Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele are joined by Eli Lake from The Free Press to talk about Trump's State of the Union address and Iran.

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

On todays episode of Suspension of the Rules, Isaac, Ari and Kmele are joined by Eli Lake, columnist at The Free Press as well as the host of the Breaking History podcast. They chat about President Trump's State of the Union address and Iran. The boys then go on to talk more about the winter olympics and a couple race controversies that happened this week. Last but not least, a very solid grievance section. It's a good one!Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by: Isaac Saul and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, Eli Lake joins the show to talk about State of the Union and Iran. We get into the Olympics and then we talk about a pair of race controversies from this week. And of course, our grievances section. It's a good one. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast, a place where typically there's just, I guess, I don't know, three idiots sitting around in a circle, talking about politics, trying to find some sort of reasonable. middle ground in the insanity. And today we're joined by a special guest and a friend of the pod. Eli Lake, he is a columnist at the free press.

Eli, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. And also the host of Breaking History, which will have season two coming up. Dude, I'm excited to dig in. Okay, first of all, well, Ari, Camille, you're here every week. So I don't really give a shit about you guys. Thank you.

I want to jump right into the State of the Union stuff. I reached out through Camille to you to bring you on the show, Eli, because you've never been more wrong about anything than this. You wrote that Donald Trump's State of the Union address. I think you were, I'm a fan, and I thought, Eli, what is going on? So I'm excited to chat with you about it. I wrote a column today for Tangle, and we did a little podcast earlier today where I basically talked about Donald Trump's State of the Union

being one of the most morbid and depressing things I've ever listened to from a president. And you wrote a comment on the Free Pest saying that you found much of the state of the union kind of uplifting or inspiring in certain ways. I want to bring you to defend your case. Okay, fair enough. Let's start with...

Tell me what you thought about the city of the Union in your terms. I thought that he was trying... Basically, I think what he was looking, I think it was, I don't think Democrats watch it. I think this is for his base. It's for his voters who want to see the Trump show. And Trump has, you know, the polling tells us that he's down from a year ago where he had about a 50% approval rating this time last year.

And now he's, and this is the average of the polls, about 42%. So I think what he was trying to do was remind his voters and his coalition why they voted for him the first time and basically do what he does very well, which is to, he's like the master showman and salesman. And I think what he's trying to say is, listen, I mean, here he starts off the speech. He ticks off, he says it's a new golden age. There's, you know, all these construction jobs.

We're stopping the fentanyl. Murder rate is declined. It's the highest rate. since we've started collecting the statistics and just is trying to sort of make the case that America is in a kind of renaissance despite a lot of the economic concerns that I think a lot of Americans, especially his voters, might have.

But also, you've got to look at this as like the Epstein thing has totally blown up in this administration's face. And that is one issue where his political opposition is as concerned about it as his base. It's like, you know, the Trump voters were super into the Epstein stuff. They were expecting a kind of transparency. It finally has come out.

And now there's this story, which I don't think helps them where, you know, references to people who might have accused him were removed. And then finally, you know, there is, I think, larger concerns about he's saying that inflation is down, economy's in a really good place, we're almost at full employment. Some of that is true. The stock market certainly doing very well. there's still is a lot of anxiety about prices. So what I saw was, especially in that first half, we're in the new golden age. And then, you know, when I say feel good, what I mean is that he brings out the men's hockey team, the men's Olympic hockey team. And he gives them, you know, he gives the medal of freedom.

He acknowledges, admittedly, you know, people who were involved in horrific violent things, such as the guy who is recovering after being shot in the head. from the National Guard, who was in Washington, D.C. But these are, like, good stories are like the woman that he highlighted in the audience, who was the first person to use the Trump R.X site to buy IVF treatment. And he says things like, you know, I think you're going to be a great mom. And that was what I was kind of getting at. Or, like, you know, these are coded in the – this is all for the Magibati's. Or like the story of the D-Transitioner, who at one point,

you know, her parents were being denied access because of incredibly left-wing judge in Maryland. He tells that story. Now she's going to Liberty University and she's back to being a woman. I would count that in the world of, you know, positive, feel-good elements, hence the headline. Now, I grant that when he then makes a pivot

and puts the Democrats a bit on the spot by asking everybody to stand up and he's talking about illegal immigration and he's describing the crimes of illegal immigrants against Americans. He had that story of that woman, Delilah, the girl Delilah, who was almost killed in a car accident. That is a gruesome. I agree with you.

That is a gruesome story. But the punchline or the end of the story is that she survived. And now she and her father are great people and they're going to make it. But I think what he was trying to do with that is trying to remind everybody. He's like, this is why you voted for me. Here, I'm the normal guy. on these 80-20 issues. I think most Americans don't think

that illegal immigrants should have be granted commercial driver's license. I think most Americans would agree with him about the extreme kind of gender ideology stuff. And so that's what he was trying to do. So I see your point that

there was an element of kind of doom and gloom, but I think it was a much different kind of speech than like the first inaugural address he gave in 2017 or, you know, some of the things he was describing, you know, when he was running against Biden. Very interesting. I mean, I, yeah, I think it's, I think it's totally fair and reasonable. The IVF stuff, for one, I was, that was a genuinely moving moment.

And like, I thought you got a little look into the Trump warmth with that. You know, you're going to be a great mom. And it's sort of just a glimpse into the retail politician that he can be when he's kind of in that lane. And I really loved a lot of the honoring of, you know, the hockey team and the soldiers and the heroes. The 100-year-old veteran who's still alive from World War. Yeah, and the smile he had on his face.

It was like this. You know, I felt myself getting a little choked up in that moment. And the last few minutes of the speech were beautiful. It was like this beautiful rhetorical flourish about the founding of America and, you know, conquering the Wild West and taming the badlands. And, you know, it was awesome. Um, I wish a little, if a little cliche. It's a little cliche, sure, but like I'm a, you know, cliche patriot.

So that, that kind of gets, flux at my heartstrings. Um, but so much of the middle band of it just struck me as like, I mean, like, weirdly sort of horrific and like the blood's running down the aisle and his leg is in pieces. And then there was this moment where he was, um, describing the Ukrainian refugee. who is killed in Charlotte, you know, being stabbed in the neck. And they're panning to her mother who's, like, weeping. And he's describing the terror on her face as she breathes her last breath. And I was like, oh, my God, this is awful. Like, I don't feel good about anything right now.

It felt very, those parts felt so strong and, I don't know, particularly morbid to me. Where I was like, if you're a president trying to convince everybody that things are going great in the country, the proportion of the speech that was occupied by like blood, violence, war, crime, it just felt off. And, you know, it didn't like offend my sensibilities. I just found it kind of like a bizarre way to approach or frame so many of the issues. In a speech that I agree with you, it feels like politically he needed to move the needle a little bit right now. Like he's there, he's resting back the narrative clear. So I don't know. Ari Camille, I mean, I haven't heard from either of you on this at all.

I wrote this piece today and we haven't really talked about it. I'd be curious to bring you guys in here. Maybe you can referee the opposite sides Eli and I find ourselves on. I don't know if you have particularly strong opinions or not. But I'm curious what you guys think. Yeah, I mean, we started with a fairly similar viewpoint on this where I think we're noticing similar things of there's the point where he said somebody was shot in the head and then added violently shot in the head, which was an interesting ad to make sure that everyone understood

getting shot in the head is violent. But it was like, I think Eli, the thing that you're saying is I'm hearing stories that have these outcomes that are so triumphant. And I think... Yeah, redemption. But it's redemption from something. And I think it's like the middle band

is part, right? I think we had an opener and we had a closer and then in the middle, I think we had a lot of stories that were in the structure of, of a terrible thing was happening outside in the wild world, this person was a victim of that, whether it's gender ideology, whether it's illegal immigration, whether it's violence or gunfire in Venezuela,

what have you. And that person or Canadian forward shooting 46 shots at the goalie, like somebody was a victim of something terrible. But that person persevered and they're here today, and thanks to the magnanimity of the administration, we're going to honor them. And it felt like that was the one too and that you can hear both,

we're going to put the spotlight on people that we think deserve the attention, but also, thank God we are here to do that because without us, the dangers abound. And I think listening to the speech, the things that I think Isaac and I were hearing that were similar were the dangers abounding rather than, thanks to the administration,

everybody's safer. it was more, if not for the administration, nobody would be safe. And I feel like that maybe was a little bit of a difference in our reason. You know, I think I account for that in the piece. I mean, I say in the end of my first graph, you know, exploiting the popular positions of his democratic opponents with a mix of scowls and smiles, meaning, you know, there was a there. And also I point out, usually state of the union's speeches historically have kind of been above the partisan fray. And as I think my line was like, you know, but Trump is an insult comic in his bones.

