No motherfucking cheesecake. So stupid. You got my fucking cheesecake. And I got, oh, fucking lambing. chop and a half that you had left over in there. I ate the lamb chops by the

last you were able to enjoy something because that cheesecake went home with the wrong folks. Y'all didn't eat it? It just sat there. You're still there? It's still on the counter. It's on the counter? We never even put it. Y'all didn't put my motherfucking cheesecake in a refrigerator? What's the

type of people? Oh my God. Brian opened it? And he goes, oh man, we got their cheese It was the next day. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kaleika texted me last night and said that we got the wrong back. And I was just like...

Do you know I was still baking on getting my cheesecake back? Why wouldn't y'all take the fucking cheesecake? You didn't hit me up and say Rachel Greasing cheesecake today. No, but I wouldn't have wanted it now. It's going to look like a fucking impotent piece of melted fucking... No, what did you say? If you thought I was going to bring it for you, you didn't even say, preserve it for me. Rachel, bring it today.

Did you and Kalika talk about the cheesecake? She just said, we got your... cheesecake and I was like, yeah, girl. At that point, why wouldn't you take the cheesecake and put it in a refrigerator knowing that it's mine now? I just figured it was a lost cost at that point. I see what I'm saying? I just figured it's done.

You weren't meant to have the cheesecake. Obviously not. We put y'all shit in the refrigerator. And then I was like, fucking smack going down, so I ate it. By the way, thank you. You ate my food. You're no better. So I will say this.

we're a little closer now. You know why? Why? Because there was a piece of the lamb chop. You ate the part. I ate awesome. And she had already eaten. So I'm standing there.

I'm looking. I warmed it up. I thought you just didn't get to some of the lambschots, but you took up. I'm looking at it and I'm like, damn. This doesn't fit. I'm like,

nah, man, it's right. And I just ate that you. We had been COVID tested and everything. You were good. I've been COVID tested several times. Several different times. It would have been nice to know that I needed a COVID test.

I used to have a friend when people would try to drink after her. She'd be like, I sucked it. Jesus Christ. They would be like, never mind. Do you think that that is

because everybody sucks things, right? Like most women, you'd say. Okay, yeah, I was going to say, not everybody does. You could never drink behind anyone.

Like, for example. It offended enough people for her for when she would do it. It's because of the visual. Sure. Like as children, and I know people don't like to talk about this, but we drank after our mothers.

Yes, and I'm glad that you just stopped there. That's why I stopped, because people still haven't gotten over that. Like, people still haven't gotten over that. I'm saying, it's like, that's not a big deal. You know, you drink after people. No, it's the visual, like you said.

This is the same friend who used to walk up to somebody be like, hi, I'm a good time. She's a white girl. Oh, for real? Uh-uh. All right, guys, we got we got a lot of stuff to talk about, but we have to talk about big, big news here regarding some stuff that's gone down

with the origins of COVID, right? People are discussing new findings about where COVID might have come from. We're going to talk about that and we're going to have a guess. Dr. Peter Hotes. Dr. Peter Hotes is going to give us a little bit more information on this to make sure you guys are in the know about how all of this affects you and the future of finding potentially deadly pathogens that could hurt the world population. That's on the other side of this. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis,

which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before a treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the final, PANDUL 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. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms.

So the U.S. Energy Department assesses COVID-19 likely resulted from a lab leak. That is a slightly seismic announcement. Just for people who do not remember, the origins of COVID have been hotly debated. Sometimes along cultural and political lines, with some people believing that COVID occurred naturally, jumping from animals in wet markets in China and others believing that a facility in Wuhan was performing what's called gain of function research and created a more contagious coronavirus

and it then leaked out and ended up costing millions of on millions of people their lives. Now, two sources said that the Department of Energy assessed in this intelligence report that it had low confidence that the COVID-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Just so you guys know, a low-confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough or is too fragmented to make it a more definitive judgment or that there is not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion. However, when you have that, along with some other assertions made by different

sort of organizations, it seems as if that the lab leak theory surrounding COVID-19 is coming into the mainstream in a way that maybe it hasn't before. That before to suggest this put you on a kook sort of lunatic fringe, there seems to be, in the past, people have have gone out of their way to dismiss anyone that had ever even suggested that a lab leak was possible. And this seems in a way, at least to me, to have sort of vindicated some of those people or mainstream this idea. I mean, but it's low confidence. Yeah. So why is that making it seem like it's even more believable when you read the definition of low confidence?

Well, it's not that it's more or less believable. The origins of COVID are something that, you know, it takes, and we want to talk to the doctor about this, but it would probably take a lot more transparency from China for us to really know. Exactly, which we know that they've destroyed things. Yeah, but I mean, when you, so here's the thing about the energy department. The FBI had made statements before about where they felt like COVID came from. And they said moderate.

Right. Right. But they also said lab leave. Right. Moderate. Right. And now it's low. The difference between the energy department and the FBI is that the energy department, they have staff experts and they oversee labs. And it's their low confidence reporting is taken with, it's more serious for a lot of people than what the FBI would have said or organizations like that because they have a little.

bit more expertise in this area, right? People that have come to other conclusions, it's based, you know, particularly on intelligence. And this one, it seems as if because they have an understanding of how things work inside of labs, because they staff labs, because they know kind of what's going on, that maybe they have more capability to make an assessment that has some sort of credibility to it. Now, this does not mean that in any way, in any way, this is a slam dunk, we should say. Right. The White House talked a little bit about this.

And this is what they said. Donnie, play what the White House guy said. There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how COVID started. That work is still ongoing. But the president believes it's really important that we continue that work and that we find out as best we can, it started so that we can better prevent a future pandemic. I mean, that's the idea here is to get ahead of it so that, you know, should there be another one or should there even be the signs of another one, we can better get ahead of it.

So there seems to be no certainty, according to the White House. It's in no way of smoking gun. But, you know, if I was a lab leak theory person, I would feel, I mean, just to be honest with you guys. This is the issue. Okay. First of all, let me finish my statement. If I was a lab leak theory person,

I would actually be celebrating today because, hey, the energy department says that I'm not crazy. Can I just say some one thing before you get all into it? Sure. Is there a difference between, oh, this accidentally leaked,

or are you just looking at this as the fact that it was gain a function and this is something that they were working on should never been happened, period. because there's also people who think that they were trying to create some type of weapon to weaponize this and leak it out purposefully. So I guess my thing is we keep saying accidentally versus it purposefully leaking. Right. Well, gain of function, gain of function experiments as I understand them, and the doctor will be on in a second.

These are research experiments that are done. Right. And sometimes in researching a particular virus, pathogen, whatever, it gets stronger because you fuck with it. You fuck with it to see why it's doing this, why it's doing that. You might combine it. There was a story I'm going to ask them about down in Boston with them trying to understand the COVID pandemic that we're in right now and SARS COVID 2. And in doing this, they reportedly created something called Omicron S, which was much more lethal than the strains of COVID that we have seen. And the reason why they were doing, this is what they did that is trying to understand COVID in and of itself and how it changed throughout its lifespan and how it mutated.

So just because there was gain of function research happening potentially in Wurton, Wuhan or anywhere else, doesn't mean that they were purposely trying to make a weapon. It means what could have happened is that this could still be an accident, but it can be an accident that happened on purpose. You understand what I'm saying? Purpose, because they were working. Because they were working on the virus, right? I get that what you're saying.

