Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The State of the Gaza Ceasefire With Akbar Ahmed. Plus, the Demands of the “No Kings” Protest and the Ghost of Social Media’s Past. | Higher Learning | The Ringer

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Rachel and Van start the show by talking about the “No Kings” protest, the goals of the protest, and the “blatant hypocrisy” from the reaction of the far right. Then, they talk about two controversies concerning offensive past social media posts, one from Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and the other from Grammy winner Tyler, the Creator. Last, they go over the Gaza ceasefire deal with Huffington Post senior diplomatic correspondent Akbar Ahmed and the violations that followed it. 00:00 - Welcome! 09:12 - The “No Kings” protest 44:16 - Joe Rogan declines to debate Gov. Gavin Newsom 49:36 - Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner apologizes for past social media posts 1:03:49 - Tyler, the Creator’s social media past brings current backlash 1:23:21 - Akbar joins the show! 1:41:23 - What do we do about the Stephen A. thing? 1:52:39 - Thanks for watching! Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Akbar Ahmed Producers: Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, I thought warriors. What is up? I learned as on as I Van Lately Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Okay. Okay, there's something that I have to... You're not going to like this. Ooh.

Let me tell you what I don't like is this is how we're starting off the podcast. I'm in Dallas. I'm feeling good. So how are you about to ruin my day? I think that I was in the commercial. The Trump commercial? No, not.

Not a Trump. What Trump commercial? What are you talking? I don't know why my mind went to the one that Charlamagne was in. And I was like, wait, what? What commercial? Now, this is going to be me being vulnerable with everyone. Okay. I believe in different realities through the television. Okay. Meaning, there are all types of methods of thought and theories that we are actually, actually living in a simulation or in a reality that's being perceived by a supreme being.

Some people think that this reality is, in fact, the dreams of a supreme being. Oh. Or that this reality is a simulation in it of itself. Okay. I feel like my actual life that I was in a commercial that somebody else in a another dimension or reality was watching. Because when I watch TV and I look at Star Wars or something like that, I think that in the reality that we're watching,

the Star Wars stuff is actually happening. And some kind of way, once we give creative energy to something, it actually becomes real in another parallel dimension or some type of reality. I believe in that. Okay. Now let me tell you what happened to me. And you tell me if I was not, in fact, in a commercial that some other dimension was watching. And I wonder if the people that are in these commercials, if they know that they're in them,

once the commercial dimension is established. Go ahead. So I'm walking. And the first thing that happens is a specific song is playing out of somebody's car. And it's that song, yeah, I believe about out. You know that song? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I've never in life heard that song in anything other than a commercial or in the background of like a scene in a sitcom or something. You know? I've never heard that you're unbelievable. Yeah, I'm believable. Like whenever you hear that,

it's like a white girl dancing around flipping her hair. It's Pantene, ProV, hot oil treatment, V-O-5. Like, that's the type of shit. You see it, yeah, I'm believable, yeah. Like, that's the type. I've never seen, I've never been in any place anywhere and heard that song. Never.

While I stop and think, you know, I've never heard that. You're unbelievable. I've never heard this record before in the while. Somebody comes up to me and they go, A, Van. Man, I really fuck with what you do, bro. I really appreciate what you do.

This is going to sound so crazy. But here's a Starbucks gift card. Go get a coffee on me. No, Negro. And I look down at the car, and I say, damn, Starbucks. And your unbelievable is still playing. The dude walks away.

I'm looking at the card, and I almost legitimately had a panic attack. Because I'm thinking, yo, what the fuck just happened? It was almost like a scene in the Matrix where Neo realizes that he's in the simulation. I was like, what the shit is this? is your unbelievable place. I'm thinking about the fact that that song is playing.

Somebody stops, gives me a Starbucks gift card, and then I look down and go, damn Starbucks. Damn Starbucks could literally be literally, I don't fuck with Starbucks right now, I'm just letting you know, but damn Starbucks could literally be the tagline of the entire commercial,

and they could do a whole goddamn commercial line, an ad on damn Starbucks. Damn Starbucks could be a whole campaign for Starbucks. I'm telling you, somewhere in some other dimension, somebody is watching this, and that was a commercial for them. Okay. I apologize.

This is the only reaction. I literally about to take off my headphones and walk out the room. You know what, I apologize. I can't have this conversation with you. No, no, let me just humor you for a second. You're not curious enough. I can't have this conversation. No, no, no, no, no.

That is nothing about it because this is actually what I'm going to say. I really was trying to, I was really trying to work with you. I was trying to go with you because I do have feelings sometimes like a Truman Show-esque type feeling. I do feel like, especially because my life has changed so much and it changed so quickly, I constantly, I almost, mine is more like I feel like I'm going to wake up and all of this will have been like a big dream, a figment of my imagination. I don't necessarily know if Star Wars. is the real world, obviously, because I know nothing about that. And I don't see it like that, but I know the feelings that you have.

So I was with you. And there's something about that song, unbelievable. I was looking it up because the moment you said it, I'm like, there is something about that song, right, where I understand why you can get these feelings. I was with you until it was just damn Starbucks. And then I was like, all right, I've lost me. I thought you were going to say you had a feeling of deja vu, that you had. seen this man before, that the Starbucks card had a name on it.

Like I was looking for some sort of connection. So no, no, I hear you. It's just I thought you were going to a different place. So the song, Unbelievable, is written by EMF. It's a British man called EMF. I know EMF. Do you think that they was making it, that they knew that they would be in every commercial,

that they was like, you know, this song might not hit whatever, but we got a fucking 40-year runoff. This unbelievable. What year did that come out in? It came out in 1990, but it's ubiquitous. See, you wouldn't even know that because every five years, especially in the 90s, a different, I'm looking at it down here,

chart performance, impact and legacy, all of this commercial. They're not even going to show the fact that it was in a bunch. Everybody is like, yo, you don't know like where that's commercials, where that song's going to pop up. It's everywhere. Anyway, you know what?

Be honest with you. The reality is this, know that it happened. It's fine. And I felt this. And it's not the first time I felt it. I get the feelings. I've been in other situations and I was like,

yo, who's being entertained by the shit that's going on? Who's been entertained by it? Who's watching this shit? Mine is more like I've been here before. This happened. I've seen this. I've seen this one.

It just happened to me recently when I was in Destin, Florida. And I was with a different group, like everything, the whole, that's more of the feeling I get. I felt this. I've seen this.

I know what's about to happen. That's what happens to me. Not the commercial thing. But anyways, all right, well, you didn't, you didn't ruin my day. It wasn't as bad as you thought the way you were building that up. No, it's just that I knew that I wouldn't be supported. And so that it being that I wouldn't be supported. And this is, this is the story of my life, you know, there's no one, I just want one person in my, if you're out there. You hear what you want to hear. If you're out there, you, you literally said I was with you until if you're out there. But I was with you. And I can have these types of conversations. with you, please hit me up because I know I'm not the only one that wonders about the fabric of the universe and interdimensional shit. You got to get to the show, whatever. We have Akbar Ahmed joining us to talk about the fragile piece that's happening right now in Gaza and what looks to be a violation of the ceasefire by the IDF. We're going to talk about all of the relevant issues of the day. And we're going to talk about, you know, our crazy thoughts around the source. unbelievable and being in a Starbucks commercial.

And just what the fuck happens to people? You know, when they're living in the dreams of a supreme being and they were in a commercial and they didn't sign up for it, especially Starbucks, who I would never do a commercial for right now. Okay? Well, you kind of just did. Whatever. Damn Starbucks.

I said damn Starbucks because of everything that's going on. I went, damn, Starbucks. And then I went, wait. That was the catchphrase. What should do with the card? I threw it away. You should have given it to somebody else. Go ahead.

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Rachel, did you protest this weekend? I did not. I was at a produce convention in Anaheim all weekend. You know, the grapes, molypop grapes. Rolled out a new line of juices. You can get them in mollipop grapes online.

I'll bring you some. They're fantastic. They're fantastic. I'm sorry. It's relevant. It's a commercial. It's a commercial. It's a commercial.

So we, we, we, we, talk about the No King's protest and then we get right into the capitalism. That's where we're going with it, right? Well, it's a family-oriented business. I'm a part of it. It's what I did this weekend. Sorry. No, but I absolutely would have participated in

the protest, even though there's a growing sentiment on a line that does not want you to call it a protest. But I would have participated. I enjoyed seeing following it on social media, reading all about it, 2,600 rallies. I

into it. And I mean, I guess what I appreciated so much about it is that I like seeing people come together in large gatherings like that. I think it, I know that there's the other side of it and we can get into it and talk about it. But for me, I appreciate people gathering together and creating awareness and bringing attention to something. Even if it's negative attention, people are still talking about what you're doing and they're probably talking about it because they're bothered by it, they're threatened by it.

I understand the other side of it, but I feel like you've protested before. I've protested. It does do something to you. I'm not the type of person who when I protest, I go home and, you know, like I turn on the TV and I just keep on moving like nothing happened. It incites and ignites something in me.

And I start looking for other places of, okay, well, how can I use my voice for this? can I use my platform for this? What else can I participate in? And I think that it does that. I think the speeches, some of them that I saw were really powerful. And I think the fact that it was organized and giving positives, the fact that it was organized in such a way, it combated the narrative that the Trump administration and MAGA tried to put out there in regards to it being violent and being at a hate America rally. It showed peaceful people, peaceful protests coming together. and to be honest, majority of them weren't us.

Majority of them were not us out there protesting. And I think that the no-kings rally is properly named when people are like, well, what are they demanding? What's going to happen? I understand all those questions. But at the end of the day, you don't question the main goal, which is to fight authoritarianism. It is to fight for democracy and to fight against the acts that are coming out of the Trump administration, which are in stark contrast to that. So I enjoyed it.

You? Did you participate? A little bit. How? Just by driving around a honking the horn. I had to work. So look, this is what I would say. Seven million people protesting across the country.