And so he couldn't help himself. So when he starts bringing up like the Somalia thing and talking about how Democrats like, you know, they love illegal immigrants and aliens and I'm going to save you. Like that is always going to be there with Trump. What was different was that I think there was this effort to just say, hey, I'm doing a great job. We're in a golden age, you know, rah, rah, rah.

I actually think a lot of, your characterization is fair. And I'm curious because, as you mentioned, there is this nuance in your piece and you do add a lot of that context. It's just in some respects, it's a matter of what you foreground. Watching the speech,

the first thing that came to mind at the conclusion of it. And that's a weird way to phrase that was, God, that was a lot of lying. A lot of lying in many instances about things that you actually don't have to lie about and don't require you to lie. Where were the lies that you thought?

Well, there was a number of times. I agree with you. There were there was, yeah. There are so many. But, but, but in particular, like in some of these optimistic moments, like the Ukrainian woman, um, whose death and murder actually was just described in this really hideous way, he also manages to slip in this assertion that she was killed by someone who was an illegal immigrant. And that is factually.

No, no, he didn't say that. No, he didn't say she was in a, she was killed by it. I don't think it was an illegal. I think it was an illegal. I think it was an illegal. arrested a bunch of times and was out on no cash bail. She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America, came in through open borders, is what he said.

And again, it's like, it's perhaps subtle. I thought he was making the point that he had been arrested many times and had been let out of jail. I think you hear that at first and then it's easy to like have the implication of letting through. Yes. It's like, oh, wait. Well, he says came in through open. I mean, he says, which is just wrong.

And it could be a mistake, except I saw it in the transcript from the AP. I haven't actually looked at the one issued by the White House, but there were actually a couple of instances like this where there's a kind of directionally, a politically convenient direction in which all of these errors happen. And I'm being generous in describing them as errors. In fact, the young girl, the Liberty University girl,

I believe her first name is Sage. Yes. Even that story has like some real complicating details that the White House conveniently obscures or ignores in the fact that it's not actually clear that the parents ever really had an opportunity to kind of register their concern about this thing. Were the parents really being kind of kept away from her? The characterization of it that was presented in the state of the union seems at a minimum

at variance with certain important facts. And I just saw the president making those kinds of particular turns. in so many instances, whether it was essentially, what was that moment he had where he's talking about the prescription drug website? And he says, 300%, 400%, and no one will repeal it because prices would go up 700%, 800%, what does that even mean? Yeah, well, that's, you know, if you like your doctor, you can keep him. I mean, I agree with you. I mean, this is what, when it comes to the price of medicine, like, sure, every president has had a bunch of, you know, but I agree with that.

Yeah. And to be fair, you know, in every state of the union, there is this kind of self-aggrandizing thing and the rather uncomfortable spectacle of people being brought in as props and the current president of the United States talking about their achievements, their heroism, their suffering, and essentially trying to kind of transmute some piece of it onto themselves. It's just that the way that Donald Trump went about doing it in this particular speech was the volume, the intensity, the kind of crassness of it is what really stood out to me. And I agree with you, like for the MAGA base,

a lot of this will appeal to them, including the insult comic stuff, which, I mean, from a political, kind of strategic standpoint, the fact that the president could simultaneously be insulting you in one moment, and in the very next moment, dare you not to stand and applaud

for what he's about to say. Tactically, that's kind of brilliant. Yeah, I mean, but like, I agree with you, but like there's an easy thing for the Democrats to do, which is to sort of say, yeah, of course I'll stand up for that. Nobody thinks that we should prioritize illegal aliens over U.S. citizens. That's a ridiculous, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's an unfair, I agree with you that that's like an unfair characterization of the Democrats, but they could easily save themselves by simply saying, yeah, I agree with that. And I've seen that. I totally agree.

Right. Like, it's not that hard. And here, I'll just say another thing about Trump and the, and I did a piece right before he was elected in which it was actually a podcast I did that was the time for honestly, but it's part of breaking history now. But he is somebody who, his medium is bullshit. And bullshit is different than lying. Lying, the liar has to have some, this is the formulation of the late philosopher Heron, Frankfurt, but the liar has to at least have some kind of nod. what is true because he's deceiving you and trying to tell you something that isn't true. The bullshitter kind of paints a panorama. Some of it might be true. Some of it might not be true. And that is, my theory on Trump is that he's one of the greatest bullshitters in the history of America.

But more importantly, bullshit is like a really important thing in America as culturally. We see it like advertising runs on bullshit. the incredible popularity of things like wrestling, which is bullshit, the sort of, you know, if you go back, somebody like P.T. Barnum is a 19th century version of Donald Trump. And that is like there is a certain, something about us as Americans, it's not just that we have a tolerance that we don't, nobody likes a liar, but we have a soft spot for bullshitters. And certainly like every president bullshits, but like Trump is better at it, I think then even our other great bullshit or presidents like Bill Clinton.

Anyone mentions used car salesman? I just want to say that my dad was a used car salesman. I love him. So don't make this bad you. He also sold my mother a lemon and that is how they met. She just kept coming back to the dealership and eventually he was able to seduce her. So you're a little seduced by the story. That's a great story.

Yeah. Look, I will accept it. Trump does a lot of bullshitting. I think that is not completely unreasonable distinction to make. I just think it actually matters what you're bullshitting about. And again, the volume of intensity and the crassness and the cravenness of it. And I think you cross that threshold a lot. Right.

Yeah. Right. Bullshitting about war in peace. Bullshitting about like, you know, an opportunity to get in on a timeshare. Not great, but, you know. A little bit different than like that's like a big city. Wars ended, for instance. That's like a common thing for people to latch on to.

but yeah, we'll drop it there, Isaac. I know you've got something on the chamber. No, I mean, it's actually a good transition for what I wanted to tee up, which, Eli, towards the end of your piece, you wrote a little bit about some of Trump's comments with regards to Iran and where things stand there, which obviously we have you here. This is something you write about a ton.

This is in your strike zone. There's all these news reports swirling, about what might be coming in the next few weeks and what options the president's weighing. And so I feel a bit like I'd be remiss not to ask you about what you're seeing right now, what you're hearing from your sources, how you're kind of viewing the playing field.

Just to pull the excerpt of what you had in this free press article about the State of the Union, which I do recommend, despite disagreeing with the headline and some of what you wrote, he said, indeed, his being Trump's message on Iran was partly incoherent. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon, Trump said. And yet Iran's foreign minister on Tuesday literally promised Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.

It's possible that Trump flubbed this line. His envoy, Steve Whitkoff, said this week that Iran cannot continue to enrich uranium. All of this is reminiscent of Trump's approach to Iran in the lead up to the last June's 12-day war. So where do you think the negotiations are right now? And how, how? How likely do you suppose that some sort of kinetic action, which is like the new buzzword in war games these days, is actually going to happen in the next few weeks? I mean, what's your view on the state of things? I mean, I hate predicting at this point. I do think it's significant that there are two aircraft carrier groups in the Persian Gulf and that it's just an enormous amount of military hardware that has been sent to the Middle East, which... appears to be expressly for the purpose of bombing the crap out of Iran.

So in that respect, you know, I would rather like, it's sort of like, you know, watch the ball, not the man, you know, kind of thing. Like, he's clearly preparing for a massive military strike, at least it appears. But my concern, as somebody who would very much like to see the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran and replace with something better. I worry that this starts with Trump promising that help is on the way and urging Iranians to come into the streets and take over their institutions. Now, that was a huge break from U.S. foreign policy going back to 79.

And I know from my own reporting that he didn't clear that statement with you know, the State Department, the CIA, and the Defense Department, it was just like that, you know, Trump tweets, when you're the president and you post things on truth social, they matter. So what he didn't account for was that the Iranians don't have much of a nuclear program right now, but they have a lot of ballistic missiles that they've been replenishing. And the mass of missile defense is such that it costs a lot more to build the interceptors and the anti-missile systems

than it does to build the missiles. So the cupboard was largely bare after the 12-day war in June and the amount of anti-missile defense that we sold and before that gave to the Ukrainians. So in that respect, we just have to do something about our supply lines because we haven't made enough of them. And that's really where I think he got into some trouble

because he made a threat. Then the Iranians, you know, he said 32,000. I don't think we have an exact number, but I think it's in the low tens of thousands, you know, in an absolutely brutal crackdown. And now he's talking about the Kassas Belli being their nuclear program, which I have no doubt that there is still some nuclear material, but it's a secondary issue because their main facilities

where they were enriching uranium were destroyed. in the 12-day war. So I don't like this game that's being played where, okay, I thought it was about, you know, protecting the Iranian people and helping them get rid of Ayatollah Ali Qamenei. And now it's about, well, we could make a deal if they promised not to ever develop a nuclear weapon. The Iranians have been saying,

