Julian Dorey Podcast - #57 - John Boruk: THE STATE OF TV MEDIA & CONFLICTS OF INTEREST; THE POLITICIAN PROBLEM IN AMERICA; SPORTS & POLITICS; JOHN'S EXIT FROM CSNPHILLY

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

John Boruk is an Emmy and Murrow Award-winning broadcast anchor. Most notably, he spent 13 years at Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia where he served in various roles including: lead anchor, beat reporter, and writer. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 3:42 - How money changes athletes; Tom Brady, Kobe, & “The Thing” 14:02 - The state of TV Sports Media; Bing on TV in an online world; The conflict of interests in media; Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia’s relationship with the Philadelphia sports teams; That time Michael Barkann went in on then Flyers owner, Ed Snyder; The Incentive in media to “move up” 33:20 - John tells a wild Detroit story; Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s pardon from Trump 44:04 - John discusses covering the George Floyd protests in June 2020; Cops vs. Politicians in societal issues; What Occupy Wall Street & The Tea Party tried to tell everyone; The failure of the 2 Party System 1:00:43 - Second Amendment; The CIA, NSA, FBI & their scope of power; Edward Snowden’s warning to everyone 1:17:16 - Discussing past presidents; “People vote with their wallets”; Victims in society 1:34:50 - The Hope and purpose crisis; Fear of failure or thrive on perfection?; Amazon vs. The Government;  Section 230 & Tech Companies 1:50:29 - Daryl Morey & the Hong Kong Controversy; The NBA’s relationship with China; How the media sells catastrophe in exchange for emotion 2:10:32 - The state of politics in sports; Colin Kaepernick; The extremist ideologies that permeate the two political factions of society today; Protecting unpopular speech due to the slippery slope implications; Revisiting the Capitol Riot on January 6 2:31:38 - John’s exit from CSNPhilly and how it all went down; “I like to tell great stories”; What’s next for John 2:45:54 - The power of building your own platform; John talks about a story he covered that was pulled before airing~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q  ~ Get $100 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover: https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier  Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey  ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io  Music Produced by White Hot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Let's just say 95% are good-hearted cops that are doing the right thing.

Can you say that about politicians? Oh, no. Oh, no. See, that's the point. That's the point I was trying to make. I said, tell me, do politicians get into the people who go to Washington? Do they do that to make your life better, or do they do that to make their life better? What's cooking everybody i am joined in the bunker today by a tv broadcast legend an emmy winner and an all-around good guy mr john boric i'm not going to get into what we talked about in this conversation because it was a lot i will let you guys check out the time stamps in the episode description for that. But essentially, I asked John to come in here to talk about what's going on in the world, what's going on in his mind and a little bit about his career too. And so we did all that and had a little bit of scotch while

we were doing it. I think it was a little sauce by the end, but it was a lot of fun for me talking to somebody who's been on my TV since I was growing up and who's a legend to me so i enjoy getting his perspective and i hope to do it with him sometime again now if you have not used the link in my description along with the code trendifier at checkout to get an eight sleep pod pro mattress or an eight sleep pod pro cover here's why you should consider it because you sleep you sleep i sleep everybody sleeps i say it every week eight sleep is the first tech company to try mattresses though and not a mattress company that's trying to do tech and so what they do is they build a proprietary app that ties right into their mattress and right into their cover which let's focus on the cover because the cover is half the price it comes in queen or king

sizes and it can go right on top of your current mattress right now and do all the same things. But with that cover, their app goes in and it optimizes within the first night of sleeping with it. It optimizes your sleep schedule around you. So that's your sleep stages, your optimal body temperature throughout the night, your REM and a whole bunch of other things. So essentially what I like to say is it's like getting eight hours of sleep if you only sleep six why not give it a try so use that link in my description along with the code trendifier that's t-r-e-n-d-i-f-i-e-r at checkout and you will get 100 off the eight sleep pod pro cover and again if you want to go for the full mattress as

well you'll get a hundred dollars off that too anyway if you want to go for the full mattress as well, you'll get $100 off that too. Anyway, if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. If you're on YouTube right now, hit that subscribe button, hit that bell button, and leave a like and comment on the video if you would, please. To everyone who has been sharing the podcast, whether it be your favorite episode or just the page with a friend who also listens to podcasts each week that has been awesome that word of mouth is huge so if anyone hasn't done that yet out there and you want to pick out your favorite episode to send to somebody who likes podcasts i would really really appreciate

it that said you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory, and this is Trendify. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture. Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it.

If you don't like the status quo, start asking questions. I see this a lot in sports. And it doesn't really matter what the sport, especially in the sports where they have guaranteed contracts. In those sports, once they sign those big mega deals, how many athletes are going to play up to that level how many athletes are gonna make or they get are they gonna play at the level that they play prior to signing that big contract not a lot no no they never rarely do they live up to those big mega deals

unless you're the athlete that, and it's hard. They can talk about it. Money's not going to change you. But what they can't define in those terms is that once you sign the contract, the financial

stability that comes with it, you don't have to worry about money anymore. It's guaranteed money. Base anymore. It's guaranteed money. Baseball, it's guaranteed money. You sign an eight-year whatever contract. The great ones, don't even think about that. Tom Brady's made $100 million. He has a beautiful house and a beautiful wife.

The only thing that he's really motivated by is winning championships. Yes. That's it. That's the difference. Like that's the drug. What's the drug? You know, I think for a lot of guys, and I've had former players tell me this, when they have been playing for so long, a lot of these kids started,

players started at the age of five. Playing hockey or playing any sport is now a business. The love has been sucked out. There's no more love for the game. I know that they talk about you're playing a kid's game. You've got to understand it. There's agents that they talk to. It's now a business. It's not like when you're playing Optimist or Pop Warner football back in the day.

That doesn't exist anymore. It's all business. What about for those guys, though? That's the distinction. Because we talk about the ones who the only drug is winning, right? Which goes past the business. I mean, you're going to make a lot of business off that. But they don't get as excited when they sign the $100 million contract or whatever.

They're going in there and it's like, no, no, no, my legacy is we're going to win. How many athletes do you think truly are out there that are like that? Not many. That's my question on them because they're rare. Those guys, the Kobes, the Jordans, the Brad's. Is that why they play for the love? It's the combination of two. You have to have two components.

You've got to have the physical talent to back up the mental toughness that comes with that. The alpha male dominance. Do they look at it as a business though? I think they look at later as a business though? Those guys. I think they look at later in life

their name and stuff, you know, like Tom Brady's got his own brand. That's the but they separate that. Yes. Yes. Okay, the brand is separate from what he's doing on the field. What he's doing on the field is a singular. There's a singular goal, a singular purpose in mind, and that is to win a championship at any cost. There's no price tag. You can't put your finger on what it's going to take to bring that championship. This is everything I prepared for. This is everything that I worked for in the offseason.

This is why i watch film this is why i we go through practices to to get to that point are there guys in your career that you got i don't want to say tight with but that you spent a lot of time around in media who oh it's not really it's rare yeah it's um i have a good friend um that i could i could say his story is is fascinating he was in prison for i don't know four and a half five years and to this day i believe him that i think that he was a victim of the criminal justice system probably should have taken the six month probation he works 18 hour days and every day is a motivation to prove that that prove doubters wrong you know to prove that so he's a successful business person. He's creating a multimillion-dollar company. And he's had other ventures that have succeeded.

But he will, that is the drug to him, is that he has seen the depths of hell. He's seen, you know, guys die and get murdered in prison. At a young age. He was in college when he was convicted. And all of that, you could come out of there and sit there and say, you know, I'm a victim. But I think that whole experience has motivated him to be successful to have a different killer instinct so i have seen it not necessarily my profession but i see it because success has to be

as important as breathing the air as drinking the water i mean it has to be, right? We have to drink water to live. We have to breathe the air to live. To these guys, being successful is like right there. When you put it right up there, like I can't imagine living unless I'm successful doing it, that's when you know that you have somebody pretty special. There's a switch in all these people that they have in common and it's you know turning on the chip on the shoulder right and some people

have that boulder size chip and it can work against you because if you let it drive every single thing you do i think a guy like michael jordan is actually an example someone who managed to do that and not have it go the wrong way. I mean, he had a chip on his shoulder for everything, right? Oh yeah, just watch his retirement speech, right? Oh yeah. But when he was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame? Yes. Right? He pretty much brandished everybody who had burned him along the way or who he thought. You know why I actually love that though? Because, and again, maybe it would have been different if social media had been around, but you never really heard that from him in his career he never he was always kind of like he's behind the scenes gives you the yes no answers whatever occasionally you'd get a good snippet

but that was really it and then finally he's going into the hall of fame he's been i think he'd already been the owner of the bobcats at the time back then so he had been around but he was still like behind the scenes after his career was over and now he came out and said everything you already been the owner of the Bobcats at the time back then. So he had been around, but he was still like behind the scenes after his career was over. And now he came out and said, everything you ever thought, let me confirm or deny it right now. And so even though a lot of people looked at it like, Jesus Christ, like just, you know, be magnanimous or whatever. I appreciated the fact that he showed that all those things you ever thought, that's what it was. He fucking hated Jerry Krause. Hated everything about him.

You found out. And so that honesty, is that the way I would go about it? Probably not. But that honesty I appreciated, and it's pretty raw. I mean, and it goes to show you a part of that gene. And Brady's the same thing. Pick number 199. You know, Kobe.

Kobe was getting bodied at age 13 with kids bigger than him. He was from Europe, right? Like, because he grew up over there when his dad was over there. So he came back here and people didn't take him seriously. You know, this drove them. I remember I caddied for a teammate of his in high school when I was in college. And I forget how I asked it it but at one point you know he had mentioned he played with him and whatever and and i said you know when did you know that he was like good like he was really good and he goes i think it was his junior into senior year could have been sophomore to junior but one of the years yeah you know he was solid he's a good player like okay yeah he's gonna play at the next level, like in college, do a good job.

But then he came back in the fall, and it's like, oh, this man's a god on the court. And the thing was, he didn't act any different. He was still like, everyone's telling me that I can't be this. I'm going to be the best fucking player on planet Earth. And that was all based off of those same kids that were blocking him when he was 13 and telling him oh you can't go left oh fuck you i'll train my left hand all summer you know there's just like a wire and i'm so interested in that it's the thing right like it's that it's that wire that makes someone go i'm different than you and i'm going to remind

you every day why i'm different than you and I don't know any other truth than that. Yeah, you're right. And you see that across all levels of people who are just determined by that succession, even on the business side of things, too. So many great stories of people who, did you ever see the story, the founder about Ray Kroc? I did watch that. That was good. Yeah. Right?

And he had failed on so many different levels. Nobody talks about it. Everybody sees the success behind it. Yes. Nobody sees the failures behind it. Nobody sees the failures behind it. And that's how they learn. They remember the failures. But the rest of us only see the successes.

Anyway, Ray Crocchio started with selling like shake and malt machines and came across the whole McDonald's and then saw an opportunity. But he had failed so many times leading up to that and then became obviously the man behind McDonald's. That's what is, you know, it was fascinating. You know, and then he, but killer instinct. Yes. Killer instinct is like, I seized the opportunity, going for it,

this unrelenting attitude. That's what all these guys of greatness have, an unrelenting attitude. What about in your line of work, though, too? Because you're not a regular business. You're known to a lot of people who you don't know. You're on people's screens for years, millions of people in the area. And you're at the top of your game because you were one of the faces there for years and years and years.

And as we talked about at the beginning, there was a select list of people you could say that about. And yet you see all the things behind the scenes too. You see what's going on, not just in broader TV, but you see where the business is going and one of the things that i think you did talk about a little earlier but i talked with you at length about was the whole concept that what are we doing besides the live events like what is our value here and if correct me if i'm wrong here but you were asking that question five six

years before you left the network and in my, when you look at what's happened there and all the talent that's walked out of the door, it's like clearly they didn't listen. Well, I think we were always asking that question because you saw the whole dynamic of television sports changing, how people gather their news, or how they're watching now. What do they want? Those questions were always out there. Trying to come up with something that's fun and different and trying to package sports in a different way with different content that's not used to what they... You know, I always... They started talking about podcasts.

Podcasts have been around, you know, for a long time. We were sort of late to the arena on that, on getting podcasts. Now, there's so many. It's almost... The whole podcast arena is oversaturated so oversaturated right it's so uh there was an opportunity

so you almost had to be ahead of the curve it's almost back then is somebody say okay this is where the technology is changing and this is how you need to package your product but they try you you try to figure it out and by the time you try to figure it out still thinking that television is the primary medium then you're you're late to the game and and it'll eventually catch up with you. I mean, look at ratings for all the live television sports now. You could chart it over the last 20, 30 years. It's done this. Remember Major League Baseball All-Star Game?

It used to get like 25 and 30 ratings. I couldn't wait to watch the baseball All-Star game. Now I don't even know who the fuck's playing it anymore. Yeah. And it's – yeah, they've incorporated a home run derby and all this, but it's not a spectacle anymore. A lot of these sporting events that were spectacles no longer are on that grand stage anymore because the viewer interest has declined so you got to find something there's yet this is a real transitional period for for sports and television

and you got to you know sooner or later you know what's working now i i feel like that it's such an it's such an ever-evolving medium now that it's going to change it's going to change again five years from now it's going to be something completely different i agree i think that the big thing that you guys are working against when you're especially when you're a pros pros been at this and you know what you're doing is that you're limited in what you are allowed to do because you're a part of an enormous organization you're a part of you're also on tv there's the official FCC and everything so it's very hard for a guy like you who was high up but worked it I mean you worked for NBC right right? You worked for

this huge company. There's one guy who reports to another guy who reports to another girl and so on and so on down. It's very hard to be able to put your own stamp on things. Now, there are people who I see translate well off of TV or still on TV well, who do a good job of living between those two worlds. And what I mean by that is, now we talk about it in the internet era, maybe we didn't talk about this as much 20 years ago, but you notice it now because you have a foil to it. When you watch a newscaster come on or something, there's a face, there's a thing, right? Like you're on camera, you got a 50 person production team, you're makeuped up, you turn on and you go, I'm John Bork.

And this is, you know, whatever. With you and with some other people on that network, there were some people who were very, very good at this. There was that ability to say, hey, you know, I'm putting on this face, but we're keeping it real here. And that is the best you could do. But what you couldn't do is you couldn't come out and be like you know fuck this like there there's no ability to actually take it to where you're kind of sitting at a table with people and just talking and shooting the shit like you would be outside there's still that thing where it's like i'm john borick yo you know i would do that but i am wearing the suit i am you know i'm

on camera right now so i gotta act a certain way but read between the lines here some people would do that but a lot of people they still still just put it on the face totally, and they're like, here's the news. You know what I mean? And it's not natural. Well, yeah, and it's not – there is a level – you have to maintain a level of professionalism. And not – because some people, while they want you to be honest, they also want you to be on their side.

