Some More News - Even More News: The Worst Poll Numbers of Donald Trump's Career

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Hi. On today's episode, Katy, Cody, and Jonathan discuss Trump's ongoing feud with the press, his worst poll numbers ever, the prospect that he'll "declare martial law" around the midterms, Susan Collins' connection to a major Congressional bribery scheme, and Elon Musk's potential involvement in the Paramount-WBD merger.PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinHi. On today's episode, Katy, Cody, and Jonathan discuss Trump's ongoing feud with the press, his worst poll numbers ever, the prospect that he'll "declare martial law" around the midterms, Susan Collins' connection to a major Congressional bribery scheme, and Elon Musk's potential involvement in the Paramount-WBD merger.PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinChapters: 0:00 - Introduction/Trump's Bad Polls14:51 - Susan Collins' Bribes24:15 - Martial Law Incoming?31:01 - Elon Joins Paramount?38:41 - It's Cody's Fault!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, on today's episode, we talk about Trump's ongoing fight with the media, the worst poll numbers of his political career, Susan Collins, and the Paramount WBD merger. Oh, and welcome back to even more news, the first, the only news podcast. I'm Katie Stoll. Katie Stoll. Katie Stoll. Oh, welcome to the news. We've got so much of it to talk about, and we are happy about it. I'm Cody. Guess what?

You're never going to guess. You're never going to guess. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Jonathan is also here. Oh. Hi.

I never would have guessed that. Should we talk about the White House media press? We're trying to catch up with if CNN and Politico and MS now are allowed in the White House because a judge overnight said, I'm going to put the, Trump's ban on hold for a few weeks, but also, you know, they're likely to win on the merits of their case, the plaintiffs here. So you got to let them in. And then the White House was like, no, still, despite the court order. And everyone's like, Trump is ignoring a court order from a federal judge?

My word. We have never seen anything like this before. But it seems like they must, they figured it out because after a few hours, they were like. like, all right, come inside, begrudgingly. They figured out that what they're doing is blatantly illegal. And they figured out that they haven't been able to do it in the past. And they figured out also without them, then nobody can hear whatever the president says. Any time.

I feel like that's part of it. We're like, well, if we don't let it back in, then we have to, like, buy microphones and figure out how audio works so that the president can rant, as he loves to do on a mic. It's so funny how frustrated they are and they get and he gets. And at some point, like, there's some clips where he's like, he's like walking away. He's like, all right, I'm done here. They should have done this long ago of their own volition. But obviously they need to fight for the First Amendment in this case. And like it's probably more important for that angle.

But like years ago if they had just left it alone. But then it becomes that whole thing of, well, then who is? Who's the who's going to be done? It's O-A-N and the newsmaxes and so on, yeah. Well, I think, like, there's now a real rift between Trump and Caitlin Collins. He's insulted her a whole lot, and she's the Chief White House correspondent, so it's going to be real awkward. It's almost, like, worse than a double goodbye. It's like, you know, you cut off contact with someone, and then you work with them.

You have to see them every day and nod to them. Trump does have ways of, like, kind of breaking the ice. and loosening the tension by saying you're a horrible person. Everyone hears a cow or whatever it is that he says. So it'll be forgotten. Everyone will just move on. He's tried to do this couple of times already. Every couple years he's going to want to do this.

It is interesting. I think the timing of this specific tantrum was very ill-advised. I mean, it's ill-advised regardless because it's illegal. But it's very embarrassing to have president. She comes to down and it's, this cluster fuck and you don't have your adoring fans and cameras. But that's the thing is he doesn't want to be embarrassed in front of President Xi, but really as these polls continue to sink and he's had some of the worst polls ever

of both presidencies this week specifically, I think every time he's in the news and he's not actually trying to do something about the cost of living stuff that Americans care about, it's it's very very noticeable i think to the people who are suddenly shifting in the polls and don't like him to be like huh he seems distracted by stupid bullshit constantly like whether it's the you know a couple months ago we're doing reflecting pool now he's mad at the CNN now he's talking about oh i got to change the the the alignment of the biden auto pen picture on the wall here right like he is never um he's on camera so much that he's going to be on camera not doing the thing that they think he should be doing, which is like ending the war and

