Some More News - Elon Musk's Stupid Memes, Trump's Fear of Fruit, and EVEN MORE Rick Perry Texts

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Hi. "Some More News" writer Lon Harris (@Lons) joins Katy and Cody to discuss what Elon Musk really wants to do with Twitter (<shrug emoji>), Donald Trump's insistence that nothing bad would ever happen if he was president, and Joe Biden's endless waffling on student loans. Plus, they dig into what it means to "do fruit." lease fill out our SURVEY: kastmedia.com/survey/ We now have a MERCH STORE! Check it out here: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news Stop overpaying for shipping with Stamps.com. Sign up with promo code MORENEWS for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Athletic Greens will give you an immune-supporting FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit http://athleticgreens.com/morenews today. Listen to American History Tellers: Lewis and Clark on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Follow us on social media! Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  Support the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast my name my friends is Katie stole. Oh that's true hi I'm Cody Johnston name wise that's what it is joining us today for the first time, we're thrilled, some more news writer, host of the podcast, Binge Boys, and brother to our very own Jonathan, Lon Harris, ladies and gentlemen. Hey. Others. What a treat. What a treat to be here. Thank you so much.

Ha-cha-cha-cha. Hi, welcome. Hey. We're glad to have you. Should I do it too? I know, we're all doing the ha-cha-cha-chas. much. Cha-cha-cha. Hi, welcome. Hey. We're glad to have you. Cha-cha-cha. Should I do it too? I know we're all doing the cha-cha-cha. Cha-cha-cha-cha. My dad used to say that to me as he was tucking me in at night. He would go, good night, Mrs. Murgatroy.

Wherever you are. Cha-cha-cha-cha. Yeah, a little Jimmy Durante. Yeah, a little Jimmy Durante. Classic reference that kids love. Yeah. Classic dad stuff right there. Classic dad stuff. Look, I was searching. I'm glad. But like, look, I was searching. I'm glad you knew who that was because I was searching for the name.

I was like, who was that? Who was that? But my, didn't stop dad. Didn't stop dad from doing it. Nothing stopped dad. No. All right. As we all know, we're familiar with this show.

We got to start things off here with a little holiday shout out and today april 28th the day that we are recording is love your thighs day what love your thighs love your thighs love your thighs so this is um almost certainly aimed at women um who who don't love their thighs. I guess I resent this flip holiday telling me to love my thighs when the real problem with my thighs is that society is trying to tell me how to feel about my motherfucking thighs and whether I should make them thinner or bigger or lusher.

And yeah, that's my... We're all living under the thumb of big thigh. It's true. Of big thigh. So anyway... Do you want to be able to hate your thighs? I want to be able to do whatever I want. Whatever you want.

Okay, that's reasonable. I feel like love yourself, love your body. These are all very healthy, fine messages. But once you dig in to the specific part it's like i should be allowed to feel like differently about my wrist and my thigh you know like that's up to me i guess these are all fun it's true all of this true i guess that my they only there's nothing inherently wrong with the message that you should love your thighs i'm sure if i was to read the caption that goes along with this, it would say something about, you know, society puts so much pressure

on us and we beat ourselves up and this is a day for you to love your thighs. But what I don't like about it is that this is a really serious issue that I plan to speak more at length about in the future that can't just be categorized into this little trite holiday this is this is kind of a big deal and it's bigger than just loving yourself that there's a lot of pressures that contribute to people's mental health uh problems in in relation to their body anywho take that day yeah um but also you know what do they you know like loving your thighs loving yourself that also love like loving involves taking care of too. Are you taking care of yourself?

Are you taking care of your thighs? What does that mean? Are you taking care of your thighs? What does that mean? Specific thigh care. What is thigh care as opposed to the rest of you? I don't know. Lotions?

Squats. Whatever your thigh may be. Squats and lotions, I think. I feel like it's a mostly squat and lotion thing. Oh, are you using the same lotion on your face that you do on your thighs? That's a huge no-no. Oh, that's bad thigh care.

That's just careless, yeah. I think the website for Love Your Thighs Day should be all incredibly pedestrian, obvious. They connect your hips to your knees. And we love that about them, yeah. But we do. I want to tell you that your legs are strong and they carry you everywhere.

We love that about that. Also, today, April 29th, the day of this release, is National Dance Day. So after you've loved those thighs, take them dancing. Damn it. That's how you really love your thighs is let them do some movement for you. What better way to express your love of your thighs than through the art of dance? Yeah. That's how I express it.

Exactly. Love your thighs. Treat them well. The next day, take them out for a nice night of dancing. Maybe a movie. Who knows? Every day is love your thighs day. Okay.

Okay, Lon. This is the part of the episode where we chat with you and we already know you, but now our listeners will get to know you a little bit. About time. We've already established that you and Jonathan are brothers. Yeah, how'd you guys meet? It happened. I don't really remember it well.

I was but four years old at the time, but there was definitely like a day where it was like, meet Jonathan. Classic meet cute. Were you guys like friends or in competition? I mean, it was a little of both. We hung out a lot. We spent a lot of time together growing up.

We were both like indoor kids, watch a lot of movies together. But it was not purely harmonious, I would say. There was occasional conflict there. I don there i don't know what do you think am i summarizing it well yeah that's about right uh i remember one time you wanted to tape something off tv and i wouldn't let you use one of my tapes that had like a bunch of movies taped off hbo to do it you got very mad uh and then the next hour it was over. You know, stuff like that. Yeah, a lot of that. Right, a lot of that.