They want you to be positive. They want you to, you know, give me reason for optimism. So it's not necessarily come out and scold everybody, but at the same time, off camera we were raw a lot you know those raw opinions and yeah i mean i could sit there and say you know watching it with uh chris terrian or rick tockett or brian boucher or whoever was with me is like pointing you know talking about a guy like what a dog you know this guy's a dog. Why the hell did they ever sign this guy? You watch them when they play.

They don't exert maximum effort all the time. So there was all that conversation and talk, but you couldn't translate that to television. It's hard, too, because the sports leagues don't want you to just come out and just you know they're they're protective of their brand yes and when you're a regional sports network the teams are look it's you you have this partnership almost where you were you know they they they'll let you you scratch their back and you know you have this partnership almost. They'll let you scratch their back, and they'll scratch yours.

Your offices were literally in the Wells Fargo Center. Right, yeah. That's crazy to me. Well, it was great in terms of access. Yeah, I bet it was. But the whole concept of being in a neutral party and trying to be objective, I mean, I still remember a conversation with management from my side once. Ed Snyder was no longer in the picture that, hey, we can be more opinionated. Really?

Yeah. I mean, so we were very protective of the organization, and there keep your job or do you want to come down and bring the sledgehammer down and before too long they'll get tired of it. So it was always trying to find that fine line. If they're playing bad, call them out on it uh if they're playing well call it like you see it but at the same time um a lot of stuff that that that that you you saw behind the scenes and what players and stuff we're talking about you had to keep to yourself. You just did. Some of it is also, to be clear,

it's like people talk to you off the record as well, which is a huge part of it. And journalistic integrity, obviously, you can't go into that. But I think about this a lot because in society, anyone has access to be able to put their opinion out on anything now. And so everyone thinks they could be a pro on whatever, and that's why also it's oversaturated in podcasts. Maybe I'm crazy too, right? You go out there and a lot of people have a podcast.

They have no fucking idea what they're doing, but they think people want to listen to them. You find out the hard way, and it is what it is. But you still go into it when you're talking to players, in your case, or sources, in whatever case the news is. And a lot of reporters, they get ripped for, oh, they're just incentivized to say this or do that. The bottom line is, everyone, regardless of your economic stature, your purpose in life, not in life, but like your purpose in your career, is you want to move up. And when you move up, you get paid more. And when a system is incentivized such that you have to do certain things to be able to do that and not ruffle feathers, well, are you going to be someone that makes a point for a stand that's going to last five minutes and then you're never heard from again? Or are you going to be someone that provides for your family for the next 30 years? I can't say that that is a very easy thing to talk about

or easy thing to comprehend being in that position. Sports, maybe it's a little easier. When you start getting towards things that people look at as life and death like politics i don't know how i would handle that you know that's why when i look at these reporters from cnn and fox i'm like well i'm not really sure what i would do because they could never go to each other right you can't go to one a different place because you you let down the other place and in most cases right and you have to have a point of view that people are gonna they're gonna fuck with in your audience period And so it takes away the integrity of it. And then you even look at it in sports on a lesser level. You know, people treat some sports like

life and death. They treat their favorite athletes like they're their family. And so if you come out and talk shit on whatever athlete, just because you have a reason to believe it as a reporter, and you're trying to get to the truth of what it is they might not like that and you may be incentivized against doing it especially if you're in a situation where team ownership is a part of your access i mean there's nothing more scary to that than me than like if i were you and your seat and my office and no disrespect to ed snyder he's biased as he should be it his team. But I have an office in his building. His team is there. And if I'm going to go shit talk his team, even if I'm right, what is his business incentive to let me do that?

And he had almost a direct line into management's office. So when he saw something or he heard something on what he considered his network. He was going to let you know about it. Right? But, look, he wasn't opposed to when somebody said, hey, this team's playing bad. Here's the reasons why they're playing bad. He just didn't want things to come out about the team that made the team look bad.

Mike Richards and Jeff Carter out partying and socializing and drinking. That is off-limits. You're not to talk about any of that. Now here's a question. This is important. Is that off-limits on Comcast Sportsnet, but all the places that can actually fully report on that and show maybe some of the things you can't show on TV, on the internet, they're allowed to talk about it? Because they got attention too?

Well, they're not governed by management of those particular teams. So if you look at the Philadelphia Inquirer or a newspaper, their arms aren't being pulled in a direction. Hey, if they've got a story, they can go with it. So, yeah, we were different. We were under the watchdog was management of the teams. There was a partnership there. They had contracts. You get paid to air their games, and if you have a new show that they don't like

or something, who knows where that might lead to in the next negotiation or whatever the case may be. Or, hey, you want field access in this game? Well, we're going to take that away. We're going to strip you of that. Sure, all of that comes into play. But there was a time when Ed Snyder was on desk. At the time, I think it was Daily News Live.

And the Flyers weren't playing well. And Michael Barkan went at him hard with questions. And I think off camera, you know, Ed Snyder's like, you know, kind of like, what the fuck was that? It was like, you know, it was almost like he felt blindsided. It was by some of the line of questioning. And I don't think Michael was tough at the time, but he was pretty direct with some of the questions and saying, hey, the team's not playing too well. And what's going on here?

And I think Ed got tired of answering the questions and kind of felt like that he was being ambushed at the time. So, look, I mean, that's uh did anything come of that like did he lose did michael barkan lose some access because of that or did he get in line to what ed snyder wanted him to do um i think that uh i i think that he had a moratorium on interviewing Ed Snyder for a while. But I don't... It certainly didn't cost... Look, Michael's still there. Yeah.

He's one of the few survivors. He is the guy. When I think about that channel, he is the guy above them all. He's the one, because he was on so many different shows and he's been there for 20-some years. He was the one that, if I think Comcast Sports, then I do think Michael Barr can. So he obviously had a good ability to navigate that line well. You don't last that long if you don't navigate that line very very well I think maybe that's part of it but they've had to make they've made a lot of cuts along the way to where look if that if that's what they felt was to keep the network relevant and in good standing they were gonna do that right I mean you keep the guy who's kind of been the face he's he was there I think he's the only one of the originals.

Who's still there that you know? That's a great question. You just left like two years ago, right? 2019, yeah. Danny Palmels is still there. Amy Fadul's still there. Michael's still there.

I can't even tell you who. I don't even know. I don't spend much time there. I can't even tell you who. I don't even know. I don't spend much time watching. I watch the games because I do like to watch hockey a lot. Yeah, I like to watch baseball. But outside of that, I don't know what programming they have, and I don't spend much time. I'm way too busy. I got too much shit going on, man.

Yeah. And honestly, in all honesty, even when I did work there, I didn't watch the station that much. That's the funny thing is people thought that the people who are on air would watch. We don't ever watch. Once you leave that environment, it's work. It's work. You don't want to bring work home.

I never really watched what what the hell was on our station outside of work well i think people stopped too because they got the ability to watch things on demand in snippets they got to watch they got to watch people go around the system right like it even happened with reporters everyone looks at like woge in the nba he's the top dog no doubt about it he came up through the traditional realm doing that but like what about shams who came up technically with him under him with that shams formed on twitter completely right like that's the new era these these people these blogs even that can go around it you look at like where do a lot of people get their national

sports news these days like regular you know middle class guys i guess barstool right barstool went around the whole system and said you know we're just we're going to create a fun place to do sports and whatever and then they just talk the language of those people and so i always look at it because i'm sure and you can speak to it and not naming names or anything, but, you know, there's stiffs who work in media, no doubt about it. Like, I understand that. And there's people who are like, well, I have an education, so I should therefore be permitted to do this. And you shouldn't. But there's also like a lot of talent there who's hamstrung.

And like, the funny thing is, when I met you, I couldn't have known you, right? Like, I couldn't have really known you. But I wasn't surprised at all when I met you because there was, like I said earlier, there was like kind of a way that you could almost like people knew where you stood on things. And you could do it with a little wink. A lot of people can't do that. And now think about it. I always hope that you're going to open up something yourself and start your own online blog or online system because a you're kind of born to do this. Let's be honest. And B, you have a point of view and C, you have that ability to let loose and lay low, you know, and like be a part of that modern day culture. But so many of these people were caught off guard because the system started coming around them and the barriers to entry went down and social media did that to him yeah and I think the the demise of the station and look there's they're still going and everything but it's just not you're not

getting what you got 10 12 15 years ago yeah was we talked about this earlier adapting to the change of times to have to new mediums uh but how are you gonna reinvent yourself well you you all look skip bayless is a perfect example like skip bayless i read skip bayless when i was living in growing up in arlington texas he was you grew up in texas yeah i thought you were a missouri guy well that was my first job out of college was in missouri see everybody thinks it's so funny it's funny because then i came to philadelphia people's like you're a michigan guy i'm a michigan guy i was in detroit for three years i was in nashville for five and a half years before that it's kind of michigan

what's that detroit it's kind of michigan it that Detroit it's kind of Michigan it's yeah it's kind well no there's like Detroit and then everything Michigan yeah Michigan's actually a good place to live for great things yeah very outdoors things to do yeah no but if you think Detroit you know you think crime and and shithole and everything that comes with it. You know, it's not. I actually embraced Detroit. And, you know, when I was working, our station was actually in the city. Boom. In fact, great story.

What years were you there? 2003 to 2006. Oh, so right before Philly, you were in Detroit. But I have the ultimate Detroit story. Let's hear it. So I'm sitting there. I'm filling in for the main guy doing sports on Monday through Friday. I don't even remember what day it was.

And our office, our sports office, this is the NBC affiliate Detroit, was close to the front door. And we're in the office. And shit you not, we heard gunfire at our station in downtown detroit all right you're like yeah dude and i locked the door and i looked at everybody's in there like nobody's nobody's fucking leaving i said this this door is is is like double it's like pine it's made out of sequoias or something i mean the the door was like thick not like that how they make doors it's like hollow pieces of shit now of like plywood you know it's like a thick door it's like nobody's fucking leaving i don't care if this guy what's happening they shoot up the station we're you know we're we're not gonna get out and uh sure enough what happened

some guy was upset and um the husband of somebody who worked at our station was in a holding area so the way that it was set up was you kind of go through one door and then you're buzzed in to go through another door and you go into the to a main lobby and then they buzz you into the actual like station station so you had to get so the first door you could easily get into right it was just an opening door. You talk to somebody. So this guy was in that first little holding area, and another guy comes in and shoots him at our station. So he got in.

He at least got through one level. He got through something you had to buzz into. Well, he never got past that because the guy came in right behind him and shot him. Oh. he never got he never got past that because the guy came in right behind him and shot him oh and that first little because you you opened one door and it was kind of like a little holding room to where you got buzzed in to get it going to the lobby and then you got buzzed in to go into the newsroom so three doors one door you got through everybody could get through you had to get buzzed in to go to one door buzz in to get to well the guy who got shot never made it into into the second door so here I am so my story is it's a typical Detroit story you know I was at

a station at a TV station that had a shooting in it yeah and I did I locked the door I'm like nobody's leaving which by the way I mean it wasn't the first time I've been that situated I had a, nobody's leaving. Which, by the way, I mean, it wasn't the first time I've been in that situation. I was with a girlfriend, and we were at a Texas Rangers. This was before I was driving. But, you know, we would take dates, and I was a kid. And we were watching the Texas Rangers play. And I was waiting for my parents or something to come pick me up.

And we were outside a hotel not far from the stadium. And I had a gun pointed right at me. Yeah. Like getting robbed. Robbed. Yeah. So it wasn't the first time that guns and the threat of like... And by the way, if you've ever had a gun pointed at you...

I was just going to ask you, what's that like? There's a feeling that overcomes your body like, this could be the moment that I die. All it takes is for this guy's finger to slip on the trigger and boom, you're going to have a bullet inside you. Have you ever had butterflies before a game? It's like that except you get butterflies throughout your entire body. It's an uncomfortable feeling that this is it. The end of my life could be in these next five minutes. Is it? Panic though, or is it just more like you're you are like wow

Nothing crazy. It was like panic like oh my god. What do I do? You know? It's like what do you do? And I was young I think if something happened now, I think reaction would be quite different i think i'd be i don't know if standoffish would be the word but i don't think i think that i would probably be a little mouthy i think so like at that like i would anger fear was what overcame me back as a teenager anger would probably come over me now especially if if my kids were involved you know you get Oh, that's different It's different. Yeah, you know it's now you're about protecting and now you're sticking a gun in front of me in front of my kids Like now it now it's now you've taken on a side and I'm not gonna back down I'm gonna do everything in my power to protect the people around me

But that's interesting though Like what can you what can you really do if you're not trained in hand to hand to get that gun immediately out of his hand right the is anger gonna do not anger but i i think they expect you to just buckle and bow down you know i i don't think they expect you to be calm i think they expect you to just, you know, play the victim and, you know, here, take it all, take it all. I don't think I do that. No. I also think that, I don't have a percentage for you, but a significant number of people holding the gun were never prepared to hold the gun in the first place. They never really thought about it. No. You know, it's such an interesting thing

because a lot of it, it could be something like that, like just to stick up somebody out of desperation or like, all right, this one looks like a square i'll scare him get a hundred dollars and you know get my next score or something like it could be that simple and that's what makes those stories all the sadder when they do slip on the trigger like something happens it's like for what dude yeah for what yeah you know yeah well i gave up my jewelry and a wallet back then when I was a teenager. But it's, you know, those things, you know, they don't leave you. You're left, you know, it's like a callus. It's like your body's like callus of those events throughout life that happened.

So you were the guy. When Detroit happened, you're like, I've been here before. I've been here before. I got this i'm like dude we're not hey we're not gonna go out there and confront this guy with who you don't know you know so just stay in here but i do i remember i mean so the gun went off and the woman who was uh behind the desk there at the reception desk was like she yelled she screamed like but she did i'm like you know holy shit you know and uh and so that yeah that's my detroit i was only in detroit for three years but it happened you got your full detroit vacation experience oh and and then they had the firework show they had a big firework show on the river there was a shooting on the river

during the firework show and that's a smart shooting i shouldn't say that but you know if ever you're going to get away with it that would be the time well yep and then the mayor at the time was kwame kilpatrick oh he was a real gem yeah is he still in jail i i don't know i did was he pardoned that's what it was wasn't he pardoned why the fuck what it was. Wasn't he pardoned? Why the fuck did Trump pardoned? Did Trump pardon that guy? Why did he pardon that guy? That was it. I know I couldn't man. Who who like what blackmail did they have on him? Like what happened here? But this is the guy who wore the nice suits. He had he had the entourage of security Like he just know that he was just, he was milking whatever the tax base was in the city

of Detroit and whatever money was being spent, he thought that he was pretty important. That's what makes me lose some hope and stuff. Not that I have a lot of hope in some things. I'm pretty cynical. But, you know, you see that and these presidents when they come out of office and trump was the latest example they pardon people but there's always like some kind of like you know thing behind it because you know i look at trump pardoning a guy like kwame kilpatrick and now it's coming back to me and blagojevich and blagojevich is another one

and i'll admit his sentence was a little stiff it was it was a little bit but he also kind of brought it on himself yeah let's be honest yeah like let's be honest about that yeah so he's he's pardoning those guys who were clearly guilty number one yeah and then like leaving snowden and assange and even a guy like ross olbrich who was guilty but got a ridiculous sentence leaving them at the altar and it's like like, well, what do you really stand for? No, exactly. Yeah, I've never been a big fan of some of these pardons. They get to the end of their term and sort of just cut them a break, right? I mean, so, yeah, Kwame Kilpatrick was not, he was every bit the corrupt politician in Detroit, every bit of it, you know. So was Blagojevich, right?