bringing prices down. Right. It's either it's like half is that and just sort of like focusing on things that don't matter that are petty or weird or just his whole bizarre personal world. Or it's him saying that affordability is a hoax. Or it's him saying that we can't afford child care because we have all the wars to do. Like he's he's either actively pointing out the bad things that everybody hates and saying that he likes them or that they're not real or that they shouldn't care about them or that they need to shut up and just like go to work or whatever or he's focusing on the reflecting pool there's no good strategy not that there's a strategy um it's just him like exposing his brain to the entire world and just living his true self but it's not good for him

in terms of they've done nothing yeah they've done nothing and not even when was the last time he got on camera and flaps his jaw and anything came out that had to do with the people's lived experiences. When he said that if you elect us we'll give you $5,000 that's which people don't like.

Right, people don't like that and I think it's polling bad because they're like, that's your solution that things are just going to cost so much that you need to give us money. No, no, no, no, no. We said that we don't like seeing that number at the gas station. That's our like number one thing. I don't like seeing that number the gas station or that number on the package of meat, period.

$5,000. We've already said this, but $5,000, sure, that's a chunk of money. It doesn't last long in this economy. Then what? Then what? Then what? Give me the money and tell me how things are going to get fixed. Oh, we'll give you the money.

If you give us another chance. He really has, like, dug himself into a hole because he can only do the thing. that he is and does. And all of those things now are working against him because it's just showing like, this is my stupid reality show. I don't know what you thought this was going to be. You're really hurting. And oh, by the way, everything's doing great.

Have you seen the GDP because all these tech companies that hate you who want to take your job or passing money back and forth? Sure, that makes you feel great. Like, there is nothing he can say or do. There's no accomplishment to tout. Well, he's not, okay, this isn't fair. He's absolutely accomplished something. and he needs to get out there and own it.

Just look at his net worth. Oh, yeah. I always used to say, he's like, the economy is booming. Just look at my net worth. $7 billion. World liberty or whatever we call it. Enjoy your crypto and your Bitcoin or whatever it is.

Don't be jealous. Your slurp juices, if you get five slurp juices, your ape gets a candy bar. Oh, that would be amazing if he started getting into NFTs now. Like, hey, have you seen you get a picture? and the pictures itself is worth something. That's great. You could buy 10,000 of my pictures.

You know what? Trump apes. Get out there. You guys have convinced me. I'm going to say something and I don't want to offend everybody, but like, man, fuck that guy. Am I right?

Okay. I don't want to. John Trump, don't like him. Fuck that guy, man. With this ban of Politico and CNN and MSN now, the White House released, like, well, here's a rea. reason we banned them. Here's the here's like the evidence here's like why we did it.

Here are these reports from them that make it make it. There are the fake news reports from Politico. One of those articles in particular, the main source in the article, a anonymous senior administration official was J.D. Vance. What a delicious part of this story is that what sparked this whole nonsense this week is literally J.D. Vance leaking. But like in a way where it's like it's the leak or whatever, the quote is like just like vaguely accurate it seems and just sort of like a positive spin on like I think we're going to do Iranian negotiations well and they're going to go well. And so like by just like seemingly randomly picking Politico articles like they like chat GPT picks like pick five

articles that used the phrase senior administration official. An anonymous source. Anonymous source. Exactly. And they picked one. And it's just so funny that they can't stop throwing JD

under the bus even when they don't intend to. This was just like, these articles. And it happened to throw him under the bus. It's so funny. We love him. He sucks.

We hate him. He sucks so bad. We love him. He sucks. We hate him. It does give, I agree with everything you've said. And part of me is like,

fuck. because all of this is just ammunition for J.D. Vance to at some point make the case of, I've been trying all along to be the voice of reason. I've been trying all along to let you guys know what's been going on. I was doing my best in the position that I was. I can't wait to see him try to do that. I will enjoy him trying.

Two things. One is, yeah, I welcome everybody that wants to finally say, this is absurd, this man. Yeah, come on down. Come on down. Water's fine. But at the same time, you don't get to distance yourself from this. You bought it. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Don't pee in the pool. But no, but that's what we are about to see. And I think that the next two years, you're going to see more and more people trying to find their path forward. And we can't let them. We can't let them. I will welcome your vote. I will welcome your vote.