They were peaceful with a few disturbances or arrests. I want to read, just so people know, the specific goals of and demands of the No King's protest. one, rejecting authoritarianism and consolidation of power. Two, defending democratic norms and civil liberties. Three, opposition to specific policies and government overreach. Four, nonviolent mobilization and a broad geographic scope. So they wanted to, part of the protest was to show nonviolent mobilization

on a broad geographic scope of people all over the place, different walls of life. Part of the protest was to show that they have a broad coalition. in order to go and demonstrate. You know, the conversation around the No King's protests is indicative in a lot of ways of where we are right now in American political discourse. The reality is that it used to be that you'd get out there and you'd protest and the protest itself was

what was worth it. Even if you were just protesting to bring a war, awareness to a movement that that was worth it, right? If you were protesting to let people know that you have a problem with something, sometimes you're protesting to stop something. You're protesting to stop work.

Or your protest is connected to a direct action, like a strike. Or your protest is a sit-in where you're disrupting capitalism. These protests did not do that. They didn't disrupt capitalism. They didn't put anything in traction or intention, which protests in the past that have been really effective have.

But what they did do was just show the general malaise and displeasure of a wide swath of Americans. And the power grab by the Trump administration, you know, under the cloak of unitary executive theory, which I saw Amy Coney Barrett talking on New York Times about. And she was very, I encourage everyone to go listen to that Amy Coney, Amy Coney Barry Barrett interview that she did with Ross on the New York Times.

Like, go listen to it. There are certain questions that she doesn't answer. She says she can't answer it. But then when they talk. about unitary executive theory, which is something that comes out of the late 70s. It's an interpretation of the Constitution that vests very direct and specific powers under Article 2 of the Constitution into the executive branch. And it's been kind of the operating, the central operating program of a lot of

thought on the right and the power grabs that you see and the kind of undergris. is a lot of the neocons and the way that they look at it. And it is the neocons because you're talking about like Dick Cheney and, you know, all of these guys that Trump supposedly is nothing like. But their idea of the powers of the president has sort of reshaped the way the right views the office. And that's a fact. And she talks about how if you go watch the interview, she basically says, yeah, I mean, that's sort of the interpretation of, you know, she clerked for John.

Roberts and stuff, that that's sort of the interpretation. Did she call for Roberts or Scalia? I can't remember. But that's sort of the big difference. She talks about the fact that that's part of her interpretation of the Constitution.

So the broad scope, the president's ability to do certain things and to act in a certain way, she believes in that. She believes in that interpretation of the Constitution. Scalia. It's Scalia, right? Which makes sense why she,

it believes in that interpretation of the cost. Well, yeah, he's one of the guys that that was on top of that. So, and I was like, oh, cool. And she, you know, at times the interview, this is hiring her learning homework. At times the interview gets somewhat contentious. And he presses her on certain things that she might believe. And, you know, she talks about the future of America and what limiting presidential power might mean for the future of America.

A president might feel like he couldn't do this in the future. And people are like, what about what? the president is doing right now. Do you feel the need to limit the power of the president in any specific way? Or even in something like the Empowerment Act, make sure the Impalment Act and the fact that the Trump administration has ignored it is a bigger problem because it gives the president cart blush to ignore Congress, money that Congress has said that they need to spend and is scheduled for spending.

The president can just say, I don't want to do it. And that in and of itself erodes the way the government is supposed to work. And she was very, very, very forthright at certain points about the fact that it's part of her judicial interpretation that the president should have these broad rights, that these things should be vested in the executive. So the No King's protest, when I think about the protest like in the large scale, it's actually, it's speaking not only to some of the abuses of power from the Trump administration, but it's a conversation about how we view the executive branch of government and moving forward whether or not we are going to be in a situation where the power can increasingly be vested into the executive, any executive, to where there's nothing we can do to stop their agenda. Yeah.

I did not listen to that interview, and I will go back and listen to that. But what I will say is, I mean, I think within the fight against authoritarianism was also the fight for emphasizing a checks and balance, which it sounds like is in contrast to some of the things that Amy Comey-Barrant was saying. But I want to get back to some of the negative talk about it. This is, this is, it kind of bothered me. I saw, and I'm sure you saw this too. I saw a lot of talk on social media criticizing the No Kings rally and not from the MAGA side of things,

from people who felt like it was taking away from what activists, what actual activists are trying to do, and it takes away from the real fight and even waters down some of the issues that people are fighting for because there was this notion of it makes people feel good about themselves to feel like they went out on a Saturday, day. They voiced their protest. They held up signs. They gathered with people and then they go home and they do absolutely nothing to move the movement forward. It's more safe. I heard it called controlled opposition. I heard that people say that it wasn't disruptive in any way and there's no plan of action after. And I have to push back on that and say, and I'm curious as to what you think, do you subscribe to that? Because we hear a lot of people complain about the current state of the

Democratic Party of the government and then are constantly saying, so what do we do? What's the next step? How do we gather together? You just said seven million people gather together to oppose what they believe is anti-American, right? So seven million people, 2,600 rallies coming together across the country to me shows unity. It shows people coming together for a common cause. That's the opposite of something being divisive, which is a lot of what people on the other side are trying to say. I understand you don't want this momentum to get lost, and I'm a proponent of that school of thought as well. But at the same time, it is something that is being done. I saw some people criticize the fact that you had to register for this protest. And a lot of people were like,

well, you don't normally register for a protest. You just go out there and do it. And then I thought, I was like that too. And then I thought, well, maybe they're asking people to register. So they can send information in a unified way. So they can gather and rally people together for the next step, for the next plan of action. To also say that it wasn't organized or that this didn't have any meaning to see people like J.B. Pritz could come up and Bernie Sanders and other people make these powerful statements and people cheering on, I think, for the people who maybe felt for the 2024 election that nothing was going to change. or they felt maybe that their voice didn't matter,

or they were upset with, they didn't feel like they could rally around either candidate and they just were apathetic about the whole thing. I think seeing something like this can also ignite people to actually want to be involved in what's happening for the government. Anyways, I just saw like the back and forth of that. And I was, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was a little surprised because I was like, this is something.

And this was bigger than the one in June. So it's like more people are gathering around. more people are encouraged and upset by what's happening, whether they voted one way in 2024 and have changed their mind, or they didn't vote at all, and now they feel they're upset about it, they're regretting that decision,

and they feel maybe energized moving forward. I feel like we have to hold on to something. I don't want to sit and complain and say, well, it should have been this, it could have been this, it could have been this. It's something. It's a move in the right direction. Okay, a couple of things.

Number one, I would never read it. register for a protest. I just wouldn't do that. I wouldn't either, by the way. I would never register for a protest. And if you're listening to this podcast right now, don't register, no RSVP for any protests, right? Put yourself on any more lists. You've given them enough data. They know where you're at. Damn Starbucks.

Okay. They know how to sell stuff to you. You don't need to register for anything else, right? Now, if there are things that you want to be in community with people on, then by all means, share your information. Share information. build community digitally with people that you know you're going to be able to talk to whatever whatever I'm sure there are a lot of good reasons that people have for people that they will want to register for protests and all that stuff I kind of don't believe in that I don't think that that's

that's a thing for me wouldn't be a thing plus I don't need no more emails emails it's like whoever this Stephen is that keeps hitting me up hey van and stephen Stephen and that some of the emails they come in and it's like the fight of your life. And I was like, whoa, I'm in it. Okay, cool. And I click it. And I don't want no more emails. I donate. I do my thing. I do that like to candidates I care about. I don't want no emails. I've seen two things. One, I saw a young man talking about why Gen Z hasn't been protesting. I was there today. And I made a bunch of observations. First of all, not a lot of very young people. I think that my generation saw the definitive movements of our lifetime.

Black Lives Matter, Me Too, the March for Our Lives, and said, okay, well, we're still watching black boys get murdered by cops. Somebody's getting put up for mayor in New York City who has a dozen credible sexual harassment allegations. We're still seeing schools get shot up. What are these protests going to do for us? You know, the boomers who came out, and there were so very many of them, they saw the Vietnam protests, the civil rights protests, and there was something the tangible that came out

of that. But the protests that we've seen, there's been so much great awareness that's been spread. There have been victories on a smaller level, but they haven't felt like these protests have directly led to what we are going for. I don't know that it's true that Gen Z doesn't protest as much. A lot of people that talked about this particular protest said that a lot of people out there were a little bit older. And so what I saw, I've seen a couple of videos that showed young people. Some of the young people were acting in ways that maybe were inappropriate but funny to me. I personally think, I'm just to be honest with you.

And you guys can feel however you want to feel about this. The video that I posted on my social media about this guy that was walking through in Denver and yelled out anti-gay slur to the whole crowd. And then someone took his glasses and ran off. And then he fell. And then he ran again. and then someone tripped him he fell and he busted his shit and the whole not, right? Now, you know, we want to be morally

clean and all of that shit, but I don't give a fuck about that. I don't give a fuck about him. I'm just going to be honest with you. If you see a bunch of black people out there protesting and you walk through and you call them 100,000 niggas, you expect me, we pass that. I'm not going to take your glasses off your face. I'm not going to trip you down. I'm not even going to call for anybody to take your glasses off.

your face and trip you down. I'm not going to do that. I'm not, I'm going to tell you, if somebody asked me, I'm going to say, hey, man, I don't think you should take the glasses off of the face and didn't run. I will say this. The first time. But if you see it.

The first time he ran, nobody tripped him. The first time he fell on his own. Okay. The second time, he took a couple of swings at people. And I think the guy saw him take a couple of swings at people. And then he tripped him down. Right? And he busted shit, his whole shit open.

I laughed. And y'all could do whatever the fuck y'all want to do with that. Straight up, I laugh. Because I'm just not, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I'm just, you guys, like, I go and I sit on these panels with people and you can't go back to the Scott Jennings thing. Scott Jennings, we're on CNN. There are reports from Chicago that children were zip.

tied when ice raided but one of the places in Chicago, right? Me and Scott talk off of the air. Everybody talks off of the air. You've done those shows. So it's not like everybody going to the green room and we lay three knives down and get to stick in each other. That's not what happens. But when I'm looking at him and I go, yo, man, can you just condemn the zip tying of

children? Right. He goes, I reject. the premise of the question. We good. I mean, I'm being for real. We good. We good. We're good. But when Guy falls down and bust his fucking face open, don't moralize with me.