I didn't mean to dedicate our talking time to your childhood. I was mostly, you know, but it is sweet. It's nice to have a little insight into the brother dynamic. Yeah. But more topical, Lon, you wrote the episode that came out this week on China. And that's a massive undertaking. Yeah. It was probably, I'll get better at pitching.

Like right now, I feel like I'm definitely better at writing the episodes than coming up with what they should be about. Because I aim for the fences every time. And I've got to start like, I don't know, winnowing down my vision. Because yeah, I was just like, I don't know, something about China. Something about China. And then everybody was like, great, write that. And then vision. Because, yeah, I was just like, I don't know, something about China. And then everybody was like, great, write that. And then it was like, oh, what have I done?

But what would it be? What specifically? You know, just generally, what's going on with those guys? Yeah, what's up with them? Have you seen Moonfall? I won't take us on a huge detour. But the way they talk about the moon in Moonfall was like how I was talking about China. Like, we got to get up to that moon and see what's going on up there.

That was me. And we're like, John, we're calling up to you. Juan, what's going up there on the moon? We got to go inside China. I won't spoil, but I will say I am very excited for the next episode that you're currently writing and working on. Because it's an interesting idea. And also it's very specific. And I like this about the show, but it sort of has its own kind of sub genres in some way.

Like not every episode is the same kind of vibe and tone and pace. And so some are more comedy forward and some are more of like, here's a huge look at this massive topic and some are drilled in and more advocate centric, you know, like we're making a case for this. And I like that, but it also means like,

you've got so many options when you're trying to come up with not just a topic, but like, well, what is this episode about this topic? How does it play out? So it's, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. It's not as obvious as just being like, ah, I don't know. What about China? Right.

My first run at it was. Yeah. Hey, little fella, don't be scared. It's just an ad for stamps.com. You know, ever since I was run over by those teenagers over summer break, I like to mail them all little reminders that I remember what they did to me. It's my way of saying, hey, maybe you'll see me again someday. But mailing letters to five teenagers every day for the past three years can get pricey, which is why I use stamps.com.

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I don't want your life. Say the teeth. I don't know. Yeah, we're going to talk about the news, and we gonna start with elon musk and twitter of course the news that everybody can't just like the actual news we'll start and stop with elon musk yeah you know a lot a lot has changed in just one week you know was it just last thursday i sat here saying guys i don't think he's even possible that he could buy it because who's gonna going to give him that money? His money's all tidied up in his stocks. But he did it.

He pulled it off. He maneuvered his way in. Hey, he will soon be the new owner of Twitter. The company has accepted. Probably and maybe. I would still. I think it's still up. You're still in this zone where he could theoretically get out of it if he wanted to.

Do you think he would want. I think I mostly I think he's doing this for his ego and attention and things like that. And I think that he will get to a point where the money stuff doesn't quite work out in his favor. And also he realizes the actual headache that comes from. Oh, my God. Owning Twitter and doing this and implementing his ideas and stuff like that. And I think he might he'll probably just like slowly back out of it in a way that is spun by him where people if you like Elon Musk, you'd be like, wow, it's such a good decision to like throw the little bomb and then step away. And like whatever it is he wants to frame it as.

I think that he'll try to save face and maybe maybe not but i don't know maybe he'll do well he certainly will save face with some people who with whom he can do no wrong people are already giving him credit for fixing it i saw it last night people were already like oh my god and i'm not shadow banned anymore everybody's responding to my tweets again thank you elon it's like he could guys he could he's not there he didn't do that it's like very yeah it's very embarrassing um and i would posit a little pathetic um the just like the sycophantic nature of the whole thing and how they approach him even like tucker carlson and uh what's his fate like a lot of people are like who've been like suspended briefly have like been like i'm back thanks to elon musk right no you you deleted your tweet that you were that they asked you right

and now you're back it's all this sort of like framing of like it's the savior of twitter has done it all it's like no he hasn't done anything yet yeah you're just preemptively crediting him so that i think i think it's they know like even if he backs out they can still be like but look at how much better it got exactly getting involved for involved for a day, you know? Yeah, absolutely. He's just doing attention, all of that. I pretty much I can't be convinced otherwise. But I think that he was not intending to buy it. And everybody online freaked out. And all of a sudden, people were talking about how he's not going to do it. He wouldn't go through with it. He won't be able to get the money.

And that was a challenge. And then that's why a week later it happened. I don't think that that was intention. I think it's similar to Donald Trump deciding he's going to be president. Yeah. Whoops. Very similar. I do.

And he's using he uses Twitter in the same way. He's loving this. He's like he's rolling. He's like a pig in shit rolling around in it. Enjoy. Right. But then like realizing like, wait,, there's razor blades in this shit. I actually don't want to do this anymore.

Yeah, I feel like the one big thing from Elon's perspective, and it is among the true believers, nothing will shake their faith in him. There's nothing you can do. But it does make you wonder, his argument is, I am leading the charge on electric cars, saving the environment, space colonization. We can't stay on Earth. We have to leave. I'm going to save us all.

I'm going to end traffic and be like, I'm going to neural link. I'm going to connect everybody's brains. It'll be like, you know what? All that stuff still going great, working perfectly, right on schedule. But I'm going to leave all that aside and work on Twitter for a while. Like, doesn't that kind of give away that all these other things are kind of not going to work either? Yeah. Well, we were doing our Google Hangout earlier this week with Patreon members and talking about this.

