The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Alan Dershowitz

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by lawyer and former Harvard Law professor, Alan Dershowitz. They discuss transgender rights, the current political climate in Israel and Trump's indictment.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy seller, coming at you on SiriusXM 99 Raw Dog and the Laugh Button Podcast Network. This is Dan Natterman, along with Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous comedy seller, and Periel Ashenbrand, who produces the show. But isn't Laugh Button coming to a close? Oh, I don't know anything about that. If you want me to change the intro, I'll do it. You've got to let me know.

No, we can keep the intro. I just realized, do you always say Laugh Button? Yeah. I don't know anything about that. If you want me to change the intro, I'll do it. You got to let me know. No, we can keep the intro. Just saying. I just realized you always say laugh button. Yeah. I don't even listen. Have we been represented by laugh button all this time? All this time. So I shouldn't say it.

Who should I say? Like in terms of the podcast? Well, serious radio, you should say that. Well, I do say. And then I follow that up with what? Laugh button is the group that came in here and redid our studio. So I said just an available on podcast or available. But but Nicole, we're finishing Laugh Button.

Yeah. Now it's the Comedy Cellar Network. The Comedy Cellar Network. No, I love that. OK, so by the way, the comedy sellers really step things up in terms of their. C.C.N. C.C.N. as opposed to CNN with C.C.N. I love that. That's so good. It should be noted that the comedy seller has stepped up its effort,

its efforts in terms of social media. The comedy seller is now assiduously. Is that the right word? Yes. It comes after it. I think so. Yeah, I guess depends what comes after it. Posting clips of comedians complete with, you know,

fancy captions and, and, and, and other kind of, you know, visual stuff. And I guess you have a YouTube channel too, right now. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Yeah, we do. I haven't checked the YouTube, but the, okay. We are, we are, we were at 110 or 110,000 followers on Instagram in January. Now we're at 148,000. We go about a thousand every two days on Instagram, on Instagram. Okay. That's great.

And it's great for the comics because every time they post one of our clips, that's 140,000 people that, you know, have access to it. So, so that's good for everybody. Can we go back in? Hopefully we can get up to a million. I think the could check the I hate to say it. I don't want to bring down the mood, but I think the Laugh Factory has close to a million if you want to check the fuck is the matter with you? Well, I'm just giving you a little something to shoot for. How do they have?

I know they have a they have a shit ton. Let me look this up. You guys saw I'm going to have enough bad news in my life. All right. Listen, can we can I not the laugh factory, the the comedy store? I'm sorry, the comedy store. Can we go back? A laugh factor is one point two million. The comedy store has five hundred and fifteen thousand.

Yeah, well, we're late to the game. We're late to the game. But the point is, is that their pop will get there. OK, don't you know the rule that you're never supposed to look at what other people have and compare it to what you don't have, that you're never supposed to look at what other people have and compare it to what you don't have, that you're only supposed to look for? I don't know. I don't know that that's a rule. It is a rule. If I'm running a race as a guy in front of me and I'm trying to beat him, I'm going to pick up the pace. Right. But if there's nobody in front of me, I might not run any faster. You know, I might I think I don't know how runners out works in running, but that doesn't. Is that a good analogy? I think so.

And we know that. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Now I think we need to know what others. So upset right now. Maybe they purchase you can purchase Instagram followers. I look at what look at what you do because they're but they're good because they're actual clips have about the same number of views as our. But you just really started posting. Right, but if you're saying they may have purchased it, well, that's possible. If you have 1.2 million

followers, would you have clips that have only 6,000 views? No, but listen, I think you might. I think you might. The two of you. Let's say 50,000 views. Can I ask a question? No, Perio, don't you see we're circling the wagons? Go ahead, go ahead. Can I go back into like some of our older episodes and select clips of like,

isn't that such a good idea? I think so. Classic comedy. So I've been merchant live on the table. Classy like we have so much. Yeah. Isn't that a good idea? Sure it is. We have a couple of we have have a couple clips in the millions here on our site.

Anyway. Yeah. So the comedy seller is stepping up its game a little bit late. Jocelyn Chia has 1.8 million. Ethan has close to 2 million. But some of them have very few. So, you know, it can depend.

Dan Aderman has 80,000 here. Wow, that's a lot. Not a million, but OK. Yeah. Ethan has two. Ethan Simmons has two point two million. And go ahead. Jay Jordan has two point three million.

In other comedy seller news last night, you know, long time listeners to the show know that we don't do a Christmas party here at the Comedy Cellar for some reason. I guess Noam doesn't want to holiday time is a profitable. I don't know. For whatever reason, it's just it's just too hectic. We used to do it right after like on January 2nd. Yeah, but it's just too much for Liz. So the big party was last night. The big staff party for everybody was last night. And I guess you could call it a welcome spring party, you know,

or just a staff party or whatever you want to call it, a holiday party belated. But it was Easter. It was Easter, Passover, whatever you want to Passover. But it was, I must say, I think very well enjoyed by the attendees, by the comedians and the staff members. There was there was a there were two tattoo artists on hand to give tattoos to anybody that wanted tattoos for free. There was some fake gambling tables.

We could gamble with fake money. There was food, of course, and what's the appeal of gambling with fake money? Do you turn into real money or no? I think people just I don't know. I didn't do it, but there's an appeal. I guess people were like strip poker or something. No, nothing. I guess people just like, you know, people. What's the appeal of playing Monopoly?

I mean, there's fake money, too. Maybe there were side deals where they agreed to make it. No, no, not that I know of. But what I found interesting is and we discussed this before the show is how just how casually people were getting tattoos. Like, oh, you know, you would think it'd be a big decision. It's like, oh, there's a tattoo. Yeah, I don't care. Give me up.

But I guess that's not only that. They were picking from like a flash sheet is what it's called. I learned. So it's not like, oh, I want like a P for my name. It's like you can pick from. I want that Buddhist symbol that looks like it's just very, very casual for some people to get a tattoo. And I guess as Perry said to me before the show,

if you already have a whole sleeve, what's the difference? Right. You know, you get one more tattoo. But I think Jeff R. Curry got his first tattoo, I think. And that's not confirmed, but I think he didn't. Everybody was watching him and laughing because he was wincing in pain the whole time. Sean Donnelly got like his third or fourth comedy cellar party tattoo, which I thought was really fun. I have this terrible fear that my daughter is going to want a tattoo. I'm pretty sure she is. Well, I think there's a good chance of it. Is Juanita have tattoos? Juanita has awful tattoos.

