The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #1827 Your Honor, Butt Boy!

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Today, with Mark Geragos sitting in for Adam, they delve into the nonsense going on at the LA Times, Dr. Drew shares how they targeted him, and they discuss mental health within the homeless population. Plus, what is a journalist? Please Support Our Sponsors: GDefy.com, use code AD30 for $30 off orders of $150 or more. The Jordan Harbinger Show - Available everywhere you listen to podcasts

Hey, everybody. Good news. We're doing the Comedy Fantasy Camp again. Jay Leno's going to be there. I'm going to be there. John Lovitz is going to be there. Caroline Rae is going to be there. Many, many other big comedians are going to be there. February 29th through March 3rd, tickets are going to go fast and it's all going to culminate at the world famous Hollywood Improv. So come and join us at the Comedy Fantasy Camp and work with the pros. Get your tickets at comedyfantasycamp.com. Dive into crime on Pluto TV.

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Yak mouths. Stupid stick figure bumper stickers. Almond milk. You cannot milk an almond. Hi, I'm Jennifer. And I'm Angie. We call her Pumps, and we're the hosts of I've Had It. Pumps, tell the listener where they can find us.

Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts. Nailed it. See you next Tuesday. Recorded live at Corolla One Studios with Mark Garagos and board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist, Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Mark and Dr. Drew Show. How does that make us happy every time? Every single time.

I hope the rest of them like it as much. And he's proud of it last. I missed Super Bowl at Adam's house. I feel horrible. Yeah, me too. Did you go? No. Oh, wow.

We both? We both bailed out. I had some other stuff going on where I don't want to talk about details, but a family friend, sort of an almost family member got stuck down in Mexico with a medical problem and I was trying to help everybody solve that and stuff.

All's well that ends well. Everything's good. You don't want to be in the narco state when you have a medical issue. And I was trying to – we were sort of hosting everybody in our house to get everybody sort of together and supportive. Wow. And Adam, of course, in his own way was like, all right, well, come on by anyway. We'll try, Adam. We'll try.

And I literally felt so guilty about it. About two hours before the game, I told Susan, I go, I feel like I should go visit Adam. She goes, stay here. Wow. That solved it for me. Wait, I have a question. Emmy, where did Emmy go? There he is.

Okay, Emmy, I have a question. Yes, sir. By the way, people may not know, he actually does work. Oh, my God. Emmy, these guys. Emmy, you do work. I try my best. Right? Okay. Our booth is,. I mean, these guys... You do work. I try my best. Right?

No. Okay. Our booth is... Can I call you the Booth Boys? That's sort of my... Yeah, there you go. Since I'm not doing After Dark anymore. It'd be an honor. Wait, you called them the Booth Boys?

Booth Boys. Booth Boys. Oh, I was going to call them the Butt Boys. No, no. Either works. By the way, do you know, fun fact, my nickname for a current Supreme Court justice – Butt boy? Butt boy.

What? Back when – I thought that was a joke. It reminded me because back – the last trial I did in Arkansas before this last civil trial was a criminal trial with Susan McDougal 25 years ago. I remember that. And on the Office of Independent Counsel's prosecution team, Mark Barrett was the lead lawyer, great lawyer. Julie Myers was number two, later became the head of ICE. They were kind of in front of the bar.

Behind the bar, you had a number of other lawyers, one of which was a lawyer named Brett Kavanaugh. Oh, wow. And Brett Kavanaugh, I used to call the butt boy. And now he's on the U.S. Supreme Court. So I'm hoping before I croak that I can argue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and remind him of his – And just go, well, how do you refer Supreme Court justice? What's the – Your honor.

Well, your honor, butt boy. I'm a butt boy. Oh, my God. That's hysterical. You knew he was headed for great things. Oh, that's nice. He was a wonderful guy. Oh, really?

Yeah, he was eager and the whole bit. So vilified. Oh, my God. He was taken apart, surgically taken apart. But, Abby, my question. L.A. Times updates Brian and Gina. They're just talking points, references, if you ever want to. So, L.A. Times, by the way.

