The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Jeff Leach and Fred Kaplan

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

Jeff Leach and Fred Kaplan

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the podcast of New York's famous comedy cellar on Raw Dog XM, Channel 99, Sirius Radio. This is Dan Adderburn. Actually, Noam is here today. Usually when I do the introduction, it's because Noam's not here. He is here. He's busy doing something at his computer. But he'll be with us in just two seconds. But we have with us today Fred Kaplan, our old friend Fred Kaplan. You may know him from the Chip Chipperson podcast. And he's also a writer for Slate.

And he is the War Stories columnist for Slate and the author of five books, including The Insurgents, David Petraeus, and The Plot to Change the American Way of War, which was a New York Times bestseller. I don't know. What does that mean, a New York Times bestseller? How many books do you have to sell to be a bestseller? It's a week-by-week thing. So, in other words, you could sell a couple thousand copies in a week is usually enough to get you there. And then you could sell zero the next week, but you would still be in your country. So it sounds more impressive than it is.

With us today. With us today. But you could say it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Oh, I didn't get that. Oh, right. Also, Pulitzer Prize finalist as well. Would you agree at any time to be a best-selling book in the country is quite impressive? Now, if you're up against Bill O'Reilly, you might not be.

I mean, it's going to be tough, right? Well, also, is it bestseller overall or bestseller in that particular category? impressive. If you're up against Bill O'Reilly, it's going to be tough, right? Is it bestseller overall or bestseller in that particular category? Nonfiction. Not like nonfiction about Petraeus? No, nonfiction. Shut up, Dan. Some quick housekeeping.

I have to do the Comedy Cellar show tonight. It's 7.30 now. Liz said you can come whenever you want. They're going to put you on. But whenever that means whenever... Whenever you get here, that's when they'll put you on.

Yeah, but the show ends at some point. Then you go on the next one. Doesn't matter. Okay. So would you prefer I stay for this entire show? Yes, I'd love you to be here for the entire show. That's the only reason why I came. Okay.

We're supposed to have Jeff Leach with us, who's an international British comedian. He'll walk in in a few minutes. Is he on his way? Yeah, you can introduce him when he gets here. I will introduce him when he gets here. Anyhow, he will be here soon, adding a little bit of English class to

our podcast, but before he gets here, we can talk to our dear friend, Mr. Fred Kaplan. What a week it's been in the United States. Oh my God. We've had, I mean, we should go right into it, right? Yeah, go ahead. We should probably say something about David Kimowitz. Well, I thought maybe we'd do that toward the end.

Okay, we can say it toward the end. Go ahead. It's been a hell of a week here in the United States. Two mass shootings, El Paso, Dayton, Ohio. That's all anybody's talking about. Yep, yep. Well, you know, we have wall-to-wall 24-hour cable news. Remember when that first started?

You're old enough to remember that. The thinking was, this is going to be great because we can cover everything. We can cover the entire world. And yet they seem incapable of doing more than two stories on a single day. It's the same damn panels. And now we have a new panel talking about the same thing that the last panel did. So it's all Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, all the time. And you remember, you went to Dayton today, did you notice that they didn't let in the press pool? Because they said, well, you know, this is for a meeting

with the survivors and their families. And this is not a press opportunity. Well, in the press pool because they said, well, you know, this is for a meeting with the survivors and their families. This is not a press opportunity. Well, in the meantime, they took, like, campaign footage inside there. That's going to be in his campaign footage. It's completely cynical. And then he tweets today, they loved me in the hospital. You know, it's just, you know, the guy is. And then he's also tweeting about, I guess he had time to watch Joe Biden's speech and he said, boring, boring, and made fun of Beto O'Rourke's comment that, you know.

What was Beto O'Rourke's comment? Oh, that he said, oh, Beto called him a white supremacist and used nasty language. Well, now, now. He has a right to defend himself. He said, well, you know, but he doesn to defend himself. He said, well, yeah, but you know, I don't know what he said. He doesn't defend himself.

He attacks Beto O'Rourke. He says, oh, Beto, not his real name. He's just trying to appeal to Hispanics. I came down there and humiliated him and now he's just got 1%

humiliating himself. But when a man accuses you of being a white supremacist, yeah, well, then defend, then defend that. You don't have to say, well, fuck you too. You know, you're an asshole, too.

But are you in accord with this notion that Trump is somehow responsible for the El Paso shooting, which is what many people are saying? Well, I would say this. I mean, apparently the Dayton thing, we don't know what that guy's politics were at this point. Although he watched very closely the news about the El Paso shooting. Yeah, we don't know what his politics are. And further important, and even whatever his politics are, there's no indication that his politics motivated the shooting. That's right. But the El Paso thing seems pretty clear. This guy was a Trump fan.

His manifesto mimics a lot of the language of Trump's speeches, rallies. I would say that. I think it's undeniable. I think it's undeniable that this guy has degraded the political culture of our country, the language of our country. He is, look, a guy like the guy in El Paso, he's probably always felt this way. But I think it's quite arguable that Trump is leading some of these people to take action. He's making them feel like, oh, I'm not somebody who should crawl under a rock. The president of the United States agrees with everything I'm saying. And they feel legitimized by this and move to, like the guy who shot up the synagogue in Pittsburgh, he did it as a statement

on, because the synagogue was supporting immigrants coming from south of the border, the invasion, the vermin, and so forth. Can I respond to that? Yeah, go ahead. So I don't have a total disagreement, but I do disagree with kind of the way he's framing it. So I think that he's failed. Who he? Trump? Trump.

Before any of this, we know that he's a vulgar, low-class guy and has been long before he ran for president. And you would hope that he would have cleaned that up when he became president, but he's not capable of it. So I remember years ago, the way he would talk about hot models, and I was really turned off by this guy. And then, of course, anybody who would make fun of someone who was captured, an American hero captured and tortured in a prison camp.

I only like people who don't get captured, he said. But just the nerve not to speak deferentially to someone who's, while you had bone spurs. Put himself on the line. Yeah. For whatever reason. So that says who we're dealing with. So I won't defend that.

And then as a president, he now has a fiduciary responsibility to the country. A fiduciary responsibility. Yes. That's what I said. It's a mighty big word. What's it got to do with white supremacists? I'm getting to it. So like,

doctor, do no harm. That's it. So when you have a situation where we know that when you raise the temperature in a situation,

you may not cause it, but if you have enough people walking around, enough camels walking around with their backs full of straws, you don't want to be the person throwing out one more straw because you don't know. It doesn't mean you cause it.

I would say he threw the lighted pitchfork into the straw. So in that sense, anybody, especially the president, but anybody who is in a position to recklessly raise the temperature should be ashamed of themselves if they don't try not to do that. Unfortunately, in my mind, it also extends to his opposition. So just now, just as I was waiting in the stairs before, I see this article on CNN about Tucker Carlson said something about white supremacy as a hoax. Yeah. He said it's a hoax. Yeah, he said it's a hoax. So I read the article and it says, on white supremacy, facts first.

