The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - AI Music and American Populism with Eli Lake

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Eli Lake is the host of Breaking History, a new history podcast from The Free Press. A veteran journalist with expertise in foreign affairs and national security, Eli has reported for Bloomberg, The Daily Beast, and Newsweek. With Breaking History, he brings his sharp analysis and storytelling skills to uncover the connections between today’s events and pivotal moments in the past. You can listen to his podcast here:  https://open.spotify.com/show/4GGl8rnfldvqTeA0vAFK9G https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/breaking-history/id1790502779

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous Comedy Cellar, available wherever you get your podcasts, available on YouTube, available on demand on Sirius Satellite XM Radio. This is Dan Natterman coming from Las Vegas, Nevada, the Rio Hotel, where I'm performing all week at Comedy Cellar in Las Vegas. Noam is in studio. Noam Dorman, the owner of the Comedy Cellar, including the Comedy Cellar in Las Vegas, where I am currently at. Periel joins us also from the studio, Periel Ashenbrand, and also joining via the miracle of Riverside Teleconferencing, Eli Lake, host of a fantastic new podcast called Breaking History. It's a history podcast from the Free Press. He's a veteran journalist with expertise in foreign affairs and national security, and has reported for the Bloomberg, the Daily Beast, and Newsweek, among other publications. Welcome, Eli, coming to us from Washington, D.C., where I guess you're

down there for the inauguration and all that. But anyway, so we are all here together via the miracle of teleconferencing, and Noam, take it away from there. So welcome, Eli. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, congratulate you on getting this podcast. Your baby is born. I have some knowledge of the amount of emotional turmoil this caused you and how much you love this and how much you want this and how

it was darkest before the dawn and so uh um this is a new podcast about history right and um yeah the concept is that each episode we look at something that happened in the past um an episode of you know the life of somebody, perhaps a movement, and we show how it applies or maybe helps explain something that's going on. So the debut episode came out today with Breaking History. And it looks at Trump's inauguration. A lot of people, I think, are correctly saying it's a real populist moment, which is a rebuke of our elites. And I look at the first populist president and the only other populist president, which is a rebuke of our elites. And I look at the first populist president and the only other populist president who is Andrew Jackson, our sixth president, or seventh president,

I should say, sorry. And so it's, I think, a great episode. The story of Andrew Jackson recently is like, you know, you can really, I mean, he was merciless when it came to the native tribes of America, the Seminole and the Creek. But, and he was a slaver, there's no doubt about it. So there's a lot of like kind of, you know, the recent view of Jackson would be, you know, he certainly doesn't measure up to our moral standards, but he led a really interesting life. And there's a lot of similarities to the his political campaign in 1828 and Trump's 2024 campaign. I mean, to start off the bat, Andrew Jackson believed in his supporters, believed that the 1824 election was stolen from him, just as Trump believed that the 2020 election was stolen from him. So those things really tell that story.

It's involved Henry Clay or something. And he was a political favor was done. And Quincy Adams made him secretary of state. Yeah, that's right. What's that story? That story is that the 1824 election had four candidates. They were all ostensibly from the same party because, you know, it's an interesting thing, but the only competitive election Americans had, like serious competitive election, was 1800, which is the incumbent John Adams versus Thomas Jefferson. And Jefferson wins. And at the time, Jefferson and his Democratic Republican Party called it a second American revolution. And for the next 24 years, everybody was in basically that party, including the son of John Adams. John Quincy Adams was ostensibly a Jeffersonian. And Henry Clay was part of this.

He was a legendary speaker of the House. He later became a senator. And so there were four candidates in the 1824 election to succeed James Monroe. And Jackson won the most votes. He won the most states. And Jackson believed, if I won the most, then I should win the election. And the 12th Amendment said, if you don't have a majority of the Electoral College, then there's a vote in the House of Representatives. And that's where what the Jacksonians called the corrupt bargain went down, where Clay told his supporters, I'm going to send my votes behind John Quincy Adams. And John Quincy Adams then made him the Secretary of State.

And Jackson believed that this was, as he said, it was a corrupt bargain. He was cheated. And what ended up happening was that this sense of this grievance, this kind of like untreated wound, just helped build this huge Jacksonian movement that eventually triumphed in 1828. And he had two terms and then his vice president, Martin Van Buren, won. So he had like a 12 year reign, you could argue. So we need J.D. Vance to win for the parallel to be complete. Well, I guess so. We'll see what happens. But as I, you know, I don't want to give away too much.

But at the end, you know, populism back then kind of had its day. But eventually, the, you know, he destroyed Jefferson's party. And then they reformed as what's known as the Whigs. And the Whigs were basically the elite politicians that Jackson defeated, but their party won in 1840. So my point is that, you know, this looks like this glorious moment for the Trump supporters. The populists are like, you know, Biden and, you know, his family

and all these Democrats are getting it good and hard. But here's the problem, though. Eventually, they're going to become their own establishment. They're going to be, they're, they look, they're insurgents now. Everything's looking great. But, you know, they run things.

And Trump will, there will be a new establishment and that will, you know, someone will take advantage of it. People will resent it. He will start being blamed for problems. And that's just the nature of things. fact that our system can accommodate populists is one of the reasons why a republic founded in revolution has managed to pretty much survive there are civil wars there's a lot of catastrophes there's political assassinations there's all kinds of bad things but the system has survived for almost 250 years because we can accommodate trump like andrew jackson like figures you give us another 250 eli i would love it now so is populism is it a medicine that we need to take every so often and then the the it makes some important points or kind of like resets the the board a little bit and then some of the ideas get integrated by one part of the other party or the other. Is there a salutary effect? I think that medicine is a great way to look at it because too much medicine is poison.

So the toxicity is determined by the dose. And in this respect, too much populism is really bad. For one, you could argue that populism is so prone to conspiracy theory. Because what it says is that there's faceless, kind of almost, there's a faceless elite. And sometimes it's the banks. Sometimes it's the media. Sometimes it's the deep state. But it's always like this group

that really pulls the strings of power and is screwing the little guy. So that's the conceit of all the populist movements some have been good some have been terrible and we're both we're all jews here i think um so for tiana and mike but they're but they're okay so but my thing is that if you you know the what's the original conspiracy theory it's anti-semitism so there's a real danger there and there have that's not to say that all american populist movements have been anti-Semitic. That's certainly not true. But some of them have been, and some of these populist figures like Father Coughlin. So there's

a danger of the conspiracy theories. The other thing that kind of is a corollary to that is populists tend not to trust experts. Andrew Jackson had his kitchen cabinet, which was different than his real cabinet. And he didn't understand. He was convinced the second his big issue at the time was the second national bank. And he didn't understand that we needed something like a national bank in order to kind of be independent from the financial houses in Europe. So we were, you know, a young republic at the time so that we could finance things like the canals and the roads, eventually the railroads that really made the new commerce,

the new economy of our industrial economy of America possible. And so I look at that as sort of similar to like, you know, Trump was so, and he, I think, as you know, we've talked about this many times, and I've written about it. Trump was right to be very skeptical of the FBI. But he was so skeptical of the FBI, so skeptical of the Justice Department, that it allowed him to stupidly obstruct an investigation into his Mar-a-Lago papers and for what. And that got him into