Followed him, too. It's sad when it's in cities, too, that are having problems. Like, I mean, everyone likes to say they've been to Chicago. They haven't. But, like, you know, Blagojevich, obviously, governor of the state. He was the governor, right? Illinois. Yeah, governor of Illinois. And, like, you know blagojevich obviously governor of the state he was the governor illinois yeah governor illinois and like you know the big chicago guy and then kilpatrick literally the mayor of detroit which was a city that really got left behind by america with the whole

industrial change and everything and everything that came out of that it's like you know these people it's like human nature at the end of the day they want power they want the things that come with it they want the access and then they want to take more than they think they deserve and they actually think they deserve it they do they do they they way overstep their bounds they they it's just it's it's the sense of entitlement they feel they're entitled and and that they're they've been put into a position where they're going to exploit those entitlements. They do. And we're seeing it now across all levels. I mean, that's – and I know that I've been sort of – people say I'm on this side or that side.

I'm on the side of freedom and independence. And I tell people – I covered the riots over last summer when I was doing news reporting in Lancaster. Oh, I forgot you did that at the beginning of the pandemic, right? Right. Like you went working there. That was wild. Yes, I did. Yeah, it was like one weekend and all of a sudden we're in a pandemic.

And so I'm doing news reporting. And so I'm doing news reporting and so i'm covering uh the riots and one of the guys comes up to me and i'm you know i'm following i have a microphone in case you know anybody talks so i i wasn't scared and uh he goes what do you think of all this i said you guys are protesting the wrong thing i said you're protesting law enforcement you're not you should are protesting the wrong thing. He said, you're protesting law enforcement. You should be protesting the people who put the laws on the books in the first place. I said, it's fine that you're protesting. You're just misguided in what you're protesting.

What did he say? He's like, oh, well, but don't you think the cops are crazy? I said, the cops are doing what lawmakers are telling them to do. These are the laws. They're enforcing the laws. What about, quick question, though. What about the ones who, like, my big issue with the police system is that there are a lot of great cops out there. The majority of them are.

Okay. But you have a very small percentage who are cowboys. Yep. And then you have the people who just don't fucking speak up. All right, so take it by percentages. Okay. You just said it. There's a lot of great cops.

How many great... Take it by percentage. How many great cops are there as opposed to dirty cops or cops who overstep their bounds? Just dirty cops and cops who overstepped their bounds. Yeah, just percentage-wise. Probably 98%, 99%. 98%, 99% of the workforce of cops are good-hearted people who are doing their job the right way. Right?

Then there's a... The one thing I'd add to that, the one thing I'd add, is that there are a percentage, and it's a way bigger percentage than my stomach is okay with, who don't say anything when those guys do things. Okay. That's why we get videos, you know, like I had Jim DiIorio on here. Let me ask you, okay, but all that being said, let's just say 95% are good-hearted cops that are doing the right thing. Can you say that about politicians no no oh no that's the point no that's the point i was trying to make i said tell tell me do politicians get

into the people who who go to washington do they go do they do that to make your life better or do they do that to make their life better very fair point you answer that more you answer that question you you do the research and answer that question it's it's all going to be laid out for you so you just said 95 if 95 of the cops out there are good cops then why are we pointing the finger at the cops when we certainly know as hell 95 of people the politicians in washington aren't good people you know why because there's a visceral thing we are emotional human beings at the end of the day and like in media i'm sure you've seen the the lowest of the lows with that as as far as like what can capture attention you know we are more likely to get upset at there was like a great quote on this i can't remember

what it was off the top of my head but we're more likely to get upset about the one thing we can watch over and over again than the thing that happens every day that we've just accepted you know and that maybe we can't see maybe there's not a video of it so like people could look at the george floyd video and be disgusted by that but at the end of the day what are other things happening that allow something like that to exist what are who are the people who are making decisions that create systems and laws that are fucked up that's why i agree with your point because you look at these people and it's not just in washington it's not i mean like we we always point to that and it's true 100 but it's everywhere why does someone decide to become a politician?

Like, did they just wake up one day and be like, I want to serve? Probably not. There are a few people that have, I'm sure. I'm sure. Okay, and if they do. But how many do? And if they decide to do that, how many are working in the best interest of their constituents? From day one?

From day one. A bigger percentage than from day 10 because that's what that's what happens these people i do believe there are more people than we think who go and it's still a lower percentage than you and i would be comfortable with at all but if more people come into it day one a little bit hopeful like oh i'm doing the right thing like they convince themselves and then day five it's like i'm gonna pull your funding if you don't do this bet i got it yeah and that's what happens i think that the people who are more loyal to their constituents are in areas where it's more rural and where they're it's more tighter knit communities you're not going to see that in the big cities you're not you're not going to see the the politicians baltimore fighting for baltimore

fighting for st louis fighting for the big cities because i mean let's let's let's let's let's face it they've been doing the same thing over and over and over again so they're conditioned to vote a certain way they're conditioned to think a certain way they're conditioned so there's no reason for politicians to act any differently there's no there's no reason for a politician i understand what you're saying yeah i understand what you're saying i i i think that's correct i don't have a good argument against that the earlier point you made though about like the loyalty i i think this is a typical situation where it works both ways and neither way is acceptable to me and that is you have the people who are disloyal as fuck and just turn their back and then tell you they're not doing it which is

disgusting and then the people who are loyal to a fault and don't look at the bigger picture and aren't willing to go on on a limb and tell maybe their constituents if they're a national congressman or senator or something like that like hey i know that in x state or x district wherever we're from this certain issue right here here's what we generally think okay my job is to represent you and it's also to be at a national level and here's some things i'm hearing that maybe we can't relate to people don't say that because it's also to be at a national level. And here's some things I'm hearing that maybe we can't relate to. People don't say that because it's not profitable for them to say that. It's not popular for them to say that. They want to go with what the polling numbers in their district say that's going to get them votes.

And that's where I have an issue because I look at this utopitarian world. And I've talked about this with a couple other people at some point. I think Josh and me just talked about this a few weeks ago on a podcast. But like, you know, you look at like TV shows. It's not real. Unfortunately, like you look at the West Wing. I remember a speech in the first season of that series where the president is talking to somebody who donated, I think, to his campaign. Who's like in the media or something

like that. And they're saying, you just fucked us on this bill. And he listens to the whole thing they say. And he looks him dead in the eyes and goes, I screwed you. Here's why. And he said, listen, like, you're right. I promised that. I just broke it. Because I promised this other thing. And it was higher on my list of priorities. And you know what, if you can't vote for me, because of that, I understand that. We don't have politicians who are willing to do that. We don't have people who are willing to be like, I might change my mind on this because this is the better thing to do. And that's where I draw the line because it's like

they're incentivized to get to the next election. And that gets into the whole conversation, by the way, of term limits. Why the fuck are people still in Congress after 40 years? They're incentivized to get the most popular thing. That's the one thing that the framers screwed up. Term limits for Congress.

Right? And it's never going to get passed. They'll always talk about it, and there may be some that believe in it. It'll never get passed. It'll never have a majority. You're right. There's there's no reason and that and so that's all they're doing is they're protecting their longevity yes that's that's all they're doing they know uh what they have to say to remain re-elected to stay in a position of

power so and they're incentivized as you said against fixing it right so why why why why? Protesting the people who are trying to enforce the rules They don't they don't have the power that you think they do you protest the people who are making the rules That's it It's to look Because even the people even the people who are enforcing the rules have to answer to somebody. Well, who are the House of Representatives answering to? They're answering to the same people they're going to re-elect them over and over and over again.

You're going right into my favorite topic, Johnny B. Am I? 100%. All right. Here's why. Because I look at the opportunity that was missed in 2011, 2012-ish. And what I mean by that is you had the country in different political aisles calling out for, oh, something's about to change here, and they're calling out for help, and no one paid attention. And I talk about a lot the two factions that form. You had the Occupy Wall Street on one side and you had the Tea Party on another.

So you had left, you had right. These people had very different ideas on solutions. And I don't really agree with any of the solutions that were presented because I believe in nuance, right? And that didn't exist. But they had the same exact problems they had a system that had set them behind right so your urban city dwellers more liberal on occupy banks had obviously fucked them and if they were coming out of college especially then they couldn't get a job the american dream was dead quote unquote and it's like well what did we why did we even take on all this debt etc etc the tea party people you had a little bit usually a little bit more older rural they were in industries that had been automated away or sent overseas without their

consent obviously and their ability to earn a livelihood gone and they're like well this isn't it because we have all these people in washington doing this and like we don't even know who they are that forget our own representatives like other representatives don't represent us and so all these people were pissed off and then in the 2012 midterms i believe that was the one where the most symbolic example was eric canter who was the speaker of the house was voted out right His own people voted him out. And America had a chance to hear, like, the powerful, the politicians had a chance to hear in that cycle, oh, there's some pain here and we can solve some problems because clearly we aren't actually representing our people as a whole. Forget just the individual constituencies. I'm

talking about the whole national system in D. particularly. And instead what they did is said, no, they don't know anything, whatever, canter loss, we'll move on. And what you got is in 2016, the two people who should have been the candidates were Bernie and Trump. And it's because Bernie and Trump spoke to those two movements in particularly. and they spoke the language of the people who were forgotten for different reasons. Those are two guys who outside of their New York accent and the fact that they don't like China that much don't agree on anything. But they spoke to people who had been left behind for maybe slightly different reasons, but the same concept. And so you're talking about now fast forward four or five years later whatever it is and people are protesting against cops and the people enforcing the law maybe there's aspects of that that they're right

about and i've been hard on cops on this show and i'll agree with some of that but i do agree with the bigger point that the people who have been allowed to perpetuate in a system that isn't perfect maybe the best system in the world but it isn't perfect people who have been allowed to be in office for 20 30 40 years whatever who are just incentivized to go to wherever their donor dollars are or wherever the next opportunity is for them to win election these are the people that have been slowly fucking the same people who were speaking out loud in 2011 and 2012 and saying fuck you we're fighting back and you know they haven't really had much to show for that even if trump was president because now he's not there anymore and it's establishment all over.

Yeah, we're right back to sort of where we started. Almost. I mean, you look at some of these, they don't go away. Like, Republicans want Mitt Romney to go away. They do. You know been he's been around and in these lifelong politicians they've made a career out of public service you shouldn't be able to make a career out of public service mm-hmm because tell me something tell me tell me somebody who's been at it 30 40 years and tell me what their what what their what their primary accomplishment has been what what where what bill did they introduce what what profound impact have they had on their community

a lot of them, none. Right. Or very little. No. And it goes back to my original point. Do they get into it to enhance your life? Do they get into it to enhance their life? Because they all have nice houses. Bernie Sanders has multiple homes.

There's a great phrase out there. And everybody's now talking about socialism right socialism's for the people not the socialist tell me the socialist who wants to live through the confines of socialism nobody does but they want you to do that they they're going to take their private jets to get where they want to go but they don't want you to take their private jets to get where they want to go, but they don't want you to take the private jets because it's contaminating the atmosphere. We can't have all this. This is contributing to global warming. So you can't be traveling that way. But we got a free pass.

That's what I'm saying. Do as I say, not as I do I mean if Barack Obama was pushing global warming and in the rising sea level why did he buy a house in Martha's Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard is an island off the coast of Massachusetts I mean if if there's truly a rising sea tide, that island's going to be the first to go. So why buy a house on Martha's Vineyard? My theory on all these people is that when I look at a two-party system, which in... It's a failure.

It is. And the reason why it's become a failure, especially over the past 40 years, is it's become more polarized. So now we're just... It's just a bunch of infighting. And even people who have been around in Congress for 40 years will tell you, at least 20 years ago,

there was some level or form of negotiation. Now they don't even have that anymore. Do you know why that is? What? You know why that is? Yeah, of course. Everything's now split down party lines. But why is that?

Why do you think? You said it. You already gave the answer earlier it's the same reason you were looking at in your business everyone has an opinion and now they have the ability to put it out there and they have the ability for masses to circle around them and say well that must be what the opinion needs to be so if i don't do that i'm gonna get i'm gonna get body bagged on social media if i don't agree to this thing. It's a cow-towing society. Yeah, that's part of it.

Because if you're a Democrat, you have to subscribe to these ideologies and these set of beliefs. I mean, that's the way it's going. Whether you're moderate Republican or moderate Democrat, it's getting squeezed out. Agreed. It's getting squeezed out. Agreed. It's getting squeezed out. Okay? And in each position, you know, there's taking, you're becoming more polarized. Look, I don't believe, look, I'm all for the Second Amendment, but, I i mean the weapons that that that uh you know that you may use

to kill terrorists shouldn't be the ones that should be on the streets of chicago agreed you know so i sometimes i think the conservative point of view when it comes to the second amendment's a little skewed i think it's it's a little off the mark i think it's a slippery slope thing for them because they look at it like if we give up one thing then they'll come for all of them right because i'm with you and like i'm a second amendment guy and i'm passively a second amendment guy in the sense of when it comes to weapons like that because i'm like well i don't think you need to own an ak the argument i hear and this is one place where i'm a little more conservative is that well if they take the ak what else are they going to take and that's an interesting one to me because i don't know if guns are going to be like irrelevant at some point because machines maybe

they will maybe they won't but you know the reality is right now like what can they do well they can kill right so they can fight back i'm going to throw something out there i don't know uh the sec your your second amendment rights aren't being nearly as infringed as your fourth amendment rights now fourth amendment's the media search and seizures oh nsa fbi cia right let's go i mean think about it think think about when obama during the obama administration when the irs was targeting tea party conservatives think Think about now the NSA and their decision to spy on people without a warrant. Which was a Bush policy. Absolutely.

Oh, no, I'm not... It was a Dick Cheney policy. I'm from Texas, and I will tell you that to me, George W. Bush is one of the worst presidents I've ever seen. Because he went against everything that he was supposed to stand for there was i didn't to me he if you're going to be a

republican then you have to stand behind conservative principles and the patriot act i almost i almost look at some of the laws and just put it the other way. If they're calling it the Patriot Act, it's really the unpatriot act. Right? Have you heard Snowden talk about this? No. Oh, I got to send you that. Snowden's been on Joe Rogan before.