And I'm not sure who brought this point up, but maybe it was you, Cody. If you're, if you're the CEO of multiple companies, you're really not doing much for any of those companies, you know? Well, think about if you had a full-time job for one of those, like if you work for Tesla full-time, the understanding would be that's your life. Like you're not, you wouldn't be like, yeah, I work for Tesla. i also i work for spacex oh i also have a full-time job for the boring company like what are you how do you work three full-time jobs but somehow elon musk manages real quick just sort of on the like uh topic of him sort of uh in over his head not really wanting to do it and understanding that like the things that he's claiming like it's free speech absolute it like all this kind of stuff he's claiming, like, oh, it's free speech, absolute it, like, all this kind of stuff that he's talking about.

I don't really think he believes it. But I just, like, this one tweet by him I thought was not interesting or fascinating, but mostly just, like, look at this fucking guy. Because it kind of gives away, like, a little bit his position. I'm sure you've seen it. It's when he says, by free speech, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, simply mean that which matches the law i'm against censorship that goes far beyond the law if people want less free speech they will ask government to pass laws to that effect therefore going beyond the law is contrary to the people two things about this that i find fascinating again no it's not fascinating just look at this fucking guy the idea that laws

reflect the will of the people is very funny um right like it's like going beyond the laws contrary to the will of people. And if they want different laws passed, they'll just ask that it never happens. There's like, you can, there's like, there's data.

We've been asking the, the, the, the, like the popular opinion or like what people want and like it actually happening. It like, it drags so far apart.

It's when people with money say that things should happen. It's not the will of the people that makes the law. It funny we're still in that like well listen if you call your representative and tell that not enough people call their representative and tell them what they think like that's such out like they know they all they all know the representatives know there's polls every day they just don't care it's yeah exactly they wanted universal background checks for years why we didn't know exactly yeah uh so many things like that but no but all everything yes i agree completely but also just this statement is so nothing it's it's absolutely nothing what are you saying by free speech i simply mean that which matches the law

this is the second part of it that i find so funny sorry it's because because what he's bringing up here and it is vague on purpose um because also like again you know like what matches the law so like just like first amendment stuff like what do you like what do you mean but he adds this line I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. Far beyond is the phrase that he chose. So he knows that it can't just be the letter of the law and that's it. He knows there needs to be some sort of moderation regulation, some sort of thing going on with bases like this.

So he puts in far beyond the law because he actually knows he can't do the things that he's pretending that he's going to do. And you can tell he thought about it for the first time, right? Before he wrote this. Yeah, exactly. Free speech. What do I believe about? Okay, here we go.

He's doing the thing that so many right wing guys do that classic bait and switch. And usually I'm like, well, they know like Ben Shapiro when he does the bait and switch. I know he knows better. He just thinks the people listening to him are doofuses. This is one of the rare cases where I genuinely don't know if Elon understands the mistake he's making. He's saying free speech according to the law, which means like, okay, a public park, the street corner, that's where free speech laws matter.

They don't matter inside Starbucks because that's a problem. We all understand you couldn't go into Starbucks and yell whatever you want. They can ask you to leave. Just like you can't go to big lots naked and buy things. They can ask you to leave because they own the building. And that's what all of these people really want. They don't want the right to say whatever they want. They already have that.

They want the right to say whatever they want in front of the audience that somebody else has already gathered. right to say whatever they want in front of the audience that somebody else has already gathered. They're like, I have the right to the collective audience that Twitter has built up and you need to give me the right to access it. And that's not how free speech works. So when you're like, I think Twitter should follow the free speech law, they already do. It's their right to set the standards for their platform under free speech laws. Also, as Jonathan points out in our notes here, the European Union has different laws against content moderation. So this whole conversation, I guess, is just about the United States.

Twitter is not just the United States. This is a global platform. I believe that you already said, regardless of what Twitter decides internally, they still have to follow our rules about content moderation. Yeah, yesterday, the day before, I think. Yeah. So yeah, I think he's really talking about different policies for every country in which Twitter operates, which is not tenable anyway.

Right. And none of it's practical. None of this stuff is real. It's all just talk. And he just, it's the attention. Even if he takes over Twitter, I think the changes will be minimal. It'll just be PR and spit.

I think at the end of the day, right, right. Because they can't. We got rid of shadow banning. And you're like, well, how can I tell? Like, man, you can't. Yeah. You just, you'll have to tell. But this has become, you know, is the hot topic.

Also, conservatives are, you know, celebrating this whole situation, you know, and bringing up the truly just wrong argument that there is a liberal bias on Twitter. Something that Twitter itself has conducted studies and has proven that there is not such a thing. Yeah, it's all there. Ben Shapiro. Do you want to talk about Ben Shapiro, Cody? You talk about Ben Shapiro. What did he tweet?

He's in an argument with a college kid. No, that's today's news. Ben Shapiro. He wants a Truth and Reconciliation Committee. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Yeah, okay. Does anyone want to do the voice

and read the tweet? No. No, I don't. He wants a Truth and Reconciliation Commission into past manipulation, algorithmic transparency. He also suggests that Elon should fire a lot of people, the woke progressives.

