Some More News - Even More News: Gaza Ceasefire, GOP Conditioning Aid to LA, and the TikTok Ban Might Really Happen

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Hi. Katy, Cody, and Jonathan are here to discuss the potential ceasefire in Gaza, why President Biden should have used his leverage to get this done months ago, and Netanyahu's political predicament. They also talk more about the LA fires, Joe Rogan not knowing what he's talking about, the TikTok ban, and Cody explains the latest drama between Elon Musk and the gaming community. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link. Go to https://www.cookunity.com/MORENEWS for 50% off your first week. Thanks to CookUnity for supporting the show! Make your New Year’s resolution a comfortable one—no more pants that pinch, tug, or annoy. For a limited time, you can get 20% off at Public Rec by using code SMN at checkout. Just head to PublicRec.com, use code SMN, and you’re all set. You can get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring and your first month free at https://SimpliSafe.com/MORENEWS

Hello, welcome back to Even More News, the first, the only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. Hi Katie Stoll. My name is Cody Johnston. Welcome to me and everybody else. And you. And everybody else. And you. And of course, as almost always,

Jonathan is also here. Oh, usually. Hello. Usually. People were happy with me for not saying it last week. A few people. Makes me feel nice people canceled me last week hey you got I don't have a career cuz I failed to say your St. Jonathan was also here a catchphrase I created I think I'd appreciate a video apology not from here do a separate one with a ukulele I was gonna say I can't

play a ukulele but I do you don, yeah, get that ukulele out. I can't play a ukulele, but I do have one in here. You don't need to, you just have to be sincere. Oh, Jonathan, I'm really sorry for getting you last week. Here is a song that I hope makes you like me. I don't know, I'm not good at this. It's not bad. It's just that it's not bad. It could have used a ukulele in it's hands, but...

Air ukulele, oh no, what did I do? Jonathan, why did you have to also be here? I was just making fun of Other lady Oh Jonathan is our favorite We call him the E Wait Katie real quick. Oh Is it?

Yeah, driver. I have two you go ladies then You replaced this one. That's right. Boy, we've got some holidays, folks. We sure do. Are they good? Friday, January 17th. Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day. Hey, you carried that mantle for two weeks.

Put it down, baby, relax. This year is a shit show. There's no, we don't need to improve ourselves this year is my point, you just gotta get through it. Look, I agree with you completely. But, but, I disagree. Stick to your resolutions if you can. If you want, if it was like, you made it.

Hey Cody, do you have any resolutions? Not, I don't like make a resolutions list, but I've got things I'm doing or trying to do That maybe were a little derailed from the fires I've got things I'm improving for the year and hopefully I don't ditch them today. What something you want to improve this year? My general health and exercise and Alright, I support that. Physical health, some sleep

Sleep problems. But I would like you to ditch the unhealthy part of it where people beat themselves up or try to take too broad of a swing. I obviously encourage improving your life. I agree with you completely, Katie. Yeah, I just, you know, just like, ah, fuck, I'm like, get out of it.

And like, if you made it for a reason, you can try, but don't make yourself feel bad if you don't live up to them and if you have to adjust. I just didn't make any. Adjust them if you have to, or don't make any. It's an arbitrary thing. I've got goals. That's good.

And I try to work towards them. It's good to have goals. Period. To be honest. Every year in the new year, my goal, my new year's resolution is to seek balance. For me, that shows up in a lot of ways. I get way out of whack, too focused on this, ignoring this, too focused on work, ignoring family, et cetera.

But for me, my new year starts on birthday. My new year starts on birthday? On birthday. On birthday. On birthday. Yours. It is birthday. This is a slightly unhealthy toxic one that I have.

Oh yeah. Give it to me. What do you got? Well, but I'm serious. I ditched my apple. I've talked about different issues with body and image and being in LA for as long as I have. I've done a whole episode about this.

And so healthy New Year's resolutions, I think can be a little toxic. So I've backed off of that. And I ditched my Apple watch because I always felt in competition with myself. But I started to feel in competition with myself on my step counts again. So last year I wanted to get my step count average pretty high and I did it.

And this year I'm trying to dial that back to just not look at that anymore. Oh, that's good. That's not toxic. No, you're right. I phrased this wrong. Trying to leave behind that toxic mentality. But while still being active, I feel good when I get a good amount of steps, but I don't need to be looking to see, did I hit 7,000 steps today?

And get out of here, you're fine. Sometimes you can make that number higher, challenge yourself, but don't have it be this pressure that's constantly there. And now Stephen Miller's gonna know how many steps you took, you know, so. Ooh. I don't want, the only person I want knowing how many steps I have or place is China. I want them to know how many steps I have or place is China I want them to know Steven Miller not Stephen Miller get your grubby little hands out of my data Steven. Yeah, I guess it's time to talk about the news

sure and late breaking news That I did discover on my phone earlier today and Jonathan has included in our doc is that David Lynch died. It's upsetting. He was just a true artist, you know, someone who kind of didn't compromise, let people into his vision, closest as any filmmaker has gotten to just what it's like being inside a dream.

Sometimes uncomfortable, visually arresting. For my 40th birthday, my wife rented out a small movie theater and invited a bunch of my friends and we watched Mulholland Drive. That's amazing. Which is a movie I saw when it came out in 2001 and stuck with me more than any movie that came out in such a formative time. That time, yeah. In my life.