Kindness is not a birthright. Empathy might be. Kindness is not a birthright. Kindness is earned. You earned kindness. If I walk up to you, I open my hand, I show you my hand, hey, nothing's in the hand. Let's chill. Let's do our thing. But if you walk up to me, if it's fuck me, fuck you. And if you say fuck me and then you drive down the block and your car hits a stop sign,

I'm going to walk by and be like, ah, I'm going to render you, hey, you're all fucked up. You know what I'm saying? If you all fucked up, I'm like, hey, the whole thing. But even as I give you the chest compressions, I'm going to be like, hey, you shouldn't have been fucking around. Your hateful, dumb ass, this is what gets you. Take a stupid ass to the hospital.

But you don't, especially now, you guys got to earn our kindness. We ask you guys to care about children getting zip tied and y'all won't do it. You have to earn that kindness. And if you walk through that crowd and you call them people the F word and somebody does what kids in high school do,

which is, I got your hat. And then they run away. And then you run and you can't run 10 steps and you fall, I'm laughing. Fuck you. Back to the protest. This is the deal. You guys,

and I hope that everyone hears me on this, everybody got different jobs, man. If nothing else, if you get nothing else from this podcast, everybody got different jobs. It is some people's job to go out and do the protest. It's some people's job

to get the legislation passed. It's some people's job to compromise. It's some people's job not to compromise. It's some people's job. to do a little bit of capitalism. It's some people's job to do none. It's some people's job to use God to get out there and move people in the way.

It's some people's job to be secular in it. Everybody has different jobs, but everybody should have the same goal. And that goal should be the destruction of hierarchy, the raising of freedom in people's lives, and responding to tyranny. The way that you do it, people might look at you and criticize you

and be like, that don't do nothing. Don't worry about that. Do your thing better. Do what you got going on. Everybody got different jobs. I see some activists right now, my revolutionary left activist, that are already starting to turn on Zoroamadani.

They're already starting to turn on him. Zoroamadani, wasn't running to be the number, he's not running right now to be the number one activist in New York City. That's not what he's running for. It's your job to be the number one activist in New York City. It's your job to continually

stay pure and push on the people that you think are working on behalf of you. It's your job to be a thorn in their side. You're never supposed to be cool, pancake eating with a, with a politician ever. But he is running to be a politician.

And so he is going to politic at some point. And everybody has to know that. Does it mean that that absolves him or insulates him or anybody else from criticism? It just means that we really have to understand the diversity of our places in said movement or as citizens of this country. Because if we don't, we'll spend an in anordinate amount of time of criticism of each other and not focusing on the goal. Now, that doesn't believe that that doesn't mean that there should be no criticism. If you're taking money from certain people, we're going to criticize you. If you would, certain people, we're going to criticize you. We're going to ask you if that's the best way to go about it. That's fine. But let's not spend too much time on it.

Let's spend time on getting into the problem. Everybody's got different jobs. Everyone has different jobs and that's okay. All right, everybody. Do you eat in the pork today? I had bacon. And my mom will make me a pork chop. Oh, my God.

What's the problem? What's the problem? Hey. What's the problem? Who is Hazel? You know who Hazel is, nigga. You didn't have Hayle before to see. Don't even be bougie like that.

Like, Hazel is over here in the corner, shaking her head. Like, shaking. I ask. Say it to my face. Hazel. Hazel is over here in the corner. Hazel is over here in the corner. I asked the question whether or not you had eating pork today.

And you were like, yeah, I had some bacon. And I'm going to have a pork chop. And Hazel is shaking. shaking her head. I saw her do it. Shout out to Ashley. Shout out to Hazel. Ashley is in studio right now.

It's Ring her Coral Week. And Hazel is with Ashley and I looked over and Hazel is shaking her head. Tell Hazel to shake her head to my face. I'm just saying, she just didn't. I mean, why would she want stepping the shadows? Ashley, is this not true? Did Hazel not shake her?

She shook her head. She loves everybody. There you go. I'm telling you. Pork-based diet, man. Pork-based diet. Okay. Before we leave.

this situation. Let's play what Joe Rogan had to say about protest. We got to do it, man. I know. There's just some people I'm so sick of. You don't want to do it? No, we have to do it.

Go ahead. Okay, listen. How about this? No, we're doing it. No, we're doing it. How about this, though? Wait, wait, wait, wait. So this is what we do

because we spend another time on the protest. Anyway, and obviously we could talk about the fact that Maga didn't like him. Sean Duffy said the No King's protest are part of Antifa. Ted Cruz said cut off the money behind these rallies.

And they may well turn into riots. shut up. Do you guys to the right, man. Hold on, just real quick. To the right. We saw a riot at the Capitol. We saw a riot where things happened

and you guys pardoned all of the people and put some of the government. Like legitimately, I know that you guys, it's like, let me ask you a serious question. This question is not just to you, but it's to everyone that's listening. And I'm telling you guys right now, I want the answer to this question.

Like, come on, I'm not on the Reddit. They have been on Reddit in years. The podcast is in its golden era right now. And I think that's because I haven't been going on the Reddit. On the Reddit? Yeah. Shout out to the Reddit though. Shout out to everybody's supporting higher learning.

I mean that sincerely. I want to know what you guys think our reaction should be to blatant hypocrisy like Ted Cruz here. Follow the money. Cut off the money. And you look at this No Kings Rally. And there's considerable evidence that George Soros and his network is behind funding these rallies, which may well be riots all across the country. And Soros is writing the check. And so I've introduced legislation called the Stop Funders Act that would add rioting to the

list of predicate offenses for RICO. Why is that? Because it would let the Department of Justice use RICO racketeering to prosecute the money that is funding the anti-Semitic protests on campuses, the pro-open border protest in L.A. and other cities. And these notes, King protests, anyone that is supporting rioting and violence, it lets you go after the money. And I'll tell you, there are more than 200 left-wing groups behind these no-kings rallies this weekend. They deliberately are blind to what each of the others are doing. That's part of how they avoid accountability. RICO is designed for precisely that sort of criminal enterprise. And so I believe the Senate, we ought to take up and vote on and pass our stop funders legislation.

I've urged both Pam Bondi at DOJ and Cash Patel at FBI, follow the money and prosecute those who are writing checks, funding acts of violence, political violence, or otherwise across the country. I could make the argument that I don't like continuously making this left versus right, whatever, whatever, because I really want to talk about people and what people need. But I can make the argument that the right codified

not culturally, but codified into law the violent rally. I could make an argument that they legitimately, using the powers of the president, made it that they sanctioned violent rallies and violence in protest forever. And the reason why that they did it, how they did it, was that President Trump pardoned all the J6 riot.

then they made up a mythology around the J6 riots, that these were not people that were, in fact, rioting, but they were FBI agents or that they were Antifa that were rioting. So by absolving all of the people for their bad behavior, by partnering some of them, and by rewarding some of them by putting them in government, the right led by their God, Donald Trump, made it okay.

made it okay to get into violence at rallies. Like, I'm not making a specific criticism of that, but to see Ted Cruz or anyone else say that riots are bad or intimate that riots are bad is really interesting to me when we didn't hear the same rhetoric. Now, this is the question. How do we deal with the blatant hypocrisy? Because calling it out seems to be a waste of time.

Are we still at a point we're looking at the riot or looking at MAGA and calling out their blatant hypocrisy is even worth it anymore. It's not worth it. Okay. I think people have moved on from it. And I'm not saying this is that that is what should happen. It's for everything you just laid out,

we know how Trump and his administration dealt with it. We know how MAGA dealt with it. We know how supporters dealt with it. And for the people who do condemn January 6th, but still support Trump and his policies, they've kind of just been like, it happened a long time ago. like, let's move on.

Like people do in society with most things, right? Whether it's a school shooting, whether it's some kind of tragedy, whether it's some kind of salacious gossip, it's a thing people talk about, and then they move on to the next thing. I think a lot of people, and I think you almost,

for the people who justify their support of Trump, that's almost the denial you have to live in. It happened, all right, let's move on. Okay, do we really want to keep belaboring the issue? Like, that's how they really, think. And I'm not saying that it's okay, but to your point, to the question that you proposed, it almost is in vain. Like, we know where we stand, we condemn it. We obviously recognize January 6th for what it truly was. But having the back and forth fight, if they're going to move on,

then we need to move on to the other detrimental things that they're doing at this point, too. We can talk about it. We still hold their feet to the fire and accountable for what happened in January 6th and not let them get by with the lies, the conspiracies, and watering it down. But we have also have to keep fighting on other stuff because they have moved on to the next thing. Now, Joe Rogan is different. I don't even look at Joe Rogan as somebody, even though, yes, he has put out his conspiracy theories about the plants that were in the audience and all of that. Play what Joe Rogan said. Political cause.

Yeah. All those people that are protesting on the streets, 99% of them are losers. The other ones work for the Fed. I have a whole joke about that. Damn. It's FBI agents and losers. It's all it is. The whole fucking every protest is FBI agents and losers.

I talk about this all the time. I'm like, for me, you want me to join a protest? You want me to get out on the street? First of all, to make a sign the fuck out of here. And then I'm so... You don't have to make the sign. There's a guy with a van who's paid by George Soros and he's got stacks of signs that were made at Kinkos.

Cut it off, cut it off. If you watch the video, they're smoking cigars and having a great time. Right, right. What you got? Right. It's not, we already said all the things we do about January 6th. We understand where they come from when it comes to that. I think the bigger issue is, is to your point, watch the clip, watch how they laugh,

watch how they smoke cigars, watch how they're at, how carefree they are and talking about it and dismissive of what protests are and the people who participate them and why. It's the sentiment in that clip that I think is what we need to be talking about because that sentiment is what has infiltrated American society and is the reason that people go out there in protest. Obviously, Joe Rogan can sit on that podcast and on the microphone and come from a place of privilege as a white rich man. We know that. It's his privilege that allows him to laugh and be so dismissive when he's talking about these protests, to sit there and call people losers. But I think the bigger issue is the lack of empathy and the lack of desire.

and the lack of desire to understand the purpose behind the protest. Because he doesn't care and it doesn't impact him, which always just baffles my mind because he has a black daughter. And I feel like people don't talk about that enough. I don't know if people even really care. But Joe Rogan has a black daughter, a black grown daughter that he's adopted. And he still does not care how the current system in society impacts the life of his daughter.