An audit by the Anti-Defamation League found white supremacist murder in the U.S. more than doubled with far-right extremist groups and white supremacists responsible for 59% of the fatalities in 2017. So I'm like, wow, that's significant. But I know already not to read these things without going back and check. So right now I went to check the Defamation League's website where it says, and you tell me if I'm being wrong. It says in 2018, extremists killed at least 50 people in the United States, a sharp increase from the 37 related murders in 2017. So far, they're pretty much accurate. And then here's what they left out, which I don't think,

which is raising the temperature, not telling what any intelligent person would want to know. Get to the thing. It says, though still lower than the totals for 2015 and 2016. Of white supremacy. Extremism. Or all extremisms of all kinds. So the point is that they don't give us any, they do a year-over-year thing.

Well, lower, I mean, I'd like to see what the numbers were. 50? No, the ones two years earlier. What's lower? The total goes from 37 to 70 what the numbers were. 50? No, the ones two years earlier. What's lower? The total goes from 37 to 70 at the highest. But here's another thing. 70 before Trump took office.

70 before Trump took office. Of white supremacy. Extremists. Extremists of all kinds. Then we still don't know the correct... We don't know, and they have no interest in explaining it that way. Well, I would say... One more thing.

I'm almost done. Okay. The other thing is that when you're dealing with low numbers, like 50, let's give you an example. If you're dealing with one, there's no way for that to deviate and be less than 100% change. Yeah. When you're dealing with numbers like 25, 30, whatever, it's already spin, I think,

when people start using the percentages in the alternative giving you the actual numbers, which would take no more space. Right. But it's not as, when you say it went from 37 to 50, people are like, all right, out of 300 million people, that's basically no change. Well, but

hold on, hold on. It depends how many people were killed in each incident. That's what I'm saying. But it doesn't. At maximum, the year is 70. It doesn't illustrate this incredible explosion of white supremacist sentiment because it went from 37 to 50. And not all white supremacist sentiment results in somebody killing someone. Listen, if I have a business, if my manager told me, you know, the number of people complaining about burnt chicken kebabs tripled this year, and she didn't tell me it went from three to nine, I'd say, what the fuck?

Are you playing games with me? I'd be furious. Like, don't give me a percentage. You've got to tell me the headline. It's only nine. Well, let me. Am I wrong? Well, the director of the FBI.

Right, aren't I? Yes, you're right. I am right. But let me broaden the discussion. The director of the FBI testified to Congress two weeks ago, before the latest incidents, that in the previous nine months, so it would have been like since December, because this was in August at some point, there had been 90 arrests, like 100 arrests of, you know,

sort of Islamic terrorism and things like, foreign international terrorism, 100, and 90 arrests of, as he put it, what you might call white supremacist violence. So 90 incidents, 90 arrests for people into committing acts of white supremacist violence. And he said, and this is the main point here, and this is what was not true a few years ago, that we need to start treating this kind of shit with the same resources and attention and techniques as we've been treating for international terrorism. I agree with that.

But this is a phenomenon that has risen to that level quite recently. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security made this recommendation that, hey, we need to – and this was rejected by the White House. But also during Obama's time, people were already talking about that we're not recognizing this. It was coming up. That's true. So let me give you another example of why I think – because I – It's been a problem for much longer than people have... I would say that... Let me ask if you would agree with this.

Yeah. That, and again, figures are hard to come by here because it's go beyond murders, just the general tenor of things. You know, 10 years ago, you know, racism... Racism kind of became unpopular. If you were a racist, you really just didn't want to talk that way too much. You realized, this is bad.

People don't like it. I'm not going to. Then the president of the United States is talking about most Mexicans are rapists. He didn't say most Mexicans are rapists. He said some of them are good people. He said of the ones that come here, they're not sending their best. They're not sending their best. They're rapists.

And then he said some of them are good people, which means most of them aren't. Can I make a point? Hold on a second. Let me make my point. I don't want to defend that comment. No, no, no. But the point is— I hated that comment.

Okay. Well, but he said a lot of things like that since. And so if you're a racist, don't you feel a little emboldened by this? Like, okay, well, shit. I am not in the minority here. This guy is telling me this stuff, and I'm in the same camp. You had a situation,

I mean, it's not just white nationalism. It's just violent. Like, did you read sometime today at some rally or a stadium or at a game, I think, some 30-year-old guy whacked a 13-year-old kid, gave him a concussion, sent him to the hospital because the kid had not removed his cap

during the Star Spangled Banner. Disrespect to the flag. Now, this isn't racism, but this is just kind of nationalism. But listen, up until that thing about the cap, I actually agree with you. I agree with you almost 100 percent, except that I don't know how to put that on the president as opposed to the president being part of the general problem. Because at the same time.

Well, who else is part of this general problem? I'll tell you. At the same time, the language that I'm hearing from the left and the right that I see every day on Twitter, the stuff that the doxing, the calls to violence. I'm not going to deny that Twitter is a sewer. The death threats. Well, you've been subject to this stuff that that that that people get when they write articles. All of it. We are we are moving in a direction that I don't believe that we would have not found ourselves in a very, very ugly situation right now, even if Trump had not won the presidency. And it's a. And other countries, too, are finding this.

And they also don't have Trump. And I want to give one other example. Because you and I, Fred and I, debate sometimes about this. But I really spend a lot of time thinking about this thing where the guy yells out, shoot him.

Yep. Now, that's been distilled now. And he laughs. Yeah, he laughs. he doesn't say no what would have happened I'm not going to mischaracterize it I promise you but it's been distilled now to its evil essence

and then we're probably in a different time nobody would have even known about this now everybody hears about it so this is the thing. So the speech starts out. He's trying to advocate for the wall. And he says, listen,

we have a caravan of 20,000 people coming. And in other countries, he actually says this, in other countries, they use weapons at the border. He says, we can't do that. He says, I would never allow that. He says, but how are we going to stop them?

Now, if time ends right there, Trump has not said anything wrong. There's no story yet. As a matter of fact, he's waiting. Well, except he's mischaracterized this as an invasion. But these are people coming in and asking for asylum, which is not illegal or an invasion. But he hasn't said anything insightful. As a matter of fact fact he's made the point that we can't

I would never allow the threat of violence against these people we just have to find out a way and then somebody says shoot him so somebody says what are you going to do how are we going to keep them out now he's not he's clearly not calling on violent images

so he says shoot him and the crowd laughs and then Trump as we know his instinct He's clearly not calling on violent images. You're right. So he says, shoot him. And the crowd laughs. And then Trump, as we know, his instinct is 100% of the time, he's not going to call out somebody. I wish he would. Can you think of a single president who wouldn't have said, who wouldn't have called him out? I accept that. I don't know.

I'm not as intimately with Obama. Obama clearly had the reflex. Well, it's not just calling him out, and Trump kind of smiled. He kind of smiled. No, it wasn't. And he said, only in the panhandle. He said only in the panhandle. But he said that with a kind of affectionate.