ever since they built their industrial-sized nuclear program, whose only reason why you would have this much is to build a nuclear weapon, considering that they are also one of the most oil-rich nations in the world, used to build a nuclear weapon, but they've been saying, oh, there's a fatwa, and we have a religious edict that says, we'll never do it, because we think nuclear weapons are bad,

and that is a lie that the Iranian regime has been telling now for almost 30 years. So I found that one part of it, like, very disturbing. But on the other hand, I also think it's like Trump's not a details guy, and I could totally see, you know, that the actual negotiations, I mean, we know that Whitkoff said no enrichment, ballistic missiles, no longer support for your terror. If Iran did all of the things that we are to understand the U.S. is asking in these negotiations,

they would no longer, you know, that would almost be like regime change itself because it's so much in their nature to do that. So I kind of think at this point that there probably will be something but what I'm worried about is that, you know, I hope he does not get seduced by kind of a version of like a bunch of Iranian promises and they sort of get off the hook. But on the other hand, I also think that

as somebody who's been a student of nonviolent kind of people power, that there still is a, I still think that they are facing what's known as a legitimation crisis in Iran. I still think that, you know, if you can imagine like a dinner table of, you know, an IRGC commander that, you know, his daughter, his wife, you know, his brother

are probably all like, you know, this is an absolute, you know, terrible crime that you've just committed and have been committing. You've run this country into the ground. And I do so I think that there are still strategies with even if no military strike comms for there to be

regime change. And that's really what I want to focus. That's what I hope, you know, happens. And I just think that, you know, ultimately it's up to the Iranian people. but we can support them through sort of things like solidarity. Is there like a steelman argument? I mean, for Trump to carry out these strikes that you could maybe articulate for us? I mean, what's like a best case scenario if we were actually to engage in this fashion

with the explicit intent of overthrowing the regime? How does that go down in a way where we come out on the other side of it better than where we are now. Well, if we're being honest, like, if it's just an air war, you know, air strikes alone is no guarantee. But given the fact that there are still, despite the lethality of the crackdown last month, there are still demonstrations marking the 40th day anniversary of some of the dead, which is an important kind of milestone in the Shia faith. And so there's still demonstrations against the regime. So given all that,

if you had dramatic strikes and you killed the Supreme Leader and you killed, like, similar to what Israel was accomplished with the military command in the 12-day war, like they managed to take out in the first day most of their top generals, if you did something like that,

you could see a dynamic where people would be emboldened and then the people remaining would be looking around and thinking, okay, how do I get out of this terrible situation. I don't want to be on the kill list. And I think that the capabilities like that exist where it would be possible to get Khamene and others. This goes back to the 12-day war from June. But if you remember, at one point, like Trump, I think put it in the truth.

Social, I may have said it, and we know where you are. And that's a, Trump has said that also the Taliban leaders in the past, too. That's not a joke. I mean, we, the Israelis have kind of proven that they have the capability to do very targeted strikes against regime leaders. So if you did that, the people saw then that kind of, you know, then there was motivation. And then you created among the rest of the people who remained a scramble to try to survive. And then the United States, probably through the CIA, would sort of make themselves available and say, all right, well, here's an exit path for you. You can leave the country.

Maybe you can be part of this new transition, but you have to promise this, this, and this. that's kind of how you do it. But there's no guarantee of that. The only guarantee to get rid of the regime entirely would be to have an invasion and nobody wants that, including me, you know, who was pretty hawkish on this question. So it would be more like, you know, you would be creating a more of an advantage to do it. But I think it would also sort of send an important message to every other, you know, dirtbag tyrant that hates America that, you know, you're not, it's not business as usual anymore. And that we can eliminate your leadership as we did in Venezuela without invading your country,

which Americans really don't like doing. So that's how I would put it. All right, Eli Lake, that concludes our first inaugural edition of Three Jews and Camille Foster a new podcast coming out this fall. Eli is the host of Breaking History, a columnist of the free press. Eli, thanks for coming on. Thank you. You know, we sent an antagonistic invitation to bring you here. It was great to have you on the show and we should do it again soon. I'm always happy to rough it up with you guys.

It's always been. Okay. See you later, brother. All right. Thank you. We'll be right back after this quick break. I think I should at least somewhat correct the record. I mean, I grew up as seven...

After the manly... No, I just grew up Seventh-day Adventist. So we're all Sabbath keepers here. At some point we have been. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm a pretty secular person. I'm a Jew and name and appearance and history and culture only. We don't let Seventh-day Adventist culturally appropriate Judaism, Camille.

No thanks. Haven't we being repressed enough? Yeah. No, I appreciate the clarification. Awesome to have Eli on. We were kind of busting his balls. I tweeted a screenshot of his show. show, or of his, the headline, the free press ran with his article and said something snarky

about how wrong he was. So I'm super grateful that he would come on under those conditions. All right. I want to move off the state of the union and Iran stuff for a minute. We have to close the door on some of the Olympic happenings. Ari, this is sort of been your, you've picked this up as like your wheelhouse, your, you're, it's now my name. Maybe you want to set the table for us. I will start, I guess, the lob I'll throw to you is we've been sort of discussing this idea that it feels like the Olympics kind of brought us together a little bit, like brought the country together. We got some pushback on that from Audrey during the editing process of today's newsletter. And there was all this hockey stuff with the joke about the women's hockey team.

Well, there was this. And the state of the union last night. Yeah. Yeah, but I think the state of the union stuff was received well. I don't think, who is upset about the men's team coming? The women's team. The New York Times, a lot of the major media outlets. Yeah.

We'll talk about it on Friday, but the gist of it is the appearance, whether or not this is the case or not, but the at least reasonable appearance of making a joke of women's sports. and whether or not we should be extolling the values of all of our champions. Oh, I think Trump made it more than one team. I think Trump made a joke about women's sports for sure. I just also think he tried to write the record. I mean, he invited them to the state of the union. They declined citing prior commitments, which to me is clearly an optics play.

You don't get like invited. You're not a gold medal winning team. And like, oh, we can't get back. It's like he's going to send, you know, Marine One to come pick you guys up. You can make it if you want to make it. He did say they're still coming to the White House. And yeah, he said they're going to be accepted the invitation of the White House.

We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. You know, I, maybe it's just my like inherent misogyny that exists in my bones. Yeah, we'll do it now. I just like, I think the joke was in bad taste. thought the whole scene there with Cash Patel and, you know, the FBI directors like spraying the team with Shant. It's just clownish stuff. But I don't hold the, yeah, look, I, I, I, I just

want to be clear here, I've been seeing a lot of the players, NHL hockey, these kids, I'm not kids, whatever, they're in their early 20s, a lot of them. Sure. Like the Jack Hughes guys, getting dragged across the coals, raked across the coals, for a joke. that Trump made and they laughed at. Some of them laughed at, not even all. I mean, Trump said a lot of stuff on the call where there was like uproarious laughter in the locker room. And when he made the comment about,

oh, I'm going to have to invite the women's team to the White House now, whatever. It was kind of, it wasn't like a hit. Like, it was a little, if you watch the video, it's like half of them are kind of laughing. The other ones are sort of looking around. And like in that scenario, these guys are, I mean, they just won a gold medal.

they're on tilt, clearly. They're boozing, they're drinking. They're already like beers, deep, champains everywhere. The president of the United States is on the phone. I'm not, I don't expect Jack Hughes to be like, Mr. President, we don't appreciate that joke. That's not very funny. Like, it's just, I'm sorry.

That's just, like, not a realistic expectation for these 20-year-old dudes who are being thrust into, like, the biggest possible spotlight when a week ago, you know, very few Americans outside of, like, huge hockey fans really knew who any of them were. So I don't know. I just don't like, if you're mad at the president, I say, yeah, bad joke, bad taste. He shouldn't have said it. Again, the whole scene, clownish behavior, a little bit embarrassing. But I don't hold like the, I don't think it's a

reasonable expectation to think that the players on the USA men's hockey team should have interjected there and like course corrected the president to be more politically correct with his joke. You know, never mind the fact that like these guys are all from like the backwoods of Michigan probably. And like, yeah, I'm sure it's like the joke probably landed for some of them. They're not like the most liberal, progressive minded crowd on the hockey team. I'm assuming. The folks at Box and the New York Times specifically were a little more upset about

or at least flagging the fact that they attended the state of the union at all and essentially saying, like, you just, I think the New York Times headline was something like, they won the gold and then they lost the room, specifically suggesting that to show up at all with this particular president in this particular moment is uniquely political, and they ought to have known that this is in a normal time. So that is a particular point of view, and you're likely to see it from certain elite publications,

and you're likely to see that criticism from people on the left. the people on the right are totally fine with it, obviously. And I think a lot of other people in the middle, and even people on the left, are probably generally fine with it. So I think it is a minority position, but it's out there. I say it's a little weird for me, because I've been following the PWHL, I think, since it started,

when I hear people get upset about the hockey thing. I'm like, that's my lane. I can talk about hockey. But I wonder how. many people actually care about legitimately. I think the thing that we care about, kind of transparently, is whether or not you are chummy with a guy you don't like. It's more Trump hate than it is, I think, love for women's sports for most people.