I know you listened to that before. And he has this concept called the Save the Puppies Act. He goes, if something sounds too good to be true it's marketing it's marketing yeah so if they're calling an act the patriot act it's really the unpatriot act yes in other words they gave government the license to interfere and to you know to interfere in the daily lives almost using the events of whether it was 9-11 or something to interfere in the lives of normal Americans and to bypass whatever laws and whatever the Constitution said they could bypass that in order to interfere.

You're seeing that more and more. They're finding back channels now to intercept correspondence. Tucker Carlson just talked about it. He's being wiretapped. All right, let me ask you a quick question on that. Tucker Carlson obviously is a conservative commentator. He's on Fox News. That doesn't help him.

But did he—I saw that a little bit. Did he provide any proof behind that? Well, he – I don't think that he's going to sit there and say, here's the documentation. But I don't think that the NSA sat there flat out denied it. I don't think they would either. Here's where it gets interesting though. This is where it gets really interesting because I'm a believer that when you look at these agencies, NSA, CIA, whatever, they're there. They have been. They will be. When you don't follow the established order, there's something about that group think they don't like you. They're like, no, no, no, no no that's not how we do things here right so they're going to come after you and right now the thing in vogue to do that is against

republicans because trump came in office think what you want of him he was constantly i think this kind of hurt him but so you're admitted admitting that these federal agencies are now politicized that's what you're saying that's what you're saying you're connecting the you're connecting the two let me get a better word for you i don't think when when you say politicized i immediately think democrat republican right i don't think they subscribe to that ideology i think they're so maybe the word is politicized but let me just define it how i mean it Yeah, I think these agencies subscribe to the ideology of we were here before whoever the fuck was here We're gonna be there after they leave and here's how we do things

Correct, but they don't they don't want you to They they feel like that they are they have this armor protective around them and that it can't be infiltrated. And that they almost have a free pass to do what they're going to do. So if they have to find back channels in order to listen to people's conversations or tap into their emails, they will do that. You know what bothers me the most about that, though? What's that? People don't care what what edward snowden did in 2013 and i study that extensively because like i'm a huge believer in slippery slopes as i

just pointed out a couple minutes ago on things so i know that when you have someone who works with serious intelligence and government and they leak things that's a scary thing to go down because if you let them do it then what is the next guy saying the next girl but what there's no end in sight until it's too late until it's until until it's too late until you realize oh wait wait now you're coming for things that are important to me you're right so when you say nobody speaks out because until it actually infiltrates her little tiny bubble no one's going to say anything and that's why i'm a huge fan of his and i support him because the way he looked at it in my opinion and i think the evidence is very clear is he's like no one is going to say anything about this not a literally

no one because it's the chain of command and no one breaks that but if i go into the chain of command which he put some feelers out to see if he could do they're going to tell me to fuck off and then i'm never going to be heard from again right so he comes out and he tells everyone this and my biggest problem with it is he comes out with this story that was brilliantly reported and written and set up like the whole thing was it was as brilliant of a leak as you will ever see in 2013 and to this day i will bring up edward snowden to people and people will be like yo who's that i'll be like he's the guy that tried to tell you they are picking on your constitutional rights and not for nothing by the way a guy who had a ton

of egg on his face who's kind of an asshole jim comey this is a true story i will give jim comey this piece of credit right here jim dewar was going to yell at me right now but i'll give him this piece of credit back in like 03 04 05 somewhere in there after the patriot act when they were implementing stellar wind and these other things that snowden talked about in his reports it was comey as the u.s attorney i believe in maybe he's in dc something like that he was the guy who had to sign off on something and cheney and some of the administration came to him to get the war the ability to have this power to spy on people and comey said this is against the constitution he said I will die on this hill and he wouldn't they had to go around him to get it signed and not for nothing but that was one of

the last guys to be like wait this is not it this is this goes against everything we're built on and what happens is now every administration after that all the way through Biden right now so you've had Bush Obama Obama, Trump, Biden. They're all incentivized to pick up right where the last thing left off. Right. Because guess what? Gives the government more power. Yes.

Right. You give government more power. This is what I also tell people. You can either have big government, you can either have more government, or you can have more freedom. But you can't have both. So take a pick. Do you want more government? Do you want government to be intrusive?

Do you want government to run your life? Or do you want freedom? Because if you want to go down the path of freedom, you've got to lessen the role of government. It doesn't work both ways. That's the relationship. So let me ask a clarification question there. All right, just take a big city, Philadelphia, where you've got lots of people. When you have more people, what happens? You have more laws.

You have more ordinances. You have more freedom in the big city, or do you have less? Less. You have less freedom, right? Yes. So what do you do? You've got to go outside that. That's what spurned suburbia.

People got tired of being governed by big city politics. I'm going to do that someday. I'm going to go to the rural parts of Idaho or Wyoming, so I don't have to be governed by anybody. I want, I'm a, I am a big believer in individual liberty and freedom. I don't want government telling me what to do. I don't want government

running my lives. I don't think government knows how to run my life or my kids' life better than I do. You know, it's why I think that the Department of Education should be completely eradicated came into existence in 1979 during the carter administration has education gotten better public government government funded education has it gotten better since 1979 or worse no right you know what you know i got a lot of government's bad, though? I think you're making this point without saying it.

How much incentivization in the government monetarily is there? Therefore, what level of talent? I'm not talking about Senate, Congress, where they can, you know what I mean. But if you're working a regular bureaucratic government job, not at the CIA, like some job what are you making 80k what's your pension though what's your and which and how much is that really going to get you how pissed off are you at the world because you feel like you could be making more being somewhere else but you don't have the balls to go out and do it right there's a lot of that it's a majority of governments oh yeah yeah that's that's up and down the line look at all the government entities and the bureaucrats

that's that's what they're doing it's it's it's it's it's like a it's it's a monster that just keeps getting just keeps getting fed and fed over and over and over again now we're just we're just going down such the dangerous slope of just like endless, countless spending. I mean and I thought the one thing with Donald Trump that he was going to control was the fact that he was a believer in government's excessive spending. And under his president, if there's one thing that I think that he talked about but never backed up was the fact that he never curtailed some of that government spending.

Allowed the budget to get out of control and out of control. And let the debt continue to pile on and continue to mount. That's a whole rabbit hole. I agree 100% with what you just said, though. And I think that every president that's come in for years, I couldn't tell you the first president that it happened with, maybe it was as far back as FDR, they've been incentivized to kick the can down the curb.

They've been incentivized to spend, spend, spend because it'll be someone else's problem. And with Trump, that was a really disappointing thing because the one thing about him, regardless of his policies and some of the things that push people the wrong way, he was an outsider when he went in. And there's the idea that like okay well maybe some of the bullshit at least can get cleaned up all right maybe i'm not going to vote for this guy in four years because i disagree with a lot of his points but at least some of the bullshit like the the mindless spending the way of doing business the order is going to be shaken up and to me the

biggest failure of his presidency is that when he left it felt like the order was at an all-time high and not for nothing not to just rip him on the spot but let's be honest joe biden was in office as a senator and vice president for what like 45 years 50 years and then he became the president after trump that's the ultimate symbolism of oh no we're we're back to the regular way of doing business yeah absolutely that's why they voted that's the ultimate symbolism of, oh no, we're back to the regular, orderly way of doing business. Yeah, absolutely. That's why they voted, that's why Donald Trump won his way into the White House.

I mean, I heard this as a kid. I remember my family talking about it back in the 1980s and 90s, is that, you know, put somebody, put a Washington outsider in there, there a business person somebody who hasn't been corrupted by the establishment somebody who hasn't Somebody who's not set in that way of doing the same thing over and over and over again and That's what Donald Trump was You know like him or hate him. I get it man. I get it. He had bit terrible bedside manners You know he was his own worst enemy He didn't know when to shut it off you know he got caught up in voicing his opinion on twitter

you know all that's all that being said but give me the guy who made his millions outside of washington than the guy who did you know that concept i agree with I agree with that. I think that with him though The biggest disappointing thing from any political spectrum again Is that he went in as the outsider and came out as the insider who part in Kwame Ko Patrick? Like and that's just one like that's a little bullshit piece of symbolism But to me the biggest disappointment is that it became very clear that a lot of the same incentives that leave these people in office for 30 40 years whatever it is they became the same to him and not for nothing but like people if you want to just ignore this knock yourself out no problem but stories i got from people who know that's what it was you You know, it became this whole, it's the same thing. Once you get into this system, it's such, it's about winning and legacy and like all

these things. And they're not thinking about the same things that got them there. That's why there was a point earlier where I'm like, there are people who come in and day one, they think they're in it for the right reasons. And then it gets to day 10 and they're like oh wait no that guy's giving me money and a prime example is i did hear a inside story about somebody who called in a chit maybe like two weeks or something very early on in trump's presidency like right away who had donated to his campaign and he told him to fuck off which is like exactly what you want to hear because he's

like wait no that's not what we stand for right and then the same shit's happening a year later and he's like all right how much are you giving to the next campaign that's disappointing to me yeah and and that's what happened when i talked about you know the budget he you know the first time that he he got the budget on his table and realized that it's not he's like i'm not signing this this again but what did he do sign it again and signed it another time and yet here we are back to deficit spending you know and back to and back to racking up major bills on the debt do you think people get to him though i think he's i think that coupled with his ego i mean the ego is that that's his downfall yes like you can't you know i i still in my generation think that ronald reagan's the greatest president we've had why do you say that uh well here's what i said during um coming out of the Obama administration is that we needed a

president who could unite a country like we were already going down this path like everybody thought that that the polarization America and where we are now started with Trump. It started during Obama. It did. I think it's, personally, I'll disagree. I think it started heavily with Bush. Because I think that Bush, let me make a, I don't know how I want to say this. I don't know how much Bush was in charge of, but I'm saying Bush, when he was in there, the decisions he made are pushed the housing market and everything and pushed it up to a point, you know, where it was like, oh, this is going to explode. And then it did explode on his watch. And I think that people vote and feel with their wallets before anything.

Sure. And Bush represented a wallet disaster. 100%. 100%. 100% 100% but but that didn't lead to a where because back then I think social media was still in its primitive stage okay so you didn't see this divisiveness that was going on in America until Barack Obama took office. And it took several years. So by the time that Barack Obama was coming out of office in 2015, we needed somebody to bring unity. And that's why I didn't actually, I didn't vote for Donald Trump in 2016 because I didn't actually vote for either of the two major candidates

because I could see it. I could see it happening. I could see that we needed somebody to bring unity back to the country. And neither one of those candidates were going to do it. So that's when you talk about when I mentioned Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan was coming out of a situation very similar to what Barack Obama had. We had major inflation under Jimmy Carter with gas prices and goods and everything skyrocketing he found a way to make us economically back on on on on good ground again Ronald

Reagan did I mean the and then I mean people felt good about being American felt good about where things were headed. He found a way for Americans to be prosperous again. Okay. Four years later, the guy, you know, completely wiped out the electoral college map. I mean, Walter Mondale won District of Columbia in Minnesota, and that was it. It's not a timer. Mondale 1, District of Columbia in Minnesota, and that was it. You'll never ever in political history see that sort of landslide ever again. And that goes to my point.

I think people, and I'm not saying this was wrong there, but those first four years of Reagan, they were voting with their wallets. Yeah, and even Bill Clinton, he has a quote. It's the economy, stupid. If you want to know how people are going to vote, make sure that the economy is going well. If Trump wasn't forced to shut down the economy and everything related to COVID, I don't think that he loses unless you're of the belief that the whole thing was rigged and that that certain you know that that it wasn't a fair election that being said you know the only thing that could disrupt trump in that final year was the fact that we did have to curtail the economy during the covid crisis i think that's what happened because and it was also like the response was set up because it was a typical situation where you knew they could finally pull him by the strings of his ego and get him to do a lot of stupid shit and he did

and then it cost the economy and you're right it i i think that he probably would have won easily if that hadn't happened i mean look at the margin obama won by in 2008 and i'm not knocking obama at all. I actually thought he ran a brilliant campaign. But George Bush was leaving the office with dire straits, right? And then fast forward to eight years later with Obama, the mistake he made with the economy. I honestly think, don't get me wrong, did he have all Wall Street bankers in his cabinet and shit? A hundred percent. Was it hypocritical? 100%. But he was dealt such a bad deck in his first term, and I felt like even though formed in like 11 and 12, you saw the wealth gap just rip open, right?

So you saw all the people who were able to recover a lot faster from 2008 and the divide between them and the everyman who was getting their jobs automated away and everything was just so big. And Obama did nothing to address that so i do think that when trump won yes there was this whole outsider thing and whatever but there was also a lot of people going okay the economy is working on metrics right now but it's not working for me right you know so it your point is well taken because that's what people will come back to and like with reagan i'm not a reagan hater at all i think he did some some nice things and also not for nothing he followed up jimmy carter which was a bad presidency but the thing about before i get the reagan the thing about jimmy carter is so disappointing is like he's the one

guy who like kind of walked the talk like you talked about that earlier these people don't walk the talk the guy was a fucking peanut farmer he's a pretty successful businessman he lives in a ranch house like to this day like he's like a simple guy but he was just kind of an idiot like he couldn't he couldn't run an economy he didn't understand inflation at all and so reagan came in who was not an idiot in that way and then and introduced the whole trickle-down economics which had a lot of benefits to it i think with presidents the way that we look at them in history has to do with a balance of the economy and then social issues and where reagan gets hurt is some of the social issues the one thing i'll say is that reagan clinton bush obama trump go all the way back social issues are always going to

move so you can look at any president 20 30 years years later and be like, they were horrible on this thing. Well, so was everyone else. You know what I mean? So I'm less going to judge more extreme capitalism and i'm a capitalist right like i think socialism is a fucking horrible idea i want to be clear on that terrible yeah i understand i i do believe that no system can ever be perfect for everyone. I'm not an idealist. I'm not like, it can be great. Some people just suck at life. I hate to say this. It's true. But some people are going to just suck at life. And you can't rise them out of,

rise them into prosperity because they're going to find a way to fall on their face. So let me talk about the people who don't suck at life, because I agree with you. They are a percentage of society. It will always, just like you are never going to have a law of large numbers where everyone is a good person. No. Same way you are not going to have a law of large numbers where everyone is a hard worker who's motivated. No. Agree a thousand percent.

Where I draw the line is where it starts to get to a point where people can start winning a lot more easily who have a ton of means right so The concept of it takes money to make money I do believe in that a lot. Yeah, do I think that's wrong all the way? Absolutely not I think there's an aspect of it that it's like it's very healthy and it's a part of also like the competition You earn the right to be able to do that in many cases do i think that it also then leaves some people behind i do finally and this is the point where i say about face i don't have a solution for you i really don't because the solution is not socialism that is a horrible idea that's never going to work the solution is also not to stop capitalism because

it is the best proven system so what the fuck do we do such that if you set up a system where some people are going to be left behind do you just accept that well so socialism you're putting the fate of people's hands in in the hands of government yes capitalism you're putting the fate of people's hands in the people That's what you're doing, right? So but here's here's the problem. The problem is is that people don't want to be accountable for their actions And the decisions that they make I'll give you a good example so 2008 whenever when when Wall Street collapsed from that moment on we've created what were two that were 13 years in one of the greatest bear

markets in the history of this country if you were smart if you were smart and you decided you know what I'm gonna to save for my kids education I'm going to save for my retirement you know you made that a priority you might be a millionaire right now 13 years of saving maximizing you know you probably have a million dollars in in a bank account because of how it has grown how the market has grown since then. Donald Trump talked about your 401ks. You're doing this and this, that, and the other. But that takes a great amount of personal responsibility in order to do that.