But you are done. Are you talking to JD Vance? Talking to J.D. Vance. I'm talking to every single. goddamn Republican that has carried water for this man and has been so milk toast and wishy-washy

and spineless. J.D. Vance is embedded with Trump. He can't get away. He's going to say like, well, fundamentally, I thought my job was about like trying to bring everyone together and trying to find consensus, right? We know we got a lot of volatile different people in here, but, you know,

I feel like fundamentally joy. What you're trying to say, like he's going to pull this bullshit I don't think he's got it. I think people are going to see the inauthenticity. People hate inauthenticity. I don't know who, I mean, no one's got the Trump authenticity where he just can't stop being him. Like, maybe Marco's better for them, but I don't know. They got a problem.

Maybe all of these pollsters should leak. Like, oh, by the way, one of the people who disapproves of Trump is J.D. Vance. Like, he came right out and said it. Yeah, he's one of the. 70% of people. We asked 1,300 Americans, and one of them was J.D. Vance, and he said he doesn't like the way the... He likes that they close the border, but he doesn't like all this other stuff. So let's see.

Two polls this week, CNN American Research Group, have Trump at 29%. Reuters Ipsos has 32%. All of these are the lowest that have ever been measured in these polls of Trump, which means lower than January 7th and 8th, 2021. So pretty bad. Pretty bad. Among what CNN calls pure independence, Trump won that group in 2024 by 15 points,

and his approval among them now is minus 71. He's polling like 7% among them. And we're going to get to like a not so great poll about Susan Collins and Troy Jackson that came out this morning. But according to a new NPR PBS Marist poll, Democrats lead the generic ballot by 12. The polls have been almost uniformly good for Democrats in the last few weeks. It does appear to be bottom falling out time. And, you know, we're kind of like teetering on the brink, but there are a number of House Republicans that are starting to distance themselves

from Trump. Like key allies, like Byron Donald's. He's a House Republican in Florida running for governor. He's removed the photos of him and Trump and references to Trump from his website. Ouch. Mike Rogers in the campaign ad. This is in Michigan, says the war with Iran needs to end and end quickly. Iowa, GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson is talking about affordability for Iowans. And Kansas Senator Roger Marshall is criticizing ICE actions in Kansas. Just be clear, these are all very red areas.

Kansas. Kansas and Iowa, yeah, for sure. Florida. So public opinion can change and isn't permanent. and people are going to be Kinism stuff. Well, I think it's I'll take the win.

Let's do what we can. And to be clear, these aren't people voting for Democrats. These are people voting against Donald Trump. And unfortunately, Democrats...

I mean, they love those voters. They love those voters. They don't want to do anything with that momentum of significant. It's not that I've seen, but we'll see, we'll see, but...

We will see. what the plan is. Who are we going to impeach? Who's going to be first? Somebody. Hegg Seth. I feel like Hegset's a great. Hegseh is on the top of the list probably.

Well, I was thinking about Jady Vance being basically a doll that you pull the string in the back and it talks. And then I was like he's a fucking Teddy Ruxpin. And then I went, and I Google Teddy Ruxpin. He looks just like Teddy Ruxpin. And no one's made that connection yet. Teddy Ruxman, you just can't trust him because he wrote that whole book about how he hated the den where he came from. and now he's trying to appeal to all of those same den bears. And it's like no one believes you.

You went to. Teddy, yeah. Bear, you know, Hillberry elegy. Well, he pretends to be a real salt of the earth kind of bear, but at the end of the day, he just got in bed in big tech. Well, he sold his soul to the toy industry, and now he's in, you know, what, just a mass-produced toy that you can pull this? No, thank you.

Give me Paddington any day. No, that's a. Bear with character. So we have mentioned Susan Collins. Let's just set up her scandal before we talk about the poll. Scandal. Okay. The main pool.