And it's still one of my favorites and I think the guy just had something just a just a true creative so he'll be missed. Special, unique, maybe the like just the most unique filmmaker storyteller out there. And a super funny guy too. Oh just an amazing personality. He seems like a very fun person to hang out with. Yeah I think this is I saw a tweet earlier I saw a tweet I'm gonna read it out with. Yeah, I think this is, I saw a tweet earlier, I saw a tweet, I'm gonna read it, by David Erlich that I think encapsulates a lot of it too. David Lynch gave us the language we needed to better articulate the indescribable strangeness

of our shared reality. Lynchian is so overused because it's a viscerally understandable word without any known synonyms. I can't imagine a more beautiful artistic legacy than that. And I find that to be very true and very succinct and well said. People describe things as lynching when they're not really, but then when... After I saw the TV glow came out, which I think is one of those movies that is very original and you can tell was greatly inspired by David Lynch but isn't just derivative of it. And so when that movie gets described as Lynchian, I think it's like one of those highest compliments.

Yes, absolutely. And that is our show today, folks. No, it's not. We did it. We did it. There is a lot to get through. We will be talking about The Fires, I'm assuming, because that's very prevalent in all of our lives, but we're going to start with something else.

Surprising slash unsurprising news. Surprising slash unsurprising news. They're getting it done, maybe. I am, of course, happy that there is progress. It scares me what's on the other side of this progress. And the unsurprising part is, yeah, we knew that this was going to happen. We knew that Netanyahu wasn't going to make a deal with Biden. That is not a pass to Biden in any way, shape or form. I do not believe he has worked tirelessly and done anything that,

everything that he needed to do or literally anything to get to this point, but we did know, it's been well reported that if Trump won, that Netanyahu would try to give him the credit for this. So, Jonathan, walk us through. Yeah. And I'm also not saying that there wasn't some work done, necessarily, I don't know. Well, I think, I mean, we can get into it,

but I think it less than good job Trump, I think so much of it is like, what a terrible job Joe Biden. What a travesty, what an utter failure. I mean, sure, I don't know. We don't know the details of it necessarily. No, we don't. And there are reports of like, oh, this person,

this person, everyone's trying to take credit for it. But the fact that it is happening now is, I think, a pretty devastating indictment on Joe Biden's legacy. Absolutely. Even if it was like inevitable in the sense of like, oh, well, no matter what I do, it's gonna happen after the election because Netanyahu wants this. And well, no matter what I do, it's going to happen

after the election because Netanyahu wants this. Obviously with what Miriam Adelson's influence on Trump, the aftermath of this is going to probably be bad, but a ceasefire is good. It does seem like even if... We all knew that this was going to happen, and even if it was like, well, there's nothing I can do. Joe Biden could have communicated that withholding a lot of things he could have done weapons. Even if it didn't do like accomplish this would have accomplished something, which is they would have fewer weapons to carry out

what they were doing. But yeah, we'll get into more details. Well, you touched on a few things already. So what we know right now as of Thursday afternoon, things can change real quickly by the time you hear this, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire agreement. Phase one would see the release of hostages and prisoners on both sides and a six week pause in fighting in Gaza. Everything goes smoothly, quote unquote smoothly in that process. Phase two would see all remaining Israeli hostages freed and the complete removal of the IDF from Gaza. However, Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday expressed some hesitation about this deal.

He says it's Hamas that's holding things up. We know how that goes. He wants the IDF to remain in the Philadelphia corridor, which is just the border between Gaza and Egypt. It's only like 14 kilometers long or something. So it's a very thin corridor there, but he's like, the idea has to stay there. And of course, before phase two could happen, there would have to be an agreement about who is governing Gaza, because Hamas says it's Hamas, and Israel says, no, there can't

be any Hamas. But as Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, there's as much Hamas now because of recruiting as there was 15 months ago. The other, one of the many, many, many things that was said a year and a half ago, or I guess, yeah, a year and however many months, this whole time, every, we'll continue.

I'm just, there's so many things of like, oh, you mean that thing we've said for a year. Oh, you mean that thing we've said for a year. Oh, you mean that thing we've said for a year? Oh, you mean that thing we've said for a year? It's all happening exactly as predicted. And this deal that I just described is extremely similar, basically the same as what has been on the table for eight months. So to get into the who gets credit, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration's

Middle East envoy, Brett McGurk, has been working for months behind the scenes on this deal and that he's been in communication with Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, but that Witkoff wasn't on the ground negotiating between these two sides. However, a diplomat told the Washington Post, a diplomat who was briefed on the ceasefire deal, but maybe not part of it themselves, said that Trump's influence was very important and that this was, quote, the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal. And that's kind of the real sticking point here.

That's the kind of ballgame that the pressure was. Hey, we told him we'd end this once I'm in office So what are we gonna do or the the pressure is hey you got to do this now and give Trump a win And if you do that, we look the other way on all the West Bank stuff, which is pretty much what I've been Assuming this whole time. Well, at least since we started getting reporting that Netanyahu would wait till Trump was in office. I'm like, yeah, in exchange, he's going to have a much easier time doing exactly what he wants to do in the aftermath. There's so much uncertainty as to how this will look. How will Gaza be rebuilt?

Who will be rebuilding it? Who will be rebuilding?? Who will be rebuilding? And rebuilt into what? Homes for people who lived there or however many of these assholes have talked about, beachside resorts and stuff. Exactly, vacation properties. A Trump hotel.

Yeah, so as much as I am genuinely thrilled for a potential, hopefully soon, end to this stage of this horror show. The ethnic cleansing. The ethnic cleansing. I'm really, really nervous, more than nervous because I know it's not gonna be good. It's not gonna be pretty.