L.A. Times. Yeah. Can we talk about the L.A. Times for a second? Please. Who, in full disclosure, I'm currently suing. Good. Can I help you? Right.

Can I be an expert witness? Have you seen just what utter nonsense? Yes. They've gone full insanity. Yeah. Full Lennon. Yeah. Full crazy. So I sued them. The judge

granted their slap, which means and you know what she said on the record, this judge? She said, in justifying giving fees that I would have to pay the fees, and I always knew it would go to the Court of Appeal because there's a symbiotic relationship, if you will, between the judiciary at the trial level and, well, I won't even get there.

And press. Yeah. It's horrible news. She said that they deserve to hire the best because I represented an existential threat to the L.A. Times. Good. Well, yes, I represented an existential threat because I'm one of the few guys who will sue them when they're full of shit, which is what they are. But you're pointing out their own existential demise. You're just pointing it out.

Yes, you're a threat of the truth. What they engage in, regularly engage in, they did it to me. They did it to Brian Kabatek. They've done it to you twice. Oh, my God. Remember when you called me that one day? Can we talk? When they're out of business, we'll talk about it.

Exactly right. Exactly right. Exactly right. And, you know, they've done it recently, by the way. They went off on Kevin de Leon, who was the city councilman, who had the temerity to sit silently by while other council members are engaging in racist talk. He didn't engage in the racist talk, but you wouldn't know that by any of the Times reporting where they try to take him out or anything else. And now, to bring it full circle, apparently, if you believe what's being reported elsewhere, Patrick Shunching, who owns, who bought the Times. Billionaire. Mind you, billionaire. Put his daughter in charge.

Yeah, put his daughter in charge. By the way, there's a story that the press has not talked about where, you know why he bought the Times? Because they were about to do an expose on him, and it was a way to kill the story by buying the Times. And, by the way, you don't see- That's a documentary. Get- Oh.

What? Yeah. I can't hear you. That's a power move. Notify Nate. That's a documentary, man. What? I can't hear you. That's a power move. Notify Nate. That's a documentary, man. Let's get at that. And by the way, it gets better.

Look into the St. Vincent's Hospital where I was born, which he purchased for COVID downtown. Take a look at that situation. Anyway. So there's some financial shenanigans. Oh, there is. It's clearly. Let me flesh it out. He bought St. Vincent's Hospital. Let me flesh it out.

He bought St. Vincent Hospital, which was a center of excellence at one time, and it maintained kind of excellence around cardiology for a long time. Gave birth to many prominent people. Closed everything down and was going to make it a center of excellence for COVID. Right. It was going to be the COVID hospital. They did not admit, I think, one person. Not one. Yeah.

Not one. Not one. By the way, how much have you read about that in the LA Times? Yeah. Or any other press because there's no reporters. There's nobody to go do the work of reporting. That's why James O'Keefe has a job because he goes out and reports

things and investigates things and muckrakes the stuff that reporters used to always do. It was a nature of reporting. I'm so old. I remember when the press was not cheerleaders for the prosecution, which is the government. Just think about the idea. Speaking truth to power. Now we're supporting the power.

It's weird. It's really weird. It'd been completely co-opted. Interesting flip in this past week and a half. In this past week and a half. Mind you, they were cheerleaders, my side of the aisle, were cheering all of the Trump special counsel stuff, all of let's take him down, the criminal prosecutions. And I kept saying, guys, this is not, you know, be careful what you wish for. Once again, I'll refer back to Arkansas. I remember when Bill Clinton was the object of this kind of Ken Starr and my client, Susan McDougal.

Because it will come your way. It'll come your way. Well, guess what happened last week? Robert Herr, I believe is his name, H-U-R, special counsel who was appointed by Trump. Guess what happens? Merrick Garland then makes him the special counsel on Biden. And then he says Biden is an elderly man who has memory issues. And now everybody on the left is, including the vice president, is attacking him. I wonder where or how this script flipped in a matter of days. So two things I would say.