trouble. That was the one case where I thought that was the strongest case even though i was against that as well so that's another problem which is that if you have to you know in order to run a government of the size of the united states especially in 2025 you need to rely on experts because you couldn't possibly know everything that you need to know um so this is a tendency but the good side of populism is that it's like inevitably, you know, any government bureaucracy or any kind federal money for any kind of contract, whether university or whatever, you cannot make somebody's race or gender or whatever. That cannot be the standard. You have to hire on merit. I think you and I are both very supportive of that. But if you go back and you say, well, originally these programs,

which started after the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, they probably were necessary, you could argue, for a period of time as the country was coming out of this period when Black people were second-class citizens. But over time, the institutions become somewhat corrupted. So you had situations where, you know, just anecdotally, people would say, you know, a black kid who went to Exeter could get in with worse grades and worse test scores than, you know, a poor kid who grew up in like rural Alabama or something like that. And so what started with the best of intentions and probably the original people on this had all these good ideas, but over time, the institution. So that's an example,

one small example of why populism sometimes is a good thing. And I think that if you hadn't had the election of Trump, these kind of zombie programs, even though the Supreme Court ruled against it, even though you had California propositions saying, no, we don't want the university systems to operate this way anymore. It couldn't budge these people who thought they were doing like the Lord's work. So you have now a populist in and that you now have an opportunity to change these things. I think it's in a good direction. But that's the good thing about populism is that sometimes it's just a sort of way to tell the people who are running things, you got to do better, you have to, you got to connect with, you know, what the people are saying at this point. And that that that is a kind of an importance. And it's also I would say the other thing is this, it's a it's an escape valve. So instead of having

it boiling into something worse, like a real revolution or something like that, you can elect a Donald Trump. And I think that that is going to buy us a degree of social peace, even though for some of the more liberal listeners, that might sound like I'm crazy. But I think you are buying a level of social peace. lost this election with the gag orders from Juan Merchan, the judge in the New York, the Alvin Bragg case and all of the lawfare against him. Most of a lot of it wasn't. I think I think a lot of it was meritless, especially the Alvin Bragg prosecution. There would be legitimate reasons why people would say the election that would be the second election in a row wasn't legitimate. And you could see that spiral into a horrendous situation that really would threaten the republic. The fact that Trump won gives us a little bit of an opportunity to reset, and maybe we don't have to revisit the horrors of who cheated in the election and all this other stuff, and maybe we can sort of close that chapter. I would hope that that's the case.

So I think those are the good things about populism. So many things you said there. I want to um remember them so first of all going back to what you said about anti-semitism everybody knows i'm obsessed with this yeah i mean i think trump i i think the the accusations that trump has gotten over the years of being an anti-semite i know we are just absurd you and i agree on this yeah but i do feel a little bit as if he's the little dutch boy within maga that is that is holding the dike against what is inevitably going to be a pouring out of anti-Semitism. Because, as you said, they're very conspiratorial minded conspiracy theories. Once you can believe anything can be true, I've said this to to you probably the the brain becomes permeable

to anything it's like a blood brain barrier so so you have these people whose minds including trump in a way are just permeable to the notion that anything can be and probably is true and yes and and the the classic and there's nobody who can be a conspiracy theorist who can reject anti-Semitism as being too far-fetched. It's the classic anti- Okay, can I push back? The exception of that rule would be a Jewish conspiracy theorist. Like Brett Weinstein. There's like one. It's the exception of Fusil. Do you want to say something, Eli?

Well, I want to push back a little bit. Yeah, go ahead. I'm going to push back in two ways. Go ahead, go ahead go ahead the first way is that the most the the tip of the spear right now of anti-semitism is the uh is the is it's it's the thin veneers it's anti-zionism or anti-israelism on campus i think we would agree with that um and that stuff the uh you know they just showed a video from colomb Columbia where they broke into the classroom and they handed out some ridiculous flyer and, you know, read a statement when they're all like

wearing keffiyehs and sunglasses and something like that, ridiculous. To me, that codes as the wokeness, which was just rebuked. So culturally, that kind of nonsense, it might as well have been disrupting the Brett Kavanaugh hearings or the George Floyd riots. It was that kind of stuff is I think was just broken. It was broken by a movement led by Donald Trump. So that's my point one is that it doesn't. Now, I'm also acknowledging and you have done Yeoman's work, on addressing the conspiracy theory anti-Semitism that is coming from the pro-Trump side, that Candace Owens is, and we know the others. Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson. Yep, yep. And they're all misunderstanding, you know?

Yes. Okay. So, and that is concerning. But on the other hand, their guy runs the government now and we'll see what happens. He's going to release he's he said he's going to release all the JFK files. I'm excited about that. You know, but I hope we didn't do it. Yeah, I don't think a pact did it. OK, that's a new one, by the way. That's a new one. But what I was going to say here is that, you know, at a certain point, it's like, if you're going to keep saying the deep state is

this and the deep state is that and everything else, and that really the Israel lobby is pulling the strings from everything, at what point does that critique then basically say, so you think Trump's a sucker? So you think Trump's a tool? And if, you know, and maybe that maybe some of them will go in that direction. But at that point, they will lose the access to the power. Because one thing we know about Trump is that he grants access based on whether you've said something nice about him, and whether you haven't said something mean about him. So I'm not trying to I don't I'm not saying there isn't cause to be concerned, because of course there's cause to be concerned. Because even if that was the case, these people have millions of people who watch them online and all of that. So, yes, we have to fight it. I think you that you have pioneered the right way to do it, which is to not appeal to the gatekeepers to keep them out, but to engage them for their fallacious arguments.

And I salute that. And I think that's the right way to do it. However, as I said, these two factors, the progressive anti-Semitism that is focused on Israel and the part of the Trump. I just think that they're going to have it's going to be very tough. Trump's the president. So at what point is Tucker's theory going to basically say, well, OK, what do you what does that mean about, you know, Trump and your friend J.D. Vance and all these people who really do have power? No, I think for four years, everything's fine. I think, as I said, Trump, Trump got his finger in the dike and it's a strong finger. Yeah. But after Trump passes from the scene. I mean, look what look how Tucker Carlson, I think Mitch McConnell commented on it. Tucker Carlson turned the Republicans against the Ukraine war almost single handedly.

That's how influential he is. If he if he does, if he sets his sights on Israel in twenty twenty eight, you know, I'm worried about that. All right. That's Israel. So the and I want to get back to... Can I just on the Tucker thing, though? Yeah, yeah. That's assuming that Tucker's influence is constant. One of the ways that reasons that Tucker's influence became what it was is, I think, because of how all of these establishment expert institutions discredited themselves during COVID and during the George Floyd riots. That was for me. I used to watch him every night during the lockdowns because I felt that all of these other outlets were in on some sort of scam. And I didn't you know what I'm saying? I mean, I was seeing with my own eyes in Washington, D.C., where I live, they were boarding up things. You know, I mean, all of that.