But it's the comments and how flippant he is about people getting in the streets and marching and protesting. And it's that disregard that I believe in that flippant attitude that seaps into policy. It ceaps into administrations. It ceaps into the politicians that run these things. It seems into institutional systems. It seats into American society. It's the idea that you could care less to understand what people really want and what they're saying we need because you have other to yourself because their goals and desires and what's meaningful for them and them fighting

for their place in society and equality and for democracy has no bearing on your life. And you don't give a fuck. And that's what that laughter is. That's what that smoking cigar is. And that's why you can say, oh, these people are idiots and they're losers. Well, he didn't say idiots, but he can say these people are losers because that is how you truly feel. And it's so evident in what's rolling out of the administration. And that's all I kept thinking. I was like, gosh, you have no care for people who don't look like you or on the same level as you. I think that this is another one of those interesting cultural divides. Protests has always been something that I have had deep reverence for

because protest is the way that my people, the legacy, and the lineage of my people in this country, have been able to force America to see them. That's very simple. That's it. Forcing America to see you is something that a lot of my people that my mother and my grandmother's generation did through protest. Forcing America to see your displeasure with the Woolworths or the Montgomery bus system or City Park in Baton Rouge or whatever it is. Forcing America to see you. Now, those protests a lot of times were disruptive, which I believe protests should be.

I believe protests should disrupt capital. But once again, everybody has different jobs. And if you want to get out on a Saturday and make your voice heard, it is one of the most American things that you should do. And I do not think that it is up to hyper-rich people to take a fire extinguisher to people's rights and their complaints. Joe Rogan has been on his podcast. He has been saying that what he is seeing from the Trump administration, regarding a couple of different things is horrific and terrible and bad.

The question is, what are you going to do about it? Like, what are you going to do about it? It might be that him talking to 100 million people a month or whatever it is, he feels like that's enough. And he might be right. But the reality of the situation is, for other people, they're wondering, what can I do? There's not a vote tomorrow.

There's not, what can I do? And what you can do is get out in the street. There's one other Joe Rogan clip that I want to pull. This is Joe Rogan talking about the fact he's not going to have Gavin Newsom on his podcast. Have you had Gavin Newsom on your phone? No, he's been taunting me, trying to get me to have a more. You should? Why? I don't know, because he's interesting.

People, he's out there. He's interesting as like a sociology experiment. Like, if you're a psychologist. I mean, you talk to everyone, I think. Do you know who I really love that you interviewed recently? Who? James Tellerica. He's great.

I got to be real. Now, Gavin Newsom came up here, and you guys have seen some of the stuff that's come out from it, and we pressed Gavin Newsom in ways, you know, press Gavin Newsom too hard on something. Some people say we should have let some stuff go, whatever. But if you're going to talk all of that shit, Joe Rogan,

and I've seen you have conversations with all kinds of people. I've seen Joe Rogan have conversations about regulation with people where I think it was Stephen Crowder, whomever it was on the Joe Rogan show. They were having a conversation about regulation, and Joe Rogan was pushing back against Crowder or Shapiro, one of those guys, they're all starting to melt together. And so I've seen him be in conversation with people,

even with Candace Owens or whomever else or whoever it is, where these conversations were, if not confrontational, they took a debate tone before. So it's not like that's not something that happens on the Joe Rogan experience. It does. If you're going to set out to call this guy out over and over and over and over and over again, it's pussy it's pussy

not to have him up there if he wants to come up there I'm not saying that it's anything I'm saying it's pussy I'm saying that it makes me think that Joe Rogan is scared to have Gavin Newsom

on the Joe Rogan experience and I'll tell you what I mean what is there are not a lot of people that come on Joe's podcast He has been elevated to this deity type status that there are not a lot of people that get invited on to that podcast

that is especially as of late besides some of the things that I've talked about a second ago, which were a little bit older, a couple years older. And not a lot of people that come on there that really challenge them on anything. They are so happy to be sitting in the seat. Yeah.

That they are, they really agree and yes and Joe a lot. And, you know, when there is a debate to be had, what I will say is sometimes he brings people on that have that debate. Like he had Douglas Murray on and Douglas Murray was going back and forth with Dave Smith. Joe was getting involved where he could or in ways, whatever. But the reality is you continue to call out Gavin Newsom. Some of the things that you were saying about Gavin Newsom and about his, time in California, I think there are a lot of people who would probably agree with those things.

But if in fact the right or right-thinking places are these bastions of intellectual debate where ideas are thrown back and forth and the best idea is supposed to win, then you can't get on there and continuously nut kick and not give him the opportunity to come on the podcast and talk to you about it. Like I've criticized us on this podcast sometimes being a little pussy and not platforming enough voices for the other side. But what I will say is that if, in fact,

we would go against, go at someone directly, I would hope that that person would be invited to come on the podcast and then talk to us. We... I don't agree with the statement what you said about us on this podcast because I do think we welcome, except for one, that we welcome. Nah, that's fine. You call, I want to note that Van called me a pussy on the podcast. I just want to know.

I just want to note that. But I don't think that we're, I don't think that we're like that. I don't think we're like that on this podcast because we actually do try to get voices from the other side. And a lot of times people don't want to come. I think all I'll say, because you laid it out, all I'll say about Joe Rogan, is it's not even just he's very critical of the state of California and he's very critical of the way Gavin Newsom runs California. So for you to have supposedly be this space of having all this open conversation, why would you not invite that voice that you speak so much to? It seems like

he's willing to do that in every other area, at least to have somebody on that can speak to it. But my thing is, if you're going to continue to use California and its state and its policies, the way it's run as a topic of conversation, and you have a voice willing to come on to add clarity or that you can push back against. Why would you not do that? And to your point, even if it's not him and Gavin Newsom going back and forth, bring another voice on that aligns with the things that he's saying

for them to have this open debate back and forth. But instead for you to just criticize and it to be one-sided and not allow the other side, it's just odd. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis, may also develop psoriatic 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.

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All right. Let's talk about old tweets. Old social media. Let's talk about it. So there are two people that are going through it and it couldn't be more different. One is Graham Platner. He is running for Senate. He is Maine.

He is a Maine Democratic senator. And he has been getting a lot of love recently. He is an every man. He is a serviceman. And a lot of people have been liking the way that he talks to the people. There is something happening that people can't see. There is a changing of the Democrat that is happening. and there is a

I'm not wearing a suit I'm in a nice cable knit sweater it's distressed I can talk directly to you I can listen to you a disaffected voter and then I can speak to you in a way that reassures you

that I'm a guy or a gal it's happening we're gonna talk about how old some of these people are in a second but it's happening Graham back in the day

was apparently whaling on the old Reddit he was getting busy on the Reddit and I know a little bit about people seeing you on Reddit and stuff happened early so now Graham was on Reddit and here's some of the the things that he put out there

his tweets and Reddit stuff and all kinds of stuff a 2020 tweet said a living in white rural America I'm afraid to tell you they actually are violent or whatever because he said right people white people someone tweeted white people aren't as racist or as Trump thinks. And Graham said,

living in white rural America, I'm afraid to tell you that they actually are. In the 2013 Reddit post, that was in 2020, they asked Graham, they said, what is one question

you've always wanted to ask someone of another race? And he said, why black people, why don't black people tip? Every now and again, a black patron will leave a 15 or 20% tip,

but it usually is between zero and five percent. There's got to be a good reason behind it. What is it? In another post, This one was about underwear designed to prevent sexual assault. Graham wrote, rape is a real thing. If you're so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear,

you think you might not get black out, fucked up around people you aren't comfortable with. He also made comments that some people looked like, or they thought, or looked like to people, should I say, were endorsing on resistance, he wrote. Tell them that they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle. They ought to do some reading of history.

and he also said an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice. He has been getting killed for these tweets, and he released a very lengthy video and audio apology. Let's play a little bit of it right now. It's fucking five minutes long when I play the whole thing. The only person that can be long window on his podcast is me. So play a little bit of it, though. Hey all, it's Graham here.

As you've probably seen, there's a story that's broken about comments I made on Reddit in an earlier part of my life. As I read through them, I read things that I absolutely do not agree with. I read through and I see things that words and statements that I abhor. I also see the trajectory of my life. When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the Army for another year. I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made, the things that I think are least defensible, that I wouldn't even try to defend, come from that time. I had spent the bulk of my 20s in the infantry deploying overseas, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The infantry was a very male-dominated place. It's a very masculine world. When I was in, women weren't allowed in the infantry. It's changed now, and that's a good thing. But when I got out, I still had the crude humor, the dark, dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark of the infantry when I was in it. I made comments that I'm not happy about that I do not agree with, but they came from a time and place in my life.

And as I watch or as I read through the comments that were released, I can see myself changing. My language gets less crude, my thoughts and my feelings get a lot of. less kind of rough around the edges. I do get almost more disillusioned though and it's important to know that this was a time in my life where I was struggling deeply. I got out of the Army in 2012. I had PTSD. I had depression. I had all of the things that come with serving in a war, in two wars that I eventually began to not believe in at all. It left me feeling very unmoored. It left me feeling very disillusioned, very alienated, and very isolated. And I think like a lot of people, I went on the internet to post stupid things and get in fights

and find some form of community in some way, some outlet for my feelings, for my rage, for my isolation. It wasn't until I found actual community that that all went away. And the reason that I stopped posting on Reddit around 2020 and 2021... enough, he's better now. All right. He figured it out. So, Rach, this has got to happen. Apology, Ray. Yeah.

I'm going to give it like at least a six. Oh, shit. Okay. I know. I know. I listen to the apology. Obviously, I think You know, you could say he tried to make excuses, but I think that it wasn't an excuse as to much explain where he was coming from.

And I'm not even saying that I agree with everything because I obviously condemn the way that the comments about him being so flippant about sexual assault. Obviously don't like what he had to say about black people. Those things. But, and I haven't seen every single Reddit post that he had. But I liked the apology. And I think what I particularly liked is the way he was talking, we've talked about the male loneliness epidemic, and the way he talks about coming back from war

and how he had absolutely no community, and he knows he was suffering from PTSD. And because he had no community, he sought out community in a place maybe he shouldn't have. And so he was saying things, and this is not an excuse, to get a reaction and to be provocative and because he was angry and he was disconnected.

