The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 23 (Best of 5/7/18-5/11/18)

Episode Date: May 13, 2018

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 30 (5/7/18-5/11/18.) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer,

this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows. That we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself?

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laughstravaganza.

Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. All right. So the Washington Post put out a really interesting article on Trump's really sketchy golf club purchases. Not like purchases he made at a golf club, but golf clubs that he has been purchasing, like entire golf courses. Oh, I think you mean like a club. No, no, no, no, no. Entire courses that are sort of these classic, really beloved old golf courses in the UK. He spent tons of his own money in the last decade. When up to this point,

his strategy had always been to spend using bank loans or investors. Right. He is on the record being like anybody who spends their own money is a fucking sucker. Right. Yeah. No way. Anyone who spends their own money probably has money.

Right. So it just seems really like he was known as king of debt back in the day because he would always take out loans and spend that money rather than spending his own money and then he would bankrupt whatever he bought with the loans and then you know get out of the whole situation bankruptcy is that how you declare bankruptcy? According to Michael Scott, it is. The office. But so the Post looked into financial records, and it turns out he spent $400 million in cash

on these new properties, and nobody really knows where he's getting this money from. Like straight cash? Because, yeah, just straight up his own money. It's like he's spending it like it's his own money to buy these golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. And since he's bought them, they've been such a failing proposition. He's had to pump $164 million more of his own money into keeping them running, essentially. Just to keep them up and running and not filing for bankruptcy.

He's had to just pump in loads and loads of his own money, which this is a really weird time for him to start spending his own money because his businesses were doing really badly. Right prior to this, he had had his casino business go under. Most of his financial worth is tied up in the real estate industry. And this is during the Great Recession. You might remember it. Yes, when I just got out of college.

So at this time that... And I sold fucking t-shirts because I had a useless degree and then I got into politics anyway. So people are wondering where this money is coming from and like it doesn't really make sense, especially this is also around the time when he stopped being able to borrow money from actual banks. Right. And like American sources, like the people who used to lend him money essentially were

like, no, you keep losing everything. You suck at business. They're like, also, you keep losing everything. You suck at business. They're like, also, how the fuck did you get in here? We have your picture at the security desk. You'd be like, yo, don't even let this do in the elevator. Right. There's no loans on the record of him getting this money. But there are all these reports.

And in fact, the big groundbreaking report, I think, came on golf.com. Which is amazing. This is the era we're in. They're the biggest. Yeah, exactly. The Washington Post of the golf community. You know, the muckrakers over at golf.com. Right.

More like the sand trap rakers. Am I right? There he is. Am I right? Fire, fire, fire. Let them know. So one of their undercover reporters, not undercover, just a reporter. Yeah, just a guy.

Yeah, just went and golfed with the Trumps. And he was curious about this. He was like, hey, how did you guys get all of this money? He was with like Eric and Donald or together, right? Yeah, it was Eric Trump, his son, the one that SNL makes fun of for being stupid, which is not fair, SNL. Listen to this story. He's really smart.

So I'll just read you from the article the guy says so when I got in the cart with Eric Dodson says as we were setting off I said Eric who's funding I know no banks because of the recession the great recession have touched a golf course you know

no one's funding any kind of golf construction it's dead in the water the last four or five years. By the way, it's not out of the ordinary for a golf course to be losing money. Golf courses lose money. It's almost like buying a professional sports team. It's like a thing rich people do for fun. It's like a prestige thing. Yeah. It's not a good investment if you're trying to bounce back financially. And so back to the article. Yeah. Do you guys want to invest in my park that only like 60 people can use? Right. Exactly. So back to the article,

the golf.com reporter said, and so he asks him like, how are you doing this? This is a terrible investment. Nobody would give you the money and you were pretty sure you don't have the money. And so back to the article, he says, and this is what he said. He said, well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia. I said, really? And he said, oh, yeah, we've got some guys that really, really love golf, and they're really invested in our programs.

We just go there all the time. So that was three years ago he reported on this like before any of the russians like weird yeah so if you weren't reading golf digest or whatever golf.com golf.com sorry uh you might not have known that like this russia thing was coming down the pike but if you you were, you're probably like, oh, yeah, this doesn't look good. Yeah, Trump has found some cool Russian golf enthusiasts. Oh, I mean, yeah, I guess if you're like the Russian mob or something, you want to launder some money. So his companies aren't publicly traded, so they don't have to do public disclosures other than the casino company that he bankrupt. So you can only look at limited financing of the projects,

but they were able to look at the UK ones, and they show just enormous amounts of capital flowing into these projects from unknown sources. And on paper, it says it's just coming from the Trump organization, but it's hundreds of millions of dollars. Out of thin air. Anybody who has looked at their financials says they aren't doing as well as they even pretend they are. Right. And even if they were, this would not be a thing you could do. And so the dossier, one of the people from Fusion GPS, who, you know, it's worth keeping in mind, we're doing opposition research.

So take this with somewhat of a grain of salt. doing opposition research. So take this with somewhat of a grain of salt, but it's just that all these grains of salt that we keep hearing about from them keep lining up with all the other facts