And I do not think Gazans will be protected. We'll see. I will acknowledge that just reports. I listened to something of children being told of the ceasefire and just screaming and joy. Yeah. Little Palestinian children. screaming in joy.

Little Palestinian children. So I want to acknowledge that part of this, that this is a true nightmare. And yeah. This part of the nightmare is over. And we don't know what the actual accurate death toll is. I've heard wildly different numbers, but I've also heard the assumption that it's at least 40% higher than those numbers. I've seen the number 100,000, 80,000, we don't

know, is going to take a long time. I mean, I don't know if we'll ever know. There are people's bodies buried under rubble that won't be discovered until you start digging through it. Yeah, it's just that thing where, I mean, over the past, we've seen the past week and a half maybe two weeks in the media a lot of reporting. I think 60 Minutes did a piece about like the horrors over there and the targeting of children. And just sort of all these reports coming out about the horrors of this, that again have been known for so long. And to point those out,

earlier than now was not allowed. Right. And that is, there's something very disgusting about sort of denying, denying, denying, denying, denying, denying, and then suddenly like actually we were always, we always believed this. We always thought this was a bad thing that we needed to add. But don't let them speak at the DNC.

Exactly, there's just all these pieces. And even there's that one, the New York Times about the death toll being so, so high actually. Well, we know that. And even there's that one, the New York Times about the death toll being so, so high actually. Well, we know that, we actually knew the death toll was so, so high. And it reminds me of either,

I think it was maybe early November when Joe Biden publicly, I've mentioned this before, Joe Biden publicly said, don't trust the death count. Don't trust the death toll you're hearing, implying that it's actually much lower than what they're saying.

They're lying to you. It's not a high death count. And then he privately apologized, kind of, and said he shouldn't have said that. The damage- Right, that was leaked out, like, oh, actually he apologized. Yes, it was one of the more disgusting things

that Joe Biden's done publicly, in my opinion, of just denying the death count and then privately like, my bad, I shouldn't have said that, and then leak that information. No, you go out there and you apologize for that, for all of those lies that you told. And then to, a year later, like, oh, the death toll is actually quite high. Yeah, we know. We were told by the president not to trust the high death toll. And now I don't know, that's one example of just that kind of phenomenon over the past year happening over and over. And it's very frustrating, but I also don't want to detract from a ceasefire is good. It's just like how we got here is infuriating and-

It'll never not be infuriating. Really embarrassing. And watching this. For Joe Biden specifically and the Harris campaign also, as we see so much of the lack of support for that campaign was about Joe Biden and Gaza. And there was no attempt, no attempt to fix that problem. Even though again, everyone was saying, this is a problem. This is a problem. You need to address this, like honestly and for real.

And it didn't happen. And you were told that like, oh, it's not a big deal, or like, oh, this is like your little pet issue or whatever, and here we are. You lost because of this. It seems large. He would have won. He still thinks he could have won. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Well, and like, and you know, we've, this is getting to the election weeds, I don't wanna focus on this too much, but this idea of everyone just came out for Trump, Trump won the culture war, he won this, Trump won, he's like, oh, it's a landslide, what a mandate he has. No, people just didn't vote for Democrats.

The Democratic support collapsed. Or is that Democrat? Yeah, yes, but there wasn't a surge of Republican support. This idea of this big shift of like, oh, everyone's a Republican now, that's not true. Everyone's anti-woke now, and they're on board with the culture warshit, yeah. No, it's because of stuff like this.

This is what I'm saying. Their support collapsed. There's so much, I mean, this is a major part of it. There's other things too about support. Yes, but 100%. This wasn't some big statement about the culture or where we're headed. This is about a lack of support for a democratic leadership. A lack of support for any leadership, honestly.

Some people voted for him because they think Donald Trump's just wild enough to maybe be pressured into doing something. Other people are assholes and racists and fuck them. But there was just like a total cratering of our party. Yeah, they did a bad job. They did a bad job. This is not in our notes or a part of this conversation,

but boy, oh boy, Biden in his last address talking about the dangers of the corporate oligarchy. Oh no. Where the fuck was that energy during the campaign, man? What? No, it's like he put in his two weeks notice, you know, like after you quit a job, you're like, ah, I'm free,

and then everything gets so much easier, you're so much lighter, so now he can say the whole thing. It's like Eisenhower talking about the dangers of the military industrial complex that he built up. It's like, okay, well, I mean, yeah, there are dangers now. My legacy might be a little bit suspect.

Oh, I know. Fuck. I better warn people about my legacy. There's also this, I just want to read this very, very brief Sheldon Whitehouse tweet, Senator from Rhode Island. Now he tells us, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island. Now he tells us, Biden speaks out against dark money for climate action and for SCOTUS term limits.

I pressed four years for this speech. And like he's like saying it's a good speech and so on. But again, it's like, why now? The fuck, man? And we know why now. We know why now. We've been through this. But it's so profoundly disappointing to see the energy that we've been asking for, not

just his administration, but for a long time. And the writings, and again, it's exhausting, the stuff that we say over and over and over and over again. On our weekly podcast. On our weekly podcast, which you can find on YouTube and anywhere that you download podcasts. It's just, it makes me want to tear my hair out. But it's the same thing feeling along with saying, oh yeah, the death counts higher. Oh yeah, we created more Hamas, radicalized more Hamas militants through this.