Juanita showed us her quote unquote tramp stamp. Juanita has a tramp stamp and like a she got drunk when we broke up one time. She put like a dolphin on her foot or something. She was in Miami, so they gave her the football dolphins like literally my wife has a miami dolly she didn't even watch football and then she turned into some vines but the tramp stamp you know that

was that was really popular for a while and you know my daughter she thought she started wearing a fake nose ring for maybe our younger listeners maybe not don't know they probably do that a tram stamp was the tattoo on your lower back just above your ass. Yeah. My wife has a very high butt to begin with. So it's really on her ass. OK, so they call that a tramp stamp and it was popular. I believe Amy Schumer has one right famously. Correct. She didn't she have like the girl with a lower back tattoo, one of her specials or something. Correct. I think it was the title of her book. Yeah. But you know, it looks better on my wife than it would on a white girl, because, you know, it just it generally these things look better on dark skin.

And I believe some my daughter is not dark like her mother. So I just hope she doesn't do it. Why do you think she wants she's going to get a tattoo? She is just has that tattoo personality. Like, why is she walking around with a nose ring? It's 11. It's fun. She's super into fashion.

Also, tattoos are pretty universal these days. And even our dear friend, Nicole Lyons, the sound girl has a tattoo. Yeah. Listen, my advice to you would be to get her a whole bunch of fake tattoos and let her have at it. So she gets it out of her system a little bit. And it doesn't feel like such like a naughty novelty. Well, that's why I'm letting her have this this nose ring thing. Yeah. What do I care? But not a tattoo. Is your stepson have a tattoo, Nicholas? No.

No, you get her a bunch of fake tattoos. I'm serious. I had a thought just just just, you know, you know, people who are, people are very bent out of shape by, by referring to trans women as women. People, people, people, I wouldn't even expect or it's like, but they're not women. And it occurred to me that, you know, it's just not a fact. It's not biologically true. But if you adopt a child or if you have a stepchild and you and you say, that's my son, nobody will say, well, it's not really your son. Right. OK, they will

accept the non-biological and a definition of the word. So, yeah, the non-biological definition, now it's true. There are times when being an actual birth child is critical and medical. It's a lot of similar analogies, like in a medical situation, getting a kid or whatever it is you need. No, that's not actually my son, you know. But for the for the purpose of kindness and which I think is really more than manners, it's like just be nice and inclusive. We we do allow that. You know, well, also, you could say that the definition of son has always encompassed that i i don't i don't know that the definition of the word son has ever not encompassed

people you know being adopted yeah but even if they even if they're not officially adopted you're right you're right it's not an exact fit but it is it is something that makes you say wait a second you know it's not unprecedented that when we decide that it's the kind thing to do, that there's no reason to rub somebody's nose or something. We do allow that

fiction, as it were, whatever you want to call it. Why are you looking at me like that? Because it's not a fiction. Well, it is in a biological sense. And also because that's not really the reason why people have an issue. Suddenly they're like these linguists. It's because they are, you know, transphobic. Because they're mean.

Because they're mean. I don't even know what transphobic means, but they're mean. Well, they're hateful and they're prejudiced and they're small minded. I mean, and they're hateful and they're prejudiced and they're small minded. I mean, and they're ignorant. I mean, I, you know, I don't agree with you when it comes to like we talk about a million times. Like, I don't I don't think that trans women should be competing against non trans women in power lifting. That's you know, I don't I don't agree with that. But the rest of it is just like, what?

Why are people all meant that? Right. That's what I'm saying. It's so stupid. It is. It is. But it's because they're not they don't actually care about the language. It's just like a veil under which they can, you know, spew their hate. I had I had I was having drinks or soda drinks with a with a pretty important person, intellectual guy, a libertarian, super genius. And you're not going to tell us who.

No, I can't and uh there was some poll question about trans i don't remember what the question was and he objected to the wording saying trans women like well what should they say he says he says it should say people who claim to be women i'm like are you serious like i couldn't believe it was coming out of the mouth like of this person of no reason. Like it really it really took me by surprise that this person. Well, you know what I would think so small. Thou doth protest too hard, right? He's secretly trans. I don't know if he's secretly trans or he's attracted to, you know, trans women. But I do think that all of those people who are so up in arms. You know, at our Passover Seder, my cousin said that who went to Barnard College and is very liberal.

But she said that biological and I don't know that this is wrong. And I think we've discussed this. She said that biological women or cis women, whatever you want to call them, need a safe space just for themselves. And the inclusion of trans women would, would be, would, you know, would negate that. Well, let me, let's say that we, what time is he coming? 602 602. All right.

There are two things about that, which I think don't get enough respect in terms of an argument that people might disagree with. One is that modesty, you know, in terms of nudity and things like this, this is a very, very natural thing in humans. And not that it can't be overcome, but the urge to not want to be exposed in front of the opposite sex is not on its face a hateful feeling. It's something that people have always had. And, you know, it's only now that we've ever even had it in the context of where it could be called bigotry.

It was always considered the most that men were the stronger sex and therefore oppressing women and a threat to women. They beat women. They can be violent to women. They think that women should stay in the home because they should only be having children. A woman's place is here. And none of these particular issues, really, that umbrella really doesn't extend to trans women because nobody expects trans women to be in the home. Nobody expects trans women to be home having children.

Nobody thinks that trans women are weak. You know, maybe they are, but we don't. So I do understand that the feminist movement says, can say, yes, we love and want to accept trans people. But your cause is not our cause. Our cause came to us because of a certain reality of what it means to be a biological woman. And you're never going to face that reality. You're never going to have a man who wants you in the home.

You're never going to have a man who says that you shouldn't defective because you don't want to have children or all these things, which which are really the the very foundational. You know, I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever heard that expressed before. No, I haven't either. Well, but it is true. Whoa, whoa. First of all, I mean, I'm familiar with the term turf. Both of you.

Yeah, but they have but they haven't. I haven't heard that. What Noam just said. But they haven't put it that way. What Noam just articulated, i.e. that no one expects trans women to be in the home. I've literally never heard

that particular thought expressed. And I think it's an interesting one. Yeah. I mean, Lord knows. I think it is interesting. Listen. Yeah. TERF.

TERF is right. Is an acronym. Are you familiar? Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. OK, very good. Yeah. To try turf. Terrible, right? An acronym. Are you trans exclusionary radical feminist? OK, very good. Yeah, I guess that's exactly what I've never saw, though. I've never heard what Noam just said expressed. But the term, as I understand it, can be very harsh and nasty. They've said they've said your cause is not our cause.