Yes. So this is Trump's instinct, which is to never alienate the people who love him. That's right. This is a bad instinct of his. That's my instinct too, bud. I know. It's a lot of people.

Obama's instinct was, because a laugh is kind of an involuntary thing. So it's like- With Trump? With everybody. He laughs. Not that many pictures of him smiling. No.

When you laugh at something, sometimes you might grab ahold of yourself, but obviously where Obama's, I've seen Obama in that situation where somebody told a joke and his instinct was to have a sour face. So this was deep within Obama's character and it's deep within Trump's

character. However, there is nothing about Trump's intentions in that speech, what he said, or anything particular, anything which would indicate that Trump was... Let me just finish my point. That Trump was anything

but badly handled. But then he also said later... Now, is it fair at this point to now to take that incident and say, because this is one of the very few incidents that this is the reason...

That's just crazy to me. You're leaving out what happened afterwards. and say, because this is one of the very few incidents that this is the reason. That's just crazy to me. No, no, but here, you're leaving out what happened afterwards. What happened afterwards? Okay, first he laughs and ha ha ha ha ha. No, you're exaggerating. I'm not miscarrying. He didn't go ha ha ha ha ha. I don't think there was any laugh. I think he just smiled.

He smiled and he kind of said, and then afterwards he said, and by the way, when the guy said shoot him, a lot of people laughed and applauded. And he said afterwards, great crowd, very patriotic Americans. So he's sanctioning it. He's saying great crowd, patriotic Americans. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with that.

I have a problem with him not. If everybody is like doing Sig Heil, yeah, great crowd. They have no problem with that. Really? I have a problem with him not... If everybody is like doing Sig Heil, yeah, great crowd. They weren't doing Sig Heil. Listen, I agree with you, and I would have, and I feel strongly that it's disgusting...

Fred, let me finish. That it's disgusting that he didn't call this guy out for that joke. I think you're making a valid point. For you to expect that afterwards, he's now going to become the enemy of the crowd

and not compliment, not say great things. He doesn't have to say anything. But my point is this. If the best, if one, if like the top three incidents that I'm seeing going around are as weak as this actual scenario where he came in,

he was making remarks about nonviolence, about not using weapons, and some jackass makes a joke and he doesn't react to it. He reacts to the joke with the same vulgarity that he makes fun of John McCain with

that this is so powerful. I don't think anybody's claiming that that caused the guy in El Paso to go shoot. But this is why I say... People are making that. They're making a lot. And this is why I blame

these detractors. Because if you're worried about raising the heat, if you understand that raising the heat can set people off over the edge, then when you report this story, the responsible way to report it is Trump made a call for no weapons at the border. Somebody made a joke, he left. Because I'm telling you that the people who saw that speech reacted with one-tenth the aversion to it as the people who were reading the headlines about the speech. I don't know about that, but let me ask you this, because I... Well, we do have...

Well, I just wanted to introduce our new... I guess Jeffrey just showed up. Sorry, apologies. And it's the same thing with the infestation remark. By the way, I just want to say that, of course, we don't know... Wait, you hear my name and you immediately think infestation. Invasion from across the planet. We don't really know. Redcoats.

We don't know. In the case of any individual, what pushed him over the edge, of course, is unknown to all but to the individual himself and to God. It's certainly possible that something Trump said could have pushed somebody over the edge. Absolutely is possible. We have with us international man of mystery, comedian Jeff Leach. Hi, how are you? How do you do, Jeff?

Jeff is, well, we do these long introductions. An immigrant. Which I don't think I know. I'm an immigrant. Do you have a green card? Oh, I've got a green card. Yeah, I'm legal.

Okay. Did you marry somebody for that? No. I mean, I have you to thank for being in this country. Oh, that's right. That's right. We do these long introductions.

I don't think they're necessary, but it's what we do. He has hosted numerous TV shows for the BBC. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Comedy in the UK. There you go.

Appeared in multiple feature films. Well, that's what it says here anyway. I haven't. That's all right. I have, but no one cares. Are they, these are English films? No, American, but American Canadian, but not big enough. Not Lockstock and Two Smoking Barrels?

No one knows. No, exactly. And he voiced characters in major video game releases. I don't know any video games with English. Well, gamers do. That's all right.

And he's a regular but most importantly he's a regular comedy star. Back to El Paso. Wait, wait, wait. I just wanted to give the introduction. I've just spent the last

two hours arguing with Ann Coulter about El Paso. What were you arguing with Ann? At Gerard's podcast? Was she downstairs or were you on TV? No, no, no.

I just got kept very late at another podcast. That Gerard's podcast? Yeah. And the judge, there was Judge Herb Dodle was on there as well. What was Coulter's argument? Well, I think she, very much yours, but quite balanced actually. I think it was quite balanced, which, you know, I appeared yesterday on a show

where I was vehemently attacking Trump for not denouncing, you know, neo-Nazism and nationalism, et cetera, et cetera, and this kind of fanatical outlook and white supremacy. And they pulled up a load of videos for me that I hadn't previously seen of Trump denouncing those things multiple times in press conferences over the last few years

now as you know i'm a classic liberal he does like a hostage video yeah denunciation somebody wrote it sure but i mean but i'm still i've still been peddling uh a very uh you know the a leftist propaganda that he's never actually publicly you know denounced these people and and that wasn't true i was incorrect and i had to sort what you should do the next time you're you're brought up on that is to wrench in the intensity and frequency with which he attacks a large number of americans absolutely versus fascism nazism sure kim jong-un. I don't know. But does that mean he's responsible? Does that mean he's directly responsible for the actions of those people?

He defies really categorization because he doesn't actually attack Hispanic people. Joe Scarborough hates him, right? Hates him. Yet even after that Mexican remark that he made, which was really the worst of all the Mexicans, that first one he made, Scarborough was supporting him.

With the one where he said they're not sending their business. His announcement. We should bring that up. Was Scarborough still in favor of him after that? Yeah. Apparently, there was a report that he was ready to be his running mate after that. Well, I suspect if all Trump did was to say build that wall, he'd also be accused of stoking hatred. I don't think so. You know.

No, I don't think that's true. It's a combination. Well, I mean, even Bernie wanted the wall built once upon a time, didn't he, back in 2016? I don't think he wanted a wall or not. 2016, yeah. But he didn't want an immigration bill. He spoke very openly about supporting, strengthening the borders, the border security,

and clamping down on immigrants. Sure, absolutely. But certainly the concept of tightening up on immigration on the southern border was one of Bernie's major... But let's make some distinctions here. There is a distinction worth making between hordes of people coming to the border with guns and smashing down the fences and running into Texas and up the Oklahoma of hand. showing up at designated crossing points to apply for asylum according to legal procedures, which is what the vast majority of these people who are subsequently being locked up in detention centers are doing. But that's not what Trump was referring to.

But he didn't make... That's not what the wall is for. No, no, no. But the point is that Trump and a lot of people are making no such distinction. It's all part of the invasion. Yes, you're right. So you're saying his rhetoric is lazy, rather than necessarily inciting hatred.