Yeah, get your head out of your ass and listen to people. I remember talking about and posting about the two best things you can do is talk about and post about stuff. About that phenomenon, the sort of like, yeah, if you're going to completely devastate this place, what are you going to do? You're gonna create people who are opposed to, the people of like, yeah, if you're going to completely devastate this place, what are you going to do? You're going to create people who are opposed to the people

doing that to them. And I remember being told that that is racist to think because, oh, you so you think like they can't think for themselves and like they're just like these like bloodthirsty. That's not what anybody is saying. That's just how human beings work. It's not a race thing. It's not what anybody is saying. That's just how human beings work. It's not a race thing.

It's literally what- It happens everywhere. It happens here. How do you get radicalized into MAGA? Yeah, exactly. It's what has been said so long about war in Iraq and the effect that that has by our military. Like they say that's happened.

And so like, it's again, one of those things like, but we know, we said that was going to happen. Um, and you're told you're being like weirdly racist or whatever. And then months later, like, oh yeah, you were right. Um, but unracist Lee, uh, now actually, um, it doesn't feel good. Uh, whatever, uh, feels good that there's a ceasefire allegedly, supposedly, hopefully. Um, right. So we'll see. So now put a pin To put a pin in that, just the, again, like the Biden talking about the oligarchy.

I remember a candidate eight years ago talking about the dangers of an oligarchy and us being told that that was foolish and stupid. And we're not gonna talk about that anymore. Honestly, that word though really goes, transcends parties because I hear people talking about it a lot left and right. And it's smart and savvy.

You should have been smart and savvy enough to do it sooner. Well, it's just true. Now we have like five guys who are deciding stuff. Well, I want to talk briefly about why this is tough for Netanyahu. A majority of Israeli parliament wants this to be done. They want the war to be over, they're ready to go for the ceasefire. However, a part of Netanyahu's coalition, the right wing, does not want that at all. They have threatened if he goes through with it that they will pull their support and his prime ministership

could collapse. And then there's some specific rules to Israel. You can have a new election and stuff like that. So he can either do the thing that everyone wants and that they're mad at him about, and that would help Trump and then Trump will scratch his back or a smote rich and Ben Gavir, I believe, will just torch him immediately. So he's in a real pickle here. Oh, poor guy, what are you gonna do?

BB, oh no, BB. Somehow skates through. So now he's saying that the Hamas is being difficult or something. Well, he's saying, but also he has issues with last minute disputes. I mean, looking at some of the disputes, it's like, oh, so like literally the opposite of the deal. They're fundamental to the whole thing because part of this is like, you're going to have

to be okay with Hamas running the show. That's who is there. That's been the governing body. And the people inside Gaza probably like them a lot more than they like you right now. So if there is a ceasefire, if you are not going to continue to level the place and kill everybody, that is the only other option. But he's like, no, no, Hamas has to get out and demilitarize and leave. And so, oh, so it's just like chaos.

It's just ungovernable chaos and that no one's bringing in medicine. No one, like, what are you talking about? It's like, it's not a real, you can't have this deal and that thing. Yeah, yes, exactly. But anyway, that's what he wants. Yeah, it's like one of those things like,

okay, we got a deal. Like, bring this up early, like, you know, it's like one of those things like, okay, we got a deal. Oh, like, bring this up early. Like, you know, it's absurd. It's this weird, like, sudden wrench in just a pile of wrenches that has been building for many, many months. Hey, it's Cody Pants, your pants man, pantsing around to tell you about Ground News, a sponsor we here at the showdy specifically sought out. You can check that out at ground.news slash SMN. The news can be oppressive, like two pieces of fabric,

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Again, that's ground.news slash smn for 40% off unlimited access. The link is in the description and pants. Hey now, let's talk about eating stuff. Food mostly. We love it. We love food but making food? Give me a break. That takes time. A thing our society has deemed to be money and while perhaps we need to uproot our capitalist system as evidenced by the lack of time for basic necessities, I want to talk to you about Cook Unity. They make a variety of healthy meals made by award-winning chefs.

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As I mentioned up top and as we talked about a lot last week, the fires in LA continue to be a nightmare for everybody. For everybody. Yeah, for everybody. And for California. Cody is still not in his house, but will be home soon. I will be home soon. Oh boy, what do we have this week to talk about with the fires? I mean, I could talk about the fires all day,

but we've got some specifics here. Most notably, I suppose, the way members of the GOP outside of California are talking about the fires and how to handle them and how to handle us. Oh. Radical liberals. It's a shockingly conservative state. I'm just going to say that. Yeah, it's a democratic state, but there is a lot of conservatives here.

I mean, there are more- And even our liberals are pretty conservative. There are more raw Republicans here than in almost any other state because we have a big population. Yeah, so we're quite a populous state, exactly. That's how numbers... I personally think this is just cable news nonsense that they're using to score points and then they'll give the funding, but a number of members of the GOP have been suggesting that there should be conditions before California gets federal aid. House Speaker Mike Johnson says, obviously there's been water resource mismanagement,

forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. It does come down to leadership. He said colleagues had discussed tying disaster aid to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. So that'll help all of those other things you just flagged. Our forest mismanagement. No, I think the funding will have to go to a big vacuum a la Spaceballs to suck up all the leaves and brush around the whole state. No, Donald Trump said, we're going to take care of your water situation and we'll force it down his throat. And we'll say, Gavin, if you don't do it, we're not giving you any of that fire money

that we send you all the time for all the fire forest fires that you have. Yeah, no, this goes on and on. There's a bunch of people. You know what Republicans love to do? Spend money on stuff. I'm sure they'll help out with all the money that is necessary to improve our infrastructure and environmental conservative. Sorry, go ahead, go ahead, Katie. Well, first I wanted to, well, I agree with you. Claudia Tenney, GOP rep. Ooh.