But is the goal of gain a function to be able to better understand the virus? Like it's a positive thing. Well, gain the function, gain the function research. Gain the function research is used in all different types. Right. So you use this in cancer research. They use this in all types of, yeah. Yes. So I guess I understand what you mean by purposeful,

like a purposeful accident. I guess that. But is it if the purpose is for research? Well, this is what I mean. Because I felt like, and the only reason I'm asking this, and then please continue, sorry not to interrupt you is, Republicans jumping on this. right? Like, oh, it's a lab leak, it's a lab leak. I felt like their intention was that they,

that they did this to us on purpose. And not accidental. That's the guess where I'm coming from. Right. So there are two different schools of thought there. We should talk about that. Yes. One school of thought on that side of things is that this was some sort of bio attack or not just the United States, but the rest of the world to cripple economies in some sort of way. And you have a fringe of the right, not just the right, but you have a group of people out there. on the left and the right, to be honest with you, that believe that that was the case, right? And then there's a different sort of group of people that say that this was a lab leak and that China has been less than cooperative in trying to ascertain where COVID came from

because they know that it came from a lab in Wuhan. And they don't want to have to answer to the world community about the fact that this was man-made or modified in some sort of way. Either one of those really don't make that much of a difference because I don't have very much faith in the average political consumer now to be able to differentiate the two, whether or not it was an intentional bio attack. Sure. Or whether or not it was something that was purposely made in a lab and then got out.

People are going to say, well, at that level, when there's a million people dead, if it was purposely done, it doesn't matter. Now, we also have to remember that part of this is cultural and political because of what happened during the time that Donald Trump was president. During the time that Donald Trump was president, they cast China in a very clearly villainous role in terms of COVID. And there were widespread consequences for that in the Asian population all over the world, particularly here in America. And we saw spike. and violence against people. I don't know nothing about no motherfucking Wuhan

and have nothing to do with this, any of that stuff. Right. So part of throwing cold water on the lab leak theory was to make sure that there wasn't some sort of, of, of, culpability

put on China that would then, in my opinion, that would then spill over to Asian Americans. Mm-hmm. Okay. The question is now, and this is the frustrating part about being an American citizen now for me and I'll ask you, don't you want to know where COVID came from, no matter if the answer to the question is convenient or inconvenient to your political beliefs? Like the fact that we can't, that we don't have people that are serious enough to actually ask and interrogate this question. regardless of political or cultural motivation, something that's killed this many people

that it's this important to study is chilling to me. You don't think that people are, because I thought the issue was, it's not that people aren't asking a question, it's that they really need help from the Chinese in order to fully understand what happened in Wuhan.

And it's my understanding that they've gotten rid of evidence, documents and even having provided access to the very first people who were infected. So I felt like it's not a matter of they're not asking those questions. They've kind of hit a standstill because they can only go so far.

I could be wrong, but that's just my understanding of it. I'm talking about specifically when it comes to, I mean, what we're able to get from the Chinese, it's they're not actually, it's not bastions of free speech, expression, and investigation. You're never going to get the Chinese

in my opinion to participate in something that I'm that honestly interrogates where COVID came from I don't think that's what happened but as far as us what this does to me is it's going to separate the people who are honestly trying to figure out where this how this pandemic started okay when I say where I know we know whereabouts where I'm talking about whether a lab or in a wet market okay which are the two places that people are saying, from the people that are trying to weaponize this and use it as a dart to either shoot at the Chinese or to shoot at whomever doesn't agree with whatever world order they're propping up. Because now it seems at least, and maybe not, maybe everything isn't equal,

but it seems both of these ideas, both a natural occurrence and a lab leak, are worth discussing. Absolutely. In a way that for a lot of people, because of this report, in a way that maybe they weren't before. Hmm. I mean, I totally understand that because I think we all should be curious and we should all want to know, especially if it's likely that another virus could happen in the future. You want to know for the future of being able to defend ourselves or prepare for another health crisis. We don't want to see this happen like this again.

So I completely agree with you. Yeah, we should want to know. I just don't think we ever are with this particular virus. COVID-19, I am not hopeful that we will, because the first thing that you said when we started talking about this, it's been politicized at this point. we are so I don't think we will ever get down to the bottom of it. I'm not just going to blame it on the fact that we are hitting a standstill in regards to getting certain information from China. I think it's because we are also our own worst enemy in the way that we have politicized how this started. Sure.

So Tom Cotton is one of the guys who was very early on the lab league here. And I don't know if this was because Tom Cotton had any specific information. about this or whether or not it was because he wanted to fuck somebody. Now, this is the headline from

talking about what happened here. All right. We're not Tom Cotton fans, but this is the headline. This is the headline from the New York Times. February 17th, 2020. Now, I am not saying...

2020? I'm not saying that we had near about enough information at this point to really know where this thing came from. Okay. But the headline is this. Senator Tom Cotton repeats fringe theory of coronavirus origins. Scientists have dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government was behind the outbreak. Once again, the words are very important here.

but it's the kind of tale that gains traction among those who see China as a threat. It's very important the wording there to say that the Chinese government is behind the outbreak is wholly different than talking about the potential of a lab leak being responsible for the pandemic in and of itself. even in his response to this, this was what Tom Cotton said. Some people are spiking the football for him. He said, what matters, being proven right doesn't matter, is what he tweeted.

What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so that this doesn't happen again. That already is assigning blame to the Chinese Communist Party to the Chinese government. I'm not making anything, I'm not defending China in any way. I'm saying that that is not agnostic from the type of politically charged speech that we really need in order to get answers here. The politicians that I would want would say, hey, being proved right doesn't matter.

What matters is that we find out where COVID came from, how COVID occurred. Yes. And what we need to do to be prepared, ready to save lives in the event of, or, really incredible mutation or another sort of COVID, another sort of outbreak of COVID. Fuck whatever you want to, who you want to point the finger at. That's only for you to politically masturbate for your people to. I just don't know that we have politicians or public servants there to do this enough to do this.

That's on the other side too. When I say it's on the other side, I mean because we need people serious enough to really interrogate whether or not this was a lab league. what would you say is the suggestion to do? Because you're saying it's on both sides. So what are they not doing? They're not doing science. They're doing politics.

And politics is bad for science. Politics is bias. It's tribalism. It's my team versus your team. I get that. The scientific method is about controls, hypotheses, It's about finding out getting to the center of a problem.

And they're not, neither side is doing. Well, there are people that are doing that. But I'm talking about the public services that we have entrusted in order to kind of make these decisions. They're trying to figure out who to blame. And that's not what we should be doing. Who is the organization science that is in charge of doing that? Because you're saying that they're trying to place blame. which organization is doing that?

What you mean? Which organization is? Which site? Because you said they're not doing the science, right? Are you talking about the politicians? Are you talking about these actual, like, is it, I honestly don't know. Is it NIH? So, this is what I mean.

Who is not doing it? There are definitely people that are doing the science. There are people that are trying to find out where COVID came from. Okay. What I'm talking about is, maybe I should say that differently. That's actually a good point. What I should say is the people that are speaking about this aren't giving the science. Agreed.

Agreed. It's opportunity agreed to tell its truth. Yes. They want to make sure that whatever they thought is

is reinforced. And isn't that what the society we're living in now? I mean, no, but what I'm saying this is very important. Yeah.

But I mean, we debate vaccines now. You know, we question these, we question CDC, who? NIH. Like that's...

I mean, but look, there's a difference between questioning and a vaccine, is the difference between asking questions about when you go to your doctor, like I went to the doctor to have the abscess from me. I asked a million questions.

Like a million questions. People talk about doing their own research, right? There's nothing wrong with asking questions, doing research about how something that you might ingest, take about a treatment, about how it's going to affect you. Right.

But if you're going to make the assertion that your research in some way supersedes, decades, sometimes hundreds of years of scientific discovery and breakthrough, then you better be fucking qualified to have that discussion. I agree. And that's sort of kind of what we're missing here. Exactly. Now, there's a guy I want to hear from right now. We're going to talk about gain of function.