One is the insanity of what they're suggesting is, oh, then he should stand trial? Yeah. Then he should be prosecuted for the boxes, for the records in his. Because if he is completely with it, like you're saying, and Mr. Herr is wrong, well, then let's do it. Let's take him in. So that's number one. And number two, I've been saying this forever. I've been very preoccupied with revolutionary France.

It's, I would say, obsession. Yes, I know. You and Paulette are like Francophiles. She and I have to talk about this because I've really gotten into it lately. And the echoes of the past are with us in the present. And the one mathematical certainty is if you have mob behaviors that results in the use of scapegoating, guillotines, modern version is cancellation, it has to stop or everybody goes on the guillotine.

Everybody. Correct, because it's a, speaking of which, it's like a virus. It just goes, it's just you, then them and then you and then them. And then a bunch of, then what starts happening is you're not pure enough or you're not radical enough. And therefore you get put on the guillotine for not being enough enough of something. So in France, it was the Jacobins and then the Sainculettes and then the, what? No, it's Jacobins. Royalists and the Jacobins and the Sainculettes.

And it just, it kept going until reign of terror. Everybody's up. And it just kept going until reign of terror, everybody's up. And Napoleon said, stop. A military coup is what was required to stop it. Now, I would suggest that we need to stop it before that. Can you imagine that the logical conclusion of that or the historical lesson is we need

a coup? Yeah, no. Well, the lesson is it could happen if we don't get our shit together. Right. But when people start talking about a Nuremberg 2.0, they. Well, the lesson is it could happen if we don't get our shit together. Right. But when people start talking about a Nuremberg 2.0, they want to hold everybody criminally accountable for the excesses of COVID, I am categorically against that. For this reason. I want the truth. We need a truth and reconciliation committee and let it all go and figure out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. And shame people who did some shitty stuff.

I think they had a hell of a bit of a scarlet letter for their excesses. But to go after them legally, of course you're not going to find the truth in. It's going to be everybody defending themselves and then there are going to be some reaction to that. Correct. And then, you know, we never got to circling back. Last episode, we were talking about scientific theory. Yeah.

You were just about to come to the conclusion and we ran out of time you remember that that you were talking about how i was talking about post-structuralism yes i was taking over everything and really all i was really pointing out was that that the truth is non-existent and it doesn't it doesn't matter it's irrelevant and nobody has been trained how to approximate, ascend to the truth. And I've discussed that with Bill Maher, that book I referenced, Cynical Theories.

You and I share this sort of heritage where we were just drilled and drilled and drilled on, we have an inadequate instrument, it's our brain, and we do the best we can to use techniques like experimentation to get to the truth. That is not the current moment at all. And so your point when you start talking off the air was, who do we talk to about this stuff?

Right, right. That's the point. Who amongst our peers do we discuss this with? I don't have medical peers I can talk to this about. Well, this is the problem. When I talk to – I was down at National Trial Lawyers two weeks ago or three weeks ago, which is a great organization that brings together lawyers from all over the country. Very few people that you run into understand that – I always say a case is won or lost in jury selection because it's who you're talking to.

Who are the people you're speaking to? What kind of shared experiences do you have? It's becoming exceedingly rare that people were trained to look at data, theory, and – It's unheard of. Right? It's unheard of, yeah. And that's a frightening thought to me. Yeah.

I mean, and if you do do it, then you can be – you're pilloried in a way. And that's a scary thing, too, just from a scientific basis, from a basis of kind of intellectual evolution and just progress. And the French are laughing at us, speaking of the French. And they just – they literally – I heard a French philosopher being interviewed on a podcast. She just goes, we just don't understand your preoccupation with these French philosophers that have been irrelevant for coming in on 100 years. Right. And it was almost like they recognized that was a phase that they went through. Yeah, yeah.