Because of their ideology. That's interesting. Because of their ideology. That's interesting that he wants to do that. Because of three, yeah. I'm just wondering if he thinks that it would be possible to put the people who do the implementation of Twitter's rules completely neutral bias-free people or if he's like not screw it just put in a bunch of people who are like me to ban well you i mean you know what he wants but like in his mind uh there's like the far left that is in control of everything

and then everybody else including him right like he doesn't think that like we need to put like far right people in charge he's like views the world in this like the left controls it all it's like that believe like the far right is actually just like that's the norm like that's standard anybody who deviates from that they're the crazy fringe it's like that's the you know like how we all are supposed to just center onto like far right ideas like that's that's the norm that's right fringe it's like that's the you know like how we all are supposed to just center onto like far right ideas like that's that's the norm that's right well it's like that uh awful tweet that yeah elon musk tweeted today uh that made me finally mute him because he's just a the like over to the window one where he's saying he hasn't changed at all it's just like the country got

the country has gotten really far left they've moved all the way to the left the right hasn't changed at all it's just like the country got the country has gotten really far left they've moved all the way to the left the right hasn't shifted at all and he's stuck here with like why and if you notice in that he has himself shifted from center left to center right because you see it's all of us and our woke progressive thoughts that have driven him closer to the white supremacists you know it's not like he agrees with some of what they say yeah it's like exactly it's like well you make look at what you're making me do um it's wild to uh be become bigoted against trans people um yeah uh yeah we forced him to like i don't know support like people storming the capital because of a fake idea that the

election like what like the idea that like the election, like what, like the idea that like in 2008 things were normal and like the right was here and the left was here. And then now after the insurrection, it's all like the left is so, ah, they're so far to the left. It's like, no, just like healthcare tax you more. Sorry, buddy. Um, it's like, it's just so laughably wrong. You can look at actual data, which is available to him. It's, he's just posting Facebook mom shit. And like, he's supposed to be a smart guy who cares about information and he just isn't and doesn't.

I mean, that's what I mean. Like it really does to me on some level. And I know he's got his like little pocket of guys that don't care and will follow him no matter what. But the larger message, his branding used to be like forward-thinking science genius who was going to save humanity. And like, this just cuts against that.

Even if you believe his BS about he's going to fix it, like it's Twitter, who cares? Like that's what, when I was reading Ben Shapiro's read, and I know there are people out there who love Twitter and it's important organizing.

I don't mean to say there's no use for Twitter or it's just dumb memes or whatever. Like a lot of people rely on Twitter. And I don't mean to not say that. But like when you read Ben Shapiro, it's like we need a truth and reconciliation commission. Like, well, if you think it's that important, we should just nationalize it. It should make it a public utility. It belongs to all of us.

And then legally, you can't get kicked off. You could get a timeout if you attack someone. could come back you know like what like otherwise if it's if it's it's either a public utility that's vital for american life and you have a right to tweet or it's fucking not man like it's one or the other you gotta pick yeah or it's yeah shorter myspace or whatever yeah it's like either it's just some app that we all use to yell about batman or it's really important and it should belong to all of us not the richest man in the world yeah i agree with you both completely yeah he just i don't even know what to say anymore i know i'm like do i want to bring up this tim pool meme i don't no well it's just like every one of his this is why i like

muted him because every one of his tweets is like what are you doing like what a waste of everybody's time uh it's also wrong usually is it is this marvel's fault i honestly feel like on some level john favreau and kevin feige did this like that idea in 0708 that like robert downey jr modeled tony stark on elon musk and elon musk is the real life tony stark and that just like implanted itself on i think you found yourself another somewhere news pitch like that just planted itself deep in the minds of people of a certain age in america it's axiomatic it's like he's gonna save us all yeah there was that one clip of um i think it's one of the new Star Trek shows.

One of the like nine new Star Trek shows that exist now, but they were like, it was like a line where they're, or it was either that or like that Orville show, but it was like a line where like talking about like, uh, yeah, Tesla.

Uh, and like the, whatever fake, like hyperdrive inventor they have or warp speed inventor. Uh, and then, and they include Elon Musk in this like list of like the brilliant people it's like this is not like what are you doing you're like yeah it's that

sort of like pop cultural connection that is made and then it sticks and it's like yeah he's he's the guy yeah we want to believe it's so bad we want to any place into it like a superhero billionaire who's gonna just come in and like save us all. And so we found him, even though it's this guy who obviously is not. We love a hero. We love a savior. Toby Sark is cool and funny also. Yeah. There's a reason I alone can fix it is a compelling message to a lot of people.

And that's what Elon's doing. Literally, that's what he's saying. That is what he has been saying about this. And people say about him, he's the only guy to do it. Right. That's just the attitude that he's cultivated about himself. And I do, I feel like we've talked about this before,

but do you think that he wants to run for president? Cause. Probably not. I don't think so. I think he, I do think he already recognizes that he's got all the best stuff about being president right now without like the. Without needing that.

You know, like. Yeah. And if it does go through. I yeah you know like yeah and if it does go through i don't feel get that vibe from it yeah i don't yeah i don't i just don't think that's uh part of his plan i think there is some aspect where like he does have this like belief of like yeah we got to get to mars we got to like do this and this and this but like i just think that it's been overtaken by this cult of personality and his billions and billions of dollars and just, yeah, his ridiculous ego.