He's too general and too lazy. Is it me, or ever since Leach got his haircut, he's more reasonable? No, it's because I'm sober as well. That's why. He used to have very long hair down to his shoulders. I did. He looked a bit like Vlad the Impaler.

Exactly. And all my opinions were of a vampiric nature. And your opinions were stronger back then. It's part of your... No, I'm just... I'm reaching a point where I'm so... I've realized two things. One, the opinion of a legal immigrant,

certainly a liberal immigrant, no one cares about that in America because I have no voting rights. I have no power to change the situation until I decide to become a citizen, which at one point I will. And the other that I realized is that I've been guilty of reaffirming and pushing leftist propaganda

as much as I am of rapidly denouncing and attacking the politics of the right. And I'm kind of hit a point where I realized that's immature, politically immature. Now And I'm kind of at a point where I realize that's immature. You know, politically immature. Now, I'm still liberal. I'm still for progression and equality of all people. And I feel like a Democratic Party is more aligned with that.

But that doesn't mean that I'm... I think all Republicans are wrong now. Now, is your motivation for becoming an American citizen mostly career-related? No, it's to have some kind of say in the politics of the country that I proudly live in and that I give three sets of tax to because I pay my city tax in Los Angeles as well. But you proudly live here for career reasons or are there other motivations? A number, but career is a large part of it.

Yeah, absolutely. It is true that Brits can no longer act superior about their own politics. Absolutely not. No. But we can about everything else. But how much of your appeal do you think stems from your British accent? Which ever since the Beatles... It depends.

Amongst audiences, maybe 50% of it. Amongst comedians, none of it. No one likes me. Among audiences, it probably buys you two minutes of goodwill. I sound patronizing even when I'm trying to be polite. You got it wrong both times there, by the way. Yeah? I think the audience likes you not because of goodwill. I sound patronizing even when I'm trying to be polite. You got it wrong both times there, by the way. Yeah? I think the audience likes you not because of your accent.

Right. And the comedians dislike you. It does nothing to you. It's on the merits in both situations. No, I think an English accent is interesting. Yeah, but you've still got to be funny. From a comedian. You've still got to be funny.

I know, but it adds a little zip to it. Well, it's something exciting in the same way to it. It's part of the delivery. An American in England is an exciting entity. Is it really? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah. When I'm across the pond doing comedy in England, you're saying that my accent would add a little bit of zip.

Absolutely. Also, bear in mind that such a large proportion of the comedy that we digest in England, and stand-up especially, this is the birth of stand-up, this country and this city in particular. You know, Lenny Bruce's of the world and Joan Rivers and Richard Pryce and that's what we digest. So that's what we think. When we think great comedy, we think of the American greats. How's it going? We alright? One of you, yeah, the rest of you just staring at me. Drink it in. This is my life.

It's confusing, innit? I look like a walking, talking human manifestation of a Game of Thrones spoiler alert. I know, I cultivated that. Look, people can't even look at me in the streets of New York. They're just like, don't stare directly at him. You'll find out what happens in season six don't do it it's beautiful i love it and i've got the voice as well i've got the english accent to go with this face and this look perfect opportunity to mess with new yorkers i like getting on the subway every day i had a little girl on there the other day with her friend she was drinking a coffee and she's like oh my god it's so hot becky she's like really is i'm sweating i just leaned in behind them suddenly and went, winter is coming.

Did anybody want to actually hear what Trump said about the Mexicans? Absolutely, yeah. It doesn't really matter. So I watched a video on it recently. He says, the US is becoming a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. And then somebody says something.

You can't hear what they say. Which, where, when was this? This is that first Mexican rapist. His first, his announcements. And then somebody says something. You can't hear what they say. Which, where was, when was this? This is that first Mexican rapist speech. His first, his first, his announcements speech. Yeah, somebody says something. And it's weird, like, you can't, you can't make out what they're saying. But he says, thank you, it's true. And these are the best and finest.

And he points, so like, meaning like probably they're immigrants or something. And he says, when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. Any points? They're not sending you. Any points again? The good ones.

Yeah, whoever they are. The people who called out. They're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.

And some, I assume, are good people. Now, I found these comments reprehensible. Well, it was so reprehensible. You might remember. They're reprehensible because they're inaccurate. That's right.

But it is possible, like the Mariel boat lift from Cuba. One could imagine a scenario where a country might dump its criminals on it. Well, the only mitigating factor. But that's not the case. But it's not like even the, from the very beginning, the essential premises, they are sending us as if the Mexican government is rounding up these. Well, I believe they

are. These aren't people who came organized by the Mexican government coming in a bust, you know, organized by okay, all criminals join the felons over in this pile, you know, murderers and that. I believe they are in subtle ways, we're a relief valve for them. But I just want to say, the only mitigating

thing was that at the time when this happened, the only thing that's... This is how I got myself in trouble. This is not to say that this is defense of him. This is a fact which I believe an historian would want to put in the context. An impartial opinion.

Which is that at the same time that this is happening, we had this woman, I think in San Francisco, who was murdered by someone who had been deported three or four times or a certain, what was her name?

I don't know. Kate Stanley? Oh, Stanley. I think so. Yeah, so this was a very hot story in the news. So he was alluding to that which was in the headlines,

at least on Fox News it was on the headlines. Yeah, but you know, they don't, at least on Fox News, it was on the headlines. Yeah, but they don't... At the same time, there was somebody else murdered, a group of people in Miami murdered by some white guy who didn't like gay people. But they're illegal. They're legal, yeah.

They're both problems. They're both problems. We also have an intelligent debate about the fact whether or not Trump, when he says things, bases it on either fact or says it in a presidential manner. But that's never been his MO. He doesn't care, nor has he ever spoken in a presidential manner. I'm not sure I agree with you.

There are two different issues here, and it's a fine point. One, and I actually agree with this very strongly, I don't believe the average Mexican illegal immigrant. I think the more illegal immigrants we have from Mexico, I think the crime rate would actually go down. That's the statistical. I believe that. The statistics show that. Yeah. Judging by the immigrants that I know, they are less likely to be criminals.

However, that's not the subset that we're talking about with that other thing. If we deport people because we've identified them as dangerous. Which is what Obama did, by the way. Right. And we find that our system is so in disarray that these people we deport because we know they're a threat come back again and again, then, yeah, we have a problem there. And that's to the family of someone whose daughter gets murdered in that scenario, they're

going to say, my government let me down. This wasn't the statistical math. This was an individual who was identified. And we're not taking this seriously. So that's fair, I think. That's fair, but I mean, it is such a... Almost akin to the red flag situation right now with, you know, mass shooters. It's like the same thing. If you're identifying people as troublemakers, then why are they not clamping down

on it? But it's such a small percentage of the zillion other murders and problems that are going on. Does that make it okay? No, it doesn't make it okay at all, but why isn't he going to comfort the parents of somebody else? It's not indicative of a big problem. He's leading with the worst argument against illegal immigration, which is crime. Of all the reasons that I'm sympathetic to controlling the border, crime is not one of them.