Okay? That's what capitalism does. It puts personal responsibility on your plate people don't want to take responsibility you know why they get a thousand dollars what are they gonna do with that a thousand dollars I'll tell you what they're gonna do they're gonna buy the new iPhone and I'm gonna put it into a 401k account then I get it then I gonna think two three years down the road they're gonna think what what what makes me feel good right now so that's the problem in this in our in in a capitalist

society is that people want to do what makes them feel good now not what not what is taking the responsible high road 10, 15, 20 years down the road. Living beyond their means. But why should they? Government doesn't do that. We're $30 trillion in debt. Well, that's the point. That's human nature. Well, that's what I'm saying.

If the people at the very top are setting the example, shit, I might as well have thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I should live beyond our means because that's the people that I'm voting in to office. That is the problem. Because then guess what? You follow their lead, you follow their lead you follow their lead and what comes next now you're asking them for bailout now you're asking them for help yes instead of instead of instead of taking care of the

problems under your own watch what about the people though that are a part of that system like here's a good question talk about this all the time i'll always talk about this you saw and it was to be clear it was a small group of people it was not the majority of bankers or anything like that most bankers had no idea what was going on in 07 08 right and before then and they built up to it like people who were trading on desks they were doing their jobs they had nothing to do with that but you did have a group of people who knew exactly what was going on and not one of them went to jail. And so if I'm someone else in society, right? And I'll play the role of someone who doesn't have a lot of hope. Who's like, if I get a thousand dollars, I'm going to buy an iPhone,

right? Cause it'll make me happy in the short term. I'm going to look at that and go, the system is rigged against me. Now this introduces an interesting idea because there is always a concept to your point that you have to have a level of personal responsibility like why does someone from a very poor neighborhood make it out was it given to them probably not right they made it out there's a thing that goes on like we talked about the most ridiculous version of it you know kobe michael tom like they're gonna win right well doesn't have to be that but there's a thing that says I'm not gonna be here. I saw a quote the other day from P Diddy He was like I woke up with 15 cockroaches on my face one day

And I was like this ain't it and this is how I'm gonna get out of here right so I respect the fuck out of that There are a lot of people who I don't want to take away their ability to do that. But there's a constant repeated reminder when they are born and then over and over again. It's like, no, no, no. This is our reality. This is what we do. You look at the coal miners. You know, that's what we do.

We're coal miners. We don't do anything else. You know, you look at people in regular poor communities working working class jobs that pay nothing they're getting automated away they're like no that's what we do because my father did it my father's father did it we get by right and so it's not like the the danger in this conversation that i hate going to is acting speaking on it from a place where it's like oh they don't have the ability to do that for themselves fuck that like they can sure everybody has the ability they can sure but i as a realist law of large numbers can i look at a lot of people and be like there is a built-in attitude in in the society that they're around that says no you don't do that and so maybe people who are capable of it

who want to do it don don't as a result. And I feel bad for that. Guess what? There is a term for that. It's becoming more and more prevalent in this country. It's called the victimization of America. Right? You got to create a victim class.

That's what we've done over the last three, four years, to create a victim class. I think it's longer than that, but okay. You may be right. Yeah. But I think that it's starting to really pick up steam over the last three or four years, this victim class. It used to be a time where you drive up to the guy at a stoplight and the guy's driving a Porsche convertible or whatever,

and you look at him and you're like, wow, I want to be that guy. I'm going to aspire to be that guy right now the mentality is you drive up to that guy and you go damn it that guy's got a porsche i should have a porsche if that guy's got a porsche damn it somebody better supply me with a porsche so now you feel like a victim and And I think that goes back to government. Government has preached that you are a victim in the American society. That we're creating victims. It's not your plight. It's not your choices.

It wasn't your decision that put you where you were. It was America's decision. You are not accountable for the position that you're in. And that is what is created. And I look at, to me, the American society has sort of built this. And it's built this through our legal network. I don't see much difference in the ambulance chasers and Reverend Al Sharpton. Not much of a difference both of them capitalize off creating a victim

think about it you know the the lawyers say guess what i'm gonna use the legal system because you're a victim maybe maybe they are maybe they're not but they're going to use the legal system Reverend Al Sharpton uses the political system to create victims you know I can't really argue with that so we have created a victimization of America that you are no longer responsible for your actions. Somebody else is. And we are going to punitively make sure that you are compensated for being a victim in today's society. So by that standard, the mentality is, I don't have to go out there and create. I mean, you see the stories now government is supplying money to where you can't hire

all the jobs out there are being unfulfilled because they're getting more money through government they're telling you that we are we're going to take care of you you know and instead of saying control your own destiny we'll control it for you this is why i don't this is why i'm so cynical what you're bringing up right now and i hate

saying it but i don't have a lot of hope for solutions because i don't make a lot of friends on the topic of government because they drive me nuts completely. I think it's – I think COVID proved that half these people, more than that, are totally incompetent. And at the same time, the opposite argument, which let's say it's the libertarian argument, right? Like the people who are like no government and whatever, which is not what you're saying. But the people who are saying that, I'm well that doesn't work either and i don't know where that middle ground can ever be found because there's no organization really in human existence that you can point to on a high percentage level where people in some sort of goal for something are saying you, you know, we'll win, but we won't take everything.

Or we won't decide to expand. Or we won't decide to go to the next level. It's always, everything's gamified. So it's no different with government. You pointed out the agency's taking more power. Are they going to wake up one day and be like, you know, I think we'll take less today? No, of course not. No, no, no.

Tell me the government agency that has reduced in scale and size. No, they haven't. I mean, I know that Trump tried to do that and fired, and he tried to reduce the scope of government during his tenure, and I was all for that, but... Didn't work. But eventually the monster is going to succeed. Yes. The monster is going to succeed. Yes.

The monster is going to continue to grow. And I don't know how you ultimately reduce that until the system becomes so broke it has nowhere else to go. That's what I wonder if we're headed towards that because, you know, the victimization of society, I think a lot of it has to do with hope and purpose. You know, are there people who are leaning towards that heavily? Yeah. Yeah. I think your point is incredibly well taken in the sense that there are people who will sooner say what everything that's wrong in their life that isn't their fault rather than

be like, yo, what can I do? Totally agree. But there are a lot of people who, through examples in front of them, have felt like, alright, this whole American Dream thing is dead, right? And I talk to people like this all the time, and they're like, that doesn't exist. But you know why? Why? Because they have no perspective. They haven't been in other countries.

They haven't been in third world nations. I'll agree with you there. Okay? I will agree with you there. They have no perspective. Yes. perspective all they have is what people tell them what is being fed in their head and what's being fed now is that america is this awful country is that america you can't you can't prosper in america that's what what they're being ted told that's what they're being fed okay they don't have something that you know it's you have nothing else to judge it against all right so if all of all if of what you know is america up to year 2000 or whatever the case

may be and you sit there and say oh yeah it hasn't worked for me of course but you don't know what it's like on the other side. Yes. You have no idea. You have no idea in some of these other countries. Just the opportunity that exists here. Agreed. Agreed a thousand percent on that. What I am saying is that even though that's true, and I agree with that, there are still people who look at this and it's just a percentages thing, right? So I'll take it two levels first is a common one you hear is that 1% of people make it because 99% of people give up and at a on a psychological level that's correct

right like you look at building anything any company was ever built any great thing that was ever built is because someone was they were persistent and every time they failed they kept going you talked about earlier with ray crock they kept going right and that should be well because failure galvanizes them yes to keep going and it's like i'm i'm not going to stop here a lot of athletes are like that we talked about sports earlier uh i think that there is what what the the people who are successful are they successful because they thrive on winning or because they have a fear of failure? See, I have, personally, a fear of failure. I never wanted, like, the idea of failing was much more scarier than the idea, because I had an expectation I was going to win.

So when I won, whether it was sports or or i won you know an emmy award in my line of work i expected to get there there was an expectation if i lost or if i was on the losing side of something i was disappointed because that wasn't the expectation now did you ever look at that and that's that's in a career level right so it's it's past the point of like how much money am I making? It's more like, what are the accolades of how great I'm doing? I never measured myself by the paycheck. I mean, I just didn't.

I never do. You looked at it for, what are the results of my profession? Compared to everybody else. Yeah, got it. Compared to everybody else. Okay. So, I want to see how I want to ask that. That's interesting.

I mean, money is cyclical, especially in sports. Right place, right time. Yes. You know, Albert Hainsworth got $100 million from the Washington Redskins. Or Washington, but he was in the right place at the right time. Yes. Became a free agent at the right time. Certain things have to work in your favor in order to get those sort of contracts. So at the time when he signed that, he was like the highest paid defensive lineman ever.

Was he worth it? Of course not. No, he wasn't. Was he considered the best? No. Money, you know, your high can hit high point i mean there's circumstances that have to come that overcome that but if you're a five-time nvp doesn't matter money has no bearing on that you know you're you're the best of the best in a certain year no one's gonna you know

when it's all said and done when especially when it comes to athletes yeah they're gonna remember the people that didn't measure up to the contract that they were worth they'll always remember the ones who who stood out above the rest right so you're looking at it from the perspective in your industry it's like if i can win an emmy if i can get these type of accolades and the recognition for the quality of the industry it's like if i can win an emmy if i can get these type of accolades and the recognition for the quality of the work it's like like that's the purpose hollywood actor yes i don't i don't know how much certain actors have made in their careers or who got paid doing what but you certainly know the actors who put out good work yes you know as much

as i've probably soured on holly Hollywood and the fact that they've even become political over the years, I appreciate, I've always appreciated, no matter what industry it is, those who put everything into their work and who want to maintain a level of perfection almost. Like Tom Cruise, I'm a big fan of his mission impossible series because i know he he works his ass off and he does all of his own stunts and he wants to make sure that everything is perfect in those films that's true so and i and i do i i i appreciate that like you guys already made 200 300 million I guess, in his acting career,

but he wants to make sure that the shot is right. You can't put a price tag on the fact that somebody wants to make sure that it's done almost perfectly like that. He has that much pride in his work. So take away industries like hollywood industries like your own in media where you are known by a lot of people or sports or whatever and look at the percentages of society who do things it's just the law of averages they're going to do things that are in other things that maybe have a lot of money in it, or maybe they don't. And my big conundrum with this is that, because again, as I said, that wealth gap is what I always

look at. And the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of people getting very wealthy, and there's still the ability to do that. In fact, more than ever before, I would argue, there is the potential that you could go from $0 to $1 billion, unlike in today's money versus old times as well, because of the power of the internet and things like that. The price of admission to that, though, is that a smaller percentage get to that echelon because it is more of a winner take all society so when i see these people who are playing the victim on everything and we can think of the most stereotypical social examples who are talking about every single fucking thing that happened to them that probably didn't like yes that blows my mind and it's like get the fuck out of your own way totally agree but when i also see people who are like man what the fuck is there for me to do here? Because, you know, the chances of me making it are decreased. I empathize with that.

Now, in fairness, do I think like that? No. I'm dumb enough to start a podcast and give up everything to do it in a space that, as you and I said and agree on, is so fucking saturated. It's insane to start it. But it's like, if you have that honest opinion of, hey, can I be great at this? And am I willing to fucking eat dirt to do it but it's like if you have that honest opinion of hey can i be great at this and am i willing to fucking eat dirt to do it which i am all right then you go for it and then you see if you last the number of people who may be able to have that mentality i don't know if that's like 50 or 40 but i know it's not everybody and so even though i don't want to fall into the

trap of you're a victim cry about it like that's the right thing to do i agree with you you should not do that i do understand that sometimes there are people who actually are a victim of something or sometimes there are people who it's like yeah they did kind of get leave behind left behind and they don't totally have an answer to the modern day system as it's set up i empathize with that well instead of looking at it like as if how many hundred billionaires there are which by the way i think i just read steve ballmer the owner of the clippers just became the ninth ninth person in america to reach the 100 billion threshold. Are we lifting people out of poverty?

I don't really care how many millionaires we have. I would be more concerned about how many people we have living in poverty. Yes. That's the group that we should be lifting up. And the more people that you have at the top end, they're going to need more people down at the bottom end in order to have their company succeed. Yes. Now, here's a great devil's advocate for you because it's the one that gets thrown out there all the time, and I bat it down for all the human nature reasons there are. But that, to me, is why there are so many people out there throwing

socialism because they're like forget the government people who take advantage of it you and i know that's the case but they look at it and they're like all right we have way too many people who have ridiculous wealth the billionaires and all that right so we have a lot of people but government doesn't create a thing tell me what does government create that they don't take from somebody else you can't answer that question what do you what do create that they don't take from somebody else you can't answer that question what do you what do you mean they don't take from someone else through taxpayer money well right so government doesn't exist unless they take from somebody else unless they take from you and I they don't they have to take through taxes in order to create something. In other words, government creates by forceful coercion.

In other words, you have to give government something for them to create it. You don't have to do that for Amazon. Nobody is forcing you to give to Amazon. But government is forcing you to give them taxpayer money. That's how they get their money. That's how they get their money. That's how they create. Government does not... Is Amazon better, though?

Is Amazon better? Sure, they're better. Okay. How are they not better? No one's... Amazon hasn't forced one person to give them one dime. Agreed. Government doesn't operate that way.

Agreed. Now, the downside of it is, and this is a great example you bring up, because you look at Amazon, look at all the people they employ, right? Let's look at a positive. They create a lot of jobs. Sure. And they pay more than the minimum wage now. I think they pay $15 an hour at least. But they also churn out people like crazy.

There's the thing going around now that finally is getting some publicity because I think Crystal and Sagar talked about it with Joe Rogan. But their drivers routinely shit in bags to keep a job. They have created a system that is so brilliant. Jeff Bezos is maybe the best businessman I have ever seen in my life. He is incredible, right? And so putting aside whatever you feel about his personal whatevers, the systems he's created about ultimate customer satisfaction are amazing. But they've now created a system where he has so much fucking money that he, and I know he's like chairman emeritus right now,

but let's call it what it really is. He and his people can go in there and go to a business like pharmacies for example and say we're gonna go lose a fuck ton of money for like three years just to gain the whole thing that's where it starts to get to standard oil shit and that's where it starts to get past the point where it's like well now i may agree with you that government usually has horrible ideas and when they take more control it's a problem but i have to level that with you know it's probably a good thing they stopped john d rockefeller is it going to be a good thing that they stopped jeff bezos probably even if it's mcconnell and pelosi doing it probably it's probably going to be net good because if they don't is amazon going to own every i mean they already own most of the studio.