But I haven't heard them. That particular point about no man's ever expected them to stay in the home and have a certain role. Well, that point I've never heard expressed might have been expressed. Trans have their own cause, and it's a significant cause, which is the cause against bigotry. It's not feminism. and it's a little bit of a stretch to say trans women are women, but somehow they're women that feminism doesn't really apply to. It's just, you know,

there's a lot of nuance to it. I would just say, and people don't want to talk about it in a nuanced way. If Jordan Peterson had made that point, it was on TikTok. It would have millions of views and tons of comments

about how Jordan Peterson lays down the truth. Yeah, well, okay. We'll invite Dershowitz. Yeah, well, okay. Anyway, our guest Alan Dershowitz is here. Alan Dershowitz, he's a guest fairly regularly, matter of fact. He's a professor emeritus at Harvard University.

He was here, and he's gone. The ephemeral Alan Dershowitz. Is that the right word? Ephemeral, meaning like a guy who acts kind of a little feminine. No, ephemeral Alan Dershowitz. Is that the right word? Ephemeral, meaning like a guy who acts kind of a little feminine. No, ephemeral. So, it is interesting. It's interesting.

And Dan is right. I have heard I have heard, I think J.K. Rawlings talked about the fact that she, her the trouble that she got into is because she had been beaten by a man. And that's so she was very defensive about that issue. But the but the broader issue that the cause of feminism itself really mostly applies to. Biological women and the cause of trans, the-bigotry cause is unique to trans women

but it is the uh but what about um you know the idea that um that an all women's college should restrict itself to biological women that biological women need a safe space i don't know that's pretty surprising to me that your niece said that. My niece didn't say it. I said it was my cousin. My niece, my niece, my niece disagreed with her vehemently. And I made the point that, you know, if if if cis women feel threatened by trans women, we need to listen to them. Right. We need to listen to them. But we also need to I think we also need to talk to them. And if they meet trans women, maybe they would feel otherwise. But, you know, certainly sharing a locker room or an intimate space, a dorm room with somebody that's a biological male. If biological females are uncomfortable with this, I think we need to

listen to what they have to say. Would you not agree? If a biological woman does not want to share an intimate setting, such as a dorm room and a bathroom with a trans woman, should we listen to her or should we just dismiss her, her, her, her feeling? Then maybe she should be the one to go elsewhere. I don't like the idea that it's the onus is on the trans person to not be part of that. Like, I don't like the idea that the trans woman then is going to have to risk her safety to use perhaps like a male bathroom. And that puts her safety at risk because a cis woman isn't, quote unquote, comfortable with it.

Well, listen, I mean, where I would come down, I think the bathroom issue is kind of silly. Of course, they should. Well, it's you should use whatever bathroom they want because they've been using that bathroom anyway. Correct. It's sharing a dorm room, a shower. This is a little. OK, we're going to be continued.

Well, I think both sides need to be here. And I think that in many cases, cis women that feel that way might have their minds. Alan Dershowitz, the legendary constitutional lawyer, professor of merit at Harvard, but perhaps his greatest achievement, that which he is most proud of, is a regular guest at Live from the Table, our podcast. And Alan, your background is a little blurry today. That's a Zoom setting, Dan.

Okay, okay. Well, anyway, welcome back to our program. we're always happy to see you hello honored to have you uh come how are you today happy to be here you you sent the um zoom to the wrong email so um i might get interrupted and that's why the background is uh blurry i have another phone that i use another email that i use for television but i didn't get the uh the the skype on that one so i guess we'll have to go on this one it's it's unprecedentedly hard to find good help these days and and uh we're doing we hobble along with perry all best can, but she sends emails to the universe sometime. Nobody gets them at all.

No, it's OK. You got it. It's OK. Let's let's let's continue. Let's continue to do the best we can. OK, two hot issues. One of them is a little bit. We're a little bit late, but it's still quite interesting.

And we'll get right to it. The judicial override slash reforms in Israel. What? Well, you can handle any way you want. But I do want you to tell me whether you think that's going to come around again or once bitten twice shy. Oh, no, it's going to come around again, without a doubt. The reason it's going to come around again is both sides are winning. Very hard to get compromised when the extremists on both sides are winning. You know, the left in Israel was essentially dead in the water. It had been beaten resoundingly. The Labor Party couldn't get any seats in the Knesset. And now with the judicial reform, they conducted these demonstrations on the street. They brought people out.

And I think the left will do much better in the next election as the result of the judicial reform. So they're not going to move to compromise. They want to see more demonstrations. On the other hand, the extreme right has been playing to their own base. The people like Ben Gavir and Smutridge think they've won. And when you have extremes on both sides winning, the center gets narrower and narrower and narrower.

And it's harder and harder to achieve a reasonable resolution. I have written now probably a dozen articles in favor of a compromise solution. And I've laid out what I think a compromise solution can be. When I was recently in Israel, I met with my two oldest friends in Israel. One was our own Barak, the president of the Supreme Court, who created the judicial revolution that has been the object of reform. I met him in 1966 when he came to Harvard to become a graduate student and we became close friends. And I have never been to Israel without having dinner at his home and his wife's home a hundred times. And the second oldest friend I have from Israel is a man named Benjamin Netanyahu, who I met in 1970 when he was a student at MIT and he was on a PBS program

called The Advocates, as I was, and we met each other. He was then, I don't know, 23, 24. I was a young assistant professor at Harvard. And every time I go to Israel, I have dinner at his house with my wife. So both of the contesting elements, Netanyahu versus Barak, are my close friends. In fact, I brought them together for, I think, I forget it was my 60th or 70th birthday party I had in Israel. And I invited both of them. And they had good chemistry together. And, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu for years has been a fierce defender of the Supreme Court against some of the people on the right of the Likud party. And now he's changed and is obviously promoting the reform.

But when I was in Israel, I spoke to him at length. I spoke to the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog. I spoke to Barack. And I'm still hoping that maybe I can be a little bit of help in persuading people to come to the middle and offer some degree of compromise. I'm not incredibly optimistic, but I'm not going to give up because it's very important. But you say both sides are winning, but Netanyahu is not won by this, right? If there was an election tomorrow, he would get tossed out. That's not clear.