To play devil's advocate, there are those that say, if those people weren't here, there would be no murders. That's not true. That's his implication. That if we had no illegal immigration, then no illegal immigrants would murder people. Right. So you'd save X number of lives. No, you wouldn't.

No, that's where I disagree. Because the fact is, I believe very strongly strongly if they actually were to X maybe. If they actually controlled the border, if illegal immigration stopped, immediately the rich Republicans would force the government to start taking in more legal immigrants because we need the labor, period. And then you have some crime. But at least we get to vet them in some way. I don't know. Judging from what's been going on lately, I think you'd have a lot bigger impact on crime by deporting every 20-year-old Goyesha white man.

Right, but you can't do that either. We might have to cut that out. Well, if you wanted to bring down criminality in this country... Had you not said Goyesha, we would have been... Do you want me to remake the point and take out Goyish? But you know, you're hitting on something else here. Well, we can't do that. Hold on.

This is important. And this is part of what... This is a satirical point, Dan. Fred, this is part of what bugs me about the whole thing about bringing up the temperature and blaming Trump. So one of the stories that is also going on simultaneously, I sent it to you in the Times like a few months ago, and there was just an article in Tablet Magazine about it. The main increase in hate crimes against Jews because New York

is one of the places where it's going through the roof is from the black community. It's virtually 100% of the increase is from the black community. Now, again that's a minuscule, but look how interesting it is because as soon as we hear that our instinct is to say, come on, but that's just a tiny, it may be, but that's a tiny group of black people.

You can't generalize about that. No, I've heard Sherrod Small stand up, and he's inciting violence. But when you talk about the white community, we don't have that instinct. What numbers? You're the one who decried right when when when when people flippantly talk about white people this and white people that and if somebody goes out and kills white people then then one could say that you you know your comment was insightful and so incitate in that's the word not insightful but inciting to violence and you said let's deport goyish white men although you said it as a joke out then don't don't don't do that. But that could be regarded as raising the temperature.

I think that's what Noam was saying. Well, then this is just, you know, I think that's the kind of piece of the thing that you usually decry. When you see a rise in hate crimes in the black community against Trump, those numbers are being used, black community against Jews. Those numbers of the increase in hate crimes. Hold on. Those numbers of the increase in hate crimes Hold on, those numbers I sent this to you

Those numbers Because I'm like I'll go to the Anti-Defamation League website I'll download it Put it in a spreadsheet And try to understand it So those numbers Are getting mixed into the

Bill of Particulars against Trump But it's absurd to say That the increase of Of hate crimes against Jews by blacks is a Trump phenomenon. Exactly. I would say this. Because it's not like the black community are listening to Trump

on how they need to behave. No, of course not. But I would say I would feel better about the whole thing if Trump would, let's say that after El Paso, if he had gone on TV, not to read some statement with a straight face and like he was asleep or the hostage video, as people have called it.

If he had gone on and said something like this, if he had said, I'm told that, I want to make very clear that people who think this way, I don't want to be associated with you at all. My ideas have nothing to do with your ideas. You might think that they do.

If you think that they do, then you are sorely mistaken. And then said, you know, this is depressing. But the way he does it- I feel like you're being slightly politically naive there to think that by doing that, he belittles, he's acknowledging that. Other presidents have disavowed people. Well, absolutely, because they're presidential. But he's not presidential and he doesn't want anyone to think he's weak in his beliefs. And that's what he would be doing there.

That's what i'm saying so by by not coming out like a human being he is in fact perpetuating the idea whether you believe it or not that he in fact has condoned this kind of shit because if i'm a white racist and i'm seeing trump on tv the other day talking like this i will say to myself he doesn't really believe that. He's saying that because he has to. And it's true. The way that he's saying it gives all the signals. If you brought up somebody who's not followed politics at all, but who understood body language,

the nuance of conversation, and said, do you think this guy means what he says? And you'd say, no. I agree with you. I've always said that his condemnations have not been strong enough, and the way you word say, no. I agree with you. I've always said that his condemnations have not been strong enough, and the way you worded it is how I think would be best

to word it in that way. But he's incapable of doing that. For some reason, he's incapable of it. I'm not sure why. Maybe he doesn't perceive the problem as grave as it is. Maybe he is doesn't want to lose that base, and I guess that's the most likely explanation. Or maybe he's...

Or maybe he feels that way, but I think that's the least likely of the explanation. Well, it doesn't, you know, in some ways it doesn't matter what his reasons are. What is the effect of this? And that is to communicate the notion that he doesn't care about this, and that in fact he is a racist. This is compounded by incidents such as what happened in South Carolina when he said there were good people on both sides. His comments about shithole countries. About shithole countries. There were good people on both sides.

Well, I don't know that I'd put shithole countries in the same category. He said, again, to give the actual facts is to be interpreted as supporting or not. But it's important to say in that same paragraph, he said, not the white supremacists. I'm not talking about them. They're to be condemned. He was talking about Republicans and Democrats, wasn't he? He was talking about people that want to preserve statues. When he said good people on both sides,

I believe what he meant is there is people that want to preserve statues that are not necessarily bad people. I think that's what he was getting. So I got those stats about the anti-Semitic incidents. Then I'll read you the other one. So New York Times, there were 55 hate crimes reported in New York City this year, a 72% increase over the same period last year. Against Jews. Against Jews.

But then if you go to the actual data, it's virtually 100% by black people in like Crown Heights and stuff. Now, nobody take me. I'm not bashing black people. I will attest for those who don't know that you are not a racist. All right. So thank you, Fred. The only hate crime that was perpetrated. I'm still on the fence.

I don't know. Anyway. So let me get the Charleston remarks.'t know. Anyway. So let me get the Charleston remarks. Go ahead. All right. Do we want to continue on this vein

or talk a little bit more with Leach specific? No, talk about this. This is more interesting than me. Well, yes. Leach. Well, Jeff Leach is not that interesting

to Jeff Leach because you live in it. You live with him all the time. I'm very wrapped up in this right now. I think I'm very conflicted

and becoming vastly more centralized. What are you conflicted about? About whether any of the information that I can receive these days is not falsified, taken out of context, chopped up. And I loathe Trump.

I loathe him as a being. I think he's a terrible choice for the head of state and president of this country. I thinkathe him as a thing. I think he's a terrible choice for the head of state and president of this country. I think that the concept that he runs this place is insane to me. However, a lot of the reasons that I know, some of the smaller, more

specific reasons that I dislike him, I've found through a bit more of deep research now that I was completely wrong. I've been peddled the propaganda that I am most likely to receive based on my friendship groups, my social groups, et cetera, and the people that I mix with. And I've been lazy in my fact-checking.

Well, as my wife, Brooke Gladstone, host of On the Media, who's sitting over there, has said many times, we now live in a world where you have to kind of vet your news. If you're looking for health care You have to be a consumer of news the way you're a consumer of anything else. You have to shop around and compare. And even then you're going to fall

for fraud sometimes. I'll read this and I'll be done with reading anything. So this is the transcript. Excuse me, they didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group. I saw the same picture as you did.