His name is Francis Collins. He's a science advisor to the president. He went on Lex Freeman's podcast. And he talked a little bit about gain of function, what it means, what these experiments entail. And before we bring on the doctor, We're going to hear a little bit from him. He is the director of the NIH.

NIH's National Institutes of Health, which some people are actually blaming. Donnie, go ahead and play the question. The more you know about the coming enemy, the better chance you have to recognize when trouble is starting. And so if you can do it safely, studying influenza or coronavirus is. like SARS-MERS and SARS-CoV-2 would be a good thing to be able to know about, but you have to be able to do it safely because we all know. Lab accidents can happen. I mean, look at SARS where there have been lab accidents and people who have gotten sick as a result.

We don't want to take that chance unless there's a compelling scientific reason. That's why we have this very stringent oversight. the experiments being done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a sub-award to our grant to eco-health in New York did not meet that standard of requiring that kind of stringent oversight. I want to be really clear about that because there's been so much thrown around about it. Was it gain of function? Well, in the standard use of that term that you would use in science in general, you might say it was. But in the use of that term that applies to this.

very specific example of a potential pandemic pathogen, absolutely not. So he claims that it wasn't even true gain of function research that was going on at Wuhan. That it's only partly gain of function research that was going on in Wuhan.

And what was the other half? No, it's it's just weird that sometimes you can't get a fucking straight-ass. Well, isn't that just them saying that they really don't know? I don't think they know, they really know definitively what was going on. This guy's an LSU thing.

That has nothing to do with it. I'm looking at it right now. He loves LSU. Well, maybe that's the problem. Whatever. Look, we're doing our best. This is very heady stuff, and we're going to bring on Dr. Peter Hotez right now. We're going to ask them all the tough questions about were the lab leaders treated it unfairly, the lab leakers, the LA leakers, the LAB leakers, where they treated it

unfairly, the possibility that this was actually a lab leak, the possibility that this is being overblown, what gain of function research actually is, what that means? Is it safe? And we hope to have a better understanding at the end of this conversation. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also be. develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

Trimphaya, gusalcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Okay, so to help us make a little bit more sense out of what's going on in the news right

now as in regards, as it sort of, I'll do that again, to help us make a little bit more sense. make a little bit more sense as far as what's going in the news right now in regards to the origins of COVID and speculation on that. We have brought in someone who is much more qualified than us to talk about this. Professor Peter Holtes, he is a vaccine scientist, a pediatrician, and an advocate in the field of global health and vaccinology. He's the dean, he's a learned man, of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and the co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Doctor, thank you for joining us.

My first question is Americans right now do not know what to believe as far as the origins of COVID are concerned. This is a highly culturally divisive and politicized issue. The recent report that says the Energy Department says that it's likely that it comes from a lab, in Wuhan, I scared the hell out of a lot of people. When you first saw that report, what did you think? It didn't make sense to me. And here's why. Remember, COVID-19 is not our first

rodeo when it comes to coronavirus. We had severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS in 2002, that arose out of a wet market in southern China. And then we had Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome that emerged on the Arabian Peninsula 2012. Those are two very serious coronavirus infections, very high levels of mortality, even higher mortality than COVID-19.

So COVID-19 is the third. And we now know from two back-to-back published papers in Science Magazine, which is one of our most prestigious scientific journals, that the first cluster of cases of COVID-19 all occurred in a wet market in Wuhan. which is similar to how SARS emerged. So the point is that this is a virus that lives among bats. And from time to time, these viruses from bats either jump to humans directly or they go through a second intermediate animal,

including the animals, unfortunately, which they keep in the wet markets in China, which they were supposed to shut down, but they didn't. So most likely this virus came out of one of the small mammals that they keep in those wet markets in Wuhan, like a raccoon dog or a civet cat, these very exotic animals that they sell in those wet markets. And that's where the cluster of cases was first identified. If this was a lab leak,

the major closest institute that works on coronaviruses or works on high containment pathogens is in Wuhan, but it's about 10 kilometers away on the other side of the river. that if it was a lab leak, I would have expected that this virus would have popped up in multiple places across the city of Wuhan and in central China. It would not be clustered among the wet market, which is 10 kilometers away, and you'd expect it to be all over in between. And so that's why

it doesn't make sense to me to call this a lab leak. I just haven't seen any evidence at all. and people say, well, there's a high containment lab in Wuhan. Well, there's high containment labs in every major city in China. I mean, they all were created after SARS in 2002. And so they're in Kunming, they're in Beijing, they're in Shanghai. So pretty much any place that COVID-19 would have emerged, people would have identified an institute. So the bottom line is there's a lot of evidence suggesting the virus emerged

out of a wet market from a mammal intermediate host. And I don't see any evidence that it emerged from a lab leak. I mean, no evidence at all. I mean, there is the fact that there is a high containment lab somewhere in a different part of Wuhan. But that's all that's really going for it. And so what about reports that came out in 2021 that there were members of the lab that was lab staff in the lab at Wuhan that actually had gotten sick. Did you see that?

That's almost a year and a half old now. It was reported while in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters or Reuters, a couple other people. That's right. So in the fall of 2019, I think it was reported by the South China Morning Post, although I'm not sure that there were a few workers at the Wuhan Institute. who reported that they felt sick or had febrile illnesses. But you know what?

That's also flu season. I mean, there's a lot of different things that could be. There was no evidence that it was COVID-19. The only first bona fide COVID-19 cases were all clustered in that wet market. And so that's why, you know, I just don't see any there there for the lab leak. you know, the energy, so the Biden administration has been sharing this classified information with the Intelligence Committee, and they asked for the opinions of the Energy Lab scientists. There's some good scientists, the Energy Lab, like, and they include Los Alamos Laboratory and

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. But there's not concurrence, and my understanding is most of the intelligence laboratory, that most of the intelligence agencies, agree with the science magazine papers that had occurred out of natural origins out of the wet market. The energy lab conclusion that it could have been due to a lab leak, first of all, they say with low confidence,

apparently that's some kind of intelligence speak that I don't quite understand. Number one, number two, they're not the prevailing view. They're in the minority opinion at this point. So now it could be that the energy labs have access to classified information that might have them come to a different conclusion from what's publicly available. And I suppose that's a possibility. But from the publicly available information, I don't see any evidence of a lab leak. We do have these two competing theories out of how, of the origins of COVID-19.

Can you speak to why it's so important for us to know how this virus originated? Well, there's actually three competing theories, and they may not be mutually exclusive. So one was that the virus was deliberately created through what's called gain of function research by manipulating the genetic material of the virus in the laboratory. The other is that the virus was kept in the lab, and then it was leaked. and then the third is the natural origins coming from bats to people or bats through a second intermediate animal host.

My reason I feel strongly that it's most likely a laboratory, that it's natural origins is the whole reason we started working on coronavirus vaccines in the first place. We've been working on coronavirus vaccines for 12 years and we started it because we saw the virus emerge

in southern China in 2002, from creating SARS and then Mears in 2012. And we said, you know what, it's just a matter of time before there's a third major coronavirus pandemic. And sure enough, right on Q, it happened. And the fact that we were working on the coronavirus vaccines for 12 years allowed us to identify the spike protein as the target of the virus, how you delivered the spike protein.