Oh, yeah. So a lot of, so ProPublica put out a report this week that the FBI had this big investigation into Susan Collins and her team going back years in her connection with this supposed pay-to-play. scheme with a Republican donor or a donor to her campaign, but after the 2024 election, a bunch of FBI agents get fired. That investigation goes poof. What happened was, and a lot of this we already knew, we just didn't know the communications between this guy and Susan Collins' team. This guy, Martin Cow, who was the CEO of a defense contractor called Navitech, was indicted for making illegal campaign contributions

through a shell company called Society of Young Women's Scientists and Engineers Beautiful Sounds real to me And they also got him for PPP fraud, $12.8 million dollars in dollars in fraudulent loans

I wish I had Everybody who didn't wish they had So they already got this guy for that stuff But then of course he wants to shorten his sentence so he starts to talk and he provides a bunch of communications between himself and a Susan Collins aligned super pack where it's made pretty clear like if you give us $150,000, we'll make sure that the senator knows and will give you guys or get you guys a contract to build some bullshit that the Navy doesn't want in the state. and that happens. And there's some of the communications with the member of this super PAC is like, he's like, hey, we're going to set up a shell company because the defense contractors can't donate

to this stuff. And he's like, oh, very smart. Like, good idea. This guy, Scott Reed. Very smart. It's very smart of you as well to put this in writing, Scott. And then there's Amy Abbott who still works for Susan Collins as her campaign finance director and she's married to Collins's campaign manager.

Back originally, Martin Cow was telling her about, oh, we're going to, we want to donate all this money, but I can't do it all myself. So let's apply some of this and have my dad do the donating or have my wife do the donating, which is illegal. And then Amy Abbott goes, this is perfect. We are so grateful for all the cow support. You can't blame Susan for trusting.

Like there's no honor amongst these criminals these days to just rat her out like that? Fuck this. This is crazy. She is. They are trying to maintain that she had no idea or whatever. When she obviously does, she says, thank you. Right?

She expresses her thanks or gratitude. There's all of the, there's emails between these other people connected to Collins and the criminal. And then there's what he says, and of course he's a criminal. He might make stuff up. He told the FBI that Susan Collins told him personally. You've seen me deliver. After the Super PAC cashed the check from the shell company, someone who worked for that SuperPack,

which again is supposedly not in communications, with the Collins team, asked for a phone number, asked for Martin Cow's phone number, and said Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him. So the communications definitely seem to suggest that Susan Collins knew she was taking bribes. To, again, give Navitech contracts to,

build and I'm not making it up. Bullshit that the Navy didn't want and that they knew they didn't want. They knew they didn't want. Whenever stuff like this happens is always so funny because she's out there being like, well, I didn't know this. How would I? I didn't know. I don't do with it and so on.

And I don't believe you personally, but whatever. If you didn't know, you do know that it happened. And maybe this is like an indicator that there's a problem with like, money in politics and super PACs and how this all goes. And maybe that should be like what your concern is. Maybe this is like a wake up call. Oh my gosh, I can't believe this happened. And I had no idea.

It shouldn't be so easy to do this. We should do something about money in politics. Right. But. No, you're making such a good point. If you were horrified to discover this, because now this has been around for a while, there's been more investigations, yes, dropped by the Trump.

administration, Biden was investigating this, but you've had the opportunity, opportunity to get out ahead of it. And you specifically chose not to. You specifically, you could absolutely frame this as we need to do something about this. If even I can be taken advantage of like this to be. Yeah, exactly. Fooled in this way. We have to do something about it. But you haven't. You've kept your mouth shut. I knew she'd been in office a long time, but I just Googled nearly 30 years, nearly 30 years. And so my question is, how many other things have you done over the course of your 30 years in office? This is the first one, first and only. You know that she kind of knew what was going on because if she didn't, she'd probably be horrified to see what Amy Abbott was communicating.

That Amy Abbott certainly know that lies were happening and malfeasance and illegality was happening. So why haven't you fired her? I guess she's got leverage over you So you can't do that Yeah right It's whenever stuff like this happens It's always just like okay Let's take them at their word

What would be the normal reaction To that scenario that we don't believe But let's say we do What would a Appropriate reaction be To that and that is not what's going on now It rarely is Taking things like this seriously

Just so it doesn't seem You know, like to be fair and balanced and everything, if you go on open secrets and you look at who Martin Cow in his personal capacity has donated to, it's a bunch of Democrats as well. Senators Chris Coons and Dick Durbin and Brian Schatz, Maisie Hirono. Hillary Clinton in 2016, Tulsi Gabbard back when she was a Democrat in the house. Like I said, all of our best. All of our best. Right. He is. So he, you know, the FBI investigation, like the ProPublica piece does not mention any other members of Congress except for the late Lindsey Graham.