And I saw that, you know, I was watching these videos. I was like, why are people telling me these are mostly peaceful riots? Why are people saying this is a good thing and that racism is a pandemic as a health hazard in the same way that COVID is, which is a ridiculous thing? But there were, you know, health commissioners at major cities who were saying that. And so when that happens, that is the space in which a Tucker Carlson can arise. Is that going to be the case in 2028, 2029? Are we still going to have that? I mean, I hope that we can, through all kinds of things with the Trump administration,

begin to repair the trust deficit. And, you know, I don't know. And Tucker's influence is not going to be what it is now. We'll see. We'll see. And as far as affirmative action, just I think it's a very interesting point. One of the reasons I was I thought the first Trump administration was worth it, despite all the turmoil was that he appointed Supreme Court justices who got rid of racial preferences in universities. So I don't know if affirmative action was ever the right thing to do, but it wasn't just that it overstayed its welcome. It's that it started out, you know, the country was 88% white and 12% black, and the country owed an absolute debt to this 12% of the population, who, in my opinion, are the only segment of the American population

who has a right to always feel ambivalent about America. I accept it from them. But then they expand this mission creep they expanded it to slicing and dicing every single ethnic group and and uh you know sexual preference yeah who have nothing to do with this we can't have too many of them at harvard somehow because we're trying to service our debt to former descendants of slaves. It just became it had nothing to do with what it was initially designed

to do. If they had just kept it as, listen, we're going to set aside 12% of our slots at Harvard for black people. We'd say, you know, that doesn't really seem fair, but all right. We owe black people something. We can live with that. And then the rest of you, 88%, whether you're Indian, Asian, Jewish, we're going to treat you all the same. I, you know, I, I feel like, all

right, you know, I get it. I, it's may not be right in principle, but I can certainly live with that. It helps. It helps, but that's not what they did. They took Asians and it made it almost impossible for them to be treated just like regular Americans. And of course, it's set aside. It's set it juxtaposed to an immigration where they're like, no, no, we should take people from anywhere. How dare you even begin to decide, begin to discriminate between what country people come from or what qualifications they come from. But as soon as they get here, it's very important we know where they're from and treat them accordingly. So it became indefensible even within the theory that it was initially promulgated.

You agree with that, right? Yeah, I think what you're also describing is the nature of all government programs. They start off with a distinct, this is the mission, and usually there's probably a good reason for it. And they always mission creep. And they can never say mission accomplished. They always have to have a reason to exist. This was the great insight of F.A. Hayek in Road to Serfdom. And I think it's totally true. And by the way, we can say it. It's not, I mean, listen, we don't have to pick on the affirmative action. You could say the same thing about the Justice Department.

You could say the same thing about, like, the military. Like, I'm for a strong defense. That doesn't mean that I don't recognize that over time, any bureaucracy, this happens. Any time, and it starts with a good reason, but then over time, it creeps out and expands and expands think about the online censorship from the social media companies we would have probably agreed at one point like well i think there should just be a label if you know that this is from an account

that's really uh run by a government you know like russia or something like that that sounds fine to me we want to just put a label on it and by label on it. And by the end of Trump's first term, they were censoring the lab leak theory. You know what I'm saying? You couldn't say, if you tweeted, men can't get pregnant, they would give you a warning, and then they'd delete your account. So we went from a sensible thing, like, yeah, there's a lot of bad foreign actors trying to influence us, and maybe we should have more transparency, and you should label them, to a censorship regime. I just's it always happens that way and that's why you

need sometimes to have a big a sock in the mouth like a trump election to to to end the the creep to end the can i jump from that to get everybody's take yours i i uh watched trump's inaugural address yeah and i did not like it at all i i i i didn't like the vibe but there was you know i'm always surprised to hear myself say things like this but when he said from now on there are only two genders in the united states of america right and i said to myself well yeah of course i i lean in that direction but i just had the very distinct feeling he was making his point in a way which was really designed to activate people's bigotry so many of us by now have in our families or our friends' families, or third-degree separation for sure, people who are dealing with this very, very difficult issue

of their kids who are experiencing whatever mental condition it is where they are struggling with their genders. And people are, their children, cutting off their breasts, cutting off their genitals. They're not faking it, right? When you cut off your own breasts, you are totally in the throes of some sort of condition. And I don't have resentment towards those people, nor do I have resentment for their struggle to try to have society treat them in a way that gives them opportunity and allows them to have fulfilling lives. Yes, they shouldn't be competing in sports like that.

Yes, we have to worry about prison rapes. Yes, you know, everything gets out of control. But I know very well that the people who were cheering, I was in a hotel lobby, that was the biggest applause line of all. It turned me off. I'm like, you know, why couldn't you say something kind about these people at the same time you're explaining to the country that we can't accommodate it quite to the extent that we have been? But we have no ill feelings toward them. And just to say one more thing, the rabbi who spoke, he spoke about the hostages and let's keep the hostages in our heart. And I thought to myself, yes, of course.

But couldn't you have said, and let's, you know, we're fighting this brutal organization, Hamas, and let's say a prayer for the Israeli hostages. And by the way, all the people who are the subject of their brutality, including even the Palestinian babies, who are also subject of their brutality, including even the Palestinian babies who are also hostages of Hamas. Like you have an opportunity here and you're a man of God. And don't you actually feel that way? I mean, every time I speak about this, I'm not just doing it for show. It always pops into my head. Their baby's dying. So let me make sure to, and here's the rabbi. I'm like just it just all right the rabbi wasn't

exactly the same thing as trump but this the the the overall way that they were sending their messages was not something i was comfortable with i don't know well on the second point i uh 100 i i agree with you i i i i think that's a great way to put it by the way the babies the children the innocents who we think i mean we have good. I think that's a great way to put it, by the way. The babies, the children, the innocents who we think, I mean, we have good reason to think that Hamas is not allowed to leave combat zones. They are hostages. They are hostages in the same, not in the same way as the Jews who are like in these dungeons and these tunnels, but they're hostages. They can't leave on their own. And they are exposed to horrendous harm for many reasons hamas uses them as human

shields but also hamas started a war which they must have known would have produced this kind of response because of the brutality and that's totally right and i think that that would have been a nice thing for the rabbi to have said in that prayer on the two genders thing i slightly disagree because what i think he was saying was not I don't think you would be offended. First of all, if you're trans. You wouldn't be offended by that because trans people are the most gender binary people in the world. They're so gender binary that they're not transitioning to two spirits. They're transitioning from. Say it again. Oh, I bet that Trump should. The way I interpreted it, what Trump said, I think the way his fans would interpret it is there's two genders. And if you have a penis, you're a guy. And if you have a vagina, you're a woman. That was the subtext. And I think that's that's and that might be the interpretation of his fans. But what I'm saying is that there's two separate issues. One is there is a luxury belief forwarded by academics who have lost any connection to reality, who keep telling us that there are dozens of genders. And that's gibberish. That's like

the Tower of Babel. And we need to stop that. And then there's the issue of trans people who, as I said, are more gender binary than anybody because they're getting out of one gender to go to the other gender. So I interpreted that as like saying, listen, can we just get back to the fact that there are two genders, full stop. And, um, but I also, if your sentiment is, if you're an adult and you're trans or you, you're, you're dealing with this thing where you feel that you're trapped in the wrong body, and that's a, that's a real thing. I have nothing but sympathy for you. And I'm tend to be pretty libertarian about it. If you're an adult and you want to do that, you should be able to do it. Uh, the problem is, is that again,, it's like the trans movement's the same thing with affirmative action.