I'm just gonna highlight this one because it gave me a visceral reaction. California is a disaster. Those same people weren't concerned about the people in North Carolina or the people in Florida who we've tried to help. Are you fucking kidding me? That seems like a me? I remember crying about it on this show. We care very much about everything. We don't have the same hatred for other

states the way it gets directed at California and I also want to say I mean I think these are all these statements are gross and disgusting. And yeah, we can have a conversation about forest management. We need to. We can have a conversation about water things, not in the way that you're talking about it with Gavin Newsom destroying Trump's imaginary plan, you know, the water. Like there are absolutely very big conversations that need to be had in this. This transcends left, it transcends right. This is all of us needing to... Because it's hard. This isn't one administration's decision.

This is hundreds of years of decisions that have been made and developing land in areas that never should have been developed and our use of water in so many places. How about with AI? How about the amount of water that gets sucked up into that? This is a big conversation and very important but not the way that they're framing it in some sort of bullshit partisan trial of California's Democrats or whatever. Get the fuck out of here. You have no idea what you're talking about. Well they also don't care. They don't care. But also I do think that all of us need to start learning about some

of these things and having good faith conversations with experts and people that we might not agree with ideologically and stuff but do care about the forest. The firefighters that everybody is calling heroes, a lot of them would probably disagree on a lot of stuff, but they have really insightful information about fire management. Anyway, I'll get off of my little tangent here. Yeah, no, it's all frustrating. The local news is generally going to be more helpful about this.

And the national news and national politicians are just going to do this. This is just what they do no matter what happens. And it just so happens to be about a terrifying disaster. I do want to underscore a point that you'd said, Jonathan, this isn't representative of the way people actually feel. And online discourse, the shit that you're seeing is not representative. People are gutted by this.

They see themselves in this disaster. At least I live in a conservative little enclave. There's lots of them in California. People are gutted. People are opening up their homes. People are worried about fire management of the forest. People care deeply. And so the reality of people's experiences out in the world is so far removed from this political circus. Well, right. They just see people like them who have lost everything. Of course it transcends politics for everyone but these freaks on Fox Business, you know?

And so much of this vitriol is in part because it's Los Angeles. Oh, yeah. All of this, so what happened down the line, some of the big picture conversations about insurance, this does affect all of us. People are reeling because it's not just Los Angeles that they're dropping, State Farm has dropped policies. I was talking with someone this morning.

State Farm dropped us two years ago and we've been struggling to find coverage. So, you know know with all of it it doesn't just affect Los Angeles is the point. It affects the rest of the state it affects the rest of the country. Moving on what else we got? Fires. Complain that Rogan thing. This is a whiny liberal it's fucking climate change wake up! No it's arson you fucking idiots.

I think it's mr. Beast That's a strong accusation bold no no just kidding But they've been trying to get rid of the homeless for a while, but the homeless are doing it well. They're flammable Everyone is but they they're more inclined to use fire to get their anger out. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. To get their anger out. There is literally zero evidence to suggest that any of this started because a homeless person was starting a fucking fire. Cody's got something, I've got something more to say. Spider.

Both came in hot after watching that. I just. I'll let you go first, but I do have something else to say. Oh, continue, it's fine. You guys are jealous of the comedy on the comedy podcast? Because that's kind of us too, and they're really up in the game on the comedy podcast. Yeah, I know, they're really up in the game.

Sorry, go ahead. I mean, A, it's funny, it is funny that Rogan stopped at his tracks at a joke, like the Mr. Beast joke, and he's like, oh, he doesn't know how to riff, whatever, it doesn't matter. Joe Rogan is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And there's nobody he's talking about.

And maybe they're starting fires to keep warm because they're homeless. And also pretty clear that a power line was the cause of the Eaton fire from what I've read. I'm not sure if that's confirmed. Not confirmed, but that's what they think. Unconfirmed, that's what they think. And the other one is in the zone, I believe, but it could also be fireworks from New Year's Eve that started a fire that they put out, but maybe there was something smoldering. But also, and the sparks of the fire, the source that is important to determine,

but the vast devastation and the spreading of it and the inability to contain it was exacerbated by climate change, Joe, like very obviously. It's not like people are saying that climate change literally lit the match. Right, exactly. It's the conditions. A very easy way to demonize a marginalized community, a community that has nothing, literally nothing. Yes, homeless people do start fires. And you know, it is an issue. It's not about them, but you're right, Cody,

to keep warm, to cook food, to do whatever. And yes, these are very- To get out their anger. To get out their fucking anger? What are you talking about? Dumb piece of shit. There is a problem with that safety for both the unhoused

and communities around it. And we're on top of it, that happens a lot. My friend lived next door to a building, an area that regularly this was an issue and I don't know where it stands, but we handle that. But you have to have an understanding and a compassion that this is a part of a big problem that we are all fairly complicit in and desperately need answers to.