Not clear? What would happen? I think, obviously, the people who are in the protest would like to see an election tomorrow. I myself don't think Benjamin Netanyahu is one. I think he has lost status internationally and has become a focal point of great, great animosity. But he may think he's won, and he certainly doesn't want to lose. And if he loses Ben-Gavir and Smutridge and the people on the right, he will lose his coalition, and then there will be an election, and nobody ever knows what the results of an Israeli election would be. Let me be very clear. None of these judicial reforms are a threat to democracy. People on both sides are way, way, way overstating the concerns. If all of the judicial reforms were enacted, which I oppose,

if all of them were enacted, then Israel would be closer to the United States, closer to New Zealand, closer to Australia, closer to Canada, closer to England, but it wouldn't lose its democratic character. It would just mean that the Supreme Court had less influence and power, and it would mean fewer minority rights and fewer civil rights. So Israel is going to remain a vibrant democracy, and if you don't believe that, go out on the streets and tell them people are protesting. They're not being arrested. This is not a banana republic. And they go back to work for the government. They go back and fly planes for the Air Force. And in Israel, everybody's entitled

to protest. And they all do. You know, the old expression, two Jews, three opinions, two Israelis, eight opinions. And there are so many newspapers in Israel that are so critical of Netanyahu that there's no danger that Israel will ever stop being a democracy. Israel will never be Hungary. It will never be Poland. It will never be Romania. It will never be Belarus. It will certainly never be Russia. Israelis have too much chutzpah, and they're too independent. And as Lernon Hand, the great justice one said, liberty lives and dies in the hearts of its people. If liberty is taken away, courts can't do much to stop that. It remains in the hearts of the people. And I think Israelis will remain committed to democratic values.

Whether these reforms are enacted or not, I think it would be better not to have them enacted, but people on both sides are exaggerating the dangers. Before we get to Trump, there's something about this Israel thing, which I find fascinating, which is that the American left has lined up almost mirror image of the way they line up on or their sympathies on similar issues here. For instance, we know that a huge chunk of the Democratic Party would be very happy to have packed the Supreme Court in order to address. And a huge chunk of the Democratic Party is very, very moved by these issues of equity such that there's not enough minority representation all throughout society, so much so that many of them would like to see the constitution changed

to require- Changed. People on the left would like to see the constitution abolished. You hear people teaching it at major universities today. Let me just make the point, so in Israel, much of this breaks down in Sephardic Ashkenazi terms and the Sephardic people have been barely represented on the Supreme Court for years and years and years. And they are reacting very much in the flavor of the way black people or minorities on our left react in terms of demanding that the system has to change because nothing's going to happen here. Yeah. Oh, my God. There's gambling. Remember from Casablanca, there's gambling. You've discovered something nobody ever knew before, that most people are hypocrites. And that's true of most Israelis. And that's true of most Americans.

When the Democrats threatened to pack the court, were there any demonstrations? No. It was not an issue of international concern. But when Israel No. It was not an issue of international concern. But when Israel does anything, it becomes an issue of international concern. The European Union condemned Israel because it wanted to have judicial—what business is it of theirs, especially since almost no European country has judicial review? Germany, that's it. Name another country in Europe that has judicial review where the Supreme that's it. Name another country in Europe that has judicial review where the Supreme Court can strike down the laws of parliament. There's such incredible hypocrisy. A lot of this is hatred for Netanyahu, but even more of it internationally is hatred for

the nation state of the Jewish people. And American Jews love to bang their chest when Israel does something that they're proud of, like winning the Six-Day War. Oh, wow, we love Israel. But when Israel does something that makes them look not so good among their friends, suddenly they distance themselves. American Jews, for the most part, cannot be counted on loyally to support Israel. They can be counted on to support Israel when it does them good, but they can't be counted on when Israel is an embarrassment, as my grandmother would have said, a shanda from the goyim, an embarrassment in front of the non-Jews. Remember that great institutions like Temple Emanuel in New York, where all the German Jews went and the wealthy Jews went and the wealthy Jews go today, they didn't lift a finger to help Jews during the Holocaust.

They didn't lift a finger to help establish the state of Israel. They were opposed to establishing the state of Israel. They paid Peter Beinart $25,000 to come and lecture to them on why Israel shouldn't exist as a nation state of the Jewish people. And this is the largest, most influential reform temple in the United States. Believe me, don't count on Temple Emanuel. Don't count on the rabbis who become rabbis for human rights, who couldn't care less about human rights, except when it affects Israel. So hypocrisy is rampant, and it's rampant in the Jewish leadership,

and it's rampant among Democrats, and it's rampant among Republicans, and it's rampant among Israelis. So what else is new? Let's use hypocrisy as the fulcrum to get to Trump. There was a group of people for many years who told me that lying about sex is not actually something we should

concern ourselves with, even if you're lying about, even if you're perjuring yourself about sex in order to get out from under the accusation of sexual assault and a non-consensual, that only small minded people concern themselves with lies about sex. And now those same people, they're in modern innovation of those same who are outraged that, uh, president Trump, who was presumably being extorted in some way, nobody pays $150,000. It's somebody to think is going to keep quiet $130,000. Um, they feel that president, if he was an honorable man, he would have a fundraised and got little old ladies money and then taken that money and dutifully paid it to his mistresses, because that's what people donate to campaign for us, campaigns for us. That's what Alexander Hamilton did. He took his wife's money and he paid off

the woman and the husband of the woman who extorted him. He was probably the first major American leader in history to pay hush money and to have her file a nondisclosure agreement, which she and her husband immediately broke and then extorted them again and said, aha, we're going to say you didn't pay the money from your wife, but you paid it from treasury funds. And that's when he wrote the famous pamphlet in which he admitted his adultery, but denied, compellingly denied that he had done anything improper in terms of funds. So, you know, we've had hush money paid by so many leaders, so many corporate leaders.

And if you take Bragg seriously, here's his crime. You read the indictment. I've read it dozens of times. I've probably read more indictments than any American living today. You know, I've been doing this 60 years. I have read more indictments. This isn't an indictment. It's a list of checks and invoices in search of a theory.