But supposedly he was revealing this entire pay to play scheme that there was going to be an investigation into. And Democrats could have very well been ensnared in this as well. Hinted at this. But a new poll came out that shows Susan Collins. pulling about three points ahead of Troy Jackson. And that's interesting. But Cody pointed out before we started recording that this poll was done prior to this.

Yeah, we're not going to see if this has any effect until a while. And this is the first time that it's showing her pulling ahead of him. So there's that. Yeah, like overall, the landscape looks like it will favor Democrats enough for them to take the Senate. That's tough.

Like the Cook Political Report now has one, two, three, seven states as toss-ups, Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas. And we, the Democrats would need to win five of them to get to 52, which is the Federman-proof majority. So it's a very tall order, even in that environment, even with issues. with many of these candidates, right? But the fact that Iowa and Ohio and Texas are on that list, the fact that Kansas has moved from likely R to lean R is a bit stunning,

a sign of how unhappy. We're taking Florida this year. Oh, and also there's another poll that came out today showing Troy Jackson in the lead. That's a UMass, uh, UGOV poll. Polling might not matter or mean anything anymore also. So it feels to us like the polls always miss in one direction. And that's just not true. You're going to focus on the ones that affect you the most.

Right. Like the polls don't affect anything. We just like try to get a sense of what's going on. And of course it clouds the mood in the White House. And in Congress when they see, oh, everyone hates us. Let's just go on vacation. Fuck it. Because that's to avoid impeaching Heggseth, right?

Oh, it was 100. They went. It's like just blatantly to avoid that. They wanted to avoid a impeach Hagseth vote. And so they're like, we're done for the year. Who cares? Just vote for us. We'll give you five grants.

We'll continue the war crimes, okay? You love the war crimes, right? They'll continue. So because of how bleak things look, there is the Atlantic published an article called The Supporters urging Trump to declare marshal. law for the midterms and it's like I would say it's alarming unless you think it through the people around him in the White House are trying to like dissuade him from any of these kinds of ideas.

From doing anything really. They're like if you could just stay in your room and do nothing, that's probably the best course of action. But there are people have his phone number, old friends have his phone number. Tina Peters who he let out of jail or he got let out of jail has. his phone number and this guy Peter Tickton who's an old friend of his from military school has his phone number and has been texting him being like you got to just declare martial law. That's a thing you can do to take over this thing because they're going to cheat, right?

I believe that the people around him are trying to do their best to be the last person in the room so that he doesn't do something absolutely unhinged that makes it even worse because whenever he's left alone for five minutes, maybe that's the time when he spouts off. Yeah, just like everyone, like casually when you leave the room, I heard martial law is pretty beta, right? I don't know. They're talking about how...

What it is, is that this is a man, and presumably all presidents have people in their ears saying, you know, Obama, sir, President Obama. Oh, they've got so many grand viziers, just whispering and whispering. This man is very susceptible to it and to flattery. And they know it. And they know it.

And they know it. And here's the thing. It doesn't matter if it goes over poorly or if the optics are bad. If you catch him in the right mood, he'll do it. He doesn't care. He doesn't give a shit. If it's going to help him hold on to power or create a narrative, you will do it. I don't think that he will actually do it right now.

I think that would be wild. But it's within the realm of possibility that he does. I see no reason why he wouldn't just try. not that it would work like he can say it i'm not sure what would happen that's what i mean like i feel like he will at least just say it or post it like no one'll even know exactly um but i don't know he'll post i hereby declare uh and then you're like well i don't see the military out so i'm just going to go vote and like whatever uh also like i think the uh election conspiracy stuff is not at its height in terms of influence.

Like, obviously there's still people who believe anytime Democrats win it's a, you know, stolen. We saw that in the California primary a few months ago. But he gave this big speech. He gave a big, like, scary primetime speech where he was going to lay out, oh, these elections are fraudulent when I don't win. And, like, nobody cared. Nobody cared. It was not a story.