And it is a separate problem from this wildfire situation. And yes, also, after the two major fires started, there are reports that some of these little fires might have been arson, the ones that were put out. We don't have real confirmation on that. That isn't about being unhoused or not. That is people taking advantage of a very chaotic moment and it is an ugly sick thing, but we still don't even have proof of that. Also people are pouring gasoline into the sewers. I heard this from another comedian,

Whitney Cummings, and it's important news. Sorry, Katie, continue. It's just another example of taking advantage of this situation to create a scapegoat, to pinpoint, place blame on a population that already faces insurmountable challenges. Yeah, a multi-hundred millionaire living in Austin. Thanks for your take on the homeless people starting fires out of anger

and how the spread of those fires had nothing to do with the changing climate, which I guess it's unclear if he believes in anymore. I would ask him, let's say you're right, and every wildfire everywhere is started by a homeless person. An angry homeless person. What's your solution to that? Because if that was true, mine would be, let's give these people homes and support so they're

not angry and homeless anymore. What would yours be? I don't know if I want to hear the answer to that question. more mockery because I don't think that helps. Yeah, it's either something horrific or General mockery or move to Austin. Yeah, I'm sure he has of dollars No, I'm sure he has a voice for his for homeless people the way he does the whiny liberal voice This is a climate change. I'm gonna eat my oat milk. I'm doing a 2015 ass bit of a liberal.

Seriously, God, Joe. Yeah, he's gonna be like, oh, you can't eat meat around these people anymore. It's like hack shit, you know? Who are you talking to? Just on a comedy level, I'm angry, cause it's like, hack shit. It's hacky and he can't even keep up with

like the random Mr. Beast joke. Like you just want to complain. I saw there's a Newsweek article that was like, Joe Rogan hits back at Mr. Beast accusation over LA fires. I was like, oh my God, did he say something after that? And like criticize the comedian that said that? No. It's just, it says Rogan, wow, that's a strong accusation.

Rogan pushed back. It just quotes the thing that he just said that we listened to in the video. The thing that we just saw. And the headline is Joe Rogan hits back at Mr. Beast accusation over LA fires. I feel bad for Newsweek, man. That used to be a magazine. They had features and news and now they're like, well, I can get Joe Rogan and Mr. Beast in the same headline. Maybe SEO still works the way it did 15 fucking years ago.

It's incredible. Like, I forget when it really started, but like it is the dregs of journalism now. So sad. Newsweek has fallen so far. How pathetic. What a pathetic article. What a pathetic article in response to a pathetic like 20 seconds of conversation. You know, people up here that do listen to Joe Rogan or have various opinions on him have said, you know, I liked that he had wild people on. I understand that he'll, he does say the stupidest shit, but it creates an environment where you you get real interviews with people or it used to be but now it's like people just it's like he'd like he's

doesn't push back enough because He uses it's like he's catering to the way people see him Yeah, is I guess the phrase that came out and I went, interesting. Oh yeah, he's playing. And people are, it's like playing a role, kind of, and it's now getting less and less interesting. This is a perspective I've heard, and I was like, that's an interesting one, we'll see.

But I'm curious to see how this trajectory plays out, is I guess what I'm saying. Well, because he's playing, there is an element of that, and if you look at his most recent guests, many of them are these billionaires who have bought the presidency or bought the vice presidency. Corporate oligarchs. It is, he is a mouthpiece

for the corporate oligarchy right now. He makes hundreds of million dollars from Spotify and he has on Mark Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump and JD Vance and Elon Musk to lie to him, to his face and to everybody listening to him and he slops it up. It's just embarrassing and pretty pathetic. He likes people who like him back back kind of the way Trump does and The way Elon yeah, not all these all these freaks not to blow the thesis of a episode

I've been writing for six months, but he likes people who like him and he's like, huh A lot of the people that I kind of used to hang out with in the comedy world in LA Think some of the stuff I'm saying is bigoted, because it is. But these people don't think that at all. They believe this kind of the same things I do about X, Y, and Z. I want to go on Joe Rogan.

Maybe he'll invite you. Do you have four hours in Austin? Do you have four hours and $5 billion? You got to go to Austin. I don't have $5 billion, but I can make four hours in a flight to Austin. Yeah, I can't wait to be done with this. If I be on the show, you coward.

There's so many clips. There's so many clips. His episodes are so long and he's done thousands of them. It's impo... Like, you could... Whatever. It's an impossible task that you have put yourself to. No, no, no, no, no.

I'm almost done. I know that sounds insane, but I'm't know. It's an impossible task that you have put yourself to. No, no, no, no, no. I'm almost done. I know that sounds insane, but I'm almost done. Well, howdy there. You know, I'm just a down-home country gal from, I don't know, Tennessee. But I still enjoy the finer things in life. For example, every morning I grab a cup of coffee and watch the many bees nest outside my home. And for that I use SimpliSafe because you

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just because you're gonna do that anyway. Find your perfect fit and never compromise on comfort again. Public rec, where comfort rules. Okay, we've got a few minutes left. So why don't we quickly talk about TikTok? Will it want it? Will it want it? Will it want it?

Will it want it? It probably will. Will it tick or will it talk? Will it want it? Will it want it? Will it want it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it?

Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it?

Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? Will it? I do kind of want to just go through this timeline really quick because it's a little bit muddled. You'd be like, wait, wasn't his position this and it's changed and here's why.

So Donald Trump wanted to ban TikTok in 2020 citing national security reasons or if it could be sold, then there was maybe a deal with Walmart or a deal with Oracle. Remember this four years ago? Now Donald Trump wants to save it since he believes it will win him support from the app's 170 million US users. And he has been told, like, the young people on TikTok love you.

And he's like, I'm gonna save it. Okay, so early in 2024, the House passed and Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, or PAFACA. PAFACA. PAFACA. Which basically bans TikTok.