I don't know what the theory is. Here's what the best I can make of it. Best I can make of the theory is, if you pay hush money to make sure your wife and family and voters and business partners never find out that you had an adulterous affair with a former porn star, if you pay that money to assure silence, you must immediately put it in the public record why you paid the money to assure the silence. Has anybody in history ever done that? Would anybody ever pay a nickel of hush money if they immediately had to put in a corporate form, oh, the reason I paid the hush money was to make sure you don't ever learn that I had an adulterous affair. Oh, by the way,

I'm putting it in a public record now, so you've just learned it. It's the silliest argument I've ever heard for a criminal prosecution. And I challenged Bragg, and I challenged him over and over again, because he lied to the American public. He looked us in the eye, and he said, this is his bread and butter. He does this every day. Name one case in history, your office or any other office, in which anybody was ever prosecuted for failing to disclose the real reason why he paid hush money. You can't do it because it's never happened and it never will happen. This is justice for Trump and Trump alone.

And it's part of a process which I wrote about in my new book, Get Trump. It's not clear in the TV, but it's Get Trump. And in Get Trump, I argue that it should be unethical for any prosecutor ever to campaign like Bragg did and like Letitia James did on the promise to get somebody, to get somebody. You target the person, you then win election, and you then say to your assistants, oh, rummage through the statute, see if we can find something to get him on. Bragg did that. He couldn't. And so some of his people quit because he couldn't find anything in the statute books to get him. And so after a lot of pressure, he then says, all right, I can't find anything, but I'll make up this misdemeanor and then I'll staple a federal felony on it and we'll make it into a state felony. But, you know, one and one doesn't equal 11. It equals two and zero plus zero doesn't equal two equals zero. There's nothing here at all. It's an embarrassment to justice. contemplate putting somebody in jail for the violation of a statute that even the experts who concern themselves with this statute don't think was violated. Like the former Bradley is as a former FEC commissioner. You have this, you know, Rorschach standard of of of campaign campaign expenses. And the experts, many of them said,

no, this is not a campaign expense. I've heard you say this before on other matters. A statute has to be written clearly enough that somebody who wants to keep himself clear of it in good faith can read it and understand what he can and can't do. Because I could totally see them in a different counterfactual scenario,

threatening to put him in jail for using campaign funds to pay off Stormy Daniels. Of course. Here's what Thomas Jefferson wrote and said back in the 18th century. He said a criminal statute to be constitutional

must be so clear that a reasonable person can understand it if he reads it while running, while running. What a perfect image. He's running. He's reading the statute. It has to be so clear that he can read it while running. While I'm sitting, I've been sitting for 60 years reading statutes. I cannot understand those statutes to apply to this conduct. It just doesn't apply, no matter how many times you read it. And fair warning is an essential part of the criminal justice system. When I was a young civil rights worker, I trained at Howard University to go down south. I wasn't one of these brave guys who was going to go and get, you know, hosed by the police or bitten by the dogs. I was going to be wearing an observer badge, you know, patch. And I was reporting and I had my little Kodak camera to take pictures, which they always took away. And the first thing we were told is you're being targeted by the Jim Crow cops because you're a civil rights

worker. Do not spit on the sidewalk. Do not put your cigarette out on the sidewalk. If you do, you will be charged with a felony of destroying government property. And boy, did we take that seriously. And they did arrest people for spitting on the sidewalk and they did arrest people for putting their cigarettes out. And they did arrest people for spitting on the sidewalk. And they did arrest people for putting their cigarettes out. And they did arrest Martin Luther King for doing nothing. And he was convicted. And Trump will be convicted, too. I don't want to compare a Jim Crow jury to a Manhattan jury. who walks around the street and people point their finger at you and say, that's the juror, or that's the judge who freed Trump and allowed him to become your next president. I know, I went through that. People don't talk to me on Martha's Vineyard because I defended him. I didn't even free him. I just defended him. And people say I'm a complicitous person. I'm the Goebbels and Goering to Trump being Hitler. That's what they're saying on Martha's Vineyard.

And where do you think the Martha's Vineyard people live in the voting season? In Manhattan. So you're going to get jurors who vote, who voted for Bragg, who want to help him keep his campaign promise. He promised to get Trump. So they're going to help him keep his campaign promise. And that's why in my book, Get Trump, I argue no prosecutor should ever be allowed to campaign on a promise to get somebody. And yet we know we're seeing that. We saw it in Pennsylvania with Bill Cosby. That was ultimately thrown out.

We're seeing it in New York now. And I'm sure we're going to see it on the other side as well. We're going to see Republican prosecutors targeting some Democratic leaders, probably Biden's son. You know, what goes around does come around. And tit for tat becomes a principle. It's not principle. It's just a retaliation. But believe me, it will it will operate.

Final final thing I want to ask you. The way I look at this campaign thing, in my mind, I see an analogy to a very common issue that every businessman faces is whether the IRS will allow this as a business expense. So if I ran a Christian bookstore and I got caught with a mistress, blah, blah, blah. And I said to the IRS, well, I had to use the bookstore proceeds to pay her off because I can't, if it came out that I ran a Christian bookstore and had a banging mistress, that would be bad for business. So it's a business expense. The IRS would say, absolutely not.

That is your own personal problem. That is not a business expense. And there's many, many, many cases which tease out what is and isn't a business expense. That seems to me almost the perfect analogy to judge campaign. Well, let me take it one step further. So there's nothing in the indictment which indicates what felonies he was thinking of in his mind to cover up on when he wrote that it was illegal expenses. But in the second or third paragraph of the statement of facts,

he says it may have been to permit him to take an improper tax deduction. So here's the theory. I'm having dinner tonight with a former client of mine who I saved from life imprisonment, And she's bringing her two kids. And I'll pick up the bill. And I have two credit cards, one of them for friends and non-business and the other for business expenses. And I'm going to sit and think, is this a business expense? She was my client, but she's no longer my client. I'm not sure. I'm going to check with my accountant in a year when I have to fill this out. But in the meantime, let me put it on my business credit card. I might take it. I might not take it

in the end, depending on what my accountant tells me. That's their theory. Their theory is that he wrote business expense or legal expense so that two years in the future, when he files his tax returns, which he never pays taxes on anyway, because he always takes, you know, deductions that exceed the income from depreciation, but that two years from now, he might have used that entry to help him justify saving like $12. I don't mean $12, it would be like $12,000 out of $130,000, 8%, whatever it is. Trump changed to Trump. If you think that for one second, Trump thought about the tax implications of writing down business expenses or legal expenses when he did that, it's absurd. Of course not. But that's how far- It cost him more in taxes.

It was reported it cost him more in taxes. He paid more taxes because of this. Yeah. By the way, what is the status of, you know, you say to your lawyer, Michael Cohen, listen, I got to pay this woman off. How should I do it? Should I just write her a check?