I've talked to people in my life about this who I respect and want to make sure I'm representing the furor of this, for your fervor of this correctly. but um for people who are all right all right for people who are like

really upset about it um like is it really the um the joke itself or is it the joker? Is it the subject of the joke or is it

everything surrounding it? Like what is Hillary Knights in Jersey number? Who scored the game winning goal for the team USA? Who is top of the table on the PWHL. Like, what position does Marie-Frily-Lond play?

Why did the U.S. beat them by five without her? Like, these are things that if you really care about the game, probably have opinions on. I can't answer a single one of those questions. That's the thing. And that's why, like, I'm sitting here, like, we're talking about hockey and we're thinking about the ramifications politically of the sport that I really just don't think most people care about.

The thing that they care about is whether or not the president that people either do or don't like is extolling the values that they do or do not have. And a lot of people have the value of, like, equality of access, as well as the willingness of us to celebrate our female athletes. And there's the appearance that, like, for half the country, that the person who they do not like at the top is not doing the thing that they wanted to do. Whereas it would have been very, very easy to do that. If the women for the U.S. Olympic team were their own country,

I think they would have finished fourth in medals. They are exceptionally talented. And we would not have been anywhere near where we were as a country on the table without the female athletes. And I think most of the stories that we had in the Olympics that were uplifting were female athletes. Again, we were talking about Alyssa Liu before that, like the exact opposite of this story, somebody who everybody rallied around because of the joy that she clearly competed with. and the brilliance, the obvious brilliance of her performance, the story, the redemption arc, the sort of anti-fragile Russian character that she cut on the ice, was something everybody loved.

But, like, you know, at the end of the Olympics, we get Michaela Schiffer and Lindsay Vaughan coming into it was an interesting story. Alyssa Liu was an interesting story. And then we're talking about Jack Hughes. And I think I can understand why, if you care about women's sports, you're like, what the fuck does happen? This was our show. I think I get that.

Can I ask a question? I don't even know that this, I mean, this isn't really what we were expecting to get into, but maybe I'm just putting something on the table somewhat uncomfortably for me. And then we'll come back to it later. But I think it's fascinating that for conservative, they believe they've been defending women's sports for a while now.

That's kind of their issue. Yeah, this is an interesting. They've been talking about trans women in women's sports and insisting that this is unacceptable. And ironically, I think you're correct, even there amongst the conservatives, a lot of them couldn't name anyone who plays in the WNBA, apart from Caitlin Clark, perhaps, but they shouldn't know. We don't know her number.

Probably don't know what team she plays for. And in that respect, I'm describing myself. But I also think it's interesting that at the Olympics, I didn't watch much of it, but to the extent I got excited about something, it was the men's sports, in particular men's hockey. That's the thing that got me super animated. And I agree. I mean, I believe you. These are elite athletes who are competing in the Olympics.

But whether it's basketball or soccer, and perhaps soccer is an exception here, or hockey, the men's sports tends to get a lot more interest in general, both in the Olympics and beyond. And I'm just kind of curious about your take on that, Ari. Is that something that ought to change? Is it just the reflection of elite sports and to complicate things further? you've got people like Neil deGrasse Tyson who've been talking about the kind of trans issue from the other side

opposite conservatives, insisting that maybe it's time for us to think differently about the way that we are doing our kind of organizing of sport. Perhaps we can test for a kind of muscle mass and stuff like that and still try to achieve some kind of fairness or parity on the field without complicating things

or at least without worrying about the kind of gender binary in particular. And I don't know. Maybe there's a bigger conversation to be had there, but I am very curious to get your take on all that stuff. I mean, that's, I think two different questions there. Or maybe five. I'm sorry. But the different divisions thing, like I think maybe for time,

I can just dismiss that out of hand and say, if we want to talk more about it later, we can talk more about it later. I think it's a good thing. There's a women's division. I think it represents the best women competing in the sports. And I'll say that, I mean, I think you're missing the show, honestly.

Like, if the thing that, that we care about coming into the Olympics is like the best male athletes because the best male athletes represent the best athletes possible and what humans can accomplish. I feel like that's leaving a lot out. And there are some sports that I think because of the general, like the bimodal distribution of where the top end of strength and size are are just more engaging to watch the women's game. I think women's tennis is a more interesting sport to watch the men's tennis for that reason. Same with volleyball. And I think, you know, if you're just watching the guys from the baseline hit it as hard as they can, then, like, you're missing the more interesting versions of the sport.

I mean, Isaac and I also played Ultimate Frisbee for a long time. I've heard coach also afterwards. Yeah, we're not shy about it. And I think the women's sport for some, like at some levels, like at club nationals, I think often the women's game is more interesting to watch in the bracket when you've got the best teams. And Isaac, like your team, the New York team, when you've played. played in North Carolina, extremely interesting game in finals that had one turnover, the whole final. And like, if you don't love the sport, you're like, what the hell am I watching?

And the women's game is just like, the margins for who you, for your throws are smaller because the receivers don't have as big of it in target. So the scale has to be elevated, which means, like, there's more room for strategy. And the game moves differently. The spaces are larger. So you can see different athletes affect the game in different ways. And it's more like, it's, you know, If you actually like the sport and watching the sport for the way the movements work, it's kind of more interesting in some cases. And if you want to watch it because you want to see somebody jump as high as somebody could possibly jump, then, like, yeah, I think you're probably missing some things as a spectator.

I think that's what I would say. And also, like, I'll close by saying my favorite moment at the Olympics was, we've talked about Alyssa Liu a little bit and the hockey teams. And it's so cool that both American hockey hockey. hockey teams were able to win with golden goals against Canada. All of that stuff's awesome. My favorite moment was Michaela Schifrin winning her gold in Slalom. Because I got to learn more about her story. And like, if you're just watching the men and their stories, you're only getting half the possible stories out there. And the story that she had, I didn't know anything about it coming

into it. She lost her dad in the, between the last couple Olympics. Her mom has always been a person who's helped support her and in the last year has developed cancer and has had to miss a lot of her events because of treatments. She had a traumatic fall several years ago that kept her off the slopes for a while. She wasn't sure if she'd be returning. This is the most decorated winner in the history of skiing. She's won more World Cups than anybody. She's obese. And she wasn't sure if she was going to come back. And she was having all of the strife at home. She comes into the Olympics, she does a team event with somebody who's really good at the downhills, and she's a slalom expert, and they're in position to win gold, and she sort of fumbles it at the end,

and then they end up not being on the podium when they had a chance with Michaela Schiffrin to run the slalom to win. And it's the last run that she has, maybe the last run she has in the Olympics, and she's able to, I mean, just incredible dominance to a degree that it's tough to describe. Like earlier in the day, there's a cross-country skiing event, like a team event that it's like 10K-ish where it's a relay where they're covering this amount of space. The Norwegians beat the Americans by like 1.4 seconds, I think. In that huge, like, 18-minute race,

and Michaela Schifrin won her 90-second slalom by a higher margin than that, just to speak to the level of dominance that she showed. And she crosses the finish line and the camera zooms in for the triumphant moment. And for 10 seconds, she's just silent and she's not moving. And you could see her mouth, dad. And afterward, she was giving her interview. And she was mentioning how, like, she was just

trying to commune with her dad in that moment and have a spiritual connection. And she said, I know that I can't talk to him in person. But I felt like he was there. And it was just, I mean, it's so, it's so inspirational. And, like, why would you, why would you make yourself miss out on that stuff, you know? Damn it, Ari. It's interesting. Got me. It's really interesting.

I mean, I, Camille, but your question about like, or the thing you're poking out of like a little bit of this inconsistency maybe from the right where they profess this kind of concern for women's sports, but then it seems like nobody really cares about it or pays that close of attention to it in reality, I think is keen. I think there's something there.

I mean, Ari, I totally agree that the, like you, you are literally just enjoying half of sporting if you only watch men's sports. And I know it's people, like, I know from being very embedded in kind of the online culture that a lot of people on the right think that's some like, you know, woke cuck lib thing to say. And it's just like, it's just not, like,

I just went to, I went to unrivaled this, the women's professional basketball players do not get paid very much by the WMBA, which makes sense. The WMBA as a league makes much less money than the NBA. But there's this new league called Unrivaled, and it's 3V3 women's basketball,

full court with women's professional players. And they came to Philadelphia, and I went with my cousin and her daughter, and who were both like big WMBA fans, and it was a Christmas present for her. It was sold out. It was the most people that have ever attended, did a professional women's basketball regular season game in American sporting history.