It's like it started, treat trans people with dignity, they exist, and most Americans were for that, and then it became 11-year-olds should have subsidized prescriptions to hormones that will do untold and damage that we can't predict over time that we've you know fabricated and lied and medical studies to say uh is totally safe when it isn't i mean to me those are two separate things and it would be nice if there was a way to talk about it so that you didn't give a sense that you were in solidarity with just bigots. So I'm with you on that. But I think it was far more important for him to

establish that, like, you know, daddy's home, we're coming back to sanity. And there was, unfortunately, under Biden, and Biden is of that generation, he was born in 1940. Biden doesn't probably believe it. But for whatever reason, his presidency, probably because he wasn't compus mentis, allowed all of the boutique, like out there, radical progressive groups. He just sort of said, okay, I'm going to give you this, I'm going to give you this one that and he started doing all these things. And it's like, so that's where that's coming from. But I take your point that he's the leader of the free world.

He's the American president. And he has an obligation to say these trans adults, these people are American citizens, too. We should treat everybody with dignity. And there are there are children and they're suffering. Listen, I I'm happy that Trump on the whole, I'm happy that Trump won because we needed to take our medicine. Just just the reckoning that we're seeing on the left and just the demolition that we're seeing of one of those buildings. Meta Facebook, the thing with Zuckerberg, the fact that he's saying no more tampons in the men's bathrooms and and no more dei and it's like i'm like this is amazing this is great yeah yeah i mean the fact that we spent and we're seeing we have to be seeing the results in some way we spent 10 15 years no longer hiring people for important positions based on the fact that they were the best person for the job

right somehow in california somehow some amount of damage is a result of that. I don't want to oversell it. But there is, you know, I appreciate populism because the twin kind of weaknesses of human nature, the inability to put ourselves in other people's shoes and, um, to, uh, not let power too, too much experience of power, have it go to our head and feel superior. So this is what populism is the antidote for, you know, the ultimate populist device was when

governor Abbott sent those migrants to Martha's Vineyard in New York City. Right. Like this is you don't have to say anything like you people have been telling these people for years that they're only a racist would complain about what it's like in a border town when illegal immigrants come over. And then in like literally like two weeks, he changed everybody's minds simply by forcing them even a little bit to walk in someone else's shoes. So populism to me at its best is a device that respects that, that tries to do that and tries to reset it by people who understand that the people in charge have no fucking idea how we're living anymore. You know, they're off, they're high on their own vapors and um so we need that we need well the classic example is this is the open society institute which is soros money funding progressive prosecutors that wanted to legalize whole categories of crime, claiming these were just lifestyle matters. And that is something that if you're a Soros, it doesn't affect you. But if you're working class, it's terrible. Your car gets

broken into. What are you gonna do call the cops? They can't really they're not gonna arrest them. I mean, you know, you I mean, people complain, and it seems like a small thing. But it's kind of a big thing. You can't go into a drugstore without everything behind some sort of plastic thing. And that is a direct result of billionaire money going into a boutique luxury belief policy agenda that doesn't affect the super elites that are living a different kind of lifestyle and makes them feel good. And I can understand. I'm angry about it. And I have a pretty good life and I'm not, you know, I don't face the worst of it. But if you live in a in the Bronx and Richie Torres has spoken so eloquently about this. He's fantastic. He is fantastic. And so he he understands. Like he gets it like he's saying, like, listen, you think you're helping.

You're harming the decent people. And there's something kind of almost like he gets it like he's saying, like, listen, you think you're helping you're harming the decent people. And if there's something kind of almost like racist about it, like you think all the blacks and Latinos in New York City are criminals. Like, what's wrong with you? And you think they're concerned about whether you call them Latino as opposed to Latinx? Yeah, it's like there is a racism to it. Right. Exactly. They're so enamored with themselves that this has become their priority, this terminology that virtually nobody Hispanic was interested in, right?

I have a question about the inauguration, if I may. The benedictions, the clergymen. Now, clearly Esty did not book this because... Esty's our comedy seller booker.

Yes, you know, the Jewish guy going on first, hey, I know all about that. Okay. Why put the high energy black man in the middle? I have no idea. I mean, it's a great observation, Dan. I just don't have any idea about like how they chose the speakers. I was traveling back from my mother's 80th birthday with our three and a half year old on an Amtrak.

And, you know, like, you know, when you're a toddler and you're on a train, it's like Wonderland. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think I think she took like all of the safety manuals from the they put it. You know, anyway, like I was focused on that. I was trying to focus on the speech because we ended up getting his inaugural address, some of it in in the debut episode. So I wanted to make sure that we had that right. And I was, you know, like I had I had to file a big story on Joe. I mean, the the the pardons that Biden did on his way out the door, pardoned the rest of his family. I mean, creating a new kind of a pardon, a preemptive pardon, I thought was such a such an extraordinary norm violation from the guy who was marketed as the defender of democratic and constitutional norms.

I really do think that his legacy is finished. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if future historical survey historian surveys will rank him as, you know, one of the worst presidents in our republic's history. You know, and then we should talk i'll talk about that and we should also talk about trump's i think reprehensible pardon of yeah yeah we should people who were violent against cops yeah but um you know i can see the biden pardons from two angles one angle is there's real crimes there hunter has been pardoned and now can't take the fifth any longer. So this is an opportunity to force him to sing. And he can still perjure himself. He can't pardon him from that. So they have to pardon everybody who might be implicated in that crime in order to cover up the crime. That would be disgusting. But there is another argument that I can't dismiss is that, we haven't done anything here but trump is an animal

and he can ruin lives simply in the process of prosecuting people in the process of investigating everybody and um and his innuendo and tweeting about them and and i don't want that for my family and if it was a normal circumstance i wouldn't't do it. But I'm going to do it now all the people that you went after on a fakakta, nonsense, opposition research, bullshit Russia collusion theory in 2017.

Tell it to all the lives you ruined with the same tactic, because lawfare, the process is the penalty. Eli, you know is the penalty. And Eli, you know how the mob works. You don't hit the families.

In other words, Flynn, whatever it is. I listen, you know, nobody was angry about the Russia thing that I was. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. But now we're going to another layer here, which is, you know, the guy's family. They're not even in politics necessarily. I mean, I could see it. Yeah, I'm generally with you. But I could also see if everybody was innocent, I could see myself saying, you know, OK, but on the mob point, on the mob point that you make, I understand why a career prosecutor like Andrew Weissman would think this way. But the point is that someone has to have the sackle in the system to say, this isn't the mafia.

It's the guy Americans just elected to be the president. What you're doing is mucking up the entire system and the transfer of power. Get it together. This is a bad idea. Don't do it. If you're looking for a boost in the bedroom, HIMSS is here to help with personalized ED treatments. From chewable hard mints to Viagra and Cialis, get what you need to get it on.