And I'm like, that is exactly what we're seeing happening, which is why this epidemic exists. He was a member of that society. And because he felt so disconnected from reality, he found his reality on the internet. And he speaks directly to that. I appreciated that. And then I like that he said,

you'll see these comments stopped when I found community in real life. I built real relationships and friendships and networks. And he embraced the fact that the male loneliness epidemic, even though he doesn't say it, is a problem. He was wrong for it. He acknowledges it, which not to compare him,

I mean, I am to other politicians, but having a conversation just a couple of weeks ago about the young Republicans and how people made excuses about that. And this man is like, this is what I did. I am wrong. I'm standing in it. But I want to show you how I got out of it and why I'm in a better place.

And you too, maybe you fell. into this world because of whatever reasons. Now, are you not agreeing with me? You too? I actually really liked this apology. I'm not saying, I want to be very clear. I'm not saying I agree with the things that he said, but I appreciate that I have,

this is how I've changed and you can change too and not running away from what it is that he did. To me, if you're going to apologize, this is kind of the way to do it. What I need Graham Platner to do, do is go talk to some black people. Yeah, yeah. So just go talk to some black people.

I respect these types of apologies or these types of statements when I can, community for him right now is to build some community off of this. So go talk to some black people. Sit down and I need him to, with black people, talk about tipping. Like have the conversation. I'm serious. Ask them the conversation. Like have the conversation.

I'm not something for Plattner to come talk to us. I'm not saying that. Somebody black. Sit down to have the conversation. Because what I like, and this is why I think all of these black platforms, these black media platforms, a lot of people are coming down on black media right now,

I still see the immense value of black media, right? The immense value of black media. Of course. There's a conversation about whether or not black media is serving black people anymore. It's a conversation we should be having as well. It's a conversation. But the reason why I like it,

when you talk about somebody going on The Breakfast Club, or even if Graham Platner went on a non-political show, like if he went on Drink Champs, you know? You know, if he went and sat down with the Joe Button podcast, these are non-political shows, right? Well, they're getting kind of political now based upon some of the things,

some of the conversations that are happening. But I think all of those places are valuable because I like to see, I said this before, the way white people act when they think and know that they're talking to black people. Forget about the questions.

Like, I never forget, Lee Zeldon went on the breakfast club and they asked Lee Zeldon the question. And Lee Zeldon talked about the fact that him and Angela Yee were at the Jamaican Jerk Chicken Festival earlier that week. And they were like,

yo, we ask you about this. And you start talking about Jamaican jerk chicken? It's not serious. It's not a serious answer. And sometimes when you're making these apologies is one thing to sit in front of somebody and make that apology. But it's another thing to actually build some community

by sitting in front of somebody and just being like, hey, you know, Graham, let's kick it. You know, I'll wear a cable knit sweater and a curved bill hat. Let's talk about why you even thought that or why it might be true. Or why it might be something that we even think.

Or like, let's laugh. Let's build community. Apologies to me should build community. And that's the problem with apologies. The problem with apologies is people think that there's enough to the apology just to say, I'm sorry I was in a different place. No. I think an apology should be an attempt.

You've never really said it. You just, you prosecute the apologies and that's why we love you. Okay. An apology should be an attempt to build community with the people that you are apologizing to. because once you have wronged someone and once you have made somebody unsafe, a true apology is making that person safe.

And the way to do that is to build community with them. That's why we also have to talk about this one and this one is tough. So Graham, go talk to somebody black. All of the other shit, talk to whoever you want. Talk to somebody black in Maine because that's where you're running. I looked at it.

There's 2.5% black folks in Maine. Talk to black people in Maine. That's his constitution. Those are the constituents. Talk to somebody black. He's also a senator, so he'll be making things that are, he'll be voting on things that are nationwide. He needs their vote.

Go there to first to the constituents. What's up with the black people in Maine? Shout out, if you're black from Maine, hit me up. I never know one of you before. That's what Graham would say. Well, I mean, Graham should know him. He's from there. He should, but he probably would say that.

You know what I'm saying? But if you're black from Maine, hit me up. Because when I think about Maine, Cooper Flagg from Maine, he's a white boy, but... Yeah, I'm just saying, that's why I think about... I know white people from Maine. I do not know black people. I've known maybe one person from Maine my entire life. I know a couple, actually. Yeah. Like, I knew a white boy from Maine. He worked at Best Buy with me.

And I never forget this. He was like, yo, he went to LSU. He was working at Best Buy. He's like, yo, come to the crib. We play Matt. I go to the crib We play Madden I bust his fucking ass I bust his ass I don't know at that point

how the white boys was playing Madden because my man Tommy Talley he used to give me the blues in Madden so I know at least it was a

but I go over there and I remember we were playing the Madden game and he goes he's gonna continue to score I'm like yeah bitch

if I could score 250 on this motherfucker we get Donvin McName about to get jicky in this motherfucker. And all his friends are around and they just lining up. Bussing ass. Bussing ass. Bussing ass. Bussing ass. Bussing ass. Bussing ass. And they're getting mad. They're uncomfortable with it.

Like, is this guy ever going to get off the controller? No. I'm not. If you go outside of the door and you find somebody else to bring in this bitch, I'm going to bust his fucking ass too. And then we stop being cool. Because of the madden thing. And I'm like, what? How y'all play Madden?

If I'm playing with Rah, with Peanut, with Bobby June, we bustling each other's ass into Madden. That's not Maine. That's not. Maybe they play Madden differently in Maine. Maybe they do. Let's talk about Talia Tully's creator. Oh.

You gotta do it. Oh. I know it hurts. So Tala the creator is somebody that we all love. He's facing backlash right now because he said a bunch of anti-Based. black shit in the past and it's facts. He's facing backlash. All right.

It started because, rest and peace, DeAngelo, DeAngelo passed away and Tyler the Creator, a brilliant artist. Look at me already caping. He posted like a, you know, a fucking tribute to DeAngelo. And in his comments, they started

wilding. A lot of his people were, Tyler, creators, people were wilding in the comments. Which, got people talking because a lot of people were surprised about this. Tyler, the creator was against it. Okay. His white fan base was wilding as he was getting, as he was, Tyler Creaser,

creator was against it. But then a lot of people said, hey, Tyler, it's actually your fault. Because over years and particularly in the beginning of your career, you cultivated a fan base that would think it would be cool to mock the death of DeAngelo or to be anti-black in their rhetoric. and then that is when the tweets started to fucking come out of nowhere. And, you know, one from 2014,

it's Tyler Krayer's tweet. He says, I hate Black History Month. Why the fuck do you have to separate niggas still? Oh, it's paying homage to our heroes. Fuck that. That's wild. Okay? It's Black History Month.

Come on, Tom. Come on, that's wild. Another one for 2014 said that he has a distrust for random black dudes describing their hair and derogatory terms saying they like everything. He also joked about affirmative action. Ha ha ha.

Some black chick works here. Affirmative nigger. In 2014, amid the Ferguson riots, following the police killing of Mike Brown, he commented it. And black people are currently mad right now, but in two weeks we'll be over it

because they don't really care. Cool hashtag, though, right. Now, we should say, Tyler Craig right now, I think it's like 34 years old. He is. So in 20, 2014, Tyler Creates is 24 years old.

Okay. Now, this is, this right here is a test. This conversation is a test. And let me tell you why it's a test. It's a test because it's not that we like Tyler the creator. We love him. And even then, what he was seen as by some of us, not all of us, some of us, he was seen as

the little homie troublemaker on the block or in the hood that says wild shit. Correct. And that person has always existed in culture, at least for me, right? There's a story, man. I was always waiting for the right time to tell this story, but it's a true story.

Tupac died. Pock passed away. And there was a big situation in the back. on Sothers campus when Pop passed away, people was, I was still in high school. But, you know, people are around and they, they're doing their thing. They're very upset.

You know, I'm looking at girls on campus. I'm like, yo, what the fuck is going? I'm sad and shit. I never forget. They're playing the music and, you know, it's not like a big huge, it's not like it's 7,000 people out there, but it was people out there. Tupac passed away on the yard,

and there's people out there playing music and all the thing. And everybody's playing the music. then all of a sudden you hear this nigga go I'm not saying that this is funny I'm just saying that this does exist you just need to go man fuck Tupac

and then you see this other dude go no nigger fuck you and he was like very emotional and it was the whole thing and I'm watching this going down so the Tyler's the people that be like fuck Black History Month

fuck Kwan These people have always existed. They just, when you put this on Twitter, it exists forever. So the question, after that long preamble, is what do we do? How do we deal with this? I definitely come from a tribe of people to where we look at what happened and we view the actual thoughts and talk about the thing and try to understand the person as a human. But at the same time, if you're looking at this, now you're to a point to where Tyler fan base, or at least a part of them, a portion of them,

thinks that it's okay to say fuck DeAngelo after he dies. So the seeds that have been planted throughout a long time of saying this type of stuff, they sprouted. Yeah. Yeah. And in a moment where we needed to have some empathy for actual black life that was lost, it wasn't there. And that's a real thing that we can discuss. Rachel, what do we do?

Yeah. So I can't do an apology rating on this because Tyler the creator has not made a comment. He has not apologized. And to the best of my knowledge, hasn't truly addressed this. Because this is the thing. This is not the first time this stuff has come up. I'm new to being a Tyler the creator fan, but I, to your point, I am a big fan. So I'm not as familiar with his music before where some of the lyrics that they were pulling up were offensive derogatory to women, to the LGBT-Q-plus community, to black people. I didn't listen to those songs.

I probably started listening, I don't know, whatever that, was it, Flower Boy? I probably started listening more around there, but I also went back and listen. Yeah, so there's not an apology for me to address. You ask the question, what do we do? And my thought process is, well, what is Tyler going to do? And the reason I say this, because he hasn't addressed it, you know, these comments came up from 2011. Like I said, I don't know if he's addressed it. But my immediate reaction is, well, why is it what we do and not Tyler takes some sort of responsibility?

And I say that because he did do an action. He has not apologized, but he did turn off his comments on social media, which means he's a way. he sees it and he's trying to stop the bleeding to some point. Because by the time I started looking on it, the comments were turned off. So I had to go to the next post and I saw all, I could still see all the stuff that people were saying about him. So he has made a response by trying to stop the bleeding rather than addressing it. And I think the biggest point is- That might have been turning off the comments so that people didn't continue to disrespect DiAngelo.