And that they worked through it. And they moved on. Let me just tell you how insane it gets. Michelle Foucault took the position. And by the way, many people that screwed up the government and the mental health system adopted it as well. Michelle Foucault said that there's no such thing as mental illness. Psychiatric hospitals cause mental illness. Right, right.

And we had three directors. Go to the subway in New York and come downtown with me into Lebanon Alley. But they would say, but that was caused by something social and we're perpetuating some social. Give me a break. And so the heroin has nothing to do with it. So the meth. Fentanyl has nothing to do with it.

Although we'll talk about that in a second. I need your advice or insight into what fentanyl is doing with this. Why do people kind of walk at right angles? Well, opiate addicts, when they first get a hit, are sort of – they're sort of – and I'm going to put it – I'm sure you did. They're sort of almost sitting down. Their legs are buckling under them. Right. And so they'll kind of move forward.

And then they're just nodding out while they're standing up, essentially, is all it is. It's just – Do you ever get that? You see more of it now. The Booth brothers. The Butt brothers. Boys. Booth boys.

Booth boys. Can I say that? Booth boys. Okay. Do you guys identify as Booths or Butts? I like Butts. Yeah, exactly. Don't you want to be a butt boy?

I mean, a butt boy, I think, a butt boy implies that you are going to ascend, that eventually, you know, I have a guy in Supreme Court. Yeah, you can be a Supreme Court. Justices used to be butt boys. I have a guy who works for me who, when he came to me for a raise in a better title, he actually said, I think I've served my time as a butt boy and now I want to ascend. All right. All right. Fair enough.

I'll give you that. Drew wants me to shut up. No, no. I was on to something and I can't remember what it was. And it was Michel Foucault. Foucault and his – and we had three directors of the National Institute of Mental Health sequentially psychoanalyst, which also were bad news on the American psychiatric system, who decided they understood everything about how – I've told you this before. They shut down all the mental health system.

Right. And just put all the patients out into the streets, the nursing home gave me the insight that even though the common perception or the belief of the collective is that it was Reagan who shut it down, that it actually predated Reagan by 20 years. Oh, it was these three nationalist mental health directors that systematically set the state systems on a course to extinction. And what they put in place were these community mental health centers, which were catastrophic failures. They did nothing, and they were a waste of money. Their goal was to prevent mental illness, something we don't know how to do to this day,

and Reagan shut those down. Can you imagine trying to prevent schizophrenia? Or how about we prevent dementia? Well, no, let's think of it. Dementia, I can... Maybe one day, yeah. Prevent, I mean, it's preventing illnesses that are like Tay-Sachs. It's preventing Tay-Sachs from coming on.

It's something that just, we don't know what causes it. It happens. It has a genetic proclivity. By the way, look at Prop 1, which is on the ballot. I don't know what to make of it. I have people saying it's not good. It looks good to me. I thought the same thing

but it's getting a lot of pushback and I'm not sure why. I think ultimately as I've told you repeatedly, until we change the law, nothing's going to change. When you talk about change the law for those who are in the weeds, this is something you and I have talked about before which is the involuntary, involuntary commitments.

Part of it is that. Right. Conservatorship, but they're looking at conservatorship, which is nice. Conservatorship because they find, you know, it's funny the things that trigger it. Britney Spears, in my opinion, is what triggered a second look at conservatorship because it was so off the charts bizarre that finally people started to ask the question. There was a little sunlight. Here you go.

Here is, let me put it up on the screen. Prop 1. Yeah, Prop 1. Authorizes $6 billion in bonds to build mental health treatment facilities for those with mental health and substance use challenges. Provides housing for the homeless legislative statute. I need to know more. What does that mean?

But I'll tell you one thing. Who's going to staff them? By the way, how ironic or how insightful. It used to be you could not link these. Correct. Mental health and homelessness. Do you remember you got Prop 1 that is now not only is it linking them, the headline is we're going to build, we're

going to spend $6 billion on mental health. Yeah. And then what is the tagline? Homeless. Right. Right. And because they can't deny it anymore. Yeah.