I ordered all this through Amazon except some of the custom artwork. It's like, are they going to own everything? Well, you want to know why big corporations love big government? Why? Because they squash out the smaller guys guys right big companies lot don't

be big companies like amazon comcast uh go up and down the list microsoft do they want more competition they want less competition yes they want less competition because they're look the more competition the more they're going to be threatened and so you people wonder it's like why does people like jeff bezos or whatever support big government because big government helps them succeed. I mean, Section 230, Twitter, Facebook, they're protected. They have protections, thanks to government. I don't think that Amazon would be where they were if, I mean, if there weren't. First off, Amazon got where they were because they made a deal to be able to use the united states postal

service in order to get their to to pretty much ship their products around the world uh or at least around america on a very small margin you know it was like 50 cents 60 cents to the dollar is what they worked out with with the united states postal service so it's it's you know it's it's these big companies work hand in hand with government i think it's a shit or a fart i think they're fucked either way because if they don't if they do that i agree it cuts out the little men but if you take the government away and this is where i run into this conundrum it's like well they can do whatever the they want well that's where they're that's they've gotten to that point that's that's the way big tech looks at it now they and government has given them that protection they're by giving they by by giving those the Section 230 protections, they're looked as a platform, not as publishers.

And they have now entered the realm as publishers. When you decide what is fake news or what should be put out there, what should be censored, what's not, you are a publisher. And they have stepped way over those bounds in other words in other words big tech is an extension of big government i can't disagree with that based on what we've seen in the last year and a half in particular because they are protected that's without question there's a literal law as you pointed out section 230 on that that not enough people look into and then it's also the concept of if they did go after that it would take away a lot of the incentivization for what we love about social media which is also

what we hate which is that people give opinions so it's like again i'm not really sure what the solution is there but they are completely protected in the sense that they can decide what goes and this is interesting to talk about on a higher level than just social media because you know you just left a year and a half ago or two years ago like very recently large media right and it was corporate media it was owned by comcast and everything and one of the topics that we've seen rise heavily in the last five to six years in particularly is what goes and what the talking points are and what you're allowed to say and what you're not to say you

already touched on that with the fact that there was in sports media the line between like the owner of the teams and you know the organization he was involved with which is interesting but in media in general including that and what you did you know how much of it is like hey here's what we're gonna say and here's what you don't say and then if you don't if you say what you're not supposed to say you're done the general manager of the Sixers now Daryl Morey yeah what do you say he supported Taiwan which is a country well yeah he supported free Taiwan you know our free Hong Kong that's what it was free Hong Kong back you know everything that was. Free Hong Kong. Back, you know, everything that was coming out.

And then LeBron. he was hung. And that was. Free Hong Kong. And, and I'm going to be honest, the Hong Kong thing, I was completely unaware of before it came out.

I'm remembering this now. So this was when he tweeted. Yes. Out like free Hong Kong. Right. And then got all the backlash. Got the backlash. See,

I knew about the taiwan thing i never even knew there was like a whole issue there with hong kong yeah yeah hong kong he brought attention to that so well i mean everything behind hong kong was is that they were under british rule for 50 plus years and then when it reverted back to China. And so now China has gradually, over time, taken steps to sort of reclaim Hong Kong as part of theirs. So Hong Kong has been this democratic country, democratic state, been free, you know, and now you have a communist watchdog

that wants to rein them in. But that's the way that the agreement was set up between china and great britain at the time is that after so many years so the argument is should hong kong maintain its status or should they now have to follow under the rule of a communist state like china but that just that's just in a nutshell but you bring up daryl morey in particular but we yeah we're kind of getting away from it in the sense that daryl morey's like his belief is hong kong should be free and and live independently of of china i don't i hey everybody should be free to and entitled to their opinions apparently he wasn't he was scolded on social media lebron james even came out and told him he was uneducated

from a guy who never stepped foot in the college college classroom i i find that very somewhat of a paradox in in the sense that he you know that lebron james can can sit there and point a finger at somebody being uneducated um you know when when when really LeBron James is only looking out for his his bottom line his checkbook but but that's where we are in society you know we talked about freedoms is that we're you know what is the line for free speech you know it's it's it's know, if you say something that goes against, you know,

the popular discussion on social media, you're going to be outcast. You're going to be a pariah. And if it gains a lot of traction, you'll be fired from your job. And this is why I love

you brought up the LeBron thing in particularly, because there was a point earlier in this conversation where I was thinking about, oh, maybe we're going to get to this. And then we got on something else. I didn't go with it. But the whole China thing was such an interesting case study for all of it because it's a financial incentive. So you talked about earlier with something else where you're like, people don't want to turn over on their fellow man, like in the locker room or whatever. They want to be loyal to their people. And that was a prime situation where politics happened to mix

with sports and there were a lot of dollars at stake. So like Daryl Morey, when he tweeted that out, I believe him. He wasn't thinking anything of it. He just kind of did it, right? And it's something he believed in. So I support it. And I think that he should be allowed to do that and should absolutely, like if he wants to speak his mind, especially on a human rights issue, knock yourself out. You should. After it happened, he then realized, holy shit, the whole government of China, which is a scumbag communist party, to be clear, is now freaking out at this. And where do a lot of our revenues derive from in the NBA? A lot are from China.

I don't remember what the percentage is, but it's a sobering amount, right? So all these people like LeBron James, James Harden, who was a star player on the Rockets at the time his team like that was very popular in China because of Yao Ming having played there and everything they're all looking at this going holy shit we're gonna lose a lot of money and like if we say something supporting him we're gonna fuck over our fellow players and so what happens is China plays the groupthink philosophy against the system and they say oh we're gonna we don't give a fuck we don't care about our people we're gonna pull all our money from you if you don't cow down or kowtow to us well how do they say whatever the term is and so you saw these people say that and

the most famous ones were like lebron saying he's uneducated on the situation or steve kerr being like you know i need to really study this or whatever no you don't we we know you know what it is yeah but like i would have actually appreciated if people said hey there are a lot of dollars at stake and i'm not gonna fuck over everyone else because of it if they had said that i would have respected it but it created this no win situation because they're sitting there like yeah you know we're we gotta figure out the situation or he doesn't really know what's going on yeah they do yeah dude lebron and his team were in china when that thing broke yeah they saw what happened they watched all the banners come down and the chinese government come to meet with all the nba officials freaking out they saw it well it should never come

down to the power of one tweet from a general manager like that, but that's exactly what it was. Don't sit here and convey that you're an activist on human rights or looking to protect human rights when really, ultimately, it will always come down to dollar and cents. It comes down to the bottom line. Who's buttering your bread? Who's taking care of you and and and look that's that's that's society that we're in you know it's it's easy to jump on the social issues the social aspect of things if it doesn't have a direct monetary effect on... Yes. Yeah, it's easy to do that. So, you know, the China thing is something that obviously, with the NBA being a big global stage now,

and China being one of the biggest to contribute to that, that was, you know, they were preserving, you were preserving that global brand. That's what they were doing. You ever seen the David Stern quote on that from the New York Times? Back in the day? I don't know if I remember it. So there was an interview. It was one of those typed interviews where they did it in person, only put it on text, I guess.

But maybe this is like oh five it was way back yeah and david stern said something like seriously when they were talking about china he's like we're gonna have to answer for that one day and they were like what do you mean and he goes i mean i'm the commissioner my job is to make dollars for my owner which he was great at and that is his job so yeah we're gonna take it to a billion two billion person market to make dollars for my owner, which he was great at, and that is his job. So, yeah, we're going to take it to a billion – to a billion-person market to make money because there's money to be made there. But he's like, the government is a problem. No one ever said anything about it. And I actually – like I give him a ton of credit for saying that on the record and being like, we did it because there's money there.

That's my job. But like that doesn't mean there's not a problem. And even if like, I can look at that and say, well, did you really need it? He's incentivized to do it. And at least he's telling it like it is. You never saw that again. And by the way, for the record, in my lifetime, the best commissioner I've ever seen is Adam Silver.

I mean, he's so, like, he's one of those guys who's beloved by the owners and really beloved by the players and seems to get it with a lot of things. So, like, I don't want to rip Adam Silver, but, like, he's got to think about that, too. And it's not like he made the bed. Those deals weren't made when he was commissioner. But where do you stand? Are you about the human rights, to your point you stand are you about the human rights to your point are you about the money which one is it you have to make a choice well he answers to the what is it 30 31 owners nba owners yes just like uh just like the nfl commissioner roger Roger Goodell. It's about making sure that the owner's interests are protected and their interests are making money. Adam Silver is no different.

But he has been at, you mentioned, where do you stand when it comes to the fiscal side of things? Where does it come to the social side? Adam Silver has been very active on the social side. Yeah. He acted swiftly when it came to, and I can't remember the name of the Clippers owner. Donald Sterling. Donald Sterling acted very swiftly when it came to that.

But China is one of those double-edged swords they're lining the pocketbooks but it's it's it's a very oppressive government you know so if you're going to sit there and support china then you're supporting also the fact that that they have a terrible human rights record. But we don't, and here's a great example. We don't see that. They don't talk about the Uyghurs on TV. They don't, you don't see a lot of it on social media either. In fact, you see it protected.

They don't talk about what they do to people and throw them basically in gulags when they disagree politically. We don't see that. Whereas with like a Donald Sterling who, for the record, didn't commit a crime, but was like this clear racist asshole, we saw it on video. Like it was on audio, I think. Like you heard it, right? So that's who we are as humans. Same way that like when Ray Rice, smaller example,

but Ray Rice got suspended for whatever it was, four games. Then the video came out. there you go you but because you and you just nailed it what is it that that's it there that that persuades public opinion what is it what they see yes all right take 9-11 how many 9-11 how many people did 9-11 kill when the two towers came down? What's the official death count? Pentagon and two towers, it was like 3,200 people. 3,200? Yes.

If that plane, let's say a plane, crashed into a small arena, killed 3,200, but you never saw video of it, this is the comparison I make. If an airplane flew into a small arena that you didn't saw video of it. This is the comparison I make. If an airplane flew into a small arena that you didn't have video of, would you have felt the same way? I can answer that. You would not. No. No, but because you visualize the whole thing

from the time that you actually saw an airplane fly into the World Trade Center and you saw it on fire fire and then you saw the thing come down and collapse like it was a very emotional like how could you not be emotional by what had happened right by watching two two of the most iconic buildings in new york city come down like that you you you you almost can't be emotionally attached to that so what you're just describing plays into that perfectly ray rice you saw him slug a woman and knock her out if you don't capture that on if you capture it, those images aren't captured on camera, you don't have an emotional reaction to it. Yes.

So, that's where we are. We're tied to the emotional reaction. Same thing to the George Floyd. If you're not sitting there watching it, you're not emotionally tied to it because it was caught on camera. And it doesn't even have to fully encompass. I mean, you doesn't even have to fully encompass.

I mean, you don't even have to fully understand it in terms of it could be a snippet. And then you're brought to the scene, it's like, oh my God, that moment. But we're always looking, and that's really where American media has now divulged into. What's that next 15 or 30 second snippet that's going to capture people's emotions?

It sells. It sells. It used to be blood, sex sells. Now it's what is that 30 second eye-popping video that's going to grab people's emotion you ever watch the show the newsroom i may have it was on hbo hbo yeah right there were there was a two-part episode so it was part one and part two i forget what season called tragedy porn and the title i don't even have to tell you what it was about i can't even remember what they talked about in those episodes but it was spot the fuck on because he was saying you know aaron sorkin right wrote the the series and he was like we are drawn to the worst right we have to watch

it over and over and over again and there is something to that it's like this human nature thing but i think you're so right in the sense that we then take that and cherry pick it as that's the thing right and so all the other things that don't have a symbol like that we don't put that way when i had jim diorio on here he was one of the guys in charge of the civil rights desk at the fbi for a couple i think it was like maybe two years when he was there. And he's like, you know, granted, this was I guess like the late 2000s, so not crazy social media time, but he's like,

you see.1% of the videos. He's like, I see all of them. They're bad. They're bad. But like, you don't have the same reaction when you don't see it. You know, and it's like this it's't see it. And it's like this. It's a slippery slope.

And that's what my industry has gravitated towards. Yes. Topping our news tonight. Check this out. This 15 seconds on the sidewalk of Sacramento or whatever. That's a good voice. That's a good voice right there. But that's what they do.

They're selling catastrophe. They are. That's it're they're selling catastrophe they are that's it that's it you're selling catastrophe because catastrophe is going to draw emotion your emotion emotion gets you to think in a way that we talked you I think you mentioned the word rational when your emotions are in play you think irrational you don't think reasonably you think unreasonably so you you don't you don't put context into things you're like oh my god did you see that you're just talking about the video you know you're not thinking about everything that went into it george floyd's a perfect example i'm not saying that that the cop wasn't wrong but what i'm saying is is that you isolate on the video and that becomes

the focal point you don't think of what is everything that went into it yeah and i think i i think when people watch that it's pretty clear that that guy was a fucking horrible cop and handled the situation completely wrong and and when i watch it it's that one is long enough it's not a 15 second clip it's a nine minute clip that i can look at that and say okay that's that's pretty clear so but i'm i'm just saying when we're talking about the visual medium and we're talking about as you said uh what was the term the what was the porn the tragedy tragedy porn yeah we're looking we're looking to isolate those clips we don't want the story behind it we want the clip that's going to get us enraged. I think that we have a problem in society now where we can't say multiple things at the same time.

We have to be boom or boom. Yes. Right? And that's it. Yeah, yeah. And so when I look at this, the media ties into that because the salaciousness is you're either here or you're against us right like you either take the line or you don't and the interesting thing for you is like obviously you've worked in all parts of media but you spent a big part of your career in sports and you spent

it during a time where it also translated to things outside of sports right so when i went to sports as a kid i'll speak for myself and i think a lot of people would agree with me i went to it because sports is like sports you know it's like an escape yeah it's like maybe you dream to be in a basketball player football player hockey player baseball player and like these guys were the best of it and so you could go there and it's like oh everyone from all different backgrounds can enjoy it for three hours whatever it is eventually it turned to things obviously through social media where players started to represent more than that and i'll speak for myself when i say that when i watch a game i'm watching the game i don't give a shit what these

guys say on social media i'm watching the game i get to enjoy it but i understand when people are now like this guy thinks that or he stands for this or whatever fuck that and to me it's taken the fun out of it it's taken the escape out of it and so part of the problem where when sports is big is now stepped on is now decided that they're going to enter the political arena is they have forced fans. Like, fans are... Americans are very loyal. They're loyal to their sports teams, and they're loyal to their country.

Don't make them have to pick a side. And that's what sports is. Sports over the last couple of years has done that, starting with Colin Kaepernick. Don't force sports fans, who are very loyal to their country, and can be very loyal to their sports teams to go one way or the other.