You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of the very important statue and the renaming of the park to Robert E. Lee, the park from Robert E. Lee to another name. After another question, Trump became even more explicit. And then he, quote, he said, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally. All right. This was in, within, you know,

90 seconds of their other. So what, so how is it distilled? Okay, my problem. Does anybody even know he actually, doesn't it matter to people to say, well, okay. But look, what, what, what, considering that, it's not quite as insightful. But considering, no, it makes a people to say, well, okay. But look, considering that. It's not quite as insightful.

It makes a huge difference. He's mischaracterizing the scene. But yes. The scene was not people going, preserve the statue. It was people saying, the Jews will not replace us. The Jews will not replace us. He's mischaracterizing. However, if you're worried about it.

Not only that, why should the President of the United States or any of us want to preserve statues of secessionists? Well, that's a whole other question. But many, many have. There are no statues of Himmler in Germany. There's a lot of memorials about. In Japan, there are statues of all the Japanese. Emperors? No, all the Japanese war criminals.

I did some research on that. As a matter of fact, if you get into that, it's interesting. Germany is the only country that doesn't continue to have its despicable leaders as statues. That's right. Germany, especially Berlin. And this is worth having an interesting conversation with all of you. Before you go there, I just want to make one point really, briefly brook gladstone anyway from the gladstone institute yes precisely very well funded by the uh coke brothers and soros so i'm solid anyway the thing is is that when you look

at trump and what you guys are focusing on are these remarks and were these remarks completely reported and so on. But a point that was made and then was brushed over, which is part of what I do in my job all the time, is to look at his, it isn't so much about what he says after. He sets the stage. When he talks about that group in Charleston, he mischaracterizes what was going on in the street. And then he says something reasonable based on a mischaracterization. When he's talking about an invasion at the border, he's doing the same thing. He is mischaracterizing what was happening at the border because the vast majority of them were trying to register for refugee status, says they're an invasion.

And that says something that if you fully report it, might sound vaguely reasonable about dealing with an invasion. But Trump's technique is to create a narrative that starts off by characterizing something in a particular way. And unless you go back that step, you're not having the right conversation. So it's a foundation of falsehoods, and then the statement might be pretty reasonable.

I think I basically agree with what you just said, only to say that I don't know that Trump even knew who... That doesn't give him a pass. No, I know. It doesn't give him a pass, no. If you're assessing... And he's not his style, doesn't give him a pass. No, I know. It doesn't give him a pass, no. Well, if you're assessing... And the fact that he isn't presidential and it's not his style doesn't give him a pass either. Oh, I don't think...

I'm not suggesting. I'm not suggesting giving him a pass. But if you're analyzing the question, is Trump a white supremacist and a racist, then it very much matters what his intentions are. No, it doesn't. Not unless you go back to the step of how he... Does he quack like a duck? Does he waddle like a duck? It very much matters what his intentions are. No, it doesn't. Not unless you go back to the step of how he, if he sees people going to the border, mothers and children going to the border as an invasion of criminals,

and his whole administration has talked about apprehending thousands of known criminals at the border. This has been disputed by the very agencies that they're quoting. So if you start by creating a racist picture and then commenting on it, you're a racist. I want to say something. No, I'm going to say what? I don't think, going back to the statues then to the border. So the statues thing, I don't know that

Trump actually was smart enough or informed enough to... I'm sorry, that doesn't give him a pass. I didn't say... Did I say... No, we have to... I usually sorry, that doesn't give them a pass. I didn't say... Did I say... No, we have to... I usually have a point. Just let me get it. So that to unravel who were the Nazis, who were there for the statues,

whatever it is. However, I know a number of Southerners, including Jim Webb, the senator, former senator, who feel that there is something about the Confederate thing, which they still embrace, and they don't feel it's racist. I can't comment on that. I think it's ridiculous. They should read some more history. Right. But point is that Trump is no expert in this. But people I know who are not racist, maybe just because they've grown up with it and it's always been there.

And the Dukes of Hazzard were on TV and this was South and Leonard Skinner. And, you know, this is not like we all knew this. And this is deep with them. And all of a sudden they walk up and say, wait a second, all of a sudden I'm a racist because I have these things around that I've had always and that were on TV so those so if he's talking about those people would I say those can be good people yeah I know

but that's not what was happening in Charleston but that's not what happened in Charleston but if we're worried about no no but if we're worried about raising the I agree with you but if we're worried about raising the temperature then it is incumbent on even the people who are criticizing him to always give the mitigating facts. And they never do.

They always distill it into a poisonous, stinking heap of shit that he said, such that whenever I then read the actual remarks to somebody they always have the same response like oh I didn't I didn't know that I doesn't give him a pass but I didn't know it's never impossible it's never impossible I didn't know that he said I didn't know he said I would we can't have weapons that I'd never use them I just thought he laughed about shooting at them I didn't know he actually had prepared remarks where he was actually saying we should never use weapons against these people. There was a poll recently of Democrats and then of Democrats

who are active in social media. And the Democrats who are active in social media were way more left wing than Democrats. And by the way, the Democrats included people who are also active on social media, but they weren't isolated from the, so it's not like a completely separate group follow people who you either you agree with or you think are important enough. Like I follow Trump because I need to see his statements for things that I, you know. So there are people that I cover that I don't necessarily agree with, but because they say things that are newsworthy or that are interesting. But still, I am am nonetheless even with that caveat getting a very isolated getting a very insular view of of what people think well pre-social media we did the same thing when you sit down with your friends in the bar and your your buddies who all have the

same issues as you talking a similar way but the media used used to be, and now, of course, it's reflection of the entire media. You watch Fox or you watch MSNBC or whatever because you want to get biofeedback of legitimizing your own views. I mean, it's a serious problem, I think. So, hey, we're almost out of time. So this is the thing. In the end, if you have a situation where we hate the president for presumably good reason. Why presumably? I'm saying, I'm going to stipulate it's for good reason. And we complain that he doesn't do enough to fight racism and hate.

And then he gives a speech where he says a lot of bad things, a lot of critical things about racism and hate. And then he gives a speech where he says a lot of bad things, a lot of critical things about racism and hate. And then we still want to make sure that the New York Times headline about that speech can't say that he fought racism and hate. We're spiraling down

into a ridiculous no-win situation. Of course, he's cutting your nose off to spite your face. Where it doesn't, we don't even, we actually, I believe, people hate him so much they would prefer that he not say anything bad because no matter what comes out of his mouth, he's going to get criticized.

Now, maybe Fred is right. If he actually said what I thought was pretty damn good, what Fred said about what his remarks should be, maybe he would have, some people would have been like, all right, you know, enough. I think the majority still would have thought he was disingenuous.

No, no. After it, I said, I didn't write this, but I did say if he came out and said the following tomorrow, I would be cool with that. And of course he didn't. And I said that knowing that he wasn't going to.