Look, Newsom sat in this room five years ago and said, I'm going to show you the face of homelessness. The mother of three, you just lost your job. Show me her. Find her on the street anywhere. You will not find her. Here you go. Here is the summary.

You want to go through it? Shifts, 100 in tax revenue, California. It doesn't really tell us what it's going to do. For mental health, drug, alcohol treatment. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. From counties to the state, increase the state bond repayment costs for 30 years, and the supporters are firefighters, veteran services, mental illness.

The opponents are the Mental Health America of California. Who is that? I don't know. Wait, Emi, can you Google? I would love to know who Mental Health America of California is. And then, Emi, if you go what your vote means, can you scroll that up? Scroll that up, yeah. Need to change some current loans.

More places where people get mental health care, drug and alcohol treatment, more housing for people with mental health drug. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. Those are not meaningful phrases. No, and it doesn't give you the details. Yeah, it doesn't. It says you can borrow. But once again, I'll give some credit here.

Yeah, at least the language is coming together. Well, the language is coming together. You're no longer, you know, how many times have you been attacked? Because you were the guy who was out there screaming in the wilderness. Yeah, for years. For years. And by the way, the qualified immunity was the first thing I ran up against when I started calling them negligent homicide up there in Sacramento. But I also, when I was put on that committee to look over the budget and got smushed, it was the LA Times.

Right. And I called that reporter back. And she reported on my credentials as the state of California says he has a license in good standing. I said, why did you ask him my credentials? I've got a credential. I've got a page of credentials. You've got a CV that's more than a page. What is wrong with you?

What did you – Jacqueline something. What was her name? Find that. Find her name. Jacqueline something. Dr. Drew Housing. Lhasa. L-A-H-S-A.

And I was like, you're a terrible, terrible reporter. And she interviewed some guy who was actually in Vermont to get his opinion about what we should be doing. And his accusation was that I wanted to put homeless people in prison. Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted. I want to put my patients in prison. That makes my job a lot easier. Indeed. All right. Let me talk about this. Hey, Mark, look's what I want. I want to put my patients in prison. That makes my job a lot easier, indeed. All right, let me talk about this. Hey, Mark, look at these shoes. I recommend these shoes.

I'm wearing them right now. They're called G-Defy. G-Defy. They are... It's G-D-E-F-Y. They are incredible. Okay, you like them better than New Balance. I'm not a New Balance guy. I'm a Nike guy. Really? And these, for me, fit like Nike, but much more supportive, much more sort of form-fitted.

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Are you supposed to do it, like, sequentially more hours each day? Yes. It's pretty quick. I found it really quick that it formed up. G-Defy does not put millions into athlete endorsements. They invest in the construction of the shoe. Check out the testimonials like my own. Right, Emmy?

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And much to my amazement, they got the sort of design appearance approval of my wife. Really? Because I was sort of coyly using them, and we had to take some pictures for some. She goes, why don't you put those blue ones? Those are fun. I do like the looks of them. I'll give you we had to take some pictures for some. She goes, why don't you put those blue ones? Those are. I do like the looks of them. I'll give you that. All right.

So, okay. All right. I was kind of hiding it from her. I like the logo. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah, it's very cool. I can't tell what it is.

Is it a bird? Yeah, I think it's kind of flight. I think it looks like flight. And an arrow. It could be a bird. An arrow could be. So, what was your favorite shoe before this? 2017 Nike Air.

Really? Yeah. And I would probably, I might buy that shoe again. I just all the, I don't like, I don't, everything else doesn't fit. There's something about my shoe, my foot. Okay, so there's what you find. I get aching, weird stuff. There's something about my foot.

And the fact that these form around it seemed to make a difference in that. And I like the cushion. I like the cushion of those earlier Nikes. And this one seems to have it, too. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with the investigator who solved a serial killer case that had gone cold for decades. There was a definite spike in serial predator crime in the 1970s. Joe D'Angelo was a full-time law enforcement officer. He's breaking into houses in the middle of the night, raping women or girls that are home alone that he's binding up and sexually assaulting.