And we were able to pivot that program around when COVID-19 emerged, when the sequence came online in bio-arrow. archive in January of 2020. And we made a COVID vaccine technology, a low-cost patent-free COVID vaccine technology that we gave to, we licensed to India and Indonesia. And they've with no patent. And they've now administered 100 million doses of our vaccine technology. So we provide a proof of concept. You don't have to be a big pharma company to still do important things. But the whole point is the reason we were able to hit the ground running is we'd been working on coronavirus vaccines for 12 years because we knew there was going to be a third one. And by the way,

the bad news is there's going to be a fourth one. These viruses are jumping from bats to people or through a second intermediate animal hosts every day. And some say thousands of times a day. And it's just a matter of time before one gains critical mass or catches fire. So if you look at the timing schedule, 2002, 2012, 2019, roughly every seven years, every seven years, Mother Nature hurls a new coronavirus pandemic at us. So I would expect 2026, 27 will get a fourth one. And that's why we have to get ready. And I worry that all of this lab leak stuff and gain a function conspiracy stuff is a distraction because the fourth one's coming and we're still not preparing for that next pandemic. Okay, two questions from me, and you can take these in order.

Number one, can you describe to people what gain function experiments are? And the question is, if you're predicting another pandemic along these same lines in a couple of years, Do you think that gain of function experimentation is necessary to be able to be ready for that disease or virus in the event that it does pop up in the next three or four years? Well, gain of function research is either inserting genes or manipulating genes in order to make the virus more virulent or better able to attack. animals or people. And there are labs that have been doing genetic manipulations of coronaviruses, not necessarily to make them more virulent, but to understand how these viruses bind to the ACE2 receptor.

Can they bind to alternative receptor? So there is a need for fundamental virologic research. But we do have, we do have safety. protections to limit that. Now, you can argue that maybe we need to improve our laboratory oversight monitoring, and I have no problem with that. You can argue that there's too many laboratories internationally that have high containment virus pathogens, and we can't keep tabs on it, and we need to provide some governance over that. All of that makes sense. With the caveat that, that we don't want to tie one hand behind

virologists back so they can't find the next pandemic because there's a lot of surveillance that we need to do in a lot of of virologic studies because it's not only just coronavirus. Don't forget there's that thing called avian influenza and pandemic influenza and zoonotic influenza.

So, and even before COVID-19, we worried a lot about that. Those issues still haven't gone away. So if we're under threat, from a lot of virus pathogens. And a number of them come from bats. For instance, Ebola comes from bats. COVID-19 came from bats.

All the coronaviruses seem to come from bats. Nippovirus comes from bats. And what seems to be happening is a combination of human migrations and climate change. We're starting to see bat migrations go into new areas. And with aggressive urbanization, people are coming into more closer contact with bats. So bacteri viruses are going to be a new normal. And we need the virologists on top of this in order to monitor it and to look for the emergence of new pathogens.

So it's always a balance, right, between regulating practices so people aren't doing anything reckless, at the same time, not being so restrictive that we help virologic research and we can't detect the next pandemic. What would you say is the give and take? There was a story out of Boston last year that said that a virologist down there had used gain of function research to create a new strain of COVID that was called Omicron S. And the purpose of this research was to better understand the virus, better understand, you know, how the virus was transmitting itself. but in doing this, I guess they created a strain

that was 80% more lethal in the transgenic mice that they had. They had had some mice and they had used the mice and there's this whole thing. You can read about it. And they take the mice and they use genetic stuff to make the mice their lung tissue more

more like a human beings. And so they're testing how this virus would affect human beings, but in doing so, they make like a super virus, right? The question I think a lot of people are asking, especially when it comes to gain of function research and stuff like that is, we want to know, I particularly want to know the tradeoff between understanding a virus better

so that we can be better equipped for it, right? and creating something that is potentially lethal if it were to escape or if it were to get in the wrong hands, because if we had a strain of COVID right now, that was 80 percent. Obviously, that's a existential threat. That's a world-ending scenario. So I think a lot of people, when they hear this back and forth, we can't really have conversations about it because the issue has been so politicized. what is the point of making something stronger so that you can study it?

Like break that down for people so they understand what it is that happens because what happens is, and just the last thing I'll say about that, Doc, what happens is people start to believe in a boogeyman that's in a lab somewhere creating a super strong virus either to weaponize it

or for shits and giggles and they don't understand. And Rand Paul gets it and now we're all out of the place. What's the purpose of doing this? What's the research purpose of making a virus stronger? Well, I don't have the details. I think this was out of Boston University, wasn't it? And I don't have the details of that. My understanding was that it was not being done deliberately to create, quote, a stronger virus. And there was no deliberate plan for, quote, gain a function. But there were genetic manipulations of the virus that they found happened to.

to cause higher degrees of lethality in mice. So that could be a possibility, but that might not have been, I don't think, the intention of the research to actually do gain a function research. I mean, and this is why this kind of work is done in a specialized biosafety level four facility. So there's only a few of these in the United States.

There's one down here in Galveston, the Galveston National Laboratory. There's one in Boston with Boston University. And this is why you do this under very high containment protocols and with years and years of specialty training working in those biosafety level for facilities. So I think it is important to be able to do this kind of research in order to understand how this virus works

because that's how you design new drugs and vaccines and countermeasures. And unfortunately, we've got some bad actors out there globally that are attempting to weaponize this. So we learned, for instance, that during the closing years of the Soviet Union, they had an elaborate system of creating bio-weapons in the Soviet Union, not only viruses manipulating smallpox, but also anthrax, which is a bacterial infection. and the CIA got briefed on this by a defector who came to the United States. And I think we need to make a lot of efforts to prevent deliberate bio-weaponization of pathogens. So we know this was going on in the USSR.

Some say maybe this is going on in North Korea or Iran or elsewhere. And that needs to be carefully curtailed. But I think you want to be, it's kind of that, balance between being able to do important virologic research in order to design these countermeasures with careful governance and oversight so that nothing reckless gets done. And there is no kind of leak out of a biosafety level four facility. But I think what I'm worried about is the false allegations of gain a function or lab leak, you know, in China, assuming that's confirmed, means that that that wasn't the case could have a chilling effect on sort of holding all viralogic research or significant

curtailing of biological research. And then we're not in a position to fight the next round of pandemics like coronaviruses and nipovirus and flu, et cetera. Last question for me really quickly. We talk about, you know, a leak from a lab or accidental leaks. How often does that happen or does it even happen at all? I think it does happen, but it's uncommon, and it's typically sort of a self-limited type of endeavor that somebody can get accidentally infected while working in the laboratory. But as far as I know, there are not examples where this has produced a significant epidemic, and this has been going on for years and years. of viral logic. And again, I think, you know, if this presents an opportunity

for Department of Health and Human Services and CDC and NIH to review their policies and make some decisions that there's some things that need to be bolstered and strengthened, I think that's absolutely fine. but I would hate to see that happen because of false assertions around lab leaks leading to COVID-19. And again, the emphasis needs to be on really understanding the origins of COVID-19, just like we did SARS and Mirrors. You know, we don't really understand it at a deep granular level how COVID-19 emerged. I mean, we know bats were involved. we know a second intermediate animal host was involved.

But we've never really done the detailed outbreak investigation that needs to be conducted. By that I mean, you know, an international team of scientists, which includes bad ecologists and virologists and epidemiologists and epidemiologists working in Central China for a year to collect the viruses from bats and livestock and other intermediate animal hosts to be able to, describe at a highly granular level how this virus emerged. And part that's because the Chinese have blocked that type of investigation. And the Chinese have not been transparent about the wet markets. I mean, I think this has been a big issue because after SARS in 2002, the Chinese were supposed to shut down the wet markets. And clearly that that hasn't happened. But we've never really done that detailed outbreak investigation. And that's where the emphasis needs to be placed.

And I sometimes worried that the gain of function in lab leak stuff becomes a distraction because that's much less likely accounting for COVID origins than the other things that we're talking about. Last question from me, specifically about the talk about lab leaks, because this is something that everybody's discussing today and a lot of people are afraid of. And it's being used as a political volleyball from people who have claimed that they wanted to talk about this in the past, but that they were seen as spreading misinformation, whether they were cooks or that they were crazy conspiracy theorists. And now this report from the Department of Energy has in some way vindicated them or brought the conversation of lab leak. into the mainstream because you have a huge part of the government that the overseas labs all over the place that's saying with low confidence that this could be a lab leak.