Because you may not like the result. If you're a sports organization. Because I've talked to a lot of fans. And really with the way that sports is set up now, you get

players that come in and out, in and out. But they love America. And if you're going to sit there and tell a sports fan, hey, we're doing this, but we think America sucks. We're turning our back on America. We're not going to play the National Anthem. We're not going to

have our athletes come out there and stand for the National Anthem. You're pretty much saying we don't like the United States of America. Don't tell that to the average sports fan. They have a lot of pride in this country. They feel like that they're part of that backbone, that they were part of that growth, that they're part of what, over time, yes, we're not perfect.

And that's where I think too you got these two sides like you either you have one side that believes America is not this perfect country but you know what we've over the last 220 30 years we've worked on bettering ourselves as a country right we believe the Constitution is a great document we believe in freedom we great document. We believe in freedom. We believe in liberty. We believe in our constitutional rights. You know, we believe that this country is better than any other country, and we love what it represents. We love the American flag with the red, white, and blue, 4th of July. Like, this country is our country, and I wouldn't have it any other way. You have another side that believes it's fundamentally bad.

They think that the Constitution was written and devised by a bunch of racist white men. You think that it needs to be fundamentally transformed and changed. You believe that everything that's set out. So one side understands that over time that it evolves the other the other side believes the whole system needs to be broken down and changed completely so back to the point of the mix of sports and politics is these sports organizations have tiptoed on the side of patriotism and what certain people believe patriotism. And if you're asking them to choose, you may not like the decision because they love both.

And you're going to find out real quickly how much they love your sports team. Or if they don't this is another situation where i don't make a lot of friends because so kaepernick let's start there as you brought him up specifically i don't agree with kaepernick's point of view i think kaepernick i'm just using his words he looks at this country as a racist country that is for nothing but the white man and that has left everyone behind and has nothing good about it i think that's a ridiculous assertion i think that some of his points as to things that could get better are fair but what we do as a country is we create these two teams where it's like you either are standing for the national anthem and every single goddamn thing this country fights for and what we're about or you're completely against it. And once again, I think it's the media playing into that where they're like, well, you got to be one or the other.

And so I look at it going, well, I don't really like what he's saying. I don't totally disagree with all of it i think some of it has left people behind but then when i see out of that who was the woman i didn't even know her name before this the olympic athlete who just like got pissed at the olympics that the national anthem was playing when she was on the yeah i i saw i didn't i don't even remember her name this is where i start to go oh this is fucked up because she gets she is literally competing for the country literally like makes that decision to compete for america and then decides she's going to get offended when the american national anthem plays on whatever it is is, the stage she's on when she wins the bronze medal.

That's where I'm like, make a choice. You're either, fuck this, I'm not about it, so don't incentivize yourself because the only reason we'd be paying attention to you is if you're an athlete as a track and field athlete on the American stage, right? Right. athlete on the american stage right right either stay the fuck away from it or come on and be like hey i don't have to agree with all of it but like there's some good here because i'm representing the country i don't think that's too much to ask i don't have a problem with let's go back to kaepernick for a second i don't have i i i i whether i agreed with him or not our country is set up to where you can express yourself. And he didn't actually start out by taking a knee.

He actually sat on the bench, and then it was somebody who then said, hey, at least take a knee. But the point is, don't sit here and tell me how bad America is and this, that, and the other, and then show your support on a t-shirt for Fidel Castro. Yes.

Okay? Agreed. Don't display this level of hypocrisy, because now it shows that you have no credibility in what you're doing. And then he actually doubled down and talked about the level of education, this, that, and the other, as if now he's lending credibility to Fidel Castro. That's where I have a major problem. And people wonder why Trump got, like, whatever it was, like 30% of the Hispanic vote. Because they know.

There you go. And it goes back to what I talked earlier. Those people have perspective. They know what they're coming from. They know what they're coming to. Somebody, I saw a quote recently about an immigrant who came over here and needed to be explained what cancel culture is and the guy pretty much says don't Americans realize they live in the greatest country in the world don't they have something better

to do with their time then to cancel each other out and and people like that get it you know when when when they're when they're waiting in bread lines yes and brain surgeons or taxi drivers at night right it those people get it and And sometimes we don't. We have grown so accustomed to a certain lifestyle that we have to find a way to pick it apart. And that's why, you know, look, fine if Colin Kaepernick has his issues or there's social issues that he feels that needed to be addressed. I'm fine with that. I'm addressed. I'm fine with that.

I'm fine. I'm fine with that. But don't sit here and tell me that Fidel Castro was some great man. And that's the point. I think people, there's no ability for people to take it to a common ground and to a place where it's like this is reasonable. You are incentivized to be unreasonable these days. It goes to everything.

And it goes to things that are far less serious, like in actual sports. You are incentivized to say, LeBron is horrible and Jordan is great. Or you are incentivized to say, the Patriots cheated every single title they got. They didn't deserve any of them. You're incentivized to say extremes. You're not incentivized to say, i think this was wrong or that was a little fucked up but like this thing still happened or yeah they still had this or whatever and then take it to a level where it's politics it's national issues and now it gets to a point

where some people righteously so consider some things life and death there's no incentivization to be like you know there's a problem there but this is good it's like if you come out and say that you're done it's like how could you dare do that it's like you know what not to bring it on me but for a second on a very small scale to bring it on me i see this on tiktok all the time there are opinions on this show i have people from every political walk of life in here i have to get a few more conservatives in here because i've had more liberals i try to keep it very very balanced but like there are opinions across the political spectrum and i will post videos back to back sometimes i don't really think about it i know it afterwards where it's like one whether it's a guest or me expresses a left opinion and then another expresses a right

and so i will get people who follow me for a video right and then they see the next one and they're like i thought you stood for something and i'm like bro there's a lot of different issues there is and you all you almost have to accept the whole mantra, it's like a take it or leave it ideology. I don't want to be like that. I don't. I think that you can make a case for abortion in an early stage. And you can make the case, like I said, we talked about this before, about limitations on the Second Amendment. Make good, reasonable arguments against it. said we we talked about this before about limitations on the second amendment make good

reasonable arguments against it but that's not how how we've evolved now it's a it's extremist it's extremism you got to take an extreme side and if if you don't well then you're not fully progressive and if you don't take this, then you're not a full conservative. Because that is, that's the hardline stance that we're now taking. And I'm just, look, I just don't want to be dictated by any government entity, politician, representative to sit there and say, you have to think this way, you have to behave this way. Because that's not how a society should work and you shouldn't be condemned If you don't subscribe to their policies or sit there and say you're not this you're not that I mean

Other what look the First Amendment was put in place not to protect speech. That's popular who's in there to protect speech That's unpopular. Yes Thank you for saying that okay we could because we can all agree that if speech is popular oh yeah well of course we're going to we're going to accept it as the norm but it's the unpopular speech that maybe you don't want to hear that needs that has to be protected we're blurring the lines though that's my one issue so like when i saw steve banning get kicked off of social media i supported that 100 because he didn't exercise free speech he i'm not going to repeat what he said but he called for direct harm and visual ways to public figures that you can't do that's not protected by speech right it's cool

with that supported 100 when i see other people kicked off the social media i'm like they did absolutely nothing wrong than express their opinion and by the way a lot of the times it's an opinion i don't agree with but i will fight for it because i understand that slippery slope works on everything and i understand that and it's like if you let that go then what do you let go next if you kick like people talk about trump right and getting kicked off social media i i think january 6th was insane don't get me wrong i think that he made a lot of mistakes going into that put that aside for a second and look at the reasons they kicked him off social media has anyone actually read Twitter's reasoning for that?

Did you read that? No. Okay. I haven't seen anything. Right. Most people haven't read it. Yeah. I read it.

According to that document, Twitter knows how to read minds. That's a slippery slope to me. You know, and I don't have to agree with what the guy fucking said. I will fight for your right to say it if I disagree with it, long as it doesn't go across the line of actually inciting violence. And the tweets that they banned his account for did nothing of the sort. And so I was reading this going, are we not going to talk about this? Like is Obama going to come out and say something about this? Because Obama did supposedly stand for that he's on record

standing for like hey let all opinions go out there so come on and fucking say something about i know you hate this guy i don't blame you by the way he fucking asked if you were born in this country or not but come now now is the opportunity to make your legacy and say hey you know i hate this guy but like that ain't it. And he didn't do that. Maybe he's a former president, he wants to stay quiet, but hasn't in the past. Now's the time to do it. Now look at this as a failure on everyone to call out something

where it's very clear people are now deciding at certain platforms they can read minds. And that's where it gets to the point of it's no longer about what you say it's who you say it to and they're going to decide what's wrong or what's right and not only not only that but it's it's it's somebody else is responsible for somebody else's actions where's the personal responsibility in all of this it's like somebody else is now is we have to hold somebody else accountable that that's really where where we have slipped in this society you're not responsible for your own actions you're not responsible for your own words you're plight in in society

you're not responsible for that somebody else contributed to your downfall. I mean, that to me is the essence of this whole thing. You know, I don't care. Let's just say somebody did say that. Somebody told you to jump off a bridge. Are you jumping off a bridge? Somebody told you to storm the White House. Are you going to storm the White House? I mean, some more personal accountability has to come to the forefront. So, we've gotten away from that.

And once again, come full circle. This is where government feels they have to intervene. Say, you're not responsible for your plight in life. Other people led you to that decision. You're making that decision, but we're going to help you recover from that. You can tie all these little things in together.

But somewhere along the line, line you got to take accountability you got to sit there and say the reason why i'm i'm in this situation is because of my actions the reason that i'm i i made that decision you know look if i was there if i was in washington washington that day i don't have to listen to somebody. I don't have to read somebody's Twitter account and say, look, storm of the halls of the U.S. Capitol, is that a good idea? Probably not. Probably not a good idea.

And I don't know what's in there, but I think they probably have armed official or armed guards, and they may not think too. I don't know what's going to happen, but I can't think, even if I get i don't know what's going to happen but i can't think even if i get in there what am i going to do probably not a good idea well here's another question though and this is important they knew that rally or whatever the hell it was was happening you and i both know i assume correct me if i'm wrong this is what i think at least if that were going to be a black lives matter protest they would have had the whole goddamn

military outside that place yeah what like what is the deal with the fact that because i'm sorry i i don't want to equate them but i'm going to i'm going to equate them here the people who were going there that day are on the other side, the same radical nature. What makes you think that something different was going to happen? That's my one issue with that, because it's like these people, these are not the best among society.

These are people who largely are like lost and frankly, no disrespect, many of them are dumb who actually showed up there and thought they were going to overturn an election. Like that's what we were dealing with. so why not protect the capital like you would if it were like a leftist protest i got a problem with that it should have been it should have been yeah if they if they if they but i think that they were asked to either stand down or i think that they took away it was a major oversight whether it was from capitol police or or do you think trump asked him this to stand down

no i don't think he asked him to stand down i read the tweets i don't i didn't see anywhere where todd where donald trump called for violence i'll agree with you in the sense that he didn't directly do it i just think that he was careless as fuck and like when he's speaking in the present tense saying like they're deciding right now what do you think's gonna happen now that's where i'll that's where i will say i think and this was probably dumb i think he probably assumed that there was no shot they were ever going to get in there. Dumb assumption if I'm Donald Trump because, frankly, I was an outsider when I came in. If ever there was going to be a time where people were going to be like, all right, well, let's show them how it's done.

This would be the time. And so that's why I don't feel bad for him at all. Cause I'm like, you walked right into it. Like you, you plan this for three weeks, this rally that was kind of ridiculous and the whole sense of it. And now you said like, Oh look, they're deciding right now. And you,

you know, he talked about Pence and shit too. And it's like, that's his vice president. And to me, like, that's the downfall of Trump. And you talked about earlier,

like the ego. He has no fucking idea when it's like what am i saying right now oh yes oh oh i shouldn't say that right yeah no i 100 agree i mean i i can't just yeah it's uh but at the same token um people have to, I really believe, you know, even when he was, there was comments being made about, what, drinking something to help combat the coronavirus. You know, like, what was it, ammonia? You know, I can't remember. But come on. He was telling people to drink, i i say i call him president tide

pod because he was like drinking tight but it's got the right stuff in it he didn't really say that no right but you hear what i'm saying people it construed it to be something else yeah at some point you i i i even hate the word you use the phrase common sense anymore because what's common sense? What's common sense to you and me? You go talk to 20 people. Hey, the common sense is not a prevailing thought anymore Well, what we thought is like use using common sense. No, it's it's it's almost uncommon nobody thinks Nobody thinks in common terms anymore So you can't even, you know,

you can't even throw that phrase out there because there is no prevailing common sense anymore. We're not at that point anymore. If I stayed on that, we'd be talking for like another two hours. So I want to get off that. And first of all, I want to have you on here again. All right, let's do it.

All right, this has been fun. but i can't let you out of here before at least asking about the exit and everything like we've talked about it a little bit yeah but you know you were an absolute you were like a painting on the tv it's like you turn on comcast sports that there are certain faces on there john borick is one of those four or five faces. And then you weren't. And neither were the people who I would describe that with as well, including Derek Gunn. He just left. That was, like, crazy to me.

Yeah. He was on there forever, you know? Yeah, so let's go back. So my last two years at NBC Sports Philadelphia, I had been asked to take over the role of what Tim Panaccio had done and being sort of a beat writer. Because I had written stuff for the website. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah.

Written stuff for the website. And so I was more of a beat writer and less doing... 90% of what I did in my last two years there was writing for the website. So did they take away your TV time with that? During that first year, yes. But then in the second year, then I did less travel.

And they're like, well, we need you more on television because we're just sort of short-handed. I liked being on the road. It was a whole different thing. Got to go to arenas that I'd never seen before, see more hockey, watch more hockey, write about hockey. There's a lot

of long days in there. You're waking up, you're covering morning skates at 10 o'clock in the morning and you don't get to bed until after midnight. Long days. I did that for for one year in the final year of my contract and then i got to that that final year and i said okay so what are we gonna do and i said okay we'll renew it uh at the same salary for another year

and that was kind of like okay because you usually when you in broadcasting you get like three-year deals so it was three or three or three years so i came to the end of my my fourth three-year deal and they only offered one year uh and i'm like wow okay so i gotta prove myself and show that you know i thought that maybe if i showed that i was able to generate more readership and more views and providing more content and getting more viewers and stuff to the website, that that'll show that. And I did. From year one to year two, I had a 50% improvement. But it didn't matter.

After the end of the second season, once the Flyers were out of the playoffs, they said, hey, come in. We want to talk to you and it was at that point that they decided that they didn't want to renew my contract so and now I wasn't surprised by I mean look I could have presented my case I said hey look I went from 2.3 million views on my stories in year one to 3.6 million so that's a 50 increase but at that point they really weren't interested and you know it was uh here it is here's what we're doing here's the severance package and i i didn't really argue i I was kind of... Look, it's hard. What people don't realize about being in television, and I did it for 25 years,

is that you sacrifice a lot. You sacrifice weekends, working nights. I mean, I would see my kids in the morning, get them ready for school in the morning, and send them on their way, and I wouldn't see them again until the following morning. That was it. It would be four days out of the week, and I would see my kids for maybe an hour, getting them ready for school, and then they did their thing.