They were disrespecting him. I don't, I don't, that could be true. I personally don't believe that because of the comments I saw in the next one. Not one of them was talking that I saw. Of course, I couldn't read all thousands of them. It wasn't about DeAngelo. It was about Tyler. It was about criticizing Tyler for turning off his comments.

It was criticizing Tyler for not saying anything in particular about the criticism. Because to your point, you could say maybe Tyler didn't mean anything of it. He's a troll. He was doing stuff for reaction. He was doing it to be provocative to get attention. but the people who were consuming your music, I was reading comments from people who were saying, you gave power to people who didn't look like me,

to laugh at me, to make fun of me, to water down certain the things that black people were going through, to make jokes about the injustices that the black community faces, to say the N-word, that's what he gave, he gave power to that in his trolling, even if the intention wasn't, there. The trolling a lap gave power to a certain group of people and allowed them to attack your very community. That is a problem. And when I hear Tyler the Creator, I get on Mike and be so

passionate about a rapper like Ian, about how Ian is making a mockery of rap. And then he goes on to talk about how he's a student of the game and how he has studied these rappers and what rap means to our community and what these rappers did and the music that they made and, you know, just the legacy and the importance of this industry and this type of music, and you have somebody like an Ian, a white boy, as he said it, come along and just do what he does and become so popular, he's disgusted by it. Well, I could make an argument that you gave rise

to the very audience that consumes Ian's music. And so it's, I think that maybe Tyler, even if he is not doing the things that he did before, I don't know if he regrets it or what, but he's not doing that before. And I think he owes to us a long way of responding back to your original. Question is, you owe us

some type of statement. You owe us an explanation and not just to turning off the comments and hope that we forget it until Camp Flognog happens in the next couple of weeks. So here's what's that play. And I'll be honest.

Tal used to say those crazy things and some of these sweet, I hadn't seen before, but they weren't surprising to me. I didn't take any commentary or anything, even artistically from our future, seriously enough, to be like, whatever. Like, what the fuck is going on?

To criticize it. Because literally, I looked at it like, I looked at like little homies that say crazy shit, like I said before. Their brand was inciting you. right like Eminem Eminem has a song called Same Song and Dance

and the song is about being a serial killer for different pop stars there was a a certain vacantness to it I'm having trouble describing it like it was so outlandish almost

that it almost begged to not be taken seriously and that's the way I looked at our future Not that the art that they were making wasn't awesome because a lot of these songs was great. When you look at Yonkers, the stuff was so artistic. When you look at the video,

he's saying all kinds of stuff, but then his eyes are black and he walks over, he hangs himself, then he vomits and all of that stuff. And you're like, Jesus Christ. And there was a certain, if I'm honest, there was a certain artistic respect for how uninhibited they were.

There was a, you like it. the fact that they were that way. They were crazy little... Remember they were on a Jimmy Fallon show running around, getting Wolfgang Sam, going crazy. The fact that they were...

They could not be corralled and they were just running around fucking shit up. They were skaters and they were young black kids. They were just breaking all of these molds. They were, a lot of them were sexually fluid. Almost everything was a challenge. And they were challenging convention. What happens is you do that when you're young.

and some of the things that you challenge, you challenge them because you don't see the value in them yet. You don't see the value in community or sensitivity or understanding. You don't see the value in it. Then you get to a point in your life where you grow musically. He talks about his transformation and wanting to make different music and have different sounds. Well, now you're listening to some of this stuff.

And it's like, the people that came before you in this, you see the value in that. And you also see the value not just in their music, but you see the value in the circumstances that created that music. Because it would be difficult to listen to Marvin Gay and not see the point of view that created the artistic expression from Marvin Gay. And once you have an appreciation for that music and that music becomes such an, I'm not saying that he didn't before,

I'm saying that it's more pointed and obvious now. You start to change a little bit and you mature. you mature and you understand that the things that you said that you put up there they exist forever I worked at TMZ for damn near a decade so it would be really stupid for me for me to act like I don't understand now the point of view of somebody that maybe at one point and I was in my 30s didn't understand what it meant to be connected to something what I'm always interested in then, to your point is, are you willing to have the conversation now? Yeah, does your maturity come with that?

Are you willing to have the conversation now? And it's not like, because a lot of these guys pushing them to apologize is not, pushing them to apologize, just it kind of, it trenches them more into the thing. But once again, having the conversation is about establishing community. And that's kind of the thing that I'm, I guess I'm trying to say. I will, I think forcing an apology, and listen, I'm the queen of the apology rating. But I agree with you in this point, because my biggest issue was his response of turning off the comments. And I know it could be argued a different way.

But you're running away rather than addressing it. I think there is a way to address it from the past and how it moved you into where you are right now as a person, as an artist. And I don't think it's fair to give him a pass just because, you know, I'm a big fan of the music that he's making. And even in ways that he has his alternative, you know, hip hop as he called the genre and wanting to not be put in a box when it comes to rap. There's parts of that that I really like. But it's hard for me. It is still hard for me, I will say. To not when you're like, they don't kids sometimes don't see the value.

I agree with you. but when you're wearing a KKK costume with a rope tied around your other black odd futures neck, you got to see, you got to understand what you're doing like that. Well, look, I mean, look, I'm not defending it,

but what I'm saying is that I, and we could be, I was raised to see what that image was since I was a baby. I was raised by people who you drive down Highland Road and the trees would be low hanging

and they would be like their souls on those trees and the people that whose souls are on those trees look like you and I would be hanging out with my friends and a lot of you guys might think

that this is a hell of a way to grow up but it is what it is hanging out with my friends some of the people that I knew in my class and my dad would put me to the side and would be like look don't get no trouble with that boy. He's like, why? He's like, just, I'm telling you, son. Y'all play Nintendo, y'all do

the whole thing. But if that boy wanted to get into something stupid, don't get into it. My friend is white at this point. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, if you get in trouble with that boy, he's going to, they're going to walk him somewhere where he's safe and you're going to wear everything. And that's just the way it is. Don't ask no questions about it. Don't stop your feet. I'm telling you, you have to make sure that you protect yourself in these types of situations. And so my world was about walking through it and understanding what being black meant. I don't know what other people's experiences are. I don't know why people would fuck around with the KKK and making fun.

And at a time where black people are really upset about something saying that we don't give a fuck, I don't know about that. I don't know. I know that me and Tyler have different lineages. We have different upbringings. We have all different types. I'm just being for real. I'm being for real.

And part of that is a fucking fact, though. And part of that is part of that right there is not something to necessarily like hone in on. But I will say that like there is a different sometimes the real thing is this. There is a part of you. Like Donald Glover went on the breakfast club and he goes, I want to be big and white.

It's like whiteness is blankness. I don't want to be big and white. I just want to be black. I don't want to ever be anything other than being a black man. But you know what I do enjoy watching? I do enjoy watching guys who are uninhibited by some of the things that encumber me. Because you wish, do you wish that you have, okay, just, I just want to clarify. Do you enjoy it?

No, no, no, no. Because, okay. I've always enjoyed, like, watching somebody, not, like, hurt black people. But the reason, I enjoy watching people that, like, they just don't give a fuck. They don't fucking care. They just going to do and say the shit that they want. They're going to take everything that comes along with it. Sometimes I enjoy, particularly the art, because the art ends up going to, like, really weird and interesting.

places. To be real with you, that's kind of what people like about hip hop. Like the hip hop artists, if we wanted to start breaking down lyrics, a lot of the shit that was coming out of the 90s, the shit that we love, is crazy anti-black, anti-woman, anti-all of that stuff. But we like it because these guys, number one, because it's in our brains and it's catchy music, but these guys live a lifestyle to where they don't have to give a fuck about what other people think about them. But what always happens is for all of us, you get to a point to where you do. That just doesn't last forever.

You do. You care. You want community. You need community. And then what is the interest price in community? The entry price to community is a shared sense of values. And the music and the things that you say, they live forever. They do.

They do. And we know that. And I don't know why we think, again, I think with Tyler. Because we be young. No, no, no. But I think in particular with Tyler is, as I said at the beginning, this is not the first time this has happened. And he's able to always, we just move on. The cycle moves on.

This time feels a little different. So I'm curious to see what the response will be. Maybe there won't be. Bring in Akbar. Akbar, man. We're going to talk a little bit about what's going on whether or not there is a ceasefire in Gaza right now that is holding or can't hold. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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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. We got to get right into it. Yes. What is the state of the state of the state? ceasefire in Gaza right now as we speak. Allegedly right now, Monday, October 20th, in the afternoon, there is still a ceasefire in Gaza holding, but it is extremely brittle. Both sides have indicated a desire or some sign that they may go out of it.

More Israel. I mean, more the Israeli side has shown that they are kind of sowing the seeds to return to all-out war or kind of a ceasefire. minus, right? Which is the fear all along for Palestinians, where it's a seat fire on the cover, sort of you can say that and say, we tried peace, but there's bombing constantly. And in the last 24 hours, we've seen 45 Palestinians killed, two IDF soldiers also killed. But there's a lot of fear about more bloodshed. Were we silly to think that this was, because we know that this was in stages, the ceasefire tolls in stages, and we've seen stage one, we've seen the hostages return,

from Gaza, we've seen the Palestinian hostages and other prisoners released. We've seen that happen, but there was always this whole thing about the vagueness of stage two. The fact that there were no timetables, the fact that there was nowhere to go if there was some sort of violation, really. And it makes me leaving the question, not particularly with this, what's happening right now, but just historically, where we just, it's like all of a sudden after decades and decades and all this back and forth are war, I should say, that it was all of a sudden going to stop. But I think you hit the nail on the head, like when you said, there was nowhere to go with the violations, because ultimately the way that this whole deal was designed was that Donald Trump is going to be the only arbiter. Right? So if you wanted this to hold up, you have to trust in Donald

Trump to be reliable, focused, and care about human rights. That's a big mask. And right now what I'm seeing is Steve Whitkoff, Trump's, you know, that envoy, there in Israel, Jared Kushner is working on this. I think the Trump administration doesn't want this to fall apart, but do they have the tools and the vision to nudge the Israelis, to use U.S. leverage? I mean, we know that a talk about going to the next stage. There's still more than 8,000 Palestinians detained.