I mean, I also feel like we're at some point going to we're nearing the point where I think it's starting to become obvious that he's just been promising a lot of things he doesn't really know how to build. Like we're in the OK, Tesla's aren't even close to being ready to drive themselves. He got the rocket to launch and then land, but not really any more forward. The trucks aren't ready. Forward progress. Like the tunnel thing didn't take off. He couldn't figure out how to rescue the Thai kids. The truck windows broke right away.

I think it's just like, how many of those does he get? The torturing the monkeys. Before he's got to figure out the next line, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, half of it is, there's such a PR aspect to it. Yes. Even like, they did. The monkey brains rejected the Neuralink implants.

So like, tick tock, buddy. They did a recent, like, you know, they do the presentations for the companies and so on. And there's one recent one where he drove a tesla on stage uh and they're like flashing lights and stuff and like people were tweeting like oh wow he's like the real life tony stark and it's like it's a presentation for a car wait what yeah yeah he drove a car onto the stage and there's like flashing lights are you babies like if he jangled keys would you you be like, oh, Tony Stark? It's just so embarrassing.

But it is. It's like it's inception. Like Kevin Feige put that in the pop culture consciousness very deliberately. And now people feel like they're having that observation themselves. And also just encouraged Elon to be more Elon. Oh, yeah. And he leans into it, obviously. Of course.

They put him in the movies. Okay, guys, we have to take a very quick break. But then we'll be right back. I promise. I promise. For even more news. Oh. Hong Kong.

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And we are back as promised for even more news. Promises made, promises kept. Promises, promises. We had a little chat while you were gone. Sorry. You had a little chat? No, I heard it. You guys were in my ears still. For our listeners, I used the break

to use the restroom as I do just about every week. Everyone should use the restroom as I do just about every week. Everyone should use the restroom at least once a week. Yes. At least once a week. Good rule of thumb. We're going to talk about Russia. We're going to talk about some Russia stuff.

It's great, right? We love talking about Russia stuff. We love Russia, don't we, folks? That's what we're getting to. Oh, God. Good. Yeah. Russia cut off natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria this week.

Both those countries receive most of their gas from Russia, but they have prepared for this. It is not yet something to freak out about financially, but it is a huge step forward increase in these tensions. And the European Commission is describing it as blackmail. tensions um and and the european commission is describing it as blackmail uh we could soon see other countries uh nations like germany or italy cut off um which would would be a severe um would be severe for for everybody in europe and probably the world also i want to talk about donald trump being on piers morgan because that's fun that's fun that's fun to talk about donald trump being on piers morgan because that's fun that's fun that's fun to talk about the backdrop of nuclear rhetoric ratcheting up um donald trump does an interview and gosh guys it turns out apparently none of this would be happening if trump was still in

office that's what he says. Only he can fix it, much like Elon and Twitter. Jonathan's going to play a little clip and we're going to react to it. Instead of, you know, kowtowing, instead of Biden saying, oh, he's got nuclear weapons. He keeps saying he's got nuclear.

We have better weapons. We have the greatest submarine power in history what would you say and do i would say we have far more than you do far far more powerful than you and you can't use that word ever again you cannot use the nuclear word ever again and if you, we're going to have problems. So you can't use the nuclear word or we'll nuke you as a solution to like. Talk about free speech. It's great that he doesn't actually have to suggest anything. Well, right. Yeah.

Donald Trump's answer is always like, I would have phrased it thusly and they would have been so taken aback by my phrasing that the problem. Right. It's like this sort of like I'm a master of language and that's how i would i would solve it there were lots of bits from this interview one that really stood out to me was when he said that all of these people uh wouldn't be dead if the u.s election hadn't been rigged this this was after Piers Morgan pressed him to admit whether or not what Putin was doing was bad, if he was evil. And this was the first time after being repeatedly asked this question in different settings that Trump finally admitted, like, yeah, this isn't good. This is bad.

And then immediately pivoted to this narrative. Just this whole idea, you know, and they've talked about how, you know, why didn't this happen while Trump was in office? Well, he wasn't ready to invade while Trump was in office. It's not because Trump is such a big, bad, scary man that, you know, they're afraid of him or something. I think it was like towards the beginning of this, I can't remember when this was, but I believe John Bolton literally was on, you know, some news channels saying Trump didn't even know where Ukraine was. We had to beg him to put in the sanctions that they did put in. He didn't want to do anything to Russia ever. That's John Bolton sitting up there saying it.

So this whole idea is, I mean, obviously laughable. Well, yeah, he's a little clown. He's a little clown man. He knew it was long distance because to make a perfect phone call, he had to know like vaguely that he was using the long distance line. So he knew it was far, but not where specifically. It's one of those stories that's like a reminder of how there's reality, unknowable reality. It's too complicated.

None of us will ever really unpack the real story of why Putin did this, why Trump did this. And then there's cable news and like their version of it, which is just like this ridiculous, it's just explanations for things that are happening that make no sense at like pure fantasy, where it's like reading a novel. And like, this is one of those where it's like the real story is obviously something having to do with like during the Trump administration, Putin already obviously knew had designs on Ukraine, wanted to push the West and, you know, all these NATO powers in the Ukraine further apart. Like all these things were in motion. The timing, who knows who could unpack all that. But like, that's the real story that you would dig into with Trump is like the timeline of like, here's what they were doing while you were in charge. And here's what's going on now. But they just they talk around the real stuff. You know, I mean, like, you know, Paul Manafort had to leave the Trump campaign because of his connections to Ukraine. Like, it isn't like this came out of nowhere.