He says, and the lawyer says to you, no, no, I'll pay her and you reimburse me. At what point can you say to the criminal system, listen, I only did it this way because my lawyer advised me that was the proper way to do it. Is that an argument? Is that a defense? It could be. And the word he's now suing it, as you know, Colin, the worst thing is actually the way I remember the conversation having been written in the paper, Trump said, why don't I pay her in cash? And if he had done that, there would be no problem.

You're allowed to pay people hush money in cash. And there's no reason to report it if you're paying it out of your own pocket. Hush money in cash, there'd be no issue. But apparently the lawyer said, no, I'll take care of it. And he came up with this convoluted scheme, which to which he pleaded guilty. But the cash could still be an issue. The cash could still be an issue if it put him over, by their theory, the limits of his own rights to donate to his own campaign, right? Which is a constitutional issue today, whether or not you can have limits on a person's right

to contribute to his own campaign. There are First Amendment issues involved in that, too. But in any event, nobody gets prosecuted for that kind of thing. They get a slap on the wrist. The Federal Election Commission says you've got to have a fine. The fine is paid by the campaign, not by the individual. They tried it once to get a criminal prosecution against Edwards. They failed. The jury immediately rejected it. Bragg knows that, but he doesn't care. He knows he can probably get a jury to, he got a janitor to indict a ham sandwich. Now he can probably get a petty jury comprised of people who voted for him to convict a ham sandwich. And then it'll

be reversed on appeal. Usually judges don't like being reversed on appeal, but he'd prefer to be reversed on appeal. He'll be able to point and say, no, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. It was those guys in Albany. What do they know? You know, they were the ones who reversed it. So I think we're going to very likely see a conviction here and a reversal on appeal. Does this hurt or help Trump in 2024? I think it helps him for no other reason that DeSantis or whoever's running against him can't even get any attention. It sucks up all the oxygen.

You say, does it help or hurt? My answer is yes. It helps him in the primary and it hurts him in the general elections. I think it helps him in the primary. He becomes the nominee now for almost sure. And by the way, he could run from nomination. But depending on who he runs against, I don't think he can beat Biden. I think Biden has beat him once. They're both going to be four years older, but I think Biden will beat him again. There was an article today by George Will

urging Biden not to run, saying he would be a great one-term president. And then the open field would be an interesting one. I don't know who would get the nomination. But, you know, a Trump-Haley ticket, which could be a strong ticket against unknown Democrats, could present a stronger case. I think Biden wins if he runs head-to-head against Trump. But if we have another candidate less well known, nobody knows for sure. There's something, I know everybody hates Trump. There are certain things that Trump has done, for instance, like Trump University.

I don't know the details, but if the details are bad as they kind of feel they might be, that feels like a real crime to me. And there'd be justice in having- They should look into that. Look, those are the reasons I'm against Trump. Trump, you'll be interested in this. Trump called me on the phone the other day and he said, Alan, I just want to call you to thank you for your book. It's Trump. It's a great book. Everybody read it. I'm going to endorse it. And he went on social media and

he endorsed it. And he said, but Alan, why do you have to say every time you're on television that you voted against me? And he said, you know, Alan, I think you voted for me, but you just don't want your friends to know that. You want to maintain credibility among your liberal friends. I don't have any left, but to maintain credibility. And so I had to say to him, look, my wife had some doubts also. So when I voted and I voted absentee because I was living on Martha's Vineyard, it was the summer of the election and we are residents of Florida. And so I got the absentee ballot. My wife said, I'm not taking any chances with you.

Pulled out the video camera and she videoed me filling in the blank for Joe Biden so she could show all of her friends that I genuinely voted for Biden and not for Trump. So you threw it out. That's it. Then you threw it out and filled out your real ballot. No, but I wanted to say that we'll let you go that there's something the word that comes to mind is barbaric. About the the I mean, have to impute this to Bragg's mentality that he would like to see this 76 year old man, whatever, in prison, maybe for the rest of his life. I mean, if I could succeed at what I want to do, I want to see this man die in jail because he paid this woman one hundred thirty thousand dollars. It was trying to ruin him. That's disgusting.

I don't care how much you hate someone. It's disgusting. Well, there were two people who committed crimes. One of them right under his nose. Somebody leaked the fact that there were 34 counts. The only people who could have known that were grand jurors or people in Bragg's office. He's not, as far as we know, he's not investigated that crime. And second, of course, Stormy Daniels must have extorted him. Why do you pay $130,000 unless you're threatened with exposure? And we know there was the scheme where the people from

the National, whatever it's called, Inquirer, would pay money to somebody to buy their story and then not run it. Totally unethical journalistically, but not illegal. And so there hasn't been any investigation of that as far as I know. Statute of limitations is long gone, but it's long gone on these elements as well. So look, America is a less good place following this indictment than they were before that. The rule of law is in greater danger. We will survive. We're not a banana republic. We have elections. We have a Supreme Court. We have separation of powers and checks and balances. But we are a less committed country to the rule of law. And Brago to be ashamed of himself.

All right. Let's leave it there. Professor Dershowitz, you are always, always welcome here. I'm still waiting for my eight by 10 picture of you signed so we can put it on the wall in the comedy cellar. I'm going to invite me to come down. First of all, invite me to do some stand up. That's my goal all my life to, you know, have my seven minutes of of humor and comedy. I have a few jokes that I have been saving up for that moment. But if you want to come to stand up, I will put you on. That would be that would be that make my dead father very proud of me.

You were you were one of his favorites. I tell you, I, I, I am really people, dead, dead people. Fathers particularly love my routine. And so if you could get an audience of old, very, very old Jewish men, some dead, some alive, it'll be raucous. They'll be standing crowds only. I'm going to make it my mission to help produce this show. You should do it. Very old Jewish women. mission to help produce this show. You should do it.

Very old Jewish women, they throw their rubber pantyhose at me. They can't get enough of me. Are you serious? You'll really do this? I was once hit by a walker.

Somebody threw a walker at me. Just make sure the audience is the right audience for me. Very, very, very old people. Hard of hearing, but, you know, I'll talk loud. It'll sell out in minutes. All right. Thank you very much. The great Alan Dershowitz.

Thank you. So long, Alan. So long. Thank you. I think it won't be. That's really not our audience here at the Comedy Cellar. No, we do no joke. Now we listen. If he wanted to perform, we'll make it happen.