The vast majority of them with no charges, conviction, even evidence presented for why they have been detained, right? And we don't know how to get further from that. We haven't heard that from Trump officials. Now, there's been some talk about why this recent wave of fighting has kind of kicked off. Israel is saying that there was some firing on their troops. There's been some talk about whether or not an unexploded bomb exploded because they were trying to bulldoze it out of the rubble. The rubble itself, though, seems to be a real sticking point here because

Israel wants the return of the remains of some of the hostages and Hamas seems to be saying that in order to get these hostages back to you, we have to dig them out of the rubble. And the rubble itself seems to be very dangerous and also there's a lot of it. So there could be unexploded bombs in the rubble and there's a lot of rubble.

My question to you is this, knowing that this was a part of the ceasefire deal, did Hamas not expect Israel to demand them to go through the rubble? How has this entire conversation around the destruction that has remained in Gaza? Why was this not something that was clarified during the negotiations of the ceasefire? Hamas in the ceasefire was working through the mediating countries, right? Qatar and Egypt and really Qatar, which as we know, has its own close ties to President Trump.

The Qataris really wanted a deal right then. This came after Israel had attacked Qatar, unsuccessfully aiming at Hamas targets. I would say there was a rush to get into the deal without as you're saying, Van, addressing some of those

key questions, right? Like, for instance, we know the only kind of the world-class body that can deal with unexploded ordinance, in which in Gaza is at a level we have not seen since World War true, right? And it may even exceed World War True in terms of just more influence bombs. It's the UN, right? You need UN experts. You need UN people to have visas to go in. Israel throughout

this war since October 7th has said, we hate the UN operating in Gaza. We hate the UN agency working on Palestinians. We're not going to give them visas. They've attacked the UN Secretary General. So if you were serious about any of that, you'd have to get a commitment from the Israelis saying we're going to respect the experts and let them do their work. Because there was this rush and because it was so kind of politically motivated, they had the anniversary of October 7th coming up. Trump wanted to say, I achieved something Biden wasn't able to achieve. And it was huge to bring the hostages home back to Israel, back to their families. Absolutely a win. But to do it in this frame that could lead to a lot more instability is really dangerous. I think from Hamas's

perspective, however, by that point, they kind of felt this was the best bet they were going to get. And Trump was the only bus to but that trust too. Right. To stop the killing and deal with all the finer points of it or some of the finer points of it

when you can't. Right. Yeah. So I saw reporting that because of, you know, there's been violations alleged on both sides

of the ceasefire that aid is no longer getting to the Palestinian people, which was one of the, one of the reasons that there was the signing of the ceasefire so that,

people can get aid because they haven't been able to. So are they still able to get, are they getting aid now? Has that changed? Can you please explain that? Yeah. So there was some surging aid in that period, kind of once the ceasefire, didn't go into effect. So eight agencies have been able to ramp up.

The UN has been able to ramp up a little bit, start operating some of the bakeries, most of which have been pummled, right, over the three years of war. And what's really important to understand about that aid pictures, this is a population of 2.1 million people that has been intentionally deprived for more than two years now. So you cannot just hand them a piece of bread

and say, now you'll be better. Their body, their physicality has literally changed. People have shrunk, have deformed, have lost limbs, have been on the move for two months, back and forth again and again and again through rubble. So we're nowhere near the amount of aid that's needed. and the other fundamental aspect to not lose sight of, because we keep talking about these niggling things, right?

300 trucks or 400 trucks and five bakeries and this part of Gaza, international law and U.S. law, say you cannot deprive humanitarian aid as a tactic of warfare, and you cannot provide American weapons to a country that is intentionally depriving American-funded humanitarian aid. That is U.S. law. Neither the Biden administration nor the Trump administration hasn't forced that law with regard to Israel. So any question about the real humanitarian concern here is really about addressing that really fundamental war crime and violation of America's own laws.

There's a video floating around with Ben Gavir being interviewed. Have you seen this? Yes. Yes. Where he says that essentially we're going to get our hostages and then we're going to go back into Gaza and unleash hold. Hell, here's a deal. You know, we talked about it on this podcast, and we said that it would be just an insane turn of events. I don't know why I feel like it would be in the insane turn of events.

If Israel got their hostages back and a large portion of the world celebrated, and then they went back into Gaza and started the genocide again. Now, from a high up in the Israeli government, he said, we're going to do exactly that. Okay? there's a lot of talk about who really runs Israel, whether or not it's Benjamin Netanyahu, or whether or not Benjamin Netanyahu is actually using the far right of his government, Smotrich-Bin-Gavir, guys like that,

to deliver elections to him to keep him out of prison. So then those guys would make the decisions because he would countow to whatever in order to stay in power. Long way of asking, is that what Israel is going to do? that video that's coming out is it seems to lend intellectual credence to the idea that the restarting of this fighting was something that was always in their plan and that they are going to look for any reason available to continue to do what they were doing before they got their hostages back. So Ben Gavir obviously is catering to his own far-right base, right? He's in a moment where he knows that his political ally at Niyahu has had an agreement with Hamas,

which is going to be unpopular with the most hardline Israelis. So Ben-Gavir, I do think in this moment needs to posture to that base to it might not necessarily be a plan, right? It's also often retrofitting a plan onto just what's happened. But do we know that the Israelis sort of wanted to do this all along? I don't think they've made the decision. I think the risks that have been there throughout the war have really worsened. And at this moment, the Israeli military, which really feels overstretched in Gaza, there's a lot of anxiety in Israel about the emigration of Israelis.

Since Netanyahu has taken power and since October 7th, you've seen tens of thousands of Israelis leave the country, just choose to not be part of this anymore. Right? So there's a lot of division within Israeli society right now that I think makes it hard to imagine a specific master plan or brand scheme. But that makes it really easy for someone like Netanyahu to play Trump on a day-by-day hourly basis, depending on the political calculation that he makes. Is he trying to look like a peacemaker today or is he trying to cater to his far-right voters and his hardline allies? We do know that ending the war, as you know, is not necessarily in his best political interests, right?

And retaining the sense of uncertainty, the sense of the job isn't done, so you still need me, don't put me out of office and maybe put me in jail, don't investigate me. That's a beneficial route for Netanyahu. So I think that you'll see him continue to push and certainly not look for a permanent deal.

Because a lot of what's in a permanent deal, right, in terms of giving up a lot of Israeli control of gas, trying, beginning to accept some measure of Palestinian self-governance there again, we don't know that that Yahoo has agreed to any of that. And we know that previously, he's renecked. Yeah, that's, I think that's, and I hate to sound so negative. And we talked to, or, you know, just, like, I just have no hope that things are going to move in the direction that we want to when we saw that there was going to be a ceasefire deal.

But especially in regards to the second. part of it. But that's where I'm struggling with. And I wonder if there's something I'm missing because it doesn't seem like we're getting, especially with what Banjus pointed out, whether or not you had heard those comments coming from the higher up in the Israeli government. But it just doesn't seem like there's any type of Israeli recognition for a need for peace. It seems as if there's a doubling down on a reasoning to continue the war. Now, I know that it's being reported that two IDF soldiers. lost their lives in addition to the numerous Palestinians that have lost their lives since this peace still has been signed. But it just doesn't seem like there is this move towards peace.

Which one is more likely to you? Yeah, I think that's severe national trauma in Israel itself, right? The constant loss of life, people being deployed, people being away from their families and in reserve. And Israelis who do want peace, I don't think, are finding either a leader or a route forward. I think what if we continue on the current trajectory, which is kind of counting on the Trump administration, counting on Jared Kushner, I don't see how it's likely that there'll be U.S. leverage

on the Israelis for one's peace. Instead, what we're seeing, not just in Gaza, but it's really important to remember, in this post-October 7th moment, the Israelis with U.S. support, has launched military incursions in various other places because they've gotten more U.S. support than ever. before. And we've seen them just today

have two more incursions in Syria and in Lebanon. Right? So if you are this kind of more hardline Israeli who thinks the goal is not peace, but to bully the region into submission, to be the big bully in the region with American support,

that's the trajectory that they're on right now. Last question for me. Trump has staked a large portion of his reputation on on this peace deal. He won a Nobel Prize. He

wants to be seen as a peacemaker. You see reports that he's freaking out on Zelensky begging Zelensky or imploring Zelensky to accept some type of peace deal in Ukraine to end it wherever things are right now. And, you know,

I don't think that Zelensky is prepared to do that or that he will ever be prepared to do that or doesn't seem likely that he will be anytime soon. But, I mean, the failure of this ceasefire would be embarrassing to President Trump. Or maybe it wouldn't be. Maybe nothing is embarrassing to President Trump. So I guess my question is, how much of this would be disastrous for the president

if, in fact, it went bad? Or is this just another thing to where if, in fact, we are at full-fledged war in the coming days or weeks that Trump will just shrug it off and continue to support Israel in the same way that America has really always. I think for Trump, there is

such a desire. Remember, he made the spot of his 2024 election campaign against Biden, right? Biden is allowing all these wars to happen. I will stop them. We have seen him interestingly and consistently not take the kind of standard U.S. position of saying

the Palestinians are lies, the Palestinians are wrong, the Palestinians are the problem. So Hamas, of course, hugely violent group committing war crimes, violations of international law on itself, but often the violations of ceasefires and negotiations have been the Israeli side. And Trump, even in the last 24 hours, has said,

I think Hamas is still committed to a ceasefire. That's where he is a little different from a Joe Biden and even than past U.S. presidents. And so if that instinct is still there, where he can see Israel, little more skeptically and apply pressure, maybe he'll stick to that piece thing. I don't know that he would accept a full-fledged return to a Gaza war. I don't think he wants that on his watch.

And I think he will throw various things at the wall. The question is whether he finds something effective in terms of U.S. leverage of pressure on Yahoo. Right now, I don't think Whitkoff and Kushner and Tony Blair, right, famous architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that has been resurrected to advise the Trump administration, don't Those people are not going at him those ideas. But I think there are people around him who would push him to take a tougher line and say, look, we, just as he asked with Ukraine, say, we are your source of military aid and weapons. We're calling the shots a little bit more.