So it was awesome. Electric Arena. And this woman Marina maybe, who's a WMBA player, she scored 27 points in five minutes in the first quarter, which like if you understand basketball is unfathomable. It's like she touched the ball and scored like every 12 seconds basically. There's a YouTube video of it online. If you want to look it up, it's honestly incredible. and I was there live, the place went absolutely nuts.

I've been to Sixers games at this arena. It was like the loudest I've ever heard the arena. And the game's just different. Like, I'm a huge basketball head. I play a lot of basketball. I watch a lot of basketball. NBA is fun and exciting because it's the best players in the world. But, like, a lot of it is ISO one-on-one ball and athleticism.

And women's basketball is, like, fundamentals, skills, play, calling. There's so much more strategy because, they're not playing around the rim as much. They have to score from mid-range from outside. They have to have open layups. Like, it's by virtue of just those differences and the physicality of the game, it becomes a much more interesting.

And like, if you love basketball or played basketball, it's more fun and entertaining and interesting to watch in a lot of ways. So, yeah, which is all just to say, I really do appreciate the spotlight that a lot of, of women's sports had in the Olympics this year. For me, bar none, I mean,

I thought the men's hockey ending was awesome. I mean, Jack Hughes plays for the New Jersey Devils, which is my hockey team. He's also a Jew, so, you know, I think there's some tweet,

like, he was the first bar mitz... Yeah, the first bar mitzvah player to ever score a golden goal in the Olympics. I was like, he came up with that.

But I'll take it. We'll take it. He's one of us. And he's so he's like New Jersey Jew like I'm in obviously also he got his teeth knocked out right before he scored sick I mean that was boss yeah but yeah Lou's figure skating gold medal to me was I I've just like never really seen an athlete like her before in my life I mean when I watched and I don't know anything about figure skating but when I watched her

event every four years I know a little bit yeah I mean it was just like she was so captivating. She was just like confident. And especially after watching the quad god like choke it away, who was like just, all the hype was around how dominant he was. He was like the face of figure skating. And then she comes in with his redemption arc next time. Yeah.

She comes in with just like this incredible outfit, upbeat song, cool hairdo with like the stripes. She's just like biving. And then she's just unbelievable to watch. Like her athleticism, everything. and then she finishes the run where it's like, okay, clearly she just won. Like, the whole place was going nuts. The commentators are, like, astounded by what they're witnessing.

And she does that, like, hair flip, eye contact with the camera. Yeah, I was, like, screaming, like, a 12-year-old girl, like, at the screen, just like, oh, my God, this is... Like, it was just so good. And, like, everything about it was just amazing. And so, for me, she was, like, the highlight of the Olympics. picks by far. And then it was really cool. I mean, at the top of this segment, I said that maybe this was all bringing us together. And now I'm feeling like maybe I'm like smoking something,

the optimism pipe, because it sounds like maybe not so much, but like she for sure, Alyssa Lou in a vacuum to me for sure, seems to be drawing incredible plaudits from people across the political spectrum, even in the political lens. Like on the left, she's, this incredible symbol of women's sports and United States women's sports and dominance. And she brought her full self to this gold medal run. And she had this really tragic story before this, where she was like this 16-year-old kid who was supposed to be the best in the world. But she was just like driven so far that the sport kind of broke her.

And she left. And then she decided she was going to come back in her 20s, which is like unheard of, whatever. And then on the right. On your own terms. Yeah. And then on the, yeah, exactly. And then on the right, it's like she's this American whose dad was a Chinese dissident and she has this like incredible pride in being American. And she speaks really openly and forthrightly about like what her dad's sacrifice and about, you know, China and the things that are wrong there.

And she's sort of, it's just fascinating. I mean, she just sort of pulls at everybody's like particular political favorites. And it's so interesting how, like, people who try to claim her then is, like, being on their political side. They're like, you don't make this political. Now you're doing it. So it becomes bad to make it political, too, which is also great. Yeah. It was really beautiful.

And the whole thing was awesome. And I probably watched that free skate run like four or five times, which I've never done for anything figure skating related. So the Olympics were awesome. and I personally felt in my social circle, which has a lot of different people politically, I felt like everybody was just in. Like the most bro group chat, like, you know, like Magad dude fantasy football guys

that I have like a league with were like texting about Alyssa Lou and like, oh my God, you know, whatever. And then like the most like woke friends of mine from Brooklyn and like our group chats were like texting, oh my God, Alyssa Lou. Like,

it was just really cool to see that. And there was, and then there was like the whole pride in winning the hockey gold medals. And, you know, I hate to say this because we have a lot of Canadian listeners and readers. But like, I do.

I get a kick out of it. Like, you guys. It's a friendly rivalry. You thought you had hockey and we took it from you. It's our sport now. Yeah, that's fine. You had 41 shots on gold.

It wasn't enough. Yeah, we have the best goal in the world. And in four years, you can try again. It was cute. You guys were almost there, but you got swept. And Magdalena, who's our resident Canadian, just walked into the Airbnb that I'm in. So I'm going to give her incredible amounts of shit this whole week ago about. It will be at least 20 years between gold medals.

Wow. We'll be right back after this quick break. Wow. So here's a quick question. Speed round, maybe. Neither of you watching that game got a little annexation curious at the moment that we won. Like, yeah, it should be the 51st state. Come on.

Yeah. Come on. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No annexation does that, too. Yeah, no. I mean, domination. We got outshot nearly two to one.

But you won. It's the Conan vibe. Yeah. Like, what is best in life? Come on. This is how I want. I love that sports is a proxious. for this.

Yeah. Not an excuse. Exactly. Yes. I want the rivalry. Not exactly. I want the rivalry. Can I give you one other thing that occurs to me?

Just pivoting back briefly to the gender stuff in particular, it strikes me that, one, I'm a bit of a Philistine when it comes to sports. I like the NBA. I'm not as big a fan of the WNBA, but I had loved watching my kids play basketball and watching my daughter find particular sports that she loves, one of which is basketball. And I mean, I went to watch seven and eight year olds play a game. One, it's terrible. I mean, they're traveling most of the time. But my daughter had like unbelievable number of steals. Suddenly just was like this weird ball magnet was scoring on these layups. And you actually can see

the progression of her as an athlete from almost like 10 minute increment to 10 minute increment. And she is like uniquely coachable in a way that like she isn't perhaps in any other context. She's great and wonderful, best and worst person I know, along with my son. But yeah, it's just wonderful to see her thrive in this context. And I can imagine myself becoming a huge fan of women's sports in the sophisticated way that you guys talked about. But the pay equity thing, it's weird and interesting to me that the pay equity thing becomes the cause of women playing in women's sports. And I wonder if that isn't part of the obstacle. for people to see it in the way that you were describing it, Ari, as these are meaningfully

different sports in a lot of respects. And, you know, the people who play badminton versus the people who play tennis, I imagine the tennis people make more money. And people are going to be attracted to tennis for reasons that they're not attracted to badminton. And that's okay. And the pay difference differentials are because of that. But we don't look at the WNBA and the NBA in that way, despite the fact that you guys kind of, I think accurately and interestingly describe those as too meaningfully different things, in which case, the pay equity conversation feels a bit out of place. It kind of doesn't make sense. It's interesting, I think, that you led with tennis, which is the one sport in the world where the women get paid more based on number of points played because there's fewer

sets and tenants. And the purses are smaller still in the women's game. But if you break it down by sets or games, it actually equals out to women getting paid more per point played. Which is interesting. and I think there's also a debate on the women's side that they're like actually let us play more sets. Not everybody thinks that, but it is a debate. And I think, you know, there is an economics angle to it that's inescapable. Like you're going to get paid what there's interest in.

And I think the thing that I'm saying in response to that is like, I think your point is saying you want to make the outcome justify the means rather than the means justify the outcome, which I think is a cogent response. And I think my point for all of it is, I think the means should justify the outcome. We should be interested in women's sports, not because it's a charity thing or the right thing to do

or some sort of lefty signal of like doing the right thing. But because like, I don't know, I think Isaac and I are kind of sports addicts. We love sports. I love the narrative of sports. I think it's like the best version of storytelling in the world. Like you get to know the characters, you know their struggles. You get to see them compete against people that are equal and struggle. And who won and why?

and what was the thing that gave them the edge this time. And like, there's all of those stories in the women's game. And all of the things are a little different. So it's interesting to follow. And you don't have to, like, be some lib to do it. You can just, like, be interested in sports and stories. And then it has a lot to offer. Yeah.