Well, remember, this is a little bit of revisionist history too as well, because remember, you know, I remember being on, I was going to be on, I was sort of in the green room virtually with Chuck Todd on MSNBC in his afternoon, meet the press show. And I remember right before I went on, there was Peter Navarro from the West Wing of the White House claiming that the Chinese were deliberately sending infected Chinese people on airplanes to the United States to ignite the epidemic, which, you know, was just craziness, right? It was just that was just total whackadoodle. And that's what those of us in the scientific community railed against, that this was, those were. were just conspiracies. I don't think any of us, you know, immediately dismissed the lab leak possibility. In fact, I was looking back with what I wrote, you know, early on in the pandemic. I said, yeah, it's a possibility.

I think it's unlikely, but it's a possibility. As the information has accumulated, it's clear that the lab leak is less and less likely. Also with the gain of function, the smoking guns that the gain of fun, function people were pointing to, it turned out not to be the case around specific sequences in the virus. So it's not that, in my view, that they were ever dismissed or ridiculed. It's just that as the, what was ridiculed was the was the wacadoodle stuff. And then as time went on and the evidence accumulated for natural origins of COVID-19 with the cluster of cases in, in the, in the, in the wet markets, it became more and more less likely, less probable.

This was due to a lab leak. Well, we'll be right there, doctor. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Like, whenever I talk to a man in a lab code, I feel smarter. Like, whenever it doesn't matter and you got the bow tie

and the whole situation. Doctor, we would love to have you back on to talk about this. I do not think that this topic is going away. And I can only hope that the people that are in charge are responsible enough to care about the health and safety of people not just here in America but worldwide and put some of the political and cultural wars to the side and get to the heart of the issue. Well, you know, we've learned so much about COVID-19 and the public health aspects are only one part. I mean, this virus devastated global economies. It created insecurity, global insecurity.

So there's a lot to talk about. and I appreciated the conversation today and always happy to come back. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on Harler. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping.

Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise,

Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, floating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. You watch Dilbert, you read Dilbert? You like that shit. Are you a news?

Are you, you like to read the comics, the newspaper? I used to back in the day. I used to. I should ask him if he was a Dilbert fan. What does Dilbert do? What is, what is he? Does he go to work? Nah, Dilbert's like a, Donnie, do you read Dilbert?

No, but I know Dilbert been around forever. Yeah. He's like an office guy. You know who Dilbert is? I know who he is, but I don't read Dilbert. I remember there used to be a TV show when I was, I don't know how long it lasted, but I think I watched a few episodes of that when I was little.

I know he's like a cubicle guy. Dilbert is, it was first published on my ninth birthday, April 16th, 1989. It's known for its satirical office humor about a white collar, micro-managed office with engineer Dilbert as the title character.

Dozens of books, an animated television series, a video game. Wow. Hundreds of themed merchandise. So Scott Adams, who is the guy who created Dilbert, must be a pretty well-off guy.

Because it seems like Dilbert is a cultural staple. If I look all of this stuff, Well, Scott, who has a history of making statements that people find problematic is back at it. This is what Scott had to say about black people. So if nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people, according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll, that's a hate group. That's a hate group. and I don't want to have anything to do with them.

And I would say, you know, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people. Just get the fuck away. Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there's no fixing this. This can't be fixed. Right, this can't be fixed. You just have to escape.

So that's what I did. I went to a neighborhood where, you know, I have a very low black population. Because unfortunately, there's a high correlation between the density. This is going to Don Lemon, by the way. So here I'm just quoting Don Lemon when he notes that when he lived in a mostly black neighborhood, there were a bunch of problems that he didn't see in white neighborhoods. So even Don Lemon sees a big difference in your own quality of living. based on where you live and who's there.

So I think it makes no sense whatsoever as a white citizen of America to try to help black citizens anymore. It doesn't make sense. It's no longer a rational impulse. And so I'm going to back off from being helpful to black America because it doesn't seem like it pays off.

Like I've been doing it all my life and the only outcome is I get called a racist. That's the only outcome. It makes no sense to help black Americans if you're white. It's over. Don't even think it's worth trying. Okay. Say what the poll was.

The poll was a Rasmussen poll about whether or not it's okay to say it's okay to be white. How you feel about the phrase, it's okay to be white? And more than half black people said, it's not okay. Yes. And based on that, he deduced that black people as a whole are a hate group. Yes. An entire race of people are a hate group. Black people advocate and practice hate and hostility and violence towards white people in particular.

Right. So apparently, this is, people were asked, it was said, it was a rasmussen poll and said, 72% of white people agree with the statement, it's okay to be white. And 53% of black people agreed with it. So more than the half of black people agree with it. However, he, I guess, interpreted the fact that such a large percentage, almost half of black people, don't agree with the statement that it's okay to be like. And because of that, that constitutes us as a same. Yeah.

Basically, he was looking for some type of smoking gun to justify his racism. It's always interesting when white people, they can't wait to use something. something that black people have said to justify their hatred towards black people, their racism towards black people, as you just heard in that clip, that he did that with Don Lemon. I mean, clearly, Scott Adams, is it Adams? Scott Adams, I don't know how long he's been racist, but he's a racist and he's a whole hateful person within himself. Last year, a number of newspapers dropped Dilbert because of his homophobic and

racist outbursts with it last year. So here he is again doing that. I don't even really have that much to say other than clearly this man is a racist.

He's always been a racist. He was looking for some type of excuse to justify it, which he just did with that poll. And yeah. Okay. So let's first identify the it's okay to be white. situation. And this is according to the ADL's website. It says the phrase, it's okay to be white,

is a slogan popularized in late 2017 as a trolling campaign by members of the controversial discussing forum for-Chair. The original idea behind the campaign was to choose an ostensibly innocuous and inoffensive slogan, put that slogan on flyers bereft of any other words or imagery, then place the flyers in public locations. Originators assumed that liberals would react negatively to such flyers and condemn them or take them down, thus proving that liberals did not even think it was okay to be white. Whether the original trollers were white supremacists or not, not actual white supremacists, quickly began, hold on, Donnie, let me take that again. Whether the original trollers were white supremacists or not, actual white supremacists quickly began to promote the campaign, often adding,

internet links to white supremacist websites to the flyers or combining the phrase with white supremacist language or imagery. This was not a surprise as white supremacists had themselves used the phrase in the past, including on flyers, long before the 4chan campaign originated. The original flyer campaign occurred in late 2017. And a similar campaign, took place at the same time in 2018, but the use of the phrase has extended far beyond the flyer campaigns. That is the entire thing. So a couple of things about Scott Adams here.

Full transparency, I reached out to Scott Adams. And I asked him to come on the podcast. Do you respond? He did. He said that he watched. Scott Adams says on his Twitter that you should watch in full interview that he did with a guy named Hotep Jesus, who some of you guys might be familiar with.

He's a very popular conservative black media figure, has been doing it for a very long time. I watched the entire interview between Hotep Jesus and Scott Adams. And to be honest with you, it was an interesting watch. And there were some things that Holtab Jesus actually raised with Scott Adams that a lot of people who have a notion about him might have been surprised that he actually asked him about.

Scott told you to look this up? No, it says it on his Twitter to look it up. And when did he do this interview? He did it after this situation. So I'm assuming some time between all of this happening and now. Okay. So, but it was after all of this, he got in trouble. Dilbert's fucking burnt.