Why is it that I knew that he wasn't going to? Which is the kind of thing, by the way, that almost any other president in this situation would have done. I mean, remember when Obama, there was, I think somebody got beheaded overseas. And Obama showed up at a press conference wearing a tan suit. And for the entire day, Fox went on about how this showed disrespect that this guy had been beheaded by ISIS. And Obama shows up in a tan suit. I mean, that was kind of the standard of, let's find something to be outraged. Oh, they always did it to him. Remember, he wouldn't wear a lapel pin?

Obama? Well, no, actually, I think he did that. I think he wore one pretty early on because he was getting shit for it. And he said, okay, what's the big deal? And that was one of the things I kind of liked about him, that he didn't wear the lapel pin. Interestingly, McCain didn't wear one either, but who's going to doubt the...

And I liked it because I like people who don't let themselves get pushed around. I like that about them. I was kind of impressed by the, was it Ryan? Guy in one

of the Democratic debates? He didn't put his hand over his heart during the... Wow, look at that! On the other hand, when it came to the police issues,

and it's funny because it's coming back to me now, people accused Obama and it was just as plausible in a way that because he kind of spoke, got out ahead of himself on this Ferguson thing, then those

cops got shot in Texas. They blamed him for police shootings. They said that his rhetoric incited violence against police. Well, added to this resentment which it certainly did. And that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have the right to say it.

Now, in retrospect, after we find out actually that Darren Wilson was totally exonerated, actually exonerated, by Eric Holder's report, it's even a more bitter thing because Obama was actually on the wrong side of it.

Michael Brown was lying. And according to Obama's attorney general. Michael Brown was lying. And according to Obama's Attorney General. Michael Brown was dead. What's that? He was dead. I'm sorry. The people who said that his that he was saying stand up, don't shoot were lying.

His mother. Because it sounds like I'm speaking heartlessly about someone who died. Because I don't mean to do that. Other than to say that the cop was completely exonerated. And all the witnesses turned out to have been not telling the truth. The forensic evidence basically proved it. And Obama actually never, even after that came out, Obama never said anything to try to tamp down

the resentment of the police. He didn't even have the balls to say, listen, I know what I said back then, but Eric Holder, my attorney general, looked into this, and I got to admit, we were wrong what we said about this cop. So they're not all profiles in courage. Trump may be the worst of them,

but even Obama, you know, failed that test in my mind. So whatever. They're politicians. That's my opinion about it. Trump is way worse. Way, way, way worse. I admire Obama's character. Always have.

But that really disappointed me. On that issue, he didn't have what it took to just come out and say, listen, I just want everybody to know this cop was innocent. He couldn't bring himself to do that. You know, one thing, not the least pernicious aspect of Trump's presidency is that he consumes and sets out to consume the entire bandwidth of attention. That's the media's fault. Well, part of it is. But here we are. There's a zillion things that we could be talking about,

and probably nine-tenths of what we've talked about today is Trump. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And so I noticed, did you notice this? Michael Bennett, who is the Colorado governor and one of the also-ran Democratic candidates who's about to get cut out of debates. He tweeted today. I think this is one of the most compelling campaign slogans I've ever heard.

He said, elect me president, and you won't have to pay any attention to me for two weeks at a time. I will keep my eye on North Korea. And in this trade war, you can spend more time with your families and live your life. And I'm thinking, God, this is really what a lot of people want. I go to parties that are not necessarily with a lot of political people. And three quarters of the conversation is about Trump. I really do think that a lot of people just, however you define where the temperature is coming from, just want the temperature to be brought down. I don't want...

Look at comedy. Stand-up comedy is exactly like that. We're sick of making jokes about it. We're tired of it. We're tired of it. I don't want to... I'm a political person. I don't want to talk about politics all the time.

But you know who doesn't want the temperature to come down? Well, the media. Correct. Fox nor MSNBC. And look, I'm a part of this too. All media outlets, and Trump has said this too, and he's right, all media outlets have done very, very good in the age of Trump. So in all this, there's a big part of me

that feels that this is going to continue after Trump is gone. But if nobody wanted to watch and read, then they would stop. It's irresistible. So the point is that they're responding to what they know people want to hear anyway. I bet, like, you know, I say

Jesus Christ, Trump all the time, can't you spend five minutes on what's going on in India or whatever? My assumption is, and my guess is, okay, now, waiting for the press conference, we're going to cut to so-and-so in Thailand to talk about, I think, people would switch. Oh, you mean the BBC news? Yeah. Al Jazeera. People would switch. People would switch the channel.

Yeah. Is it really so hard for them to just say to themselves, okay, I'm going to write this. What would my smart, if they even, maybe they don't even have any like smart friends that disagree with them. No, like what? But that's a problem. Everybody has a token guy on the other side. Fox has Shepard Smith. No, I'm saying as a reporter, like if I was writing something

and I know the kind of things and I try to be careful not to let my opinions get away with me. So I would say to myself, okay, what would Fred, if I let Fred, what would Fred say about this?

Fred would say, oh, you left out that, but you left out the part right afterwards where he made this mitigating statement. So I'm your ideal reader. That's good to know.

But I say, I could channel that myself and I say, well, that's legitimate and I would put that in the article. What's so hard for them to write a little bit with a little bit of balance? Forget about headlines and everything.

If you read. Well, because that doesn't sell to the audience they're selling to. I don't think that's what it is. No, I disagree with this. If you read the stories, especially the news stories in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, they're by and large nuanced and subtle and do go into that. You might disagree that, oh, this is in the 17th paragraph. It should have been in the fourth paragraph. And it does matter.

I say this a lot. It can be said by a lot of ways. But I don't think there's anything quite as deliberate as people think there is about this. Or as agenda setting. Even that article that people complained about the headline. You read the article itself. It went through all the various things. But I read one-tenth of the articles that I see headlines for.

I know. That's the problem. And they know that. They're not doing a sentence. But as I say, nobody is sitting there carefully crafting a headline. There's not enough time for that. These are done very,

very quickly and usually by sometimes even by people in the layout department who have no editorial responsibility whatsoever. It's a technical matter. This is the space. A lot of this is search engine optimization. These things go's true, too. These things go online first, and there may very well be an intention to generate clicks.

I don't know whether that's true of the Times. Not of the Times. But I'm just, I don't know. And I certainly can't say. But all I can say is that digital media has changed the quaint, though compelling picture of headline creation. It's not some guy put in. Although there was an article, and people can go read it in Politico, about the inside story of this particular New York Times headline.

It's an interesting piece. I'd like to read that. We're at an hour. Anybody else? Any other issue you want to talk about? One last point. Sure. To go to your very first point.