I forgot until you brought it up just now. Oh yeah. I remember it was on Wednesday night and I was like doing other stuff and I was like, I got to check in and see if this is like the thing. And it was like, oh, this is the same dumb bullshit. He always says. Same thing. Nobody cared.

And we maybe mentioned it the next day on the podcast for like two minutes. Yeah, I feel like that Monday we were like, oh, he might do this thing. And it's probably going to be the thing that he always does, which is to brag and like it's nothing. And then it was. And we mentioned that. And that was that. And so I think he may be a little bit resigned to the idea of like, all right, there'll be Democrats there.

Maybe I'll, maybe, you know, I'll force them to work with me on something to give them something they want and then I can go out, you know. The real move here is in your last two years, work with the Democrats to do something meaningful. You could get Medicare for all done. That's what I mean. Like, do it. I dare you.

Medicare versus 10 Republican senators to vote for your thing. and then you've given people the thing they've wanted for decades. It would be in their best interest to do so because then they could say, I did the one good thing. They're not going to do that. They won't do that. They're not going to do that.

But I dare them to. I dare them to. 40 years, you're sitting around with your grandkids, and they're like, so Trump care is really like the greatest thing that our country's done in your lifetime. You'll be like, yep, Trump care is the best thing ever. And they'll be like, but what about Trump? Wasn't he like this monster that you guys all hate?

Yeah. No, he's the worst president we ever had, totally destroyed. ripped up the fabric of our society, but you got Trump care. Oh, well, we got, listen. Well, yeah. It was at the end of, at the end. Yeah, he was, he lost his mind and then it was like, you know, kind of fun. It was like, uh, sometimes, uh, you know, Copel is making a film. I'm going to go, you know, it's interesting. We got to got to go. It's interesting. We tricked him and it worked. Yeah, it's also just he's, you know, I don't know. The midterms, obviously, uh, he's feeling, you know, a bit trapped and like, you know, I don't know if, you know, if, you know,

depending on how it goes, if it's overwhelming Blue Wave, then they might try to impeach me again. They're going to probably try to impeach Pete Higse. They will. Probably try to impeach Stephen Miller. They're probably going to try to impeach a lot of people that I've surrounded myself with. And he's, you know, driven largely by self-preservation and survival. So, you know, that is going to be going through his mind here, but also it's going through his mind of the election afterwards as well. and we've talked about that a lot.

We don't need to get too much into it of what he can and can't actually do. But he, I just don't see him not trying to do something to not have to not be the president anymore. He has given us, he has provided no evidence that he will allow that to happen. You're talking in January 20, 29. Exactly.

I'm down the line. And this is why like, you know, see what he can kind of get away with for the midterms this time, like float some ideas, maybe say you declare martial law, but don't actually declare martial law, like all the things, whatever, because he's not going to want to go. And again, like, who knows what he can get away with and what he can't. We've talked about it a lot. A lot. But the only evidence we have is that he doesn't want to leave and he will try to not leave. Yeah, we have a small sample size. N equals one, but that one was a pretty stark reminder.

Pretty, pretty good example. And on the other side, there's zero evidence that he will just let it happen. So, I don't know. We wanted to get to the Paramount WBD merger on Monday. We didn't get to. But there's now new news in that world. So we get to now. Yay.

We love new news in that world. Tell me it's nothing to do with Elon Musk. Please, God, tell me it's nothing to do with. Elon Musk, please, please, please. I know, it feels like we got a little break from him, right? Oh, no, you're telling me it does have something to do with Elon Musk. He's not going to inject himself into our

culture even more than he already has. So a bunch of the state attorneys general that were suing to stop the Paramount WBD merger, they announced a settlement for a couple different reasons Gavin Newsom inserted himself in and made

Attorney General of California Rob Bonta Cave a little little bit and uh a little bit well cave in cave entirely in that like gruesome newsome out again yeah you could you could lose this case it could be this whole debacle paramount could leave they'd threatened to leave and take all their jobs and take the studio that what lift the whole studio at melrose and gower and take it no yeah turn into it a data center yeah oh god so it'll be even worse it's a nice beautiful uh oh yeah historic film studio it's worse now with posters of like a decade old tv shows, whatever.