Like, this has always been the whole big deal in 2016 was that Trump's team was adding information about Ukraine and Russia to the Republican platform. Like, this goes back. That's the story. I mean, right. Question. It's not what would you have done? What would you have said? What would you have said?

the question. It's not what would you have done? What would you have said? What magic words would you have said to prevent this? It's like, what's your relationship with Russia and what involvement have you had leading up to this? How much knowledge did you have? When your administration was having conversations with Putin in 2015, 2016 about Ukraine, what was he saying then? Did you

already have an idea that this was it? Like, that's where you'd start. How did that factor into you calling Zelensky and withholding weapons in exchange for dirt and Joe Biden? How about when Giuliani was working for Ukraine and doing advocacy in Washington for them? Did you hear anything from him? He was your personal lawyer. No.

No one's going to ask. Those are the questions. But no one's going to ask those questions. Right. I feel like Ken Jeong was this close to asking. But that means. He's about to raise his hand. Is that Robert Duvall?

Once that was. That moment. So good. That's the funniest thing that's ever happened. I thought that Rudy Giuliani had already been on the Masked Singer for some reason. It was when they recorded it. Like TMZ reported on the set. Like when they were taping.

And so this is when it was on the air I was also like wait I thought he was already on and Ken already walked out like a behind the scenes when they shot it I will say good for Ken like actually seeing is like yeah all right

he's the only one he's a really good guy that demonstrates the appropriate level of disgust. Did a movie that he directed. Was he in it too? Can't remember. A long time ago. And, oh, God, it really sucked.

It wasn't a great part for me. I'm not going to give you information as to why, but he was great and lovely and kind. He seems like it. He's a good person. Before we move on to broken news. And a physician. And a physician. He seems like it. He's a good person. Before we move on to broken news. And a physician. And a physician. Thank you for that.

And the timing on Nicole Scherzinger asking him, is that Robert Duvall? And his deadpan delivery of, no, that's not Robert. It's so beautiful. It's so funny. It really makes the whole thing worthwhile. Before we go on to broken news, I just want to highlight one little story that I saw right before we started recording that at first I thought was a joke. Russia is using militarized marine mammals to protect a key Black Sea naval base, according to multiple reports. So yeah, let me just unpack this for a moment. I have seen people

talk about, you know, like I've always thought there was a joke of like, oh, Putin using a whale or whatever. I've heard of Navy SEALs, but this is ridiculous. so horrifying to me because you're putting these animals into situations. I mean, like these animals are trained. They're trained to retrieve explosives, maybe gear that has been sunk. They are also trained to attack in some situations. And it's wild. It's wild. And so they did have a whale, I guess, in Cold War with spotted swimming around with a camera attached to its head. And it's not funny. I mean, it is. That image is funny to me.

But it's awful because it's animal abuse. But the truth is, is that we have them too. Let's see. The U.S. has used highly trained dolphins and sea lions for similar activities since the 1960s. North Korea and Israel also reportedly have a military animal program um i mean uh rats uh are used for like detecting landmines and stuff and like this is uh yeah um i don't know how to do it dolphins are really intelligent animals um i feel it's all bad it It's all bad. War is war is all bad. Well, for sure. That should go without saying listeners.

I'm against war in general. I'm also asking you not to bring the animals into it. Yeah, it is pretty fucked up. It's true. It's fucked up. It's just fucked up. It's not the dolphins fight.

They didn't, they don't know what they're doing. You're just telling here, dog, go. I don't like it anyway. Not that that's worse than all the atrocities that are happening. It's just something that I saw right before we started to record. Okay, Jonathan, I'm throwing to you some broken news.

Okay. How about we talk texting? We can talk even more text messages. CNN got its hands on more than 200 text messages from mark meadows cell phone cell phone from between the election and biden's inauguration this is a whole trove of texts more than we'd had before from marjorie taylor green ivanka trump rudy giuliani my pillow guy sean hannity a ton of different people this is these are the ones that have Marjorie Taylor Greene texting Mark Meadows on January 6th.

Mark, I was just told there was an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol. Please tell the president to calm people. This isn't the way to solve anything. That is the last time she thought that. Donald Trump Jr. texted him. Excellent editorializing. Oh, sure.

No, I get in my little barbs here. Donald Trump Jr. texted him on January 6th. This is sure. No, I get in my little barbs here. Donald Trump Jr. texted him on January 6th, this is one you go to the mattresses on. They will try to fuck his entire legacy on this if it gets worse. What does that mean, go to the mattresses? That's like an old mafia

term. They say it in The Godfather when you're going to do a mafia war, you go to the mattresses, which means you move into an empty apartment with just mattresses on the floor. Gotcha. Oh, I didn't know that. Did not know that.

You just knew that so quickly. You really did. You just had that in your heart. In your back pocket. It's like you research things. Well, I did not specifically research that term. I had a college course where we read the book The Godfather and then watched the book The Godfather and then watched the movie

The Godfather and the book is like not like high literature. It's kind of like cheap, it's kind of like a grocery store novel but it's good. Anyway, they talk about that in there and it stuck

with me. Anyway, another really fun text from this one is from Rick Perry, who texted Mark Meadows on November 7th before the election was called for Biden. He said, we have the data-driven program that can clearly show where the fraud was committed.