He ended up committing 50 of these attacks in Northern California between 1976 and 1979 and just disappeared. The last thing I did in my career before I retired was I drove up and parked in front of his house. I didn't know he was a Golden State Killer, but I debated, should I just go knock on his door? This was such a brazen, brutal predator. He absolutely had to be caught. To learn more about how Paul Holes puts himself inside the minds of serial killers, check out episode 725 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Let's go back to why we can't talk to our peers. I want to solve that problem. What do we do with that?

I think, like anything else, there could be a motivational element in – I hear you. You hear me? Okay. The motivational element that I – Jacqueline Cosgrove. That's the woman from LH. That's it.

She's still there? Did she get fired? Did she get fired? They – She was – it's just – that is reprehensible. That is incompetence at the highest level. It's like, why didn't you ask me for my credentials? And if you need to prove it, I'm delighted to do that.

Well, they had an article, I think it was yesterday, by one of the guys I'm suing, Matt Hamilton. Yeah. Who does a front page article on Girardi calling him and Girardi telling him he's a piece of crap masquerading as a journalist, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's now framed. He's so desperate for a story that the way he's framed it is he called me, he called me, and I didn't know if it was a ploy because of his competency or what. I mean, it was like such a manufactured article. And then you know what came in my email at the same time and tells you all you need to know is that Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan are now doing either. They're the two reporters who wrote the scurrilous piece of crap article that they call an existential threat.

Yeah. Guess what? They've now inked some deal on Girardi and Eric and Jane for either a podcast or a Hula series or something like that. Oh, was there a financial motivation to their scurrilous reporting? Or was this journalism and we're going to hide behind that? I mean, it's so outrageous. So everybody, do not buy LA Times.

Cancel your subscriptions. Everybody hear my voice. They need to go out of business. I'm sorry. It's a great old institution. Maybe it can be resurrected. It's beyond repair at this point. It is really in trouble.

But it begs the issue, and asked james o'keefe this question a couple days ago what is a journalist well wait a second she identifies as a they them that wow okay and is she at the times still or is they at the times yes throw a picture up there for you yeah i can't be here. She seems so much older to me. Why is this? She sounded like an old – That's her profile picture on LA Times. Jacqueline Cosgrove.

All right. Well, I'm sorry for her that she does not know how to do her job. But in any event, the Times needs to go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it needs to go. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it needs to go. You know, it's interesting.

Once again, I have a young associate lawyer, and I had handed her a newspaper just within the last two weeks. And her reaction was, ooh. Yeah. The print gets on your hands. The print gets on your hands. I've never really held one of these before. But you and I just go, I miss holding the paper. I've never really held one of these before. But you and I just miss holding the paper. I miss how it folds.

Exactly. I remember just after running in the morning, sitting with a paper, going to the gym, sitting with a paper. And how old are you guys? 36. 29. Okay, 29. When was the last time you held a newspaper?

When I was a kid for the funny? How about you? It's been quite a while maybe since september 11th wow wow that's it's a that's it's something you don't think about because it's a the idea of and by the way i was a paper boy i don't know if you ever delivered papers i used to deliver papers all over la canada for the old Herald Examiner, the Ledger. Papers go away, everybody. Yeah. They go away. There was an article the other day, which gave me some kind of wind in my back, that magazines,

and one of the reasons that I got into the magazine business was because I thought there will always be a place for magazines. because I thought there'll always be a place for magazines. But newspapers at this point remind me, I had a client many years ago who had made a lot of money in the marijuana trade and settled with the government and went on his way and then made an investment. And you know what he bought? And I want to say it was in the 80s.