Yeah, they're really not updating that. But the concessions, if you want to call out that, are that they are going to agree to create a five-member independent board overseeing editorial standards at CBS News and CNN. And the board has to be bipartisan, but they'll also be selected by Paramount. So, no one's feeling great. I don't feel skeptical. Yeah, that doesn't reassure me, especially like bipartisan. It's not even mean

It's going to be people that have Almost the exact same opinion Conservatives like Rossed out that And Democrats like Barry Weiss That's the thing Yeah exactly That's how they frame it But also Lacey as Monastert

What do you strive for is Nonpartisan Not bipartisan Well we want the we want the wokes And we want the anti-wokes No no no no no no no You want people that don't like I will say

Look this sucks This isn't good The threat of Paramount leaving California and us losing more production jobs to other states is a big deal. I do think that would have had seismic effects on Los Angeles and the entertainment industry based out of Hollywood as well as California in general. And I'm playing devil's advocate here that I do acknowledge that that is something to consider. and I don't. The elections in California are going to go the way they go. But one of the big complaints from the conservatives in California is like every rich

company, all the rich people are going to leave. They're going to go to other states. And I call bullshit on that in general because I think when people leave California that have the money to spend and want to be in California, they're going to come back to to California because it's great in California in lots of ways. It is expensive. Yes. Yeah, it's all you're reversing too.

And everyone was going to leave New York. People didn't leave New York. People leave and come back. They come back. They come back. They like it here. But industry is leaving. And what's been going on in Hollywood over the last very long period of time is undeniable. So that is a consideration. But this fucking sucks. And it will have its own seismic amount of layoffs. And it will absolutely be affecting people in the industry regardless. I think it might be worth it. to get what I assume will be the non-woke Odyssey coming at us. The AI's, it'll be ready in a couple months, right?

So yeah, let me get to the Musk of this. Because of the fucking other part of this stupid fucking story. Semaphore reported this week that Paramount may seek out Elon Musk to become an equity investor in the company. There's already a bunch of equity investors, including foreign investment, about how, Half of the companies owned by foreign investors with more than 38% owned by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. So, you know, let's get Musk in there. Yes, let's include Musk.

I don't know what CNN will be able to cover anymore. They're like, okay, so be nice to the Saudis and Elon. They're, you know, got to be good. But independent and be nice to CBS News, their bullshit story. And, yeah, reportedly the mood inside CNN is, quote, like a funeral. But maybe Elon won't get involved. Maybe he'll be like,

maybe he'll just give the money and he won't want to be involved in the culture. Maybe he will want to have nothing to do with the worldwide culture that he so desperately obviously wants to be a part of and be considered a part of.

Maybe he'll be really hands off. In fair, I'm, you know, I'm scrolling through what the guy's talking about and it's mostly how all the compute is going to be in space. All the compute's going to be in space. It's going to be in space. We're going to build all the data centers in space to dwarf the data centers we have here.

At scale, we will simply just have so many data centers in space. We will block out those. At scale. He loves saying at scale. At scale, yeah. He's, let's see, he's retweeting Chris Rufo talking about California's shadow welfare system for illegal aliens.

You know, so maybe it's not at the forefront of his mind to, like, make the new mission impossible. No, but he certainly wants his name to be in the mix. He does want to play Blade Runner and the new Blade Runner. I think he wants to be. And he would love to have that control. He would love to have the ability to put pressure on the content that's being made. His whole fucking problem. He's got a lot of problems, actually.

but his whole like crusade is based off of this idea that there's a woke mind virus infecting everybody and the way one of the major ways that the woke mind virus is infecting everybody is through the culture and through movies and woke hollywood and social media which is why he bought twitter he bought twitter because of the woke mind virus infecting everybody his whole thing is the woke mind virus is infecting everybody and what is the woke mind virus some fucking like it's not tangible. It's just this idea that you can infect people with ideas and how do you do that? Well, through propaganda, through owning the social media website and you can push your own ideas or from popular films and inserting yourself on those, the idea that he wouldn't want to be involved in any way is absurd, which maybe is a reason why they won't actually accept his money, maybe, if he has certain demands or whatever, but the idea that he wouldn't want to be, have, have