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these outlets that treated it like this was a real thing and they should have kicked the tires more. And it became a scandal out of nothing. And I, it still is frustrating, but that's the genesis of it. The Democrats started this lawfare stuff. So it is rich to me to say, oh, I just Anthony Fauci is an old man. He doesn't he shouldn't have to put up with this. You know, by the way, the song that they were singing until the election, until he pardons Hunter Biden was if you didn't do anything wrong, if you're innocent, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. That was the line from Joy Reid. And that was the line from all the MSNBC people. That was what they would say. So as far as I'm concerned, it's like, you know, just screw it. Like his legacy and it's beyond

Biden. The whole Democrats of this era have to have a reckoning on this. You're right. I mean, as much as what I'm saying is true vis-a-vis what Biden could be thinking, his obligation is first and foremost, the United States of America, because no matter what, if his kids didn't commit crimes or the family didn't commit crimes, they're not going to get convicted. You know, they might they might go through a rigmarole. They might have to have a legal defense fund, whatever it is, but you are setting precedent for future presidents. And, you know, you shouldn't have done that. And if Trump is the monster that you've been telling us he is for the last eight years, Democrats, you just gave him a brand new tool that he hadn't even thought of. He didn't think of issuing preemptive pardons. He pardoned Bannon and Flynn and Roger Stone, who had already been through this process. He didn't think, OK, well, just in case, let me do a pardon for Don Jr. I mean, that's that's the thing.th actors or was it a response to Biden's preemptive, far-reaching pardons? It was kind of like the godfather while the baby was being

christened. So while Trump is being inaugurated, Biden is out there pardoning everybody. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I have to say, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not in his head and I don't care. I would have defended on live from the cellar right now. I would have defended had he done what J.D. Vance said he was going to do. Pardon the nonviolent ones. And I would even agree they were overcharged. I would even go further.

There was a clear disparate. There were two tiers of justice because there were lots of people who did terrible and violent things in the summer of 2020 that weren't prosecuted. And there were other people who did relatively minor things that were prosecuted with like disrupting a public official function. Kamala was championing them. Right. Well, there was that, too. Right. But I'm saying that the January 6th, there were a lot of people who just all they did was like they showed up and they're kind of in the wrong place the wrong time and they weren't the ones but it went once you add the uh the the once you add the the the the the beast that that take the that start attacking cops with like you know

what was it uh the flagpole and things like that well the first of all, how is that different than the leftists who are letting like people who commit assaults on the subways, you know, in a revolving, that it's the same kind of thing. The cops tend to be, I think, pro-Trump. I would imagine this would be a smack in the face for them. And, you know, I just, it's awful. It was a terrible thing the way he did it. I don't understand. There was no reason why someone couldn't have gone through and say, not this one, not this one, not this one. These ones are OK. He would have had the same effect. I really don't understand it. And it was a mistake. You know, I mean, it's like John Pedard says, you take the good, you take the bad. You take them both in there. You have the facts of Trump. You know, I mean, that was a very bad thing.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's it's very upset. And of course, it's the way he does things. If I were him and I felt I wanted to do this, I would have, you know, my team issue a document. Each name. Yeah. Fact pattern. Why we think this is uh deserving of a pardon i would explain myself because i'm the fucking president united states and i understand that i'm supposed to behave in a certain way and i would i would make the case instead as i have essentially they were on my side i don't

care what they did i'm pardoning them that's what it is and then they want people like me and i speak for a lot of people who are you know i want to support trump because i so much hate the left and i and i and i support a certain common sense i support many many things he stands for here i mean just i'm sitting on a property i'm waiting for two years now to try to drive the first nail into a into a building it's his sclerotic. Is that the word? Like, I imagine my experience by basically every property in the United States of America, there's all this pent up prosperity that can really be to some extent unleashed by, you know, I keep saying we built the Empire State Building in 13 months. I've had a building, a one story building for 20 months. I can't drive a nail.

So, yeah, I'm inclined to want to support somebody like Trump. But don't be an animal. Yes, that's a great way to put it. Don't be an animal. But he is, though. I mean, I think that the things that you like about him are also the very traits that make him awful. This is what John Norman Putthart wrote, you know, whatever it was six, seven years ago. He didn't have to do it like this. That's who he is. I mean, that's the whole thing. This is who he is.

May I ask a question? Please. And then I want to talk about the music because... Oh, I can't wait. Can somebody break down this Elon Musk Nazi salute situation? He's a Nazi, Perry. Don't you get it?

I mean. Go ahead, Eli. I mean, I first of all, I'm not an expert on like the hand gestures. I can understand why if all you saw was the video. I mean, my wife said he did a Nazi salute. Eli, can you can you freaking believe this? Like, are we going to be safe? I mean wife said he did a Nazi salute. Eli, can you can you freaking believe this? Like, are we going to be safe? I mean, he did do a Nazi salute.

No, he didn't. Whether or not he was meaning to do an actual Nazi salute, not inside Elon Musk's head. I don't know. But if I saw Candace Owens do that, you know, that's a Nazi salute, right? OK, so my understanding, having spent a bit of time on this on the social medias and reading all the backs and forth, is that this is a different kind of salute, which is like an Italian or a Roman thing where he's like, from my heart, I'm giving you my love. And it looks a lot like a Nazi salute. But more important, you have to look at the context. What was he saying?

He was saying, I love you. I love you. I love you. And this is somebody who I think has shown he's constantly wears the button or he wears that thing for the Israeli hostages. of that he was dog whistling to like the neo-nazi right especially since there are neo-nazis on twitter that i've noticed have complained because they've been demonetized by you know his his platform and i'm like i just don't like i i'm willing to believe the only reason i think people want to say it's a nazi salute or really believe that it was there was not some other explanation because it doesn't make sense to me that he would do that. I agree. It doesn't make sense. I just want to clarify.

First of all, as I said today to someone else, if, if the Nazi party is becoming adamantly pro free speech and anti anti-Semitism, I think we should hear them out. Do you know that, by the way, there was a great sketch on the old show, Mr. Show, with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross? And they did this bit. It was called The New Klan. And it was just like a black guy and a white guy. They take off the hood.

It's a black guy and a white guy. And they're like playing like badminton and stuff. And like, it's the new Klan. And like, it's a similar kind of thing. It's like, if this is the neo-Nazis, they like the free speech. They really are against anti-Semitism. Then yeah, you're right.

Like, let's hear them out. Okay, so neither one of you think. Somebody texted me this story. Did you see that? Is it true that Elon Musk gave the Nazi salute? And I wrote back, I haven't seen this at all, but I can guarantee you it's not true. It's the kind of thing you don't even need to see.

You don't need those. It's absurd to think that this man is not only a Nazi sympathizer, but he's out there Heil Hitler-ing in public. It's so, like, what has gotten into people that they can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction? Like, it's, yeah, he was saying,

thank you from the bottom of my heart. I mean, it's just, to me, it's just, not only only is absurd, but what it says about the people who are defending it. I think I heard that even Bill Kristol was in on this. They've lost their minds. The ADL, to its credit, said this is not a Nazi salute. Yeah. So did our friend, that's what I was just looking for. So did our friend, Yael Yacobi.

Yeah, that did our friend. That's what I was just looking for. So did our friend, Yael Yacobi. Yeah, that guy's great. What did the ADL did? What was their rationale for arriving at that conclusion? I don't know. It was a tweet from the head of it. And he said, what do you say? He said, I'm like, I can tell you this is not like I did. I know all about the Nazis and this is a Nazi thing or something like that. And then AOC called him out and then people got on aoc he's like oh really you you're worried about the nazis have you looked at what's going on at columbia university yeah you know what i mean those are the nazis and i'm like it's like all right you know it's it's 100 an attempt to make elon musk into what they claim he is so if if aoc, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart,

not a single person would say she gave a Nazi salute. Right? It's only their backfilling in some way. These are the same people who said, from the river to the sea, and the intifada just means we want to live in it, you know, with our neighbors, the Jews. It's like they gaslight us on both sides of this.