He bought a payphone franchise in the 80s, he bought a payphone franchise in the 80s. Oh, boy. And he paid a lot of money for it. Oh, boy. Well, the payphone franchise, I think from start to finish, was payphones went out as cell phones went like this, payphones went, I mean, now when you see, have you ever

used a payphone? When I was a kid. You? Of course. When's last time? Oh, when I was a kid, probably. Exactly! When was the last time you used a payphone? When I was a kid. You? Of course. When was the last time? When I was a kid, probably. Exactly! When was the last time you used a payphone? I have one payphone I used to use outside my gym that I went to in the 90s. I used to

use the payphones in the criminal courts building. Now they don't even, they've basically taken them out of there. And I think newspapers are going the way of pay phones. Yeah, I think they have to. And I hope some of the organizations behind them that don't go online just go away as well. And the LA Times is definitely one of those. So what is a journalist? I asked this to James O'Keefe. What are they? Should there be professional standards? Should there be licensing? What do we even – I did a show on HLN Forever.

I kept saying I'm not a journalist. I'm a talk show host. We're doing a show about the news, but I'm not a journalist. And people don't even know the difference. I can't tell what a journalist is anymore. They certainly aren't going out in the field and doing anything. They're – like I said before, I'll say it again. They've become cheerleaders for one side or the other.

And that's frustrating me. I used to enjoy and talk about something else. Or just report the news at least. Well, that just doesn't happen. That's gone. That's gone. Where are you going to get? You're not going to get it on Fox.

You're not going to get it on CNN. You're not going to get it on CNN. You're not going to get it on MSNBC. I like News Nation because of Chris Cuomo and Ashley. But at the same time – Oh, Ashley Banfield's there? Yeah. Ashley's there. And for true crime, she does a great job.

And she actually – she approximates a reporter. Chris does the same as a reporter, but their audience size is minuscule compared to what it used to be. I remember when you or I would do Larry King, and they were doing 10, 15, 20 million viewers. Oh, yeah. 20 million was not uncommon. Yeah. Now, if you get 200,000 in the demo, that's considered a blowout. Yes, yeah.

It's wild. We used to get an HLN, too, and we were struggling always because of that. Well, remember the numbers you were doing at HLN? They back up a Briggs truck if you were doing that today. I know. I know. It's crazy. But I had an in-depth conversation with James O'Keefe about this, you know, the Project

Veritas guy. Right. And he said, no one's doing this. I started muckraking in college, and I'm going in, and I'm exposing the truth. And he talked about moral imperatives of doing that, and that's what real journalism is. And I said, you know, I'm uncomfortable with one thing, though. And you mentioned moral imperatives. That's Kant real journalism is. And I said, you know, I'm uncomfortable with one thing, though. And you mentioned moral imperatives. That's Kant's first principle.

His other principle is that you can't use people as a means to an end. Correct. And he's kind of doing that. He's letting people hang themselves. That's what's uncomfortable about it. And it should be uncomfortable from you because of the empathy you have because of your background. But how else do we get at this stuff when there's all these secrets and distortion and horrible nonsense and adulteration and corruption? afford to pursue these things, whatever flights of fancy that I go in, there should not be so many legal impediments.

There just should – two holding journalists accountable. Oh, my God, yes. Your mouth to God's ears. Right? It's just – Anything – a lot of things that people say, you should have options. You should. And by the way, you can be an absolute free speech adherent, which I always think I am.

I mean, the number of clients I've represented who were retaliated against because of something they said, I get it. But you don't give it this wolf in sheep's clothing imprint or of here you've got the L.A. Times. We're just reporting the facts and you do defamation by implication. And then you hope that some judge just turns her head to it and says, oh, I'm not going to buy into this because it's an existential threat. It should be an existential threat. That's exactly what you're supposed to use the law for. Well, I like that. We're going to leave it right there.

We've got to move on. I want to kind of keep, I'll see if we can remember to keep it going for the next show. Mark Aragos, everybody. For me, I've signed up my Rumble page, Dr. Drew, also DrDrew.com. Blast at DrDrew.tv for the various things we're doing. And we will see you next time.

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