I mean, I, yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think in the wake of events like this, like the Olympics that we just had, you always sort of get this incremental. step forward in the visibility of these athletes and these sports that maybe don't get a lot of interest or didn't have as much interest, you know, two weeks ago. And I think like women's hockey's going to benefit from that. I think it's like the Caitlin Clark effect we saw in college basketball. Yeah. You know, like now I'm like watch. Yeah. Right. Like I am definitely one of those people that Caitlin Clark like drew into college women's basketball and then professional women's basketball. And now I'm like,

I've moved on to like Audie Crooks. She's now like my new favorite college women's basketball player and I'm just like obsessed with how she plays the game and how dominant she is. And it's just like it, I think it compounds and it will continue to grow. And that's like the benefit of a platform like the Olympics. And I think it's a good thing.

And yeah, you don't have to be some like progressive lefty or women's sports advocate to just watch these incredible athletes and be like, this is awesome. And I want to watch more of this. and the actual sporting itself is different and has like a texture that looks and feels different in a meaningful way that makes it interesting

in ways that maybe the exact same sport being played by men isn't as interesting. And that's cool. So we should respect it. I'm going to stop there. We might get negative on this and like I want to leave the Olympics on a high note. So I am like Olympics were good.

It brought the country together. I'm going to continue believing that. no matter what I read or anyone tells me. All right, before you get out of here, I do want to transition to a much less uplifting topic, which is this week's race controversy. Our country is... Race traversy.

Yes. Yeah, race traversing. Our country is so good at this. A week or two ago, we had Donald Trump, you know, sharing the video that included Barack and Michelle Obama portrayed as apes, which we talked about on the show. And so it only feels fair that this week we talk about the leading candidate

to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2028 the odds on favorite, Gavin Newsom. I mean, Vegas odds. I don't believe. Yeah, well, Kamala Harris is the one in the polling. And this week, she said, yeah, I'm thinking about it. I don't believe that. Just fucking odds here.

I don't want to. Just odds. It's Gavin Newsom. Give me some, give me a conversation about it. Yeah, yeah. We're not getting in a 2028 just yet. But Gavin Newsom was speaking at this event, and I will say the narrative that came out of the event was that Gavin Newsom was in front of an audience made up of mostly black attendees who was being interviewed by a black interviewer. And he made a comment along the lines of, you know, I got a 960 on my SATs.

I'm just like you guys, I can't read, basically. which immediately drew this huge firestorm. There was a feeding frenzy on the right, and on the left there was maybe less of a feeding frenzy, but also a sort of disappointment and finger-wagging that Gavin Newsom had found himself in front of this crowd of non-white people and made a bunch of assumptions about how stupid they were.

And Camille Foster and I were texting about this immediately because this is the kind of thing that animates Camille. And I, my instinct when I saw the clip was, I mean, listening to the way Gavin Newsom said this was, oh,

this is a canned campaign. Like, this is a line that he uses. It was very obviously a sort of rehearsed, I'm a normie guy thing. And probably had nothing to do with the audience

that he was sitting in front of. And of course, you know, 24 hours after this insane news cycle came forward and blew up and he's being called a racist and all this stuff, somebody took two minutes to go back and realize, yes, Gavin Newsom has been using this. I got a 960 on my SAT. I can't read from a teleprompter. I'm just like you line over and over and over again in like numerous public events. Also, the audience that he was speaking in front of, despite the interviewer appearing to be an African American man, appearing to be black, I'll say, for Camille Foster's sake. I think he self-identifies that way. I also think he's the mayor of Atlanta. Oh, really? I didn't even get that far into the details. I just read that the audience itself was also like not actually a black audience,

quote unquote. It was like somebody did some on the ground reporting and was like there were like a ton of white people there and it was like a very mixed crowd racially. It was not like he was not like speaking at like the National Association of Black Journalists or something. that's not what was happening. So, I don't know. How do we unplug from this insanity and stop doing this?

I mean, this is so stupid. I just, and we do have, I think we have to talk about the other race, the race, what'd you call it? Race, race, race traversy. Race traversy. Race traversy we had this week. But let's talk about, let's talk about this one for a couple more minutes. I just, can we, like, can we, this is stupid, right?

Am I, is my read of this wrong? This feels unbelievably. dumb. Well, people don't trust my opinion on these things sometimes because it's like, well, Camille doesn't see racism anywhere. What you mean? But I'll say, I'm not a Gavin Newsom fan.

I live in California, and when I get to my grievance today, you will hear some testament as to why. I think he is one of the most awful people in politics because he's so good at it. I think he'll say just about anything to get elected. I don't like him. I don't trust him.

But I saw this, and it immediately, like you, as it struck me, as like, that does not seem, something is not right here. And this was tweeted by a very prominent conservative account called End Wokeness, which is super ironic because this is conservative wokeness. This is right-wing wokeness, run amok. In fact, it had all of the trappings, all of the hallmarks of kind of a 2020 S. kind of race panic. We don't need all of the details. We've got a small clip and where's the rest of the context? Who cares?

That's racist. It's terrible. And the pylon began immediately. And in that respect, it actually had some dimensions of the Barack Obama. We don't have to go back into that. But the thing that I, that stood out to me, the next day was that you actually saw a lot of prominent journalists from the left of center, from elite media publication. who are kind of carefully unpacking the complicated detail and the nuance.

And while I definitely agree, the conservatives were wrong to pounce on this particular story in the way that they did, and in many instances, to quadruple down, even as the facts began to emerge, that made it pretty obvious that this wasn't racist. Gavin Newsom never mentions race. He was asked the question explicitly about dyslexia, which is why he started to talk about this. And as a fellow dyslexic, I found a lot of his characterization of it. incredibly accurate.

But I also thought about this coverage that I did of the Amy Cooper Central Park Karen's story. And it is impossible for me to watch this happen and to see, again, thoughtful journalists at important publications, look at these complicating details, raise them to the floor and say, we really need to consider all of this in context. Where was that carefulness in 2020, in 2021? and beyond, really, before and after. And even this week, there have been some other kind of left of center race traverses that are perhaps a little less well known, but that have these same attributes. And it bothers me that if something is kind of left or right coded, people are going to be

more sensitive to actually looking for the nuance because it's convenient for them. And I think it's less a willingness to lie and more a matter of just kind of in curiosity because gosh, it feels so good to get a win. Gosh, it feels so good for it to be our team that has the ability to spike the football here. And until we get past that impulse and until we can kind of develop a shame mechanism culturally that puts us in a position where we say,

it's actually way more important for me to be right on this than to be embarrassed by being on the side of a story that's going to fall apart in a week, I don't know that we do get past this because the temptation to engage in this stuff is just so, so strong for a country that is so deeply divided along these partisan lines. That's up. You don't know that we get past this was not a statement that I was expecting to hear.

We don't get past it unless we develop that cultural impulse where we say we actually care more about being accurate because it's embarrassing to be wrong than we do about fighting for our team. And actually, I think there are some practical reasons. for optimism that weirdly are related to technology. I think social media is often talked about is this thing that's super polarizing. The social media paired with AI that can tell you in advance, hey, that's actually a little dubious.

And here are the complicating reasons why tailored to your particular preferences and interest and inclinations. I think that could be a really powerful tool for pushing us back in healthy directions. We just need more tools like that. But I also think publications like Tangle do a good job of trying to help cultivate some of the ethos as well. So bias and preaching to the choir here.

If you're listening, you already get it. But you're also part of the solution. So thank you. Should we talk about the Basta stuff briefly? Or does that make everybody want to jump off a bridge? I'm interested in it. And I'll tell you, one of the principal reasons I'm interested in it is because this forced me to go see the trailer for that movie.

Which looks awesome. I haven't seen the film yet, but dude, I watched the trailer for, I swear. Yeah. And it is, one, I felt immediately guilty for having made like a crass joke about Tourette's immediately after the story happened on text chain. And I'm admitting this publicly now. Because, God, how exceptionally difficult to live your life with a disability that causes you to not have the kind of impulse control that one would need.

And it also reminded me, Isaac, of the really great piece that you wrote about Kanye and the fact that we have people that are neurodivergent that have these disabilities and we insist on them behaving in neurotypical ways. And if they don't, the person, we start to get offended that they're not behaving in neurotypical ways. It's a kind of cultivated vulnerability. And when I saw this happening, I was I was kind of shaken by it and really, really sad to see responses from people like Jamie Fox. But now I'm talking about this and we haven't provided the context. So I'll let you set it up, Isaac. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think a lot of people have probably heard about this.

If you have not, Bafda, which, by the way, is not a black acting awards show, which I saw some people on Twitter confusing. It is the British. We don't know. We're Americans. We're going to have this opinion about it. Yeah. There were two very well-known African-American. actors presenting an award

and at Basta, which is the British Acting Award show, in attendance was this guy who is whose life story is the inspiration for this movie, I swear, that's coming out. And I think was getting

honored that night, actually. Yeah, nominated, yeah. And he's in the audience, real life person with Tourette's, who this film is based on that's getting honored, nominated. and everybody in the audience is told beforehand that there is somebody in attendance with like this severe disability

so there might be some outburst during the show and so these black actors are up on stage presenting the award and he screams out the N-word from the audience and they're sort of like this uncomfortable murmur and they on stage actually play it quite cool and they you know there's kind of like you can see almost like a flinch like oh my God what just happened.