I went off to work. By the time I came home, they were in bed. Everybody was in bed. Because it would be 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock. And that wears on you. As a family, you miss out on a lot of stuff. A lot of extracurricular activities, a lot of school activities. So everybody thinks, well, it's a great job and this, that, and the other.

But once you have a family it takes a toll so I was on one hand I felt disrespected because I busted my ass and did everything I could to show my versatility being on television writing for the website covering a team doing everything I could and on the other side I felt relieved because if I'm not going to be respected and this then I might as well spend time with my family which I haven't really done all that much you do you make those sacrifices and so that's why I haven't missed it as much as I thought I would have because I have spent more time with the family and I have spent more time with the family and I have spent more time with my kids and I've made a point of being at more social activities and more functions

so um and I didn't take it personally because I see I saw what happened to Neil Hartman and Leslie Goodell, Ron Burke and Marshall Harris, and you can go down the list. So I figured my number was going to be called eventually. I was just sort of milking the opportunity. It's just unfortunate because we had a really good thing. We had good chemistry. But the bottom line is with these regional sports networks is that they don't, you know, it's a ratings-driven business. So when ratings aren't there, you can't get the advertising rates and you're not going to get the money and something's going to have to go.

And really NBC saw that as part of their business plan. I mean, look at what NBC isc is doing with sport i mean they just broadcast their final hockey game yeah no they're not they're not doing hockey anymore in fact espn is doing it right espn is espn is going to take over hockey but nbc sports network is gone at the end of the year done wait what yeah that's it n Sports Network NBCSN not NBC Sports like they're still gonna do the Olympics but the network that does hockey you know what used to be versus and and all that and eventually evolved into NBC Sports Network is gone and that's live it's done well it's it's but it's not a money maker yeah and and every decision

whether it's popular or unpopular is going to be based on the the bottom line in nbc sports network look you might like hockey i love hockey but hot hockey is not going to draw ratings right and that's where they have to decide is is is are you going to bid for the big sports the big money draws and what does what what where is that balance I mean that's why ESPN cut a lot of people loose several years ago they bid so much for Monday Night Football and everything everything that they bid for, the rights to broadcast, the broadcasting rights to NBA and NFL cost so much money

that they had to find another way to cut back. And so good people with good jobs are being let go. And NBC Sports Philadelphia, I think, was really no different. Because they had to find a different model in which to operate, one that was more cost efficient. The money for live sports went up, as it always does, right?

Past inflation. And the attention for things outside of live sports went down. So the investments are going to go into the people who are literally calling those games, and everything else is secondary. Secondary, yeah. And it's sad because, you know, people like to rip on TV all the time,

like, oh, yeah, it's the old school, whatever. But the fact of the matter is, there are a lot of people in it who are talented as hell, and they can do things that people in the private sector they just can't right even with this decentralized society we have even with this ability to do a podcast like this like there are things that people hone in that industry over time over years that like you can't know doing something like what i'm doing you know and it's going to be an interesting time because there are

a lot of people now who have crushed it and made their living and done a great job and had everything they wanted like you, who also aren't 65 years old. You know, like you got a lot of runway in front of you. And like, I know obviously you've done great for yourself and you have a great life, but like, I want to see people like that now go to my world and beat us at it because you can like you're you're a born natural at it and it's not just like blowing smoke up your ass as to oh you're the news guy it's like no no to be able to do that for so many years and navigate the changing industry that it was and be so effective at it and also be on both sides of it

as i said you were where you were both hey i'm the guy that hosts the show but i'm also a media member like i'm i'm there to get the story not to be your friend that's a hard thing to do and the average person we talk about the percentages of society who are going to win and be able to have success or whatever the average person they're not able to do that that's that's a hard thing for even me to concept and like i work in this where I talk to people now, you know, but like, that's a whole nother level you were in it at. Well, what drives you has to be the passion for what you do it. So when I first got into broadcasting, I was in college and it was really when ESPN and Sports Center was at the height of its popularity.

And I read Dan – I studied guys like Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. They did their show. They wrote a book called The Big Show. And I read that cover to cover in like two days. Like that was very much what I wanted to get into. And I wanted to be one of those guys. But then once I got into it, what really motivated me and what incentivized me to do what i did was i i like to tell great stories i like to be a storyteller and i like to see a story come together visually and that's what i became good at and i became and even though i even though i became um

growing up i wasn't a good english student i I honed those skills to be able to write really effectively, write good, effective copy in broadcasting form, and to translate that to a story. And the work that I put out there, I think, sort of reflects that. But that was where my passion was and I was never comfortable that once I did something I had to find the next great best thing I had a final okay what's the next story what's the next story and never be comfortable with that and people who are successful in this

sort of medium well if it's what you do you could say that was a great show but you know what I got to find the next great show. I've got to be inspired to go out and do something even better. I want to top that. You're never going to rest on your laurels. There's going to be something that says, I've got to push it. I've got to push it even more. And that's how you're going to be great.

Because success, while it may feel good in the moment that you you'll have to one up yourself i always wanted to one up myself and say okay yeah i may have been the best sports reporter in 2011 but i gotta how am i gonna find a way to do that in 2012 2013 how about 2022 i don't know it's it's look i've got i've got other interest i'll tell you what i mean right now i'm working for subaru and um and there it's it's different because it's a challenge i've never done before but to make good money and to exceed you know there's a there's a challenge you can find a challenge in anything yes and and now to sit there and to exceed people who've been doing

this five and ten years i've only been doing it six months feels pretty damn good because and and and there's a very competitive side to that as well. So I'm always going to be motivated where there is competition and where I can set goals and where I can exceed those goals. Who knows? I mean, you know, I have an agent, and he's always looking, and I'm always looking to see where it is. Look, I'm always going to be successful because it's in human nature.

People who have the human nature of being successful are going to be driven to those things. I'm not going to hunker down in a corner and feel sorry and sit there. I'm going to find a different way to be motivated and And that's how I think successful podcast Successful TV shows is they find they they find out what's successful and then they build on that They sit there and say I'm not just comfortable with I'm not comfortable on the fact that this show got more hits. I want to double that. I want to triple that. I see vision. I see vision. I see growth.

And I want to grow on this as a professional. And there's no monetary value that you can assign to that. Yes. You know? You just... You want... You take personal pride in something and you take ownership of that. And that's how success is derived.

And that's why I'm going to be selfish for a minute and say that I understand, obviously, you had a lot of years of that, some Emmys and everything. And, you know, you're doing well now. But I do want to see you and challenge you to take that leap and build your platform too. Yeah. Because you're not just a news guy. You got a point of view, and you're not fucking afraid to say it. And I love that. And you're not afraid to have people massively agree with you and massively disagree with you at the same time.

And especially coming out of like a traditional realm like you did. That's a rarer quality. And it's a beautiful thing. So like, I mean, you see me here. I don't have your chops. I don't have your resume. Not even a tenth of it. Less than that, right?

And like, I'm just creating a platform that's simple. It's like, I bring in different people, we talk about different shit. That's it, right? No reason you can't do that. Would you rather have established a career where you followed the company line, made a lot of money,

but yet you were forced to hold back or over time you sit there company line, made a lot of money, but yet you were forced to hold back, or over time you sit there and said, you know what? I'm going to tell it like it is. There was a recent story, I think there was a reporter on a Fox station, she said, you know, she's like, I'm being silenced. I'm not being able to tell the story. I don't care how much this woman ever makes in her career. You know, she may not ever work for the network or work in a top ten market,

but the fact that she came out and held true to who she was and held true to her convictions and said, You know what? Here's the story, and I'm being silenced because of that. I have so much more respect for that. I think she's much more of a success than anybody who decides to just take a paycheck and just fall you know within the company norms I do and and and and and and people should strive to to be

that person because that's what the what the news industry was established to do, was to be objective, tell the truth. Don't be persuaded by who your advertisers are, where the money follows. I mean, if there's a truth, yeah, if there's a truth out there, then it needs to be told. And it needs to be told honestly. There's a truth out there then it needs to be told and it needs to be told honestly you know there is there's one truth there's there's not

multifaceted there's not your truth or her truth there's one truth and that's for for journalists to go out there and decide and to do it objectively and while you may not like what the answer is it doesn't matter well what matters is is that you're being honest in your reporting and you're being up front and you're not being persuaded by other interests who may not want may not want the the actual truth to get out so yeah we'll see hey i got a lot of years left i don't know and that's what i love early it's early it's early yeah hey that's what i'm saying it's early it's early so we'll see what happens i think that what you just said speaks to me so personally because

i can honestly say that you know i i had in a different realm than you, very different, you know, as far as where I was or like where I was in life, you know, I'm in my 20s, so I'm young. I can't relate to you having a lot of years of success. I'm trying to chase that. But I got to a point in my career where it was like the question of do you want the paycheck or do you want to do something that stands for something? Right. And it's interesting, but I can hold myself to the, to the account that that is the decision I made. And I love that decision where I said, you know, fuck the paycheck because I don't like what I'm doing. I don't like what the day to day is. I don't like who I have to respond to with it. I don't like what this stands for. I like the people I work with. They're great, but they don't

say what this is. Even my boss, powerful guy, self-made, whole nine, he doesn't say what it is. It's like there's a lot of people above him saying what it is. And I went for this, and maybe that's the dumbest thing ever. Maybe it will be. So what? At the end of the day, it's like I'm going for something, and I can look myself in the mirror and say, hey, I didn't just go for that thing right there. You know what I mean?

And with you at the end of your run there, obviously there were other opportunities for you to just be like, all right, I'm going to do this thing. Don't worry about it. But there's a principle to it in the sense that even if you left and you're doing something different now and having a lot of success with that, you still were like, hey, these were my expectations of what it was going to be. That's not what it is. Okay, fuck it. I'm good with this. We're out. That's a beautiful thing to me. And that's why I want

to see you turn that into, hey, take this point of view, show the world what it is. Well, and you have to be strong in your convictions. Yes. But not only just be strong in your convictions, but then explain why. I mean, everybody can convey emotion, right? I don't like this. I don't like that. But you have to put some meat on that bone.

You have to tell people why you feel a certain way and why you stand by what you stand by. So I'll give you a good example. One thing that really soured me when I was doing news reporting last year, I did a story on a sort of, I guess it was a protective group, I can't remember their name specifically, but they were asked to come out and sort of guard businesses during a protest. Because during these protests, a lot of these businesses got looted. And I told their story and one of the guys said look you know we we come

out and and we protect against some of these groups like the any pretty much lumped black lives matter and with the kkk in this not in the sense that they stand for the same thing philosophically but the fact that they could be disruptive in in that disruptiveness comes chaos and in that chaos innocent business owners you know their places can be looted how crazy is that that like someone can they can say that out loud and like i understand what they mean he said that i understood what he meant and i incorporated that into my story, and they shelved the story because of that. I bet they did. And at that point, I realized this is bullshit because I'm not saying it.

They're saying it. I'm reporting on, but yet they found a reason. They found some bullshit reason why not to put it on there. It had nothing to do with it. I mean, I could sit there. The reason they gave me, I could use that reason to pick apart every other story that ran on that station. And that was very disturbing because as a reporter, I was doing my job.

You wanted me out there covering these guys in the first place, and I did that. And I told their story and why they were doing it. They didn't like the result. They didn't like the result it didn't it didn't it it it didn't it didn't i didn't form the narrative the way that they wanted to so they decided to shelve it because they didn't want to have to answer to any backlash once again it comes down to the same idea of not being able to say two things at the same time yeah you can say that like the kkk is a horrible organization

they're scumbags they shouldn't sure and say anything right and then also say like hey i'm also seeing patterns from black lives matter for example that i don't like they're fucking terrible right i don't support i always tell people i don't fucking support that organization one bit i think i think it's pretty scummy to be. I think that they hijacked the hashtag of what it was supposed to mean, and it means a whole different thing. And it's like you should be able to say both at the same time. And, like, I've had people in here who have supported – like my friend Terrence Jones, who's going to be back in here soon. He's supported the organization, by the way, has stood behind a lot of things he says and actually backs it up like rare right but like i can say that to him and he's not gonna look at me and be like julian you're a scumbag racist he's gonna be like okay i understand what you're saying sure you know what i mean

we need more people like that we do there are more people like that than we think the problem is as you point out they're not backed by what the public opinion is because the public opinion is based on what gets clicks and what gets controversy, right? So even if you are getting, like, in that story, I think you got a controversial point. But there's something about the general line that, like, the controversy has to be in one direction or it's not controversy. It's not controversy, right. And that's bullshit. Yes. one direction or it's not controversy it's not right and that's yes and that's and that was the line which it went and after it it it became seen and they watched it they decided yeah we don't

i mean we're going to take the path of least resistance yes and that's what happened and that's not to me that's not the way to run an organization. Look, are you always going to be popular? Are we playing a popularity game here? And it's not necessarily let's tell the story the way it should be told, but let's do something so that we're not pissing off our viewers. When you have you when you have viewers and you have ratings it's not so much uh you don't want to take too many chances because you you in fear you could lose those viewers and that's and that's kind of the road that they

decided to go down john borick i'm gonna shut you and me up right there. All right. Because we'll be going for too long. But when I grew up, I turned on ESPN. I turned on Comcast Sports Night. You were a staple of my TV. I'll tell you a story real quickly. One of the last things that I did, I was covering the Flyers in Pittsburgh one year. And there was a kid who was about 19. And he came up to me.

He's like, hey, John Borick. And I'm like, hey, what's up? He goes, man man i've been watching you ever since i was a kid and i said fuck am i getting old i'm like if you've been watching me ever since you were a kid it's like maybe i've been doing this fucking too long you didn't age though that's the thing i know you still look the same no i've got good genes i've got i've got great genes i've got pretty good genes for that's concerned. I'm I am starting to get a little gray in the beard But uh outside of that I got pretty good jeans

I you know, I can't I can't take credit for that and you're born with it But I've been lucky from that standpoint. You just didn't shave ahead of this one, but I like that by the way And yeah, I like a guy coming in here like he wants to come in here But like, you know, people are, there's no makeup on right now. I want to point that out. This is the face. I've been makeup free for two years. I can't do that anymore.

I'm going to put in the bottom corner right now so you can compare. I'm going to put a picture of John Borek in makeup. It's not much different. I'm not going to lie. So anyway. All right. But listen, thank you for coming in. Yep.

It's been fun. This was enjoyable. We'll, thank you for coming in. Yep. It's been fun. This was enjoyable. We'll do this again 100%. Okay. As I told you, content like this is clippable for about eight, nine months on TikTok. So you'll be seeing yourself a while from now. All right. But this was great.

Thank you for doing it. Absolutely, man. Enjoyed it. Good luck. Hey, best of luck moving forward. Thank you. You too. Yep.

All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.