Akbar, last question for me. You are working on a book right now about Gaza. Can you tell us a little bit about that and, you know, all the information where we can find it? Yeah. Thank you so much for asking. I am finalizing my book, which is on the Biden administration's track record and policy making on Gaza. The book's going to be out next year to really put a mirror up to the Democratic Party and the foreign policy establishment among Democrats that failed in Gaza, that failed for decades

and needs to offer something new if it's going to be an alternative to Trump. So many of Biden's policies were building on Trump one, and now Trump two is building on Biden. And you're not going to win people over or move towards a different, more peaceful, more humane future if you keep doing basically the same tactics with a different letter after your name, D or R. Wow. Look at Akbar. Just in time for the midterms. How, Akbar? God damn it.

Thank you for joining us. We're probably going to be checking in. We always say this a little bit more as we figure out what is happening and how this is supposed to go. quick sound bite, quick, quick question. Is the ceasefire done? The zombie ceasefire lives. And I think there's a desire to continue. The ceasefire is not dead yet today.

Agbar, thank for joining us on Higher Learning, Thank you. We have a little time. I'm going to ask you a question. How do we deal with the Stephen A. Smith thing? I told you on the last podcast. You're over it. Well, it's getting, what he's doing is getting so much attention

that it's not even just being over it. It's similar to, not to compare the two, but similar to you talking about the way the Republicans addressed January 6th. Nothing's changing. And so I'm almost figuring out how do I continue to address it, the provocative things that he's saying or his mind. mindset with any, like, any nuance or any different. It is what it is at this point.

So I, I, I, I hate giving it so much attention. And I see so many other people talking about it, doing a whole diatrives on it. And I'm like, I just, I don't feel like it's, it's worth it. It's doing anything at this point. Okay. We'll think about it. But this is my, this is my issue here that is the deal. and we're not going to become

the anti-anybody podcast or the podcast that checks everybody else's work. It's not, it's not, we have to talk about things that we're interested in. But you know what I am interested in? I am interested in someone who embodies the misinformation and the incuriousness of the average American.

Like, Stephen A. Smith has become a mascot for how misinformed and incurious, the average American political person is. That's not a dis. That is an observation. And when I say that's not dis, I really mean it. It should be a dis fan

because there's a responsibility that comes when you have a platform. He's not having this conversation with his friends on a group chat. It should be. You have a heightened sense of responsibility when it comes to... I don't believe in the dis and shit.

The disinformation and misinformation, it is a dis because we're holding you to a higher standard because of the platform that you have. Go ahead and play it. Play this real quick. Let's talk about all this with my first guest who has no shortage of political opinions. He's the host also of straight shooter on Sirius XM and, of course, the host of First Take on ESPN. I'm talking about Stephen A. Smith. Good to see you. Look this weekend, everyone's talking about it. Over 2,500 anti-Trump, no kings protests. They're a plan for tomorrow alone.

Republicans are calling them everything from hate America to even Hamas. Does this rhetoric concern you? Listen, the rhetoric always concerns me because it's an indication of how divided of a nation we truly, truly are and how, you know, just, I would say just vitriolic we're willing to be towards one another. That can't be a good thing for us in the long run. Nevertheless, people have their reasons for feeling what they feel. in a lot of cases, the Trump administration, because of their rhetoric and the way they go about doing things,

give you ammunition to go at them that way. That is true. The flip side to it is that there's a midterm election that's coming up. Is that what's going to better position you to win? That's what I'm hoping is the attitude of the Democratic Party, that everything that they're doing is something they deem to be strategic in a fashion that they believe will help them regain some level of significance within our, within our government in terms of regaining some power on Capitol Hill. That should be the goal because anything else is just a bunch of lip services, a bunch of pomp and circumstances not going to amount to anything. You've got to strategize and come up with a formula that's going to ultimately be something that forces the Republican Party to take a step back because they have been marching forward

since Trump has regained office and they have pushed the pedal to the metal and they don't seem to give a damn what anybody feels because they know they have their base intact. And in the case of the Democrats, the Democrats have made a legitimate case for being rudderless and leaderless. And that's really what's going on right now. So what are you identifying as the political strategy? Is it the grassroots protests separate and apart from what's happening on Capitol Hill? Is it the fight of even the shutdown and of itself? Is it the rhetoric coming back from Democratic Party? What is the strategy do you think is in play right now? My apologies. I didn't mean to give an impression that I think they have a strategy.

because I don't. That's my problem. See, this is the whole point. This is the whole point. I'm glad you asked that question, Laura. I'm not a person. I'm going to be unapologetic about this. I don't, you know, Trump, I don't want Trump serving the third term and second, circumventing the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which we all don't believe will happen. I don't want the J.D. Vance to be our next president of the United States of America, but in the same breath, I don't want the Democratic Party to resemble what it did in the past. I think that there needs to be a purged. It needs to be a change. They need to have a strategy. I think the Democratic party needs to be move more to the center, reminding the American citizens that issues like

affordability and health care, even though that's something that they're arguing with this whole shutdown thing in terms of ACA subsidies and what have you. The bottom line is it's about the economy. It's about dollars and cents. It's about affordability. It's about safety in the streets. And I think they need to move towards the center, back towards the center where most of the party is as opposed to being submissive and at the mercy of the progressive left. That's what I think is the strategy. Okay, so stop. Stop right there.

So stop right there. Okay, real quick. The only problem with that is that none of that is true. So this is the issue. The issue isn't a personality issue where you want to diss someone. But the reason why you feel the need to speak on that is because that's not true. The fact that the Democrats are so far left that they can't address issues like, health care and affordability isn't true.

The reality is that the reason why the Democrats can't address issues like health care and affordability is because they're not left enough. With Stephen A. Smith says that the Democratic establishment has capitulated to the left voices in the party. I want to give you guys a couple of a roster check here. Establishment Democrats that have big names

in the party or have over the past 10 years. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries. Progressive left Democrats, Bernie Sanders, A.O.C. Elon Omar, Rashid Talib. Jamal Bowman. You know, people that were on the left.

I know Jamal's not in Congress and now. Which group of people runs the party? Like which group of people runs the party Not just from a structural sense in terms of who runs the party in Washington Sure But from the sense of which people run the spirit of the party You put Kamala Harris in that establishment Democrat bag as well Which people run the party

So when you're talking about issues of affordability Or issues of health care You're talking about the left of the party That is talking about Medicaid for all It's talking about single pair of health care. Well, let me say. It's talking about single pair of health care, right? And it's talking about checks on capitalism,

increasing the tax rate, like moving from the regressive taxing system of the United States to a progressive tax that favors the middle class average American worker. Those ideas are coming from the left. They're coming from the left. And the center of the Democratic Party is working. working their ass off to fight those ideas. To fight it.

For sure. And so when you hear that analysis, what you hear, and I don't even know if Stephen A. Smith means to do this, but you hear the regurgitation of actually MAGA campaign talking points that the group of people that run the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries-Chukes Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are some blue-haired leftists, Marxist people who want to, that's not who they are. They are actually fighting just as hard against the people who want to see this party work for average working Americans and want to see people with housing and health care

and look at those things as humor. They're working just as hard against those people as they are against the people on the other side of the aisle for them. Now, look, I could be wrong about that, but I'll tell you something about it. That's what it certainly seems like because even if we talked about, and I know we can't spend a lot of time on this,

but if you take Joe Biden and his, if you take Joe Biden and his approach to policing, it was leftist people who were saying, hey, defund the police, or reimagine policing where we cut some of these police budgets and invest into other things. Joe Biden said, no. fund the police.

And what the right did was pretend like he didn't say that. What they did was say, no, doesn't matter that the leader of the party said fund the police, we need more police, we need more money into these police budgets. There are activists that are leftists that are saying this,

so this makes up the meaningful intellectual conversation that's coming from the Democratic Party. That's just not true. And I'm saying that to say that that type of analysis is either so misinformed that it's irresponsible

or it's purposefully irresponsible. And those are two different things. I don't look at this as a personal thing. I look at it and I go, it's not. What's happening?

But that's my point. I'm not attacking Stephen A. Smith as a person or his personality. I am saying there is a responsibility. that comes when you have a whole show now on Sirius XM dedicated to political rhetoric. There is a responsibility to be informed. And so that's where I push back on the point of even continuing. Everything you said is absolutely true.

I just don't see the benefit in everything that you said. I would argue that the people who listen to this understand that and know that. I think that what he's doing is harmful because it adds to your point. it's not true, but I'm trying to find the reasoning or whether it's worth it to continue to address the things that he keeps saying. But that might just be my own personal. I get it. No more podcast. We've done enough podcasting today.

Rachel, enjoy your pork. I'll have more pork today. There'll be pork involved. Do you eat pork at all? Can I just ask you, do you eat pork at all? You're disgusting, Hazel. Do you eat pork at all? Yeah, of course.

I'd like to bring you over to this side. I do eat pork. I just don't have a whole pork-based diet. I don't. People love when you say that. I tell you what I don't do is I don't do like multiple pork a day. You see if I do bacon for breakfast or like a satchez for breakfast. This is rare.

When it's time for dinner, I'm not going to re-up on the pork. I'm not going to be like I'm going to come back to some of the pork. I'm going to be like, I have pork today. This is rare for me. Yesterday I had no pork. I had no pork yesterday. Yeah. How many days in a week would you say you go pork free?

I think you can really deduce what that means by the fact that I can point out the day I did not have. See what I'm saying? You're just sitting around. I mean, how many times have you seen me open up a Ziploc bag and eat bacon like the chips? You snack on old bacon. It's not old. It is old. It's congealed.

I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to be better. But today, while I'm back at home, it's poor time. I'm free. It's pork time. It's pork time. It's pork in time.

Pigs beware, you little motherfuckers. Charlotte's Webb, get the fuck out of here, I don't give a fuck. How many fucking webs you can do? What was his name? What was a little nigga name of Charlotte's Webb? Wilbur.

Wilbur, Wilbur, you're dead. I don't give a fuck how many webs you can make. That was sad of shit. I love, I love pigs, though. That's the crazy thing. Like, I've always wanted a pet pig. You love the shit out of them. Yeah, you love pigs like white people love black people.

Oh, shit. You love them, but fuck them at the same time. All right, take your decaps off, but do not stop learning. I'm Van Laid Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.