The Nazis are the Nazis are very open arms about the fact that Elon Musk might be a Nazi. Yeah, that's not fair to call the Nazis. But, you know, you know what I'm saying? The people who the people who actually have views which the Nazis would not find offensive, at least when it comes to Israel, are the ones who claim to be so upset. I mean, what is I know Nazism stands for other things besides anti-Semitism. Yeah. But at this point, what does it mean besides anti-Semitism? It means that you appreciate the engineering that went into the Audubon.

Right, right. Are we outraged at somebody might believe that the government should take a stronger, you know, role in industry? What is it about what the Nazis want? Nazi is just now really a word used to anathematize your political opponent. All it is is just like, oh, you're...

You want to get rid of the income tax? You're a Nazi. I mean, it's just like, oh, you're you want to you want to get rid of the income tax? You're a Nazi. I mean, it's like everybody's a Nazi, you know, and this is the problem. And, you know, it's similar to what you sometimes see on the right today. But you saw it a lot more in earlier generations where they say everybody was a communist. So if you if you if you supported the teachers union, you were a communist, which is like crazy. But it's just a way it's it's a it's a technique. And it goes back. I mean, by the way, like I think Harry Truman called like people who disagree with the Nazis, even who is a great president, one of my favorites. It's it's it's just it's like Nazi is it's similar to fascist. It just means I don't like you and what you say,

and I'm going to try to say that you're like the worst monsters of the 20th century. But when you have a guy, and then I get some music right now, when you have a guy who's really stood for fighting for civil liberties and is making huge speeches defending the Jews against anti-Semitism, it's just kind of like, how could you really, a Nazi? Anyway, so listen, Eli has a tremendous interest in music. I believe he had some experience rapping, I've heard. That's true.

At one time. And he is a kind of a pioneer on AI music. Let me just say, first of all, Eli has a long history of doing his podcast. He had the Re-Education podcast. There's some fantastic episodes. People should go back and listen to, particularly the one about Menachem Begin, which is interesting to anybody

who's interested in history, and also for people who are even more Jew-y, the one about Hanukkah is something I played to my children. And then recently he had one about the weather underground on the Free Press feed, which was very, very good. And he has a great one about how Trump is just the most recent person

in a long lineage of American bullshitters. And that's also very, very good. But he uses fantastic musical references. I know he spends time really looking for just the right song to make just the right point. He has a very, very encyclopedic knowledge of music. By the way, Noam, you will love the needle drop at the end of this episode on populism.

It's, I think, one of my best needle drops. But on top of all that, he's also taken to ai music on this website where he's just writing long lyrics and putting in the genre and this and that and tweaking it and um i think we have some links that he sent us we should play them but tell us about you you did the theme song with ai music yes you know so originally i wrote a theme song which uh i don't know i don't know if i'll ever get a chance to use it but it was i wrote it when i thought it was going to be called the re-education and then i wrote one that was originally i think i wrote it as like it was around the fourth of july and i wanted to write something about

america and on its birthday but also the point i was trying to make was that like as bad as things seem right now we've been through worse that's basically the idea which is kind of a general theme of my podcast and it's called we've all been here before and it's it starts off with like the current like groceries are through the roof middle east on fire disney wants to transfer kids, that kind of thing. That's the first verse, but then, well, we should play it. Like, and then the chorus, I think is pretty catchy. Although I will say, if I can reveal a private text

we had with a few other friends, you said it sounded like the love boat, but I think it's a bop. So I think it's pretty catchy, but- This is the words were written by you and the music was written by- Yeah, I write the words and i also kind of tweak the you sort of feed in like certain key words and how you want it to sound and there's

certain things you can do in parts of the when you're writing out the lyrics about how you want it to sound or how to pronounce it and there's all kinds of stuff but i i've looked at some of his lyrics like he'll spell the word in a particular non-conventional way in order to elicit from the ai uh singer yeah right pronunciation or the or the right emphasis um he's really good at it as i wasn't going to bring that up that i said it was like the love boat i thought it's a i've heard so many of your songs i appreciate it a little harder edge a little bit more like the the urban kind of thing like yeah because you actually it's not it's out of character for the kind of music that you usually use.

You have like this really awesome knowledge of R&B and hip hop and stuff like that. And this is kind of 90s sitcom-ish. Yeah, it's a little sitcom-ish. It's like if Peter Cetera and David Foster were asked to write a sitcom, maybe. All right, fair enough. Which one do you want us to play?

Play the theme song? Well, since we're talking about it, why don't we play the one called We've All Been Here Before, Simply Lead Mix. You got that, Tiana? Mr. DJ, hit it. He's a non-selective, come down, fat, fat, fat in the reggae style. Groceries are through the roof, Middle East on fire. Fat in the Reggae style. May also go to prison I know it seems we have no hope, can't take it anymore

But if you know our history, we've all been here before America's been on the brink of going straight to hell The Civil War and Watergate, the War of 1812 Veterans of the First World War wouldn't leave the city. Army cleared the angry mob. Results were not so pretty. An editor who didn't like President Trump. All right, all right, Jeff.

All right, what were you saying, Dan? I was saying, do you think that AI will be able to write songs as good as human songwriters at some point in the near future? Some of the stuff Eli's sent me. Here, hold on. I'm going to find the email so I can. I wish there was a way that Dan and I could hear it. I don't know why you can't hear it. You should be able to. That was hilarious, Eli. That was really good. Thank you for your help. Hold on. i'm trying to find it i'm gonna

put my headphones to the to the mic oh okay yeah that might that might be the way to do it um let me see uh because i have it here um all right because i what i did was uh I came up with a bunch of stuff. Okay. So there's one that... Okay. So why don't we play the one that's called... I think this isn't funny. Play the one called Sabbath Bop.

It's the first one. Sabbath Bop. This is, I think, called uh what is this called i'll find out we're able to route it to him or no yes okay you should be able to hear it now okay good and i'll be able to hear it too okay it's called days of rest day of rest and peace and it's about shabbat the sabbath's come around now Time to let the worries fade In this peace we'll find our rest

Light a candle, souls are blest Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Calm the storm inside, let go of vow Come the storm inside, let go of vow Set the table, bless the wine, we sing he name a toll Enlightenment we will find when we make Shabbat at home In this peace we'll find our rest, light a candle so God bless Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, free in this piece we'll find our rest light a candle souls are blessed it's um it's amazing what this that ai is doing this and you know as someone who's played with a

lot of musicians in a lot of very good musicians, a lot of different genres, it also I learned from these songs what must be in a certain way a cliche. Sometimes you play with a jazz musician and they play all this stuff that you say, holy shit, I never heard anything like that before. But then I hear some of these same kind of changes from the ai creation i realize this is actually must be a common much more common thing that i've ever imagined because ai wouldn't uh wouldn't produce it um so there's kind of these very very sophisticated cliches but it uses them in creative ways because there's a randomness to it, I guess. And that creativity is kind of what feels creative to you is when you hear something which you would have never thought of before. And that has a random element to it.