It doesn't specifically say we're banning TikTok. It says you can't be a foreign adversary that's controlling the algorithm of something here. TikTok and ByteDance, which is the company that owns TikTok, sued the US government saying that is unconstitutional. In August 2024, the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ sued ByteDance saying that TikTok violates children's privacy laws. And recently, Trump asked the Supreme Court to put that ban on hold. And in his letter to the Supreme Court, he didn't really say it's unconstitutional or for a

legal reason. He's like, I'm a good dealmaker. It says, President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government. However, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments, it seemed like they were leaning towards upholding this ban because they're like, well, bite dance, this Chinese company does not have First Amendment rights and TikTok could be around if they used some other algorithm

that was based here or sold it. So the ban will go into effect on Sunday the 19th if nothing else happens. Trump takes office the next day, Monday? Oh my God. And he's going to, says he's going to issue an executive order that will suspend the enforcement for a few months so he can do his deal. And then there's the red note thing, but we can, yeah. I mean, there's so much, we've talked about this before, but I'm gonna say it again.

It is wild. It's basically, we want to control our propaganda to our citizens. It's basically, we care very much about what this foreign adversary, foreign adversary, will do with our data, like the care, which, unlike the animal friendship video I hearted and shared with my mom, but we do not care about American companies that actually use that data and really violate our privacy.

Well, here's the thing, I mean, cause Trump did kind of like lead this charge as we as we have laid out and Democrats eventually got on board And that seemed to coincide a lot with What is happening in Gaza? There's this quote that I think is pretty telling.

And I'm again, like, you know, all these, I don't know, propaganda is bad and harmful and many applications do it, all of them do it. There's this quote from Mitt Romney from last year in May. Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok

and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. That's a weird thing to say, Mitt. That's a weird thing to say, Mitt. That's a weird connection to make about this national security threat TikTok algorithm app that you're saying. There's a lot of mentions of Palestinians on this app. This is not to say that people on TikTok aren't being propagandized in various ways, but it is to say that it seems like

a lot of people who have certain opinions about certain conflicts kind of got on board because of that, because of the dissemination of certain types of information. That's what I mean. It's like they want to control the propaganda we're given. They want to control the narratives. I don't know.

Maybe I'm speaking out of my butt here, but it also comes at the same time as Mark Zuckerberg. You should go on Rogan. I know. That's what I'm saying. This is my audition. The same time as Mark Zuckerberg being like, yeah, we're not going to have fact checkers. We're going to allow whatever. It's wild what we do or do not care about. It's wild what we do or do not care about. I think it's, look, there may be legitimate concerns about TikTok. I don't know what information is gathered and where it goes.

There very well may be many issues about a foreign government that is adversarial to the United States having this information, but it is kind of blind to how the rest of the internet works, how all the other apps work. Because right, they would rather have Zuckerberg bend the knee to Trump and do pro-Trump propaganda that's fed to all of us than anything from overseas about Gaza that they can't control. Biden doesn't have a problem. He's like, oh, the Americans will see past this, Magistep. No they don't.

No they don't. Yeah. And the algorithms are going to be tweaked to make an audience of one happy, at least for the next four years. And I do want to talk about the red note thing, Katie, because you brought it up. American TikTok users have been flooding this other Chinese app called Zhao Hongxu or Red Note, which is closer to Instagram and Pinterest than TikTok, but you can do short videos and connect with others.

It's kind of been a little inspiring that Chinese people and Americans are in a way connecting through apps for the first time. It's remarkable. That is wonderful. There are elements of this obviously. I've seen a lot of people post like, look at this, look at this. I'm like, well, that's propaganda. Of posts on Red Note where it's like, well, you're immediately being propagandized about certain things, but this general social interaction is such an interesting, valuable, cool thing of just like, yeah, we're here, you're there. What's it like?

What do you think? Like just that interaction is real. That's what I mean, dispelling ideas that have been fed to us and that a lot of people take as true that aren't necessarily true and actually interacting and putting a face to this spooky, it's like just human beings. And then realizing actually,

oh, a ride in an ambulance for them costs $20 or whatever. And oh, x, y, learning, actually learning, which is a beautiful, wonderful element of social media is being able to be exposed to other cultures and places. I don't particularly care. I have TikTok on my phone. I don't really use it. I don't particularly care if it goes away. I know a lot of people do though.

It seems like a free speech thing just since from what I see, I see Americans talking about America stuff all the time. So if there's not an independent government run platform where there's a forum for everything, we're stuck with someone owning it and it's's gonna be the Chinese government or a shitty billionaire. I don't think either are particularly great options. And I just don't think there are other options right now. To Cody, what do you think about the Bloomberg report that ByteDance was considering selling TikTok to Elon Musk?

I think that we should just shut down the internet forever. I also heard well so they responded like we're not gonna comment on things that aren't happening or whatever like these like rumors or whatever so that seems not true but my goodness would that be just the worst disaster in the world? Tiktok said it was pure fiction. And I hope it is. I don't think you can afford it. I don't think you can afford it. Mr. Beast is offering to buy it. Didn't they say that he's too underwater with his Twitter? Well they didn't say that but that is the implication.

Well that's the thing too, I've seen so many people even talk about like they should ban tick tock. It's all like it's like slop that's rotting people's brains and misinformation and stuff. And like, I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with people who say like the most outlandish thing. And I'm like, where'd you hear that? And they say TikTok.