And then they sort of just move on with the presentation. And then afterwards, somebody comes up and explains, like reiterates there's, you know, and it's like, this is the whole, like, you guys are,

I mean, it's sort of this incredible moment where it's this movie that's supposed to help us understand this disability better. All these people are in attendance honoring this disability, honoring this movie about this disability.

Then the real life inspiration for the movie is there. displays like the very downside of living with this disability and then immediately gets like dogpiled and criticized by not just people who are in attendance, but you know, the internet and all the columnists and there's like these, there's articles and opinion pieces being written about it. And it was just really, I mean, I found it really awful and discouraging and sad. And I did not have an ounce of, I mean, I know very little about Tourette's, but what I do know. about living with it is like the entire hook of the disease for people who have it in a really debilitating way is that it is the urge to say what is the most taboo thing. Say and do. Yeah. Yeah.

And do like in the very moment and you are constantly living with this horrific urge to do that thing. And so of course, if there's... It almost proves that he didn't want to say it. Right, right, right. Yeah. Right. I mean, I saw a very funny, a very funny and dark tweet that was like, I have Tourette's, but I'm a good person. So when I have outbursts, I scream like women's rights and Black Lives Matter. No, that's not Tourette's. Yeah, yeah. And it's really, and it's just like, it gets right to the heart of the issue of just like, this is, this is what it is.

Like this is what it actually looks like to live with it. And then to see him be sort of rejected and, you know, I understand like how much weight that word carries and, you know, the urge to be offended by it. But it's just like, this is literally the person that you're supposed to be understanding better now. And obviously, to me, obviously the response is to handle it with. like grace and humility. And he clearly felt awful. He did this interview with Variety after where he's like, yeah, this is, I'm ashamed and embarrassed.

It was a horrible moment for me. Nobody knows who this guy was a week ago. And now his movie and everything, his whole life's work to raise awareness about this stuff is all being just like put through the Twitter partisan grinder. I mean, it sucks. And I can't imagine how terrible it is for him. And it's another example of a race-centered controversy where, I'm like, this should not have been a story about some guy who has animosity towards black people or something.

This is obviously a story about somebody living with a really horrible disease. And yeah, and similarly, Camille, I went and watched the trailer from the movie, which I had not seen until this whole controversy. And just the trailer is like incredibly moving. And yeah, it made me really want to see it because I don't know much about what it's like to live with this disease. disease, but after seeing the trailer and watching the experience this guy had, it seems like the movie does a pretty good job of portraying how difficult it is. And yeah, I don't know. I was disappointed to see how many people were sort of attacking this guy who I felt like was clearly innocent. I haven't seen it either, but that's an interestingly, Streis and effect play there of the outrage is making me want to see the movie now, for sure. And I had a lot of the same thoughts as you did listening to this outrage play out

to the point where I actually got to the point where I wonder how many people are really outraged. I feel like this could be one of those things where there's a number of people who are a little ignorant, a little performative that are putting their upset out there and doing the virtue signal of anger. And then those get amplified to represent a movement larger than it is. so we can sort of throw rocks at the jester. And I, you know, at this point, I'm like,

who is the person who is actually still mad about this? I feel like maybe we can. It's like a story about social media rage cycles more than this about not understanding. It's hard to say. And I think it's always a little hard to assess like how severe is this. But I do think here there are some tangible things. One, a lot of very prominent, a number of very prominent. Let me use that word instead, be more accurate.

very powerful, influential people were outraged. Jamie Fox takes the Instagram immediately and like, nah, this is unacceptable. And he meant that shit. I'm sorry? No, he didn't. And that's how this works. And beyond that, you have Basta and the BBC who've launched investigations

into how this happened. We know how this happened. And it's insane to see that reported in the New York Times now. Today, on the same day that Variety publishes this piece saying this man is, John Davidson is his name, is mortified by what happened. Why should he be mortified about a disability that he has been struggling with all his life as opposed to us, all of us privileged people, to use a word, that has been politically charged, but really shouldn't be.

It just is really important. And maybe the last thing I'd say about this, or maybe the last two things, if I can be very quick, privilege is multi-dimensional and fluid. It changes. It is context-dependent. And I think the fact that we got to a place where it seemed completely binary and essential, a fundamental component of who or what we happen to be all the time

is insane and I think wrong. And embracing that is important. But something about what you said, Isaac, when you were setting this up, actually brought to mind something my wife does with me all the time, which is help me to remember when dealing with my children who are developing, who have impulse control issues, which is to say they're developing and cultivating this skill.

As all children do. You have to have empathy in those moments. I can't rage hysterically at my daughter when she does the wrong thing because sometimes she doesn't understand why she's doing the wrong thing. And I think for most of the most of the, most parents, we would be profoundly better off if we kept that in mind. And I think in general, in this particular context, empathy is the thing that's missing. And the kind of self-absorption, on the other hand, is the thing that is in far too abundant

supply almost universally. And again, to the extent we get out of this, we've got to cultivate those things in addition to perhaps what I suggested earlier, just the sensitivity about being humiliated because we have exactly the wrong view and we should have known it. Yeah, yeah. No, the analogy to like dealing with children is very resonant for me

and like kind of leading with the empathy and the sort of one-to-one of the impulse control feels particularly relevant here. And, you know, obviously my son's not quite old enough where it's like... Oh, it's coming. But yeah, but I'm starting to see that like he's turning into a time.

a little bit and it's, you know, you're handing him food and he's throwing it on the ground, just making eye contact with you the whole time. And I'm like, I want to be pissed. But then I'm like, he has no idea what he's doing, you know? What am I, what am I upset about? Yeah. Yeah, attracting your attention. He's playing. I don't know. He's playing a different, yeah. But he doesn't know that I just like slaved over Ravioli for 45 minutes. But he doesn't care. Exactly. It's not, that's not the interaction that's happening for him. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good, it's a great lens to look at things through. All right, well, we got to start to wrap up here.

So as always, I think it's time to give ourselves some safe spaces to complain. John, you can play the music. We're going to do our grievances before we get out of here. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. Any volunteers? I'm happy to go first, but... I'm ready when you call me.

I think we should let Camille close. I know that he's volunteered something, so he should be hearing. All right, all right. What I'd like to do is start by highlighting something that came from. Now, we have a weekly grievances thread on our subreddit, which I don't know if you guys check that. I check it every week. And it's a gold mine.

There was this week, my favorite was somebody saying that they love Taco Bell. Same, same. They're a Taco Bell fan for sure. When you go on trips, if you're a person who doesn't eat a lot of meat, like I have a diet where I don't eat a lot of meat generally. Taco Bell offers vegetarian options for fast food that are better than almost anywhere else. I mean, a lot of fast food, you can't get veggie options.

You can get potato and bean tacos at Taco Bell. That are good. I did not know that. And this person said that their neighborhood Taco Bell is ass. They're like, go on. I can't go to the Taco Bell down the street for me, but it's my favorite thing. And this one sucks. and there's nothing I can do about it.

I know how you feel. I felt the same way, and I feel this is kind of transitioning into my grievance a little bit, that I really like a lot of things about living in Vermont. I don't have, I don't check your privilege, talk about the planner. I have no Taco Bells. I can't just pop down the road to a Taco Bell here. It's one of the tradeoffs.

We're talking a couple months ago about how Isaac went to his rural place in Texas and it's like, I should be here all the time. I hate going back to the city. One of the things to get in the city is talk about. And I'm sure you don't get very many Taco Bells in Texas. They don't have that culture there. Yeah, no. Maybe they do.