So I think this AI music is going to be a very significant artistic force, if only in inspiring people by trial and error, like i'll listen to a hundred different things like i do this already when i'm writing with chat gpt i'll i'll write something and say give me 30 other ways to write this and then i'll find oh that's that's actually a good little phrase there you can do the same thing with music right well i so i compare it like if there's a there's a wonderful documentary that Spike Lee made, which is hard to find now called I think it's called The Journey to Off the Wall. And it's about Michael Jackson's career up till Off the Wall, which is my favorite album by him. I love Thriller, too, but Off the Wall is so great. They point out that this is one of the last records that anybody recorded without any drum machine or anything that kind of enters into music.

Off the Wall was made in 1979. And one of Michael Jackson's brothers says, you can hear it breathe. The little errors when they're performing it, they're slight, but it gives it this human quality. And I still believe that that is, you can't emulate that with AI or anything else. And I don't know that you ever could. At the same time, would you tell somebody like, I don't know, Prince, who was a pioneer of the drum machine, that's not, you know, you're cheating. You know what I mean? you're cheating. What he did is he took whatever the pre-programmed drum sounds were and figured out how to tweak them and make them

and change the sound so he got a totally unique drum hit from when he was using the drum machine. Or would you say to Stevie Wonder when he meets Margolis and this other guy to do this thing called Tonto,

which is that huge synthesizer. Oh, that's not real or for that matter all of like you know uh dj premiere or pete rock uh the great producers in hip-hop of the 1990s are they cheating because they they're doing more at that point than just taking a loop from another record and then rapping over it. That is a, that's, that is not what great hip hop is at all. And Kanye does even more. They're layering different things, almost like taking collage of other paintings. That was legitimate. So I'm not comparing myself to these great artists. I understand that the machine is doing so much of the work here. And I also understand people are uncomfortable when they hear AI music.

And I'm uncomfortable with certain other things that I've seen from AI. So I understand it. However, I do think that there is a way to be artistic by using it and thinking of it as a tool that way. What's the name of that website that you do? I use something called udio.com, and each one of these I've seen,

I've tried other ones. They all kind of have, you have to get used to it. It's like their own language. It's like, you know, cause it's, it's interesting when you're doing the prompts, there's certain things, you can get it to do all kinds of stuff, but you have to sort of know the right way to, to get what you want out of it. So if you go to Udio, they have like their top 10, most listened to songs and some want out of it. If you go to Odeo, they have their top 10 most listened to songs. And some of them are tremendous. I mean, so clever, so good.

I don't think Drum Machine is cheating. It's a color and it was a particular sound that Prince certainly was capable of playing or hiring the best drummers in the world and playing like one himself. But I did always think even at the time that that out the album 1999 was a bit stiff. I never I never liked the drum machine as much as he liked it. And later on, you know, in the Diamonds and Pearls era, he started using live drummers.

And I think although those those weren't his best songs, that might have been his best sound. Can I make a recommendation on Prince? I always do this. I'm a huge Prince fan. There's something that he released in 1996. It was a bonus CD with a three-CD set of outtakes called Crystal Ball.

And this was just called The Truth. I don't know if you've ever heard it, but you can get it on the streaming services now. It's so brilliant, but what's so great about it is that it is simultaneously Prince with mainly just an acoustic guitar, and it's showing off his incredible ability. And by the way, not just as a soloist.

We all know his great solo on Let's Go Crazy and everything like that. He's great. As a rhythm player, meaning the chords and the way he plays the chords, he's brilliant. And this really comes out on this record. But then what he does, he's not satisfied with just doing a kind of unplugged Prince with him and his guitar. So he layers these weird, very synthetic sounds over it. And it shouldn't work, but it does. And I really return to it.

I think it's one of his great, great records, even though it's out of what you might say is Prince's imperial period. But for everybody listening, I highly recommend it. It's called The Truth. It's by Prince. You can find it. It's great. Eli, have you ever heard of Tanita Tikaram?

No, I haven't. Oh, I just bring her up because in my never-ending quest to find new music because i get sick of music so easily i stumbled on this woman who was like big in england in the in the 80s and early 90s that i had never heard of anyway i thought so check it out so i was like years ago prince used to come down to my nightclub the village underground um sometimes like after parties and he came down one night with larry graham oh and allegedly he played at the club and i and we had the whole place wired so i was able to record the performance in multi-track oh wow it was isolated there's a little bit of this on youtube anyway so

obviously i couldn't release it because it's prince but i went home and i was able to just solo prince's rhythm guitar yeah really and i was just floored is what yeah i could not believe what i was hearing how well he was playing how accurate it was how much feeling it had the guy was a genius there is one YouTube clip online of Larry Graham from that night also you know Larry Graham but again this was all live music he there was a guy named Dean James whatever who was who was the drummer that he loved they used to play with our bands too and uh none of that would have sounded the same with the drum machine yeah but for drum machine had a certain commercial flair. And Stevie Wonder, my goodness, his last great album was before he was a drum machine.

Right. Like maybe Master Blast. I don't know. People into Stevie Wonder. But he had a whole career after like part time love. I mean, was that a part time lovers on in a squared circle? I think it's just stiff and it's just you know and uh i just call it anyway fair enough i the the soundtrack he did for jungle fever is i think underrated oh jungle fever is fantastic yes agreed yeah okay i like that eli what's your email so i can um you can send me the i'll ask you to send me this is going to be on the on the yes it is i'll send you his email yeah okay and uh jungle fever also has uh was that the birthday song that wasn't on jungle no that

that was on um hotter than july but jungle fever has these three words which i love yeah oh that's very good is that these three words who's uh who's that that stevie wonders the soundtrack to spike lee's film jungle fever Fever. And it's a song called These Three Words. And he uses it in the film. It's such a contest. It's a beautiful song. These three words are I love you. And he just says, you know, it's a beautiful song. The melody is beautiful.

And it's the scene in Jungle Fever that he uses, he plays that, is when Danny Ayala, who I think is the father, beats up Marissa Tomei's character when he discovers that she's uh daniela who i think is the father beats up marissa tomei's character for when he discovers that she's dating a black man these few words he those lyrics appear in the song i just called to say i love you these oh they did well i just called to say i love you is like one of the misses in my even though it's a huge hit i i don't like that song but i do like you are the sunshine of my life i think that's a beautiful song but uh i just called to say i love you it's a little blah all right we gotta wrap it up um okay these three words eli we love you i love you guys you're the best these

three words uh and i used to be a huge spike lee fan that was a disappointment to me when he couldn't keep it up but uh when do you when do you think he fell off basically at school days like i love she's gotta have it i love you think he fell off after his second movie that was the third no she's gotta have it was the first one i saw right then then uh then um no do the right thing is the third movie school days is the second i i thought the best one was malcolm you're right so he fell off after do the right i didn't love malcolm i mean they were all okay more better blues jungle fever they all had inside man is great which one inside man is great clockers is really good i never oh you gotta see inside man it's with denzel it's really good yeah i like malcolm x i saw do the right

thing i didn't yeah didn't uh black klansman is interesting um the one that he made about uh the the veterans vietnam veterans going back to Vietnam is interesting. I think he's, I'm still interested. I'm not, I agree that not everything is great. Get on the Bus was interesting, I thought. But I still am interested in what he has to say. So I'll watch a Spike Lee movie. I can't believe how your memory plays tricks on you.