This is the silver bullet. Rick Perry had previously denied that he texted anything like that, but quote, CNN has confirmed it's his cell phone and he signed this text rick perry including including it's so funny to say watch him he's a comer he is a comer could you insert that real quick please rick perry watch him he's a comer thank you wait insert what uh there's a uh clip from uh donald trump's old vlog uh where he's talking about rick perry it's like

in like 2012 or something like that and he's trying to say he's an up-and-comer but he says rick perry watch him he's a comer rick perry watch him he's a comer and it Perry, watch him. He's a comer. And it's my favorite thing he's ever said, I think. Rick Perry, watch him. He's a comer. That's it. It sounds, because if he hadn't signed it, you might think that was MyPillowGuy, because that's definitely like,

I have the machines. We have the evidence. Like, that's the Lindell sort of. I love that amidst all the, it's like, yeah, these legislators and like secretaries of energy. And then also the MyPillow guy is in the mix. It's just so funny. Like the fact that like the MyPillow guy is like a phrase that we all know.

If we, if the world lives long enough for this, for this period of history to be covered by textbooks, there will be like a section under like Donald Trump's America where it's like election reform and the MyPillow guy. Like that's going to have to be like a section under like donald trump's america where it's like uh election reform and the my pillow guy like that's gonna have to be like a thing oh my god on someone's u.s history test quiz yeah and will you need to know his name or can you just answer the my pillow guy either answer we'll accept either we'll accept you'll have to know what drugs was he addicted to before he's founded my MyPillow. When I was listing all the names of people who had texted Mark Meadows, I was like, I can either say

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, or just say the MyPillow guy and his name is superfluous. I realized just now doing it that my Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, and my Jesse the Body Ventura voices are identically the same. Why would you change them?

Why would they be different? No daylight between those two impressions in my head. You don't ever need to acknowledge that. That's just interchangeable. Okay, tell us more, Jonathan. Sure, sure. Well, we haven't talked about Trump enough yet, and I want to talk about this Trump fruit deposition. Oh my God, yes, please.

The background is that Donald Trump was deposed in October in conjunction with a lawsuit stemming from that time in 2015 when he sent his security guards to beat up protesters outside of Trump Tower in New York. So in that deposition, he's asked about past statements condoning violence at rallies, including the time in 2016 where he told supporters that they should knock the crap out of anyone who throws a tomato at him, and he'd pay the legal fees. And so him and the lawyers in this deposition were discussing

how dangerous it is to have tomato or other fruit thrown at you, and here are some Trump quotes from that deposition. We don't have audio, unfortunately. And I'm not going to do the voice because you'll get it. It's worse than tomato. It's other things also, but tomato when they start doing that stuff, it's very dangerous. There was an alert out that day.

I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. And some fruit is a lot worse than... Tomatoes are bad, by the way, but it's very dangerous. He's the best. Oh my God, he's the worst. Remember that he's afraid of stairs as well.

See, this is also why I think he is afraid of stairs. And ramps, I guess. And also, unflushable toilets for his massive dumps. I'm glad you didn't do the voice i love any quote from him and this is something we've talked about before but just you can't really capture the glory of the way the man speaks unless you say it like you would say it like you have to read the words

in your own voice and then you're like wait how is this goblin speaking right now if you do the voice it's like a character you don't really get the full like uh beauty of just like the word the stiltedness the word the word choice is just the the way he talks is so unique and it's only really beautifully highlighted when you just say the like read the quote like monotone or like as a guy. Turning the nouns into verbs in like do the fruit

they were going to do itself. You can't capture that. Yeah. That's just his brain. He shortens the phrases so instead of they're going to fire nuclear weapons he says he's going to do nuclear. Right.

It's worse than tomato. It's yeah. He doesn't say throwing tomatoes. He just says they were doing tomato. Yeah. It's right. That's why he's so successful guys. Master of efficiency.

Right. Exactly. You're like, obviously in a way that's not proper English grammar, but in a way that no one else's brain would think to organize that information. Although it sucks that after so many years, we've all been trained to like, oh, this is what he means.

Yeah, we know exactly. When a lot of times it's pure gibberish and you're like, oh, I now speak him. In this deposition, he also appears to, I don't know if he really believes it or if he's just saying stuff, even though he's under oath it doesn't matter whatever because he says well

he starts talking about other fruits as if they've been thrown at him at rallies which they haven't he goes well a tomato a pineapple a lot of other things they throw yeah if the security saw that I would say you have to a pineapple? a lot of other things they throw you can't throw a pineapple

well because you can't it's pokey also if there's anyone to be afraid of it is the pineapple being thrown at you unless he means just chunks of pineapple no he says a pineapple a lot of other things they throw right but the only time somebody's ever thrown pineapple at him is from their fruit cup at whole foods it is hard you'd have to like you'd have to try to football. You'd have to get top spin on it. You'd get poked as you threw it.

You can't get a good grip on a pineapple. Look, look, I know these things, Jonathan. And yeah, like a melon would be heavy, but that also makes it challenging to throw with any real force. No, you've got to do the double-handed underhand toss. 99% of fruits, it's very hard to injure someone, Siri. You could get through some damage with an apple. Yeah.

Or an unripe avocado. You got to have really solid aim to whip an apple fast at someone who's not. You can also, sorry, those antifa pitchers one more thing about this deposition is that it's not audio so the business insider article is really saying and then the lawyer said this and then trump said this and they appear to all be having a good time with this because then the lawyers ask him they have a little aside to determine if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable and then they say well, well, it has seeds. Trump interjects like, well, if it has this, it has this. And you're just having a fun old chat.