Dave, Dilbert's pretty much burnt. So I watched. Dilbert's racist too. So I watched the entire thing. Watch the whole thing just because I thought it was important to be able to consume it enough to make a decision on my own. So I reached out to him. You say, he's not doing interviews.

I told him, I said, fair enough. The interview did with Hoteb. Jesus was initially watched, but it was a home game. If you're serious about starting a dialogue or having an actual meaningful convo about some of the things you've stirred up, it might be time to get a little bit more. Listen to this. Listen to me to get my bad.

Uncomfortable, if not with us, with somebody. weeks. So anyway, after that, he responded, but it was basically just like, whatever, whatever, it wasn't anything that was like he was going to come on the podcast. I'll tell you why I wanted to talk to him and still do. It's because he's talking about the price that he's paying for free speech. He's like, I wanted to show people the price that you pay for free speech. Okay. So he was intentional on what he said, like it was a test? Is that what he said? Like he doesn't mean it? Or he was doing it to say? to prove a point?

I don't know, but he said that he wanted, well, in the Hotech Jesus interview, he definitely made it seem like he had stirred this up in a purposeful way to see how far. I agree.

I agree. I think that that's a disingenuous statement. Yes. But this is what I will say. There's a couple of, I'm always interested when people make the free speech argument because it's a,

such an easy way to get a casual American on your side. Well, he should be able to say whatever he wants to say. Well, you can't say whatever he wants to say. He can. And the free speech of the people who employed him, well, the free speech of the hundreds of different papers that had Dilbert in it, they have free speech as well. And their free speech is, enables them to decide what kind of statements, people and ideas that they want to stand next to. That's very, very elementary, like a breakdown. We talk about that all the time. But there's some assumptions that I think Scott made that are fascinating to me.

So 53% of black people agreed with the statement it's okay to be white. I think that Scott and people like Scott don't think that we know what things mean. Right? So the majority of black people

agree with the statement it's okay to be white. So obviously black people are in a hey group because 53% say, we don't give a fuck whether or not you white or not. It's okay to be white. Cool. I would believe that the other 48% or close to it

understand that that phrase is not some innocuous phrase that is actually asking the question about whether or not your existence as a Caucasian is okay. That the phrase is pointed, very deliberate, trolling and white supremacist language, right?

Right. Yeah. You know, like, it, not every single word that indicates racism is nigger or Coon or any of those things. Yeah. There are all kinds of phrases, symbols, slogans that have been purpose and repurposed that we understand, mean different things than what it is. that they are saying. Mm-hmm. Okay.

This one right here, as defined by the ADL and other organizations, is a white supremacist talking point. And it's something that's been used to troll people, particularly on the left, right? So I think to assume that a percentage of black people don't know that, you know that, I know that. I would imagine that a lot of the listeners of higher learning, probably all the listeners of higher learning know that. To assume that they don't know that is not giving them enough credit in the first place. Right.

Okay. We know what the fuck you're talking about. We know what shit means. That's what I'm saying. Second thing here. Black people as a hate group, black people's relationship to whiteness, black people's proximity to whiteness, black people's proximity to all of these things that we've been dealing with

over hundreds of years in America, decades in America, whatever. I'm consistently impressed by the cognitive dissonance that exists with white people. The willful ignorance that is on display whenever issues of race are brought up at all. The fact that anyone would ascribe hate to black people after everything that's going on in America, past and present, is hysterical.

The question about whether or not black people hate either Americans, excuse me, hate either America or white people. It's a joke. Sure. If anything, the Black American experience in this country is a shining example of a sometimes fruitless but absolutely exhausting search for an American identity. Like to be turned, to have hoses turned on you so you could be an American. to have dogs bite you so you can be in America, to be arrested so that you can be an American. To put your life on the line just so that words written on a piece of paper

actually apply to you, that's what black people have had to do. The hate has come from systems in this country that have been engineered purposefully to make sure that certain people getting certain rewards and certain privileges. So if you wanted to wake up in a place where you, if you woke up in a place where your food was killing you,

where the police were killing you, where your environment was killing you, where everything that you put into your body and your mind seem to be just like inherently and historically pernicious, it would be very difficult not to hate that. But you know what? We don't. Yeah, it doesn't mean that you hate white people.

You don't. You don't. Like the struggle for equality and equity in America from black Americans is as old, if not older, than America itself. Slavery in this country, I say it all the time, predates America. The dehumanization of black people predate the Constitution that wasn't written for all of that stuff. So I'm just very interesting. Another thing that he said about Don Lemon and black areas. This is just basic knowledge here.

I don't know what Don said. I don't care. Let's say that Don Lemon said that he moved from the black area that he was in to like a non-black area where there are white people. I'm going to phrase this differently. And Don is my homeboy. So I don't know what the fuck Don said, but Scott's using Don.

whatever. I'm going to phrase this differently. Don Lemon probably moved because Don Lemon is from Baton Rouge as am I. Don Lemon moved from a poor area to a rich one. There are affluent black neighborhoods all over this country. Those places have significantly less crime. There are poor white people living in enclaves all over this country. Those places have significantly more crime. If we're talking about where it's safe to live around people, it's safe to live around people that have full bellies,

that have gas in their gas tanks, that don't need to kick your fucking door in. All of these things that are disguised by race, by racists, which I believe, Scott Adams to definitely be one, are things that are so easily understandable if you use 1% of your brain power to try to understand it. The key word is exactly what you just said.

It's understanding. and it's having a desire to understand. That's why I said he used this poll as an excuse to further what he already felt, which is pure hate and racism towards black people. He has no desire to understand why would black people only 53% say it's okay? Like let's just say what have black people been through? Why would black, let's just say, let's just take it that it's the 4chan thing and the whole that the campaign and all of that.

that. Fifty three percent of people said it's okay. Let's just say that. Why not understand why black people would say it's not okay? Why not want to understand the history? He says in this clip that he has spent his entire life basically trying to help black people. No, you haven't. You haven't provided any examples of that. And you won't even show that with a basic level of understanding of black people's place in this entire country. You are a racist. You use this poll to further your racist thoughts. And now you're trying to backtrack by saying you use this as an experiment. I have not heard this interview, but based off what you said, using this as an experiment to prove that people will cancel you,

to prove how people will jump on things, to prove how the media will run with things, which clearly isn't true. The man's a racist, which is why I didn't have that much to say at the beginning. Love everything that you said. But the man is a racist. So if Rasmussen did a poll and they said, how do you feel about the slogan

you will not replace us? There's no N word and you will not replace us. There's no there's no racial slur of any kind. There's no H word, no K word, no none of that. The slogan you will not replace us. They will not replace us.

Whomever will not replace us. You will not replace this. Whatever. comes and is reinforced by replacement theory, which we know has roots in white supremacists, white replacement series with theory jargon. So if you do a Rasmussen poll and you talk to a bunch of people,

they say, hey, I don't have a problem with that, blah, blah, blah, blah. You'd be talking to people who understand what it means, some of them, and you'd be talking to some people who didn't understand what it means. Scott Adams, about having the conversation. You're still, come. Come.

Come. Like, like, like, come to the podcast. But, um, if you do come to the podcast,

just understand for anyone that comes to the podcast, understand that we see you. And, and we will call you a racist when you come on me. I mean, I mean, well, look,

I, it's not about, I don't want to call. It's, for me, it's about what I believe and the reasons that I believe it. And I'm going to say,

why. Of course. Yeah. But still, we'd love to have come on and have a conversation. Why not? Fuck it. Especially if this was all just an experiment, come on. Let's just talk about it.

It's not even that big of a deal, right? All right. So there's a photo of Jonathan Majors and Michael B. Jordan that people are talking about. It's a black and white photo. There's a lot of tenderness to it. Have you seen the photo? I have. Did it do anything for you?