involved in the anti-woke movement to eradicate the woke mind virus is I find it hard to believe hard to believe hard to believe hard to believe hard to believe I agree with you completely I think they've also committed to release 30 films and theaters 30 films and theaters they said allegedly okay okay I think Tom Cruise got that concession you like if anyone and don't worry we will not pay the people who made the movie more no god why would we do that when it makes that all that money Okay, well, they were earlier this week floating the idea and it was everywhere that they were going to announce a ban of exports on U.S. diesel for 90 days. So things are going great. Things are going great. You know, presumably the thought being like, that will make people happy. That means we'll bring costs down domestically. But that's so blatantly wrong. even for somebody like me

that doesn't understand the ins and outs of big diesel know that it's not that simple and that would put immense pressure on the oil industry and on all of us we would be absorbing the costs

prices would skyrocket even more even if prices wouldn't be affected domestically just the reality is that we have a global energy crisis of this man's making and already exports.

Europe is feeling this so hard, and we are one of the major diesel exporter in the world. And so this would only exacerbate it. And we are a global economy. And if other countries are failing and struggling, then that does affect us. So it's just pretty basic reasoning here. Where I wanted to bring up,

that feels so frustrating as we're talking about this fuel crisis is that no one's talking about green energy. No one is talking about the ways that we can make, insulate America from these shocks in the future by alternative energy sources. And it's so frustrating as this drags on for months and months and months. And we're all hyper-focused on diesel and gas and oil and we're not having the conversation that's just right there, right there in front of us, which is we've got these technologies available to us.

And we should be active, yeah, we should be actively working towards a future where we are building up those. Even the, yeah, we decided not to do that. No one's talking about it. claimed that it was an important issue. You would no longer care about that. They're like, oh, we should just like use oil.

It's right there. speaking of Elon Musk, he's completely changed his position on it. In great timing, by the way, for him to flip on that and be proven wrong once again like he is constantly about everything. Cody, I want to put you on Blast specifically for him. Oh, gosh. Okay. Everybody, when I first met Cody, when I first met Cody, he promised me that the future was bright. He promised me.

I thought it was. That someday in the near future, our streets would be paved with solar panels that create, absorb energy and it made so perfect sense. Yeah, they can be. He's like, isn't it magical, Katie? Yeah.

Do you see this future? Can't you see that we're on the precipice of? It can still happen. This is great. You don't have to worry about the world burning. We are so close to this reality. Well, Cody, I've known you for like 14 years now. And?

Where's my paved streets? with solar panels. There've been some that I think didn't work out. The early 2010's vibes were very different about the future of humanity. Technology and science is amazing. There's so many amazing things we can do. Cody, you really got my hopes up for me. I got my own hopes up.

What a bunch of cool ideas that would be if we tried to do them. I know. I'm not putting you on blast. We're positivity is important. There's so many possibilities out there. so many wonderful, brilliant people who care about this beautiful planet that we live on. And there's so many opportunities to push us forward and to bring us all together. And just because I was stupid in thinking that it was going to happen soon doesn't mean it's not on the horizon.

We didn't know each other, but we were all here in L.A. at that time, and I'm always hoping something will jog my memory be like, I heard that conversation. I was standing next to you at the thirsty crow. We were right there. We could have said hi. At the surly goat, I was outside. I remember I was like, those two idiots talking about how the world's going to be good.

Did you hear those more? I had something to add to that conversation. All right, everybody. Have a great weekend. Subscribe, like, share. Take care of yourselves. Get outside. I'd touch some grass. No.

Or, I mean, breathe some air outside. Be some air. You don't have to literally touch grass. But you can't if you want. Absolutely, unless you've got some sort of weird grass allergy. Then I would recommend touching something else sand. Maybe you should touch some sand. Touch some dirt.

Yeah, go pound sand, everybody. Go pound sand, kick rocks. Eat some dirt. Eat some dirt. All right Get outside and go fuck yourself everybody That's such a good New sign off

Anyway see you next week Get outside and go fuck yourself All right Also we love you very much Much The moment a body is found The clock starts ticking 48 hours before the trail

Goes cold From A&E and Crime House This is the official podcast From the famous true crime series The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears.

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