They're just like, you know, doing it to the beat of jazz. Right. I mean, I guess like he doesn't have anything else to do. You know, it's not like he'd like work. He's just wandering the halls of Mar-a-Lago. All right, Jonathan, let's do one more.

Sure. Well, we can talk student loans. President Biden told House Democrats in a private meeting this week that he was open to canceling some student debt and could potentially cancel tens of thousands of dollars worth, but not 50,000, he said. No decision's been made yet, but we'll apparently hear in the next few weeks. Right now, the moratorium on paying back student loans or the pause on payment is set to expire on August 31st. Well, that's going to be extended no matter what. Yeah. So first of all, this story originally, when it was originally reported, what happened was it's not that biden's like talking about canceling student loans he was in this meeting and i believe it was the hispanic

caucus brought it up and they're like uh what do you think about student like canceling student loans and his answer was i'm having aids look into my options for it first of all he's been doing that saying that exact thing for two years i'm looking into my options if you don't know your options two years in you're a bad president i'm sorry also he promised to do this in his campaign to become the president so the idea that he's like yeah i'm having aids look into it it's just ridiculous to be happening in april of 2022 um i kind of can i interject just to say one thing yeah when i heard, I'm kind of like part of me is just I don't know. I feel this is the kind of thing that gets leaked and it's close to midterms. And almost in all of the news, everyone's talking about it.

Like there's so many things that don't get reported on. And part of me just kind of feels like maybe this is just about saying people like, hey, look, I'm working on doing this thing when he's not really. Oh, absolutely. Like and, you know, I mean, maybe there will be some sort of thing to come out of this. Not $50,000. The Biden strategy thus far seems to be like, come out and say you want to do a great thing. It doesn't end up happening. And then you kind of go like well we tried though i mean you

can right we gave it a shot you can imagine how great it would have been right and like and like i don't know why they keep doing things like that but they do it seems weirdly like the pattern because they don't actually know how um to bridge the divide because they're because it's not possible all they can do is and we're not the priority so is lip service towards the thing yeah it's because he doesn't he doesn't want to do it but he knows that like some people want it to happen and it's like kind of what we talked about earlier like popular things don't happen it's the the weird the the setting themselves up for the inevitable moment where they'll have to go like, well, we couldn't make it happen, but we, you know, we tried our best.

And like, obviously in politics, you don't want to find yourself in that position over and over again. It makes the inevitable, like the Biden campaign can't tell why young voters are turned off. Like it makes those stories even more remarkable when they come out because it's like, you don't remember last month when everybody was upset that this thing isn't happening and you were like well look maybe next time vote go back and vote kid yeah it's gonna keep coming uh and happening um also the the pause on student loans it's just it's just a uh an interesting impossible situation for them because they paused student loans the and they keep extending that date um because of the pandemic have you heard about this have you guys seen this um and so now they're in a situation where like what politician what president what who will will restart those

payments like he's not going to by the end of the year. That's might be why they're talking about this, because when that August 31st deadline comes up, they will not reinstitute those payments. They will pause it again. They're not going to do that. Midterms are very soon. They will not do it. And then, OK, so they have to extend it more. OK, next year. Well, that's when the presidential election fucking starts.

God is going to be miserable for two years. But that's when that starts. Are they god it's gonna be miserable for two years but that's when that starts are they gonna do it then are they gonna do this unpopular thing like it's very very hard to put that back in the bottle it's been paused for almost three years i think uh and you can't so you can't be like by the way you gotta start paying again i have a question has it also paused all new student loans that have, like presumably people have received student loans and started their education, or I guess you don't start repaying until you've graduated.

You don't start paying until you've graduated. So all of that is still. But you're right that we've got like a year and a half before. But you're continually accruing new people adding to that and then it's like well somebody's gonna have to make a decision about what we're doing moving forward um so that's yeah and it's not like it's not gonna happen this year they will not restart payments they're not gonna do it when there's an election which is basically next year and definitely the year after that uh whoever wins is gonna be like now that i'm the president you gotta start paying those student loans again um i just don't know the situation uh where

they're going to be unpaused officially like it just seems like it's going to be a constant sort of like delay maybe not do any of the loan forgiveness but like the delay it it's gonna go keep going for a long long time it seems and on that note it's time to wrap things up yeah lon huzzah we made it we survived the hour of news we feel good we have purged ourselves of news made room for more news to consume lon thank you so much for joining us this was great to finally have you on. Tell our listeners where they can find you online, plug your

work, all the things. Well, find me on Twitter at L-O-N-S is the best place to keep up with what I'm doing there. And yeah, my other podcast or my podcast is called Beach Boys. I host it with Hal Rudnick. We watch a lot of random streaming stuff and then we talk to each other about it.

I do a lot of yelling. He's very calm. Hal is great. Yeah. You guys have very different energies. That's fun. Right. Yeah.

It's like Hal Takata just, here's my take. And then I scream for 20 minutes. It's that kind of a balance. All right. That's it. That's it. We did all the things. That's it. I feel great about it. Yeah. That kind of a balance. All right. That's it. That's it. We did all the things. That's it.

I feel great about it. Good. And you know what, guys? It'd be bad if you felt bad about it. It would be fat if I felt mad about it. Mm-hmm. Gosh darn it. We just, we love you very much.

Heck. Much. Heck. Much. Yeah. Rick Perry, watch him. He's a comer.