That's right. Do the right thing, came after school. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you, Noam. Yeah. Did you see Dave Chappelle stand up for Saturday Night Live? What did you think of his set? Oh, yeah. Well, I saw it like four or five times because he was practicing.

Oh, he was? Oh, man, I wish I could remember. That's awesome. It was killing in the room. I didn't actually see the entire SNL. Well, at the end, he had an interesting little message about Palestine. From Palestine to Palestine? Palestine to Palestine, which is a good line.

But then he told a story about the courage of Jimmy Carter, who walked with no security in Gaza. I mean, I don't know. But you know what? I love Chappelle. I've never met him. I know you know. I mean, but you know what? I love Chappelle. I'd have never met him. I know you know him. And I and I, I, I'm not going to put I'm not saying I'm not bringing it up to put some sort of hex on him or something like that. I just, you know, I I'm not going to agree with everything. And I thought that wasn't even a joke. It was just like he was trying to make a point. And I remember thinking to myself, I'd like to I'd like a rebuttal, Mr. Chappelle.

Jimmy Carter also said that Amos was interested in a two state solution and, you know, all kinds of other things. But you heard his space Jew joke, I guess. And I thought that was funny. And I get it. I think it's okay. I'm not going to say, I wrote a column after his Saturday Night Live thing where he did this stuff about Kanye and there was a little bit of controversy

over it. I think I came up with a saying, he gets a shuttle pass. I didn't have a problem with that and I don't think there's a problem with it. I think, first of all, I'm, I'm interested in whatever he says. He's, he is one of the great geniuses. And I think that it's appropriate that he won the Mark Twain award. Cause I put him in the category of

like a Twain and, uh, a George Carlin or Richard Pryor. Um, he's, he's, he's, he's important, not just because he's funny and he's a, he, he makes us laugh. I think he's very important for the American English language. And, um, so I, I respect him so much as an artist and I recognize that I don't see eye to eye with him. I just did, uh, our mutual, uh, you're, you're another friend of yours, Glenn Lowry's show. And we had a pretty serious exchange on Israel, Palestine stuff. But I, but part of the point I was trying to make is that, you know, we can disagree on something like this. And I'm still grateful that intelligent people of good faith, even though we really disagree and I feel passionately about it,

are, you know, thinking about it in a different way that benefits all of us. So I kind of put it in that category. And I don't think of him as a... I don't think of Chappelle really as a hater. I think I understand where he's coming from. I disagree with him. But I don't see it as like, oh, it's bad for the I don't look at it like that tribally. I think he's so important to him. How many people are haters? I mean, I think most people that showed up at the nova exhibit in new york

or the people who uh in australia like target synagogues uh i think that they're crossing over the line into hate it into haters i think that like there are a lot of haters yeah i mean that haven't burned down jewish child daycare centers. Yeah. We've had some of them on this show. Right. I mean, I think there's a whole slew of them. I think that there is having a good faith argument with an intelligent person who disagrees and you go back and forth. And that's important.

And then there are people who are haters. Yeah. I mean, I think, and maybe hate's not the right way to, but I think that there are certain people who I put in the kind of category of you know, they sort of have crossed a line. I think that, like, for example,

like, there are the people who celebrated October 7th as this act of glorious resistance and said that Israel is responsible for the attack. You know, I don't know how you would be able to. And I don't think my point is I don't think Dave Chappelle would ever say something like that. Maybe I'm wrong. You know him better than me. No, no. Dave Chappelle would never. He would never. So that's what I'm saying. Just because he makes the space Jews joke.

And by the way, the space Jews joke is funny, even if I maybe disagree with elements of it or something like that. Well, it's not everything is a political debate. It's like, OK, I know where you I see where you're coming from. I understand you have sympathy for this population and you are seeing certain things and we're going to maybe disagree on certain facts but again i that none of that negates any of his genius as an artist and his importance to our culture which i care so much about when when we reconvene at some point we should talk about what ari shafir said recently about oh yes i did see that but we we have to wrap it up for today. By the way, Ari Shaffir says that as if he's like the arbiter of empirical truth. And he doesn't bring like any like statistics. What did he say? He's like having this conversation with Harry Mandel.

And by the way, he'd said it before in other contexts I'd seen. He said it to me too. What did he say? He said that you were just imagining that there is a rise in anti-Semitism and it's similar to the effect of the Nextdoor app, whereas if you watch the Nextdoor app all day, you think your city is overrun by criminals. But in fact, it's just because you're looking in, you know, you're looking in this one area. And at his point, I think I think he would say, you know, if you just watch these YouTubes, you can generate them and you think it's this huge pervasive problem, but it's not really. And that's an interesting perspective. I'm interested to hear it. I think, again, I think Ari Shaffir is a great comic and I love his comedy and his set.

But if you're going to take off the comedian hat and put on the debating hat, then can you bring me some more evidence or can you address the polling data, which shows like all these disturbing attitudes, particularly for people who are like under 30 and things like that and it's just like he's just making a point and then probably both right probably has there's probably been a rise in anti-semitism but that's it doesn't mean it's it hasn't been magnified by you know social media and fair well he i mean we'll spend a couple minutes on this we got to go there's a straw man argument there that where he's saying, well, another Holocaust is not coming. Another Holocaust is not coming. You're not going to see pogroms as if that is the threat.

Well, at least it's not the threat to me. I don't think we're seeing another Holocaust coming in the United States of America. It's a reversion to a kind of low-level anti-Semitism that my father described from his childhood, which is unacceptable. And I already see it in my kids who have gotten the message that being Jewish is or potentially is some sort of issue, where it just wasn't when I was a kid. It just absolutely wasn't, where I won't wear a Tel Aviv University t-shirt. And this is prior to October 7th. It was already, I knew I probably shouldn't wear that. It's just things have changed.

And if you were to put a flyer on a lamppost about anything which had anything to do with anything Jewish, you should probably expect somebody would rip it down. And that wasn't the case in the 70s. So that's how things have changed, and it could get worse. I don't think they're going to start rounding up Jews and killing them or torturing the United States of America.

But on a college campus, maybe no longer, because we've got a whole new Justice Department and a new Education Department now, so we'll see what happens. But if you... They don't want Hillel houses anymore. Right, right. But I'm saying, if on a college campus, if you were you know, they don't want Hillel houses anymore. Right, right. But I'm saying if on a college campus, if you were to say men can't get pregnant and you were to write an op ed in the college newspaper about that, they would, free speech. And so that's selective free speech. And that's something.

It's not the same as pogroms and the Shoah, but it's real. All right. I'm going to Poland tomorrow for the Auschwitz 80th anniversary of the liberation. So I'll report back to you guys from that. Should I say have fun? Is that the appropriate? There's some brewing about Jews to be. We got issued a security kind of bulletin about how we should behave and what we should and shouldn't wear because they're worried about some potential targeting of Jews.

But they're probably just being overcautious. All right, Eli Lake. Thank you. Check out everybody. Thank you very, very much.