Because I wasn't invited on this podcast, and I wasn't invited on it. We should do another one about foreign policy, because we got so trumped out by this. But I was just going to say that in terms of the numbers, you were comparing 2015 numbers with 2018 numbers, and that is a really good impulse, Noam, but what you really needed to do, if you looked at the numbers as I have, is you would go to prior to Obama, to Obama. It was during the Obama administration that the white supremacist, racist hate crimes started its very steep upward march. And it was probably the same impulse that, at least in part, not entirely, but in part, gave rise to Trump's election to begin with. Lash, backlash, lash, bash, backlash. So if you looked before 15 to 14, and you'd have to go back to really before Obama to see, well, Oklahoma City, obviously a big thing, but that, you know, you'd have to really, it started building after Obama became president and especially during his

second term, a kind of a coiling, roiling rage that gave rise to those emotions. And then they were given more permission in the Trump era, but that's why the numbers weren't that different. Well, that sounds certainly plausible to me. I do wish that somebody would put a number on the group that we're talking about. Somebody would speculate about it. Because as I wrote to Fred earlier, the second, the first anniversary of the march in Charlottesville, the Unite the Right march, only 20 people showed up. No, that was written, though. Where did you hear about that?

No, I know it was written, but I'm saying that to me was an indication that there's some relationship between that 20 people and how big this movement really is. It's very easy to go on the special 4chan type sites that these guys go on. We did a whole thing on covering racism and where you need to go to hear racists talk and they were told to stay away. It could be hundreds of people who can kill 30,

40 people a year. It could be thousands. It could be 10,000 people. It's funny. I see everybody like flip, on both sides they flip because when we used to talk about Islam and people wanted to talk about the threat

of Muslim terrorists, they said, oh no, it's just a tiny minuscule number. People say, yeah, but a minuscule number is still significant.

No, no. So you see, depending on whose ox is gored, how everybody starts to then take on the legitimate logic of the people they were, because this is all, these both sides have a point here. But the difference is that when people talked about radical Islamic terrorism

and demanding that that phrase be used, that it was used as rationales for all kinds of policies that really didn't address the problem. That's what they're hoping for now with the white terrorism. Hardly. They're not going to stop white people, but they will stop Islamic people. No, but they're going to start surveillance of people and whatever it is.

And these things do get abused. I have to say, you know, surveillance, it's an interesting term. Maybe America's planning to go to war with Sweden or something. That's what it is. Do you know what I mean? Maybe there's an oil resource out there

they want to send in the other part. I hope that Norway is a country that wasn't a shit country. I hope they are doing surveillance, to be honest. Well, that's the thing. Remember the days when people said, oh my God, they're putting up cameras everywhere. And now people want cameras. That's the first thing they pull out when anything happens.

And I think it's also a legitimate point that in a public space, privacy cannot be assumed. I mean, the Fourth Amendment does not extend to whether people are looking at what you're doing while you're out on a public street. When there was a lot of talk, I agree with you, when there was a lot of talk about doing extra surveillance of mosques, where we know a lot of hateful speech was going on, I was on the side of thinking, well, listen, that's the facts and that's what we need to do and the NYPD had a and I feel the same way about these white but I'm hoping that the people who

I'm interested to see how the people who oppose the surveillance of the mosques are now going to justify the surveillance of the white groups but I don't know how many people the interesting thing about it at the time when the FBI was really not very good with counterterrorism, the NYPD had a crackerjack counterterrorism unit. It was about 100 people who were really well trained.

It was run by some former CIA guy and a former FBI guy. And they had a lot of, because at one thing, the FBI wasn't hiring Muslims to do this, because, oh, well, who knows, he might be a bad guy. Whereas the NYPD was saying they went to. With the cooperation of imams in these mosques, they were doing surveillance. And, yeah, it was a controversial thing, and it's nothing that you want to publicize for a variety of reasons. But I think, and this is a whole other subject, but I think there's a lot more tolerance for careful,

well-vetted surveillance than there used to be, in part, by the way, because everybody is used to it now. I mean, Facebook knows more about you than the NSA does, I assure you. Certainly knows what I'm going to look like when I'm 60 years old. On that note, I've got a shoot as well. Go ahead. I really hope that the problem is smaller than people fear it is.

I hope that the 20 people who showed up to this march is an indication that it's a small but very dangerous group, and it's not some big movement. Well, as Brooke said, they were shooed away by these radical sites. She said, don't go. Don't go. So who knows? Yeah, so maybe

the question is, so if they hadn't been, would there be a hundred? You know, it's still small numbers when I compare it to Nick Griffin at the Fat Black Pussycat. Tomorrow would draw more people than the Unite to Write march did being publicized for a month, you know?

So it does say something. Well, it says two things. It says something about how many people there are and how intense they are about it, but it's scary shit, you know? I mean, my God. It doesn't take many to... It doesn't, and it makes, like, my wife,

we're afraid to let our daughters getting older, afraid to let her go to a concert. This is the definition of terror, right? Yeah, that's right. It is. And I and I rejected most of these and still do most of these things being called white terrorism or domestic terrorism like the Las Vegas thing. But this clearly is. This has an agenda.

And I think it's very good if the word terrorism is kept for shooting with a political agenda. Otherwise, it loses its meaning. Because, you know, it gets used for any time, any mass shooting. It's not just because somebody hates his mother and wants to go kill a lot of people. That's not. Although, if it has that effect. It's terrorizing, but it's not a terrorist. Okay, that's a good distinction.

In my opinion. No, I think you're right. It gives me a little clarity on how to think about it. I think that's fair. Fred, I want to thank you. Actually, you've become actually a very dear friend. And I always tell my bugging Fred, I'm bugging Fred. But I think he likes the exchange.

I like coming to the club for free. No, no. But, you know, you have, it's almost a cliche that people don't have friends who disagree with them. People can't disagree amicably. Maybe we can do a speaking tour. Yeah, it's almost a cliche that people don't have friends who disagree with them. People can't disagree amicably. Maybe we can do a speaking tour. Yeah, that's right. But, you know, it's an interesting thing about people you disagree with. Just like all kinds of biases, we only argue about the things we disagree with.

So who knows what other stuff we disagree about? Right. But in other words, the things that we agree, that we agree with, which is probably 99% of things. 90, 93. 93% of things. We don't talk about those things. Right.

Because it's not interesting to talk about it. Like, yeah, of course. The things that are, the things that are interesting because we both enjoy it is the things that we don't agree with. But that can give a false impression of two people actually disagreeing with each other about everything. No, we probably think the same thing about most things. There are plenty of people who send me emails like yours that I don't respond

to. Oh, now that's flattering as hell. Anybody I know? I don't think so. Anybody famous? Alright, well, I hope I'm one of the smarter ones. Brooke, it's nice to see you as always. Sorry for busting in. Why are you apologizing? It's great radio and it adds to the conversation.

Special thanks to Zach. Fred Kaplan at Slate Magazine. Brooke, you want to give your Twitter handle? Your tweet? Sometimes. I'm at OTMBrooke, but it's much better to go to the at on the media because that's more interesting. I'm at Slate.com. My

Twitter feed is FM Kaplan. Do you tweet? I do. You don't know that? Oh my God. The only time I ever see a tweet is when somebody sends it to me. I don't follow Twitter.

Oh, okay. Good night, everybody.