I loved it. I mean, sexually sex. I think they. S-E-C. Absolutely. And I say this, obviously I'm married. But I think it's, but no, because I'm about, I'm about to talk about, it was, it was. Yeah, Brian, holding it down like that. I'm just, that's what I feel.

No, because the first thing people will say is, first of the people will say is, oh my God, like that show, you're so disrespect for your husband. I think this is, I think it's extremely sexy. That's that. You're right. You're right. That's what you should do. It is very attractive to me. You like that shit.

I love it. You, you fucking, you're all with that. I am. You want to see butter. and chocolate and greased up? I... You like pecks. No, we've talked about this.

What do you like? You like shoulders? Okay. Are we just talking physical? Fore on. Because I'm actually more attracted to intellect and ambition and like somebody being in touch with their emotions

than I am with anything else. And you would know that by the type of people that you see me date because it's a wide spectrum. Okay. So I find this extremely attractive. That's crazy when people say that. And then like the people they be with be like, look like models and shit.

That's the person that you see me with now. Not the person that you seen me with before. Whatever. I fuck with you and people are going to be mad about this. It's a joke. Also as if Brian can't be all those things. He is. Like, as if he can't be those things.

I didn't say that he wasn't. And. Ryan, my nigga. Physically attractive. But go ahead. Which I find both Jonathan and Michael. Look good. You know.

I went on, I saw this picture. Shout out to Baller Alert. Robin over at Ballo Alert. CEO. Robin doing a thing. Doing a thing for real. Fucking mogul. Shout out to Robin.

Ballard Alert. So I saw it on Ballard Alert. And I was like, oh, look at this. It looks like some Sydney Portier-type old-school. type of shit, you know, brothers together. And I looked at the comments.

And when I looked at the comments, it was this is zesty. It seems like they're coming out. It seems like they are gay.

And it it was hard to like watch that. It was hard. to watch that response. Good. It should have been. It was hard to watch the response because I'm, I'm, it's even difficult to talk about, man.

It's like being a black man at times is this exercise in trying to hide any sense of what people would consider to be authentic emotional shit. Right? It's, it's, it's, I watch them and I don't think anything about what's going on in the picture, but I think about what could be going on.

And sexual relationship between them is the last thing that could be happening. Right. The last thing I think about. I'll tell you what I mean here. There are just times in my life where, I need a specific type of love. Sure. And I'll be real with you.

This is going to sound maybe all those things to some people. That love is the love of a man. I get that. The love of a black man. I grew up with my father and I grew up talking to a man about my problems. And there was a very specific way in which my father, talk to me and relayed to me about those problems. Just as I would assume, there was a very specific way that your father, the judge, did that.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And there was sometimes when you were, I got my dick caught my zipper. Mm-hmm. Oh. I got my dick caught my zipper. It's a true story. My balls.

I've told the story before. It was caught in the zipper. Yeah, yeah. And I was embarrassed. to talk to my mother about it. Sure. I was embarrassed to have the dick conversation with her. But I remember going to my father and talking to him about that.

Look, he's like, he got his little jokes off, but he's, you know, help me with the dick out of my zipper. And I'm feeling all, I'm, I'm in painful with my dad, put his arms around me. Help me. Close. Talked about this on Instagram. I had a panic attack. Really bad one. I had to be airlifted to the hospital.

And I had this panic attack. I was with my boy, Ryan. Driving to Brobridge. I've told this story before. And Ryan is a hard-ass niggie. It's a street niggie. This thing, whatever, whatever. Everybody knows what Ryan was doing around that time.

Great man, great father. But I remember turning around and seeing him cry. And I'm going through everything that I'm going through. And he is crying. And he just came over and he put his arms around me. And I started to calm down. I needed the strength of a black man to help me. Like, this is difficult to discuss because, like, they've, they've, like, taken so much from us.

Like, we need each other. And, like, we need to feel. we need to be okay being who we are. We really need the power and the strength of our emotions. Everybody suffers when black men cannot cry. Everyone suffers when black man can't cry. Everyone suffers when black men don't know how to tell each other, I love you.

Everyone suffers when we can't hug. when it all gets built up inside. You know what ends up happening? You know what ended up happening to me? Like, what ended up happening to me was, like, I'm in situations in school or I'm in situations around. My face is lumped up right now. It's very sore right now because I was in a boxing ring with somebody

and I was supposed to be learning, but I can't take a loss. I can't have somebody feel like I'm less than them. I can't have somebody feel like I'm less man than them. I got to win. You know what I mean? I can't be. soft. I can't be any of this. It's so much

fucking work, man. It's, is, it's so much fucking work. It's just, all it is, I got nothing to do with that motherfucking picture. It just got, it has to do with the fact that yes, it does. That this indestructible Superman bullshit, like,

black man just got to feel, man. I think something important that you said is it's hard. Like, because you're not allowed, according to society, to express yourself in that way. And that's ridiculous. It's like, it shouldn't be hard for you to be able to talk about your feelings, to be vulnerable. But the expectation or the stereotype of what a black man is supposed to be doesn't

necessarily fit that, which is why people are going crazy over these photos. which if it wasn't too black men in these photos, those wouldn't be the comments. Nobody would be saying that. They would be talking about the closeness. They would be talking about the brotherhood. They would be talking about the friendship. And that's why I think what they're doing in this photo is so attractive

and is so profound because, one, they're challenging what the stereotype is for black men. They're saying that we don't care. And I think it reiterates some of the themes that are in creation. which these two are in this movie. You've seen the movie. I've seen the movie. And what the movie is doing is

you see Adonis, Michael B. Jordan, be vulnerable in a way that you don't necessarily get to always see black men do. He's this boxer. He's this fighter. He has this reputation. And you see him struggle

with being vulnerable and finally let loose and break those walls down. You see, you even see that a little bit from Jonathan Major's character as well. But it hot to me, and maybe because I've just been so deep in Creed 3 world, because I've had to do these interviews, this is beautiful because it highlights this friendship, this brotherhood, this support system that they have with one another. And then again, it highlights some of the things in the film.

So I don't know. I just feel like more, I hate that it's hard for you. I hope more men do, more black men do this. And I hope that you. feel more comfortable to be able to be this way and to talk about it in this way. I've, look, this one, you know what Michael B. Jordan's Instagram picture is? This picture?

Yeah. The picture of him on his Instagram, at least the last time I checked. No, I don't know. It's him and Chadwick Boseman. I'm telling you guys, and I'm really serious about this. This is coming from 6'4, 200. 90-pound black man. I'm not made a steel.

Like, I don't even want to be. What I want to be is available. I want to be available to the people in my life that need me. And being available doesn't just mean being available financially. It doesn't mean being available

physically. I want to be emotionally available to the people who need me. And if that means dressing up for tea time for a little daughter in the future, if that means I need to hug one of my motherfucking niggas. If that means I need to hug one of my niggas and that means I need to hold his fucking hand. If that means I need to tell him, no dog, I love you. I'm just sick of not being able to be human.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like it, it, I think it works. It don't. All of that stuff that's inside

that you don't get to say that you don't get to express comes out anyway. But when it comes out, it comes out in shouting and pain. It comes out in bonds that are based around

tragedy or other things. The trauma, all of that, all of that stuff. And just if there's ever a point where I really get disappointed in us, it's when we don't take the time to acknowledge the vulnerability to the humanity inside of each other. I just read all of that stuff like,

but you don't want to feel bad about it? Those are two men, they love each other. Do you want to feel bad? You want to feel bad about it? You want to feel bad that they can show tenderness and effect? to one of you want to feel bad? What's bad about it? I think it's people who the people,

and again, I'm sure more people are positive than negative, but I think it's people who either don't know how to express that or experience that or are jealous because they can't and they don't know how. They don't have that type of person in their life. I think what people want sometimes

is a whole generation of men walking around here, like emotional eunuchs. Not men, black men. It is particular to the black community and I wish people can see how deep root it this is. It's like we're not, we're not human. I'm not black man, but like black men aren't supposed to be human.