No, there are Taco Bells in Texas. I miss my Taco Bells and my heart goes out to this person. You would just never go to a Taco Bell in Texas because they have, like, actual Tex-Mex food and restaurants everywhere. That's a good one, though. And I will say that I also take a peek at that grievances thread on the subreddit, awesome. And I should say, I actually genuinely really love our Reddit community that's developing. I've only spoken about them on the podcast in the context of like some of the Epstein stuff and

the complaints and criticism we've been getting. But I, I lurk a little bit. I try and check in because I'm very, it's, I've realized, yes, well, I've realized over time, I've realized over time from doing this work, and this maybe is interesting to some people, but the, the, reader feedback we get in the comment section on our articles, the reader feedback I get on Twitter, the reader feedback I get via email in my inbox, the reader feedback we get on Instagram, and the reader listener feedback we get on the Reddit, they are all distinct from each other. Yes. Which I find really fascinating. And like, if I could describe them sort of in broad strokes, I would say on X, I am constantly.

being criticized as a lefty by people in the middle or right of center. On Instagram, I'm constantly being accused of being a Trumper by people on the left. In the comment section of our articles, it seems to be like a very left of center liberal community. In our inbox... It's more pro-Trump critical. Yeah. It's like a lot of people who really, really do not like Trump. And I think everything gets put through that lens. In the inbox, I hear the most from our conservative of readers who write in and respond to me via email. And then on Reddit, I think it's probably a little bit left of center, but it seems like a really, like the most thoughtful, I would say, of all the forums that I am following. And where like the most nuanced discussions are happening, and where

the most often I see a comment that I want to respond to and there's somebody in the comment thread who's already responded in a similar way that I might have. So I feel like, I don't really need to answer here because like somebody has sort of staked out or defended a position that maybe I would take, which is kind of a cool, interesting experience that I don't think happens very often on these other forums. So shout out Reddit. That's not a grievance. I don't know why I'm talking about this right now. But it's nice to sit.

You use your time. Yeah. I get my time. Okay. I'll be quick with my grievance. I were as quick as I can possibly. Go ahead. No, no, no.

I have to get this on my chest. So I think I broke the news on this show or maybe Phoebe and I talked about on the Valentine's Day show. I bought a house recently. I'm a first time homeowner. I'm moving. I'm leaving Philadelphia.

I'm not going to say exactly where. But I'm leaving. And the home that we bought in the final negotiations, it became apparent that there was a little bit of mold somewhere in the basement of the home that was like a finished basement. And so we were like, you know, everybody knows this is like a big problem.

Everybody's ever bought a home is like, you need to be really careful with that. So we talked to the mold remediation guy who's like, I went to the house. I cut open the wall and remediated the spot where this mold was. But my strong suspicion is that there is more mold in the basement than the seller is knowledgeable of or is letting on. And I asked him if I could cut open other parts of the. wall. And he said, no, because the buyer, you only asked to remediate this section. And I don't want you to start opening up all these walls before we close. And I said, okay, that seems shady. What's like a worst case scenario? Like paint the picture. And he's like, worst case scenario is like, there's mold

on all the walls and we have to cut, you know, four feet up from the floorboards. And we remediate the walls and put the sheetrock back. And it's probably a $10,000 job. I'm like, all right, fine. We go back to the seller, we're like, hey, we want you to put $10,000 in escrow as part of the closing costs. And then we can check to other walls, see if there's mold. And after we close, if there is, we take the $10,000 at escrow. He actually agrees, which we're super pumped about. Sweet. We close on the deal, whatever. Yeah. Mold remediation guy goes back, opens up all the walls and he's like, you've got a big problem. Basically, like, there's active moisture in the basement. There's, you know, this.

sheetrock is brand new, the carpet's brand new. Like, this looks like this guy finished this basement six months ago, covered up a bunch of mold, and then sold you a finished basement. And he's like, yeah. So he's like, you're, I think you're going to need to like, basically take the sheet rock down and then pull the carpet up. And then we need to watch for like six months and you live in like this unfinished basement, see where the water is coming from and then decide how we want to address it.

And I'm like, that's weird because that sounds like the worst case scenario to me, not what you told me two days ago. Yeah. So long story short, our basement is not what we thought it was. And we are now getting quotes for like the whole waterproofing French drains, recarpeting vinyl floors. And it's like all of a sudden this $10,000 worst case scenario that we had money in escrow for is like a $30,000 job. So that all happened the day. after we closed on the house. So it was my first day of homeownership,

which, yeah, is just the rest of my life now, and I guess it's how it's going to be. And, yeah, to say I'm aggrieved would be a great understatement, my friends. I am aggrieved. Yeah. So. Oh, well, Isaac, we've talked about this,

and I won't share all of the details because my PTSD, and I'm barely joking here, is so bad from one of my experiences. I've owned a couple of homes, including one in Brooklyn, that was supposed to be mostly brand new, pretty much rebuilt from the foundation up, only to discover that everything was wrong.

Everything was wrong. And I will say this, and I don't know that it'll make you feel better, to go from $10,000 to $30,000, not so bad, my friend. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Not so bad. Yeah, yeah.

Because a 10x multiple is entirely possible, bro. And it is, yeah, I'm feeling for you. I'm hoping it's not worse. I also almost want to come over and help. There just has to be solidarity amongst homeowners. But also, this is just kind of homeownership. There's always something that goes wrong. It's always more expensive than you expect.

And for whatever reason, the rule of thumb is, everything costs $10,000 at least. Yeah, that's odd. I've heard all of those things. minimum of $10,000. This is what homeownership is. It's never going to stop. Welcome to the club.

Yeah. One piece of quick advice, Chad GPT is your absolute best friend. And just Googling stuff and trying to fix stuff yourself, please do it. Like, I had a situation where I called a plumber. They were like, oh, $10,000. I said, huh, I went to Home Depot.

I picked up a single screw, replaced it. Fixed my problem. Not $0.0.50. So just you'll learn things. smash drywall, you'll become handier. And this is a good thing. Yeah, we had a pipe fitting burst when we were showing our home, which was awesome.

And then we had to cut through drywall on the ceiling and then match paint and it was textured. So we had to, like, do the texturing ourselves. That was a fun thing we got to learn. You learn? Yeah. But you learned. All right, Camille, you're up, brother. I'll be as quick as I can. I

had, as you know, I was on vacation last week. I took my family to Joshua Tree. It was wonderful. We drove. We drove, eight odd hours in the car down from Mill Valley to Joshua Tree. And it was actually like a wonderful trip. Of course, there are kind of good moments and bad moments, but we had a really, really great time together as a family. And then we decided on the way home that we were going to drive from Joshua Tree back to Mill Valley, but we're going to take a detour and do like the two and a half hour route up the coast, the extra two and a half hour route up the coast. So we could see

big sir and kind of have that wonderful experience. And here is the as short as I can make it version of the story. I'd take that two and a half hour detour. I'm prepared for, you know, 10 hours in the driver's seat or more because we are driving an electric car and need to charge. We pass a sign. And the sign reads, road open for 36 miles. And my wife says, what a weird sign. And I said, yeah, what happens after 37 miles? Are they unsure about whether or not the road is open, ha-ha. And we proceed to drive 36 miles. And you can guess what happens. There is a roadblock. And this road, the beautiful scenic rut one in California, is just so amazing. Which had been closed for nearly two years up until like January of last year. I think it was. It was closed.

And it had been closed for like a couple of days. It didn't show up on Google. It did show up on Waze, didn't show up on Apple Maps, it didn't show up on the BMW map app. And I talked to the guy. I'm like, how long is this going to last? And he's like, I don't know, we just got here today. It could be tomorrow. It could be any time. And I said, wow, I had to drive back another two and a half hour. So this is now a five-hour detour. I don't have any cell phone signal out there.

I missed the call, actually, the Tangle call. And we're making our way back. We finally get home. And with stops and everything, 16 hours. hours on the road, twice as long to get back home. Now, this is just, some of it is nature. They have to keep the road safe. These are real practical problems.

Some of this is just California. And I mean, dude, I can't tell you how much I was seething. I got even angrier the next day, however. When I discovered that an hour after we arrived, they reopened the road, I could have proceeded. I could have seen Big Sur. I could have been home in my fucking bed. And instead, I spent all of that time driving.

But I will say that the time spent with my kids, even in that difficult experience, was like wonderful and beautiful and magical. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. And there's something great about taking those long journeys. But still, Gavin Newsom, I could have had a wonderful, great time with my kids at home. All you needed was a sign.

Sunset. No. Sorry. We were on the other side by the time that happened. And I haven't even given you the detail about it's an electric car. You have to plan the route in advance. I barely made it to the high-capacity charger. Barely.

I don't need that kind of drama and stress. Gavin Newsom? Well, that's your fault for having an electric car. You woke live. Did you get to see Bixby, though? Did you go over the Bixby? We didn't. We didn't make it.

We didn't make it. It was 20 miles away. Sorry. 20 miles away. So we have to do the whole drive again. But that's actually, I mean, it's beautiful. Like, it's really hard to be mad when you are looking at all of that extraordinary beauty. People travel from all over the world to drive that road. So I will absolutely do it again, maybe in like two or three weeks because it was that good.

So there it is. Yeah. Good, man. Good luck to you. Thank you, sir. May you have a wonderful drive. We'll do all our research and collect the intel. Yeah, and hopefully you get better luck.

That's really frustrating when you're buckling up to take the PCH and you can and we get to Big Sur. Amen. All right, fellas. It's been a good one. Thanks for being here. And we'll see you guys next week. Yeah.

We'll be here. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle

and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at readtangle.com.