That's true. That's true of all websites. All of them. You can say that about Facebook. You were saying about it about Facebook like four or five years ago, but fewer people use it now I guess that's just kind of the disgusting sad terrifying nature of this and algorithms

in general but I really hope that Elon Musk doesn't buy it he talked about bringing back Vine and I hope he doesn't do that either, but. Implementing it into X? Yeah. He said that like two years ago, so it seems like maybe he's not really doing it. That's not gonna happen. Don't bring back Vine. Just create a six second video feature on the website you own, and you have developers to build stuff. Great.

Yeah. Would you have to buy whatever, whoever owns what's left of Vine and integrate it? I don't know how it works. All of his investors in Twitter have lost a lot of money, so I think he'd have a hard time convincing. Well, he's busy defending his gaming cred from random streamers. I don't know what you're talking about.

Well, it's happening. That's so funny that you have no idea. Oh, John, we don't have time. We do have time, we do have time, we have time. The one minute version. One minute version is Elon Musk famously has constantly praised himself for being an epic elite gamer.

The best gamer in the world, Diablo and Quake back in the day and so on and so forth. And he's been streaming every once in a while and there've always been these sort of things where it's like, wait, how did you do that? He shared his Elden Ring build, which is just so embarrassing and weird. I haven't even played Elden Ring, but like, why do you put your stats this way? What are you doing? Like it's just, he seems like a bad gamer. It's fine. You don't have to be, you're a

billionaire, richest man in the world. But he played this game called Path of Exile 2 and he started streaming it and fans of Elon Musk and fans of Path of Exile 2 when he started streaming it. And fans of Elon Musk and fans of Path of Exile 2 were watching him and slowly found like, wait, you don't seem to understand the game. He was streaming the game as this, like one of the highest levels you can be. It requires hundreds and hundreds of hours of grinding and just like playing just the game to get to level,

I think like 96 or something like that. And he's playing this game and he's talking, he's like trying to like get the map to work. And it's like, if you are at this level, you know how the map system works. I think they're called like way stones now. So he's like struggling with that. And he's like, doesn't have like these filters on

for item collection and loot, which again, you would do if you've played hundreds and hundreds of hours in this game. And he's like, okay. And he's like, okay. And he's like, you know, oh, this weapon of mine, it's only level 63, but it's pretty good. No, no, no, the requirement to use the weapon is 63. It's not the level of the, it's just like these little

things where it's like, you don't, you haven't played this game for very long. You don't understand the mechanics of this game that requires hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours. So people made videos explaining, I was like, yeah, I think he bought this character and is pretending to be really good at this game. And some bad streamer that I don't think is bad,

Asminkold or something like that, the guy who lives in a roach-infested room that he's never cleaned, is talking about how, yeah, Elon Musk doesn't do this. So Elon shared DMs of him to, he took away one of his check marks and is going after the streamer for saying that he's faking this quality of game.

And like the DMs. I just want KDs on screen reacting to this. And the DMs are like, yeah, I can maybe start uploading stuff to X. And the DMs are like, yeah, I can maybe start uploading stuff to X. I'm going to talk to my editors to see if they can do that. And what he means, video editors who take a stream and edit it down and upload it to places.

And Elon's like, Asmr answers to these people. He doesn't answer to himself. He's not a lone entity. He's like, no, he's not like his editors, video editors. He's conflating video editors with an editorial board or something. It's just weird lies and fundamentally misunderstanding the thing

and he's spending his time just going after this gamer. It's extremely funny. And he is a liar who lied about his gaming abilities. It's so funny that he's doing this. I don't find it funny. It is, but I understand. I find it embarrassing. It is.

The more attention we give to it. I know you have to pay attention, but I also feel deeply that we're giving him exactly what he wants by even talking about it or discussing it or whatever. Well, the hope is that the gamer community that understands what he wants by even talking about it or discussing it or whatever. It's just attention. Well, the hope is that the gamer community that understands video games will see

that he's lying about this stupid thing, this silly, absurd thing. Why are you lying about this? And then take that information and perhaps apply it to everything else that they maybe don't know about that he is lying to them about. It's that phenomenon where a physicist will be like, Elon doesn't know what he's talking about.

You would think. And then when he talks about subjects that you know about, it becomes more clear that he is just a liar, just a dumb liar. Thank you for your time. He just pisses me off. Yeah, he sucks. But you know what doesn't piss me off? You guys at home.

Oh, she's right. I just spilled my water gesturing. Thank you. Thank you. For watching and listening. Thank you for your support. Thank you. Like, subscribe.

Thank you. I haven't said that in a while. And in case you forgot. Thank you. We love you very much. Much. Hey girlies, I'm Cody Rigsby. And I'm Andrew Chappelle. We're here to announce our brand new podcast,

Tactful Pettiness. Now on podcast one. We have a lot of opinions. Flip flops in New York City? You don't love yourself. If I'm not seated, I'm not tipping. Do I want to see a picture of your baby? No.

If I have to scroll more than 10 seconds, he's not cute. Settling gets you an ugly boyfriend. So we're gonna help you out. We sure are because we have the life expertise. We have mastered throwing shade with intention. We are in the business of helping you find and keep your man and we're here to teach you the fine art of tactful pettiness. Join us each week as we traverse the world of pop culture, chat with our celebrity friends,

and show you how to accept yourself without taking life too seriously. Get new episodes of tactful pettiness with me, Cody Rigsby, and me, Andrew Chappelle. Every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and anywhere you get your podcasts.

Stay petty bestie.