They're not supposed to feel. They're supposed to fit in a certain stereotype. That goes back to the plantation. That's a plantation mentality. Man, I'm basically raw wave. I'm all emotions. I am. I'm just, like, look.

I think it's great. You're in touch with your emotion. It's not even about being in touch. It's like, I can't hold it back. Like, look. You are. Everybody knows. It's been a rough three years, man. Yes, I know.

You know what I mean? It's tough. I don't want to have to go through this with people telling me. Ain't no more being tough. Ain't no more being tough. Ain't no more being tough. That's it. Ain't no more being tough.

I didn't been tough. I provide for everyone. People can rely on me. Like, I'm as, as, I'm as strong. I'm a pillar. I'm a, fucking snow. Ain't no more being tough. I'm me. Let these fucking men be themselves. Let, whatever. Wait, wait, wait. Stupid. Let me just say this. Why can't you be both?

Why does that be either or? You can be tough and you can show emotion. You can be tough and you can be vulnerable. You can be both. What I'm saying is when I say be tough, I mean, toughness stops being an aspect of your personality. and it starts being the entire kitten kiburu. Like, you guys know, people know me. I can't take bullshit. I got to stand on my shit. I got to be where I'm at. I don't always believe in dealing with problems

in a non-confrontational, sometimes not even in a nonviolent way. That's not my thing. But the reality is, God gifted me with beautiful black men in my life. beautiful black men. That's a blessing. Beautiful black men that I've known since I was a child,

some of which I've gotten to know recently. And I want them to know how much I love them. And if that means hugging them, if that means touching them, if that means, hey, bro, I love you. That's what I want. So shout out to them.

Just, you know, sometimes we stop ourselves from being free. All right. Van's very serious question a week. You ready for it? Oh, go ahead. What? Yeah, I'm ready. You know, here's the thing about the segments that we do.

They don't like we even have one in a while. Here's the thing about the segments that we do. They're not good. We don't have good segments. So would you like to not do a serious question? So I think we should do something. They're not good or they're not consistent. They're not consistent.

I think that we should do something. I think that we should make a commitment to segments. Okay. Okay. So let's commit to the ones we already have. So let's commit to segments. Okay. So what are the segments that we want to?

Let's, let's do a segment audit. Okay. Segments that we, mailbag, you like it. Mailbag. We got Melbag. We got unexpected ally. We need to define what that is. It's, you know, it's like, it's negative.

The whole thing is just, just did right there after this negative. We need to define what it is. What you just did is negative. I'm going to let you have that. I'm going to let you have that. Why is it negative? Because it's negative because it wasn't about throwing shots, Rachel.

It's not a shot. It's that last week. It wasn't about this negative. I'm going to let you be in your feelings right now. Because I'm in my feelings. I know. So if you feel it's negative, then I'll take that. Because when I look, when I look at the higher learning thing behind you,

do you know what I think about? I think about. that red being a groundcracker crust and I think about that white being a cheesecake. And I think about the fact I'm gonna buy you a cheesecake. I'm gonna have one post made it to you.

You owe me a cheesecake. You owe me lamb! I will get you to lamb. Why did you, seriously, why would you, Donnie, jump in. That's a serious question. Hold on, that's the bad, you know, the very serious question of the week is this.

you go out to eat dinner with a friend. You get their leftovers. They get yours. They get yours. Don't you have to put their shit in the refrigerator so they can get their shit back? Donnie, isn't Rachel wrong for the cheesecake situation? No, that sounds like an even swap.

You got some lamb. She got some cheesecake. She chose to do what she did with it. You chose to do what you did with the lamb. That sounds like y'all are square. This nigga here. He split the baby, and I appreciate that, Donnie. Doddy split the baby.

I'm going to take a picture of the cheesecake and you tell me if I'm going to send it we'll put it up on the YouTube, can it still be eating? I'm, are you fucking lost? It's been sitting out for a day and a half. It's like, is it from Saturday night? Is it cheesy? Are you crazy?

We keep a cool house. We keep a cool house. Like, what are you? Can you still? Rachel's serious question. Can you still eat? Would you eat it? If I brought it to you tonight, would you eat it?

Fuck, no. I'm like to eat. Are you crazy? Donnie, brus. Donnie, let me tell you something right now, man. You plagued yourself to such a degree. No, you didn't, Tony. With what you just did.

I did that. I gave an honest answer. It sounds like y'all are squared. Y'all are even. Like, you preserved my food and still chose to eat it. You could have brought that to me. You preserved mine and then say, you know what? though, I'm going to go ahead and eat that.

So how selfish is that? You refrigerated my food, ate my food, and then it's still expected to get your cheesecake back. So let me tell you, okay, can I have my change? This is the last thing I'll say about. Okay, so this is my thing. This is the deal. So I refrigerated it.

You spoke to Kalika. I thought it was all square. Assumed. I did assume. But I also assumed that my cheesecake was in, or that I ate it. Would you feel better if I ate the cheesecake? Absolutely.

You just fucking wasted the food. Why? Why would you take the fucking cheesecake? I don't eat cheesecake. I don't eat cheesecake. I don't need cheesecake. I'm sorry. But you don't just...

I forgot we were doing this in person on Monday. It's just like... So you just wait, real quick before me. You weren't going to drive... You weren't going to drive to the valley to get the cheesecake. You are your motherfucking mind. You ain't never had the cheesecake from a... from Ruth's Chris.

So let me, so you get leftovers from your at your house. You bring it home. You and Brian just sit the food on the fucking counter. Not every night. You don't do that every time.

You don't put food in the, you don't put, y'all got roaches and rats. Okay. Like you've been, you've been in the house. You don't put food in the refrigerator. We do put food in the refrigerator. I think we just fell asleep.

Yes, we tried to watch snowfall. And we fell asleep. sleep. And then he woke when he woke up in the morning, he was like, oh, we didn't put the food in. That's when he looked. And he was like, oh, we got the wrong food. And I said, oh, Kalika did text me last night that we had switched. I think I stopped caring. I stopped caring once I got the text message last night. When I knew it wasn't my lamb, I didn't care anymore. I know what happened. What? What no snowfall? We did watch snowfall. Nah. Nah. Y'all was all looking good. Y'all had some drinks in you. Y'all was on the couch.

Brian wishes. And y'all, y'all, y'all, what y'all did, y'all sex the niggas cheesecake, boy. With cheesecake, y'all over there going nuts cheesecake melting on the motherfucking. This is nuts. Okay. But I do want to say this, Van, you had a very good point. I think on the Reddit or on our higher learning social, we should, y'all should compile because I know there are other segments that we've done like one time, and you guys will remember better than we did.

And we should compile the segments. And we should pick a couple. and we should commit to them. I actually think that's a really good idea because people get mad and we don't bring stuff back. We've got mailbag. We've got unexpected ally,

which is only for non-blacks, I would like to reiterate. And we have very serious question. We have peak white mess. There are different things that we have that we have not committed to. We have Rachel's apology rating. There's certain things like that.

All right. Put something together and we'll vote on it. I'll bring it back. I'll be real with you, man. I can't let the rate it happen. We can't be on a ready. That's a good place to

compile. It's not. Okay, well then email, Don't email, Don't do it off. Don't do it off the Reddit, man. The Reddit is not. They'll at least remember the segments. Nah, the Reddit is going to be that. Fuck them. We can't do it on the Reddit. All right. Tell you thing caps off, but do not stop learning. I am Van Lathen, Jr. And I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye guys.