I am fully committed to making that happen. Well, I mean, you could have maybe an evening where he you know, where he talks. And then part of that is do him doing stand up. People would know they would be coming for him. So anybody who was coming ostensibly would be interested in that. Yeah. Yeah. OK. I didn't realize that he had penned yet another. Yeah, I mean, he's constantly he's like he's like Stephen King, this guy

in terms of just the the output is pretty, pretty impressive. I'm surprised he has any time to talk with us. It's amazing. And he's correct. He's correct about what he's saying. He's correct about Israel. He's correct about... We should have said Israel a lot better, but he's right. I mean, Israel's had four elections in five

years or something. It's not on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. And I think he's right that a huge part of the reaction among Jewish people is that they're they're they're very concerned about what the non-Jewish world will think of them, so they want to be sure by the. Well, this is outrageous. I mean, I don't support the judicial override, but. Why is he best friends with Benjamin Netanyahu? They met at MIT, he said. I don't know. I don't know.

That's not what I'm hearing from people in Israel that like judges and attorneys and like Israel, you know, that are Israeli, that like it actually really is in danger of becoming a dictatorship. Haven't we gotten over this constant threat that this is the end of the world? We've seen it on so many issues. Israel is not going to become a dictatorship. Do you know what a dictatorship is? What's a dictatorship? A dictatorship is a system where a single person or

group governs by fiat. They do whatever they want. There's no rules. And it can only happen at the point of a gun. There is no such thing as a dictatorship without guns. There's no scenario where Israel's army gathers to allow a dictatorship.

It's hyperbole. Yes, as Alan said, it can mean that some laws passed that the court, which impinges on some individual right, that the court would may have not allowed. And it can definitely mean that 20, 30 years from now, as demographics become more and more right wing. But it will always be a democracy. I mean, hasn't Netanyahu been in power for like 20 something years? Well, he hasn't been in power the last few years. He was elected. And I don't know. I'm not supporting the judicial override. No, I know.

But it is interesting. You know, if you look, if you read about it, the number of Sephardic Jews who are considered like the non-white Jews that have been on the Supreme Court since the founding of the state is minuscule. That's right. It's like one out of 21. A hundred percent. And they are furious.

And that's and the American left, which is so sensitive to these issues, doesn't even care about it. Because everybody makes it up as they go along. They don't care about equity for the Sephardic Jews because they don't agree with

the positions of the Sephardic Jews. They wouldn't give a shit about equity for black Americans if black Americans were anti-abortion. Let's be honest. That's my opinion. Everybody weaponizes whatever it is that they want

when they want it. So that's, as Alan says, hypocrisy is part of the human condition. Except here at the comedy cell, Nicole. People of principle try to be. Do we want to circle back to our discussion that we were having prior to Alan coming on? Trans people about the trans women, the bathrooms and the dorms. I've been thinking about that the whole time. I haven't been, but I just I have nothing to add to the discussion regarding Israel or regarding Trump.

I don't know. I'm just happy to circle back to it. Well, so so you were saying that sharing dorms, sharing showers, sharing intimate spaces that that that biological woman would have, you know, might might have a a legitimate reason. Look, there was there was many people back in the 50s who were so repulsed by being forced to be with somebody black that they made the same arguments. And we could not respect those arguments in that context because they were immoral. The question is, is it immoral for someone not to want to be naked? There's a certain vulgarity of exposure that you have with a roommate in a dorm room

or that you have to go through great lengths to avoid in a sense it becomes highly inconvenient. That begins to... How inconvenient, really? Well, let me ask you this question. Then why was it not bigotry to ever say Begins to how inconvenient, really? Well, let me ask you this question, then. Why was it not bigotry to ever say that women shouldn't have male roommates? Why?

Why? Why? Let's let's let's let's get the trends. Why? If let's say our co-ed dorm, let's say, oh, let's put that. So let's say let's say no, there are. But let's say I want to be I want to be in an all male dorm. And you say to me, what, you hate women? Like, no, I'm just not comfortable. I don't want a woman in the dorm room with me. I want to be I want to be in an all male dorm. And you say to me, well, you hate women like that.

I'm just not comfortable. I don't want a woman in the dorm room with me. I want to be able to walk around naked. I'm embarrassed to walk around naked woman. Is that bigotry? No, but that's not the same thing. Why is it not the same thing? Because trans women aren't men.

And the point and the bigotry isn't about walking around naked. I mean, I don't think. Why is that not? Why is it? Why am I not displaying my bigotry towards women? If I say I don't think that... Why am I not displaying my bigotry towards women if I say I don't want a room with a woman? I just don't think it's...

I don't think it's an analogous... It's exactly analogous. Having a trans woman be in a trans bathroom or a trans... Bathroom is different because bathroom is private. Well, if... What would you is different because bathroom is private. Well, if... What would you say?

Female bathrooms. The only thing I'll say is, and I've made this point before, is that I think that women, cis women, biological women, that would have a problem being roommates with a trans woman, we need to listen to them.

I also think that perhaps that if they were exposed to trans women, they might feel differently. I don't know. One thing I've noticed in being exposed to more trans women since, I don't know, since trans became a thing,

I mean, there's several that that that that that come to the comedy cellar that some some that are comics and others that have our waitstaff. Is it I feel as though I'm talking to a woman when I'm talking to trans women? You are talking to a woman. And I feel that. I mean, in other words, I don't feel like I don't feel it's any different. I'm talking to Jay McBride. I feel I don't feel like I don't feel it's any different. I'm talking to Jay McBride. I don't feel like. That I'm talking to a man, I feel as though I'm talking to a woman. I'm sure she would appreciate that. Well, I don't know if you're saying that sarcastically.

Well, I mean, I'm just saying I'm just saying in a way that I might not have guessed that I would feel she is a woman to me. That's a woman. OK. All right. And I'm, you know, despite her biology. Now I might not have guessed that I would have that reaction, but in my exposure to trans women,

which is relatively recent, they seem like women to me. So, so perhaps if by a lot, like my cousin made the point that biologic women need a safe space, perhaps if they were exposed to trans women, they might feel differently. But I think I still think we need to listen to what they have. You know who needs a safe space? Trans women.

That's who needs a space. Well, yes, cis women have plenty of fucking safe spaces. And I don't think that the onus is on the person whose actual safety and life is in danger. Why can't they both have safe spaces. And I don't think that the onus is on the person whose actual safety and life is in danger. Why can't they both have safe spaces separately? Well, they can, but I don't think the onus is on the trans woman to accommodate this like, you know, this sort of concocted made up fear. I don't know if it's concocted a fear. Fear is real. The only point is, as Noam said, people also used to fear black people. We did not accommodate that fear. We fought against that.

The question is, is this a fear that we need to fight against or a fear that we need to listen to? And I think Noam comes down perhaps on the side of listen to. Certainly more so than I can't I can't I can't decide whether what I'm doing is right or not, but I do, I do feel like, man, just because I'm a product of my upbringing and my culture, I do feel like, um, a young girl wants to room with a, a doesn't want to room, uh, with a, a, um, a trans woman because of the modesty of it. And because of the, you know, like I said, you know,

when you get changed for bed, are we, are we to pretend that the difference in bodies and body parts is some like nonsense thing that's not real, that people who think about that are ridiculous, that what really matters is what somebody is privately thinking and can't take their word for it. That's just not really plausible to me. There's something about humans. And by the way, every animal, as far as I understand, which does segregate in some way by biological sex, it's not bigotry. And maybe for the greater good, we will decide not to honor that.

But they always make it worse by trying to tell the people who feel this way that there's something horrible about them. You're a hater. You're a bigot. You're a racist. Like, I'm not. I just I just want to be able to walk around in my, you know, naked in my dorm room more important than somebody's basic sort of human rights? Why is that?

I don't think it's a human. Well, that's what goes back to us. So why then? Why then do we allow them to not have a male in their room with them? Why is that not a bigotry? That's what I'm saying. It's like if you aren't comfortable with that, then you should go sleep someplace else. How about I want to choose who I room with.

There's plenty of women who are fine having trans roommates. Right. They can have that. But if I'm modest and I was raised, God forbid, God forbid I was raised, you know, in a conservative and religious home. I'll say. And it's difficult for me. Do you have to ram this down my throat?

It's like. Nobody's ramming anything down your throat. Well, if you say I have no choice. Nobody's ramming. I don't really think trans people are like running to room with, you know. See, the gay is, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of sloppy analogies. So the gay marriage thing.

In the end, although people felt it was being rammed down their throats in the end, gay, gay people marry other gay people and it's not really your problem. Or your business or your business, you may be really upset that it goes on. For whatever reason, you are, you might be repulsed by it. But in the end, it's not it's not you. But living with somebody. Of the opposite biological sex. Has always been something that was almost self-evidently reasonable. But you could say the same thing about not wanting to room with a lesbian if you're a woman.

Like what? Why is that any different or not wanting to have a lesbian roommate because you're modest and you're not comfortable walking around somebody who is attracted to you? I mean, there is something to what you're saying there. Well, I was actually trying to support my point, not yours. No, I mean, but but there there's just something so basic about biological differences in sex that with that is I mean, I don't know. I don't know. And I don't even if the. Well, listen, you know, you speak out of both sides about I remind you of a story that that shut you up the last time.

Oh, no, don't bring this up again, because it's so such a I don't like that story because it's true. So this is a story. I don't like this story. It's ridiculous. When when I used to pick up. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. This is a story. But this is an important story. So I used to pick when I was pick up my kids from preschool. When my son, Manny, was changing after swimming,

all the moms would go in the room with the naked boys and I would go in the room with naked boys and everybody was fine with it. When I pick up my daughter and the little girls were changing in the room, the moms did not want me to go in there with their naked daughters. They wanted my daughter to come out

and I would go change her. Now, that is a crystallized essence of what we're talking about here. They have no hatred in their hearts. It's just there was a deep instinct that we don't want this male dad, as he might be, with a daughter around our naked daughters. OK, and why not? I don't know why not. OK, no, no.

But let's tease this out. You brought it up. You opened the door for the conversation. So why not? I don't know why not. There's a million things that humans feel and do that I can't tell you why or why. It's because it's in our wiring to feel that way. OK, but does that so is the assumption that a grown man is going to have sexual feelings towards small children?

The assumption will be possible. Some will that it's possible. So then you could say the same thing really about a gay woman. Much less likely. Women are different. OK, so then trans women are also different. The point is that the modesty of girls around boys, especially little girls, young girls, is deep within us. Like I said, maybe society will decide, you know,

we're not going to respect that. But they have to stop calling it hatred because it's not hatred. It's just not. It's just not hatred. It's definitely something. I mean, I don't think we can accept that on its face. And I think that that argument... Ariel, you're cutting my house a lot. If I came down the stairs one day naked...

You always do. With my dick hanging out. You'd be like, what the fuck's the matter with you? I'd be like, what? I love you. Like, we're friends, right? Like, you know, you'd be like... You'd literally be like, I was crazy. Like what I love you like we're friends right you'd be like you're literally like I was crazy like why are you doing that it's okay Periel

I'm you know in my head I'm not a man it's more visceral than that and you know I can sound the wrong way because I'm very very on the side of trans people having most 98 percent of the the their way on 98 percent of 98 percent of the issues which they're grappling with. But there's certain things I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, I think we can put a bow on it. Thank you for listening. I think Alan was very a bow on it. Thank you for listening. I think Alan was very, very on his game today. Although they don't have co-ed dorm rooms as far as I know. No. Yeah, I think.

I don't. Maybe not. Well, they might have co-ed suites where like. You know, it's like a suite with different bedrooms. Yeah. But not the same. Not the same bedroom. I mean, if the assumption is a sexual attraction,

then the same thing goes for gay and lesbian. And there's a modesty to it. Oh, please. What modesty? Ariel. I need to speak to someone about this who didn't pose naked on the cover of her book. OK, you're just you're just not the person to speak to about this. Well, I mean, that is, you know, the question of whether your roommate would be attracted to you, I guess.

I mean, that's what I guess what the army was grappling with, with having gay men serve is that there could be that could be an issue. And and they're right. And and you know what? Grownups can handle it. It's not that serious. Sometimes people are attracted to you and you're not attracted to them. It's not the end of the world. Everything's going to be OK. And by the way, you know how we've sexualized bodies and breasts is a very American thing. You know, you go to places like Europe and you go to the beaches and everybody's topless. So there's like this real hypocrisy

in our quote unquote, modest, modest culture here. It's bullshit. Well, that's a topic perhaps for another day. Maybe the bonus episode. Thank you for listening. Podcast at ComedyCellar.com for comments, questions, suggestions

and criticism. We thank Alan Dershowitz and his book Get Trump! is available wherever books are sold. And it's amazing how many books he comes out with. Thank you again to Cole Lyons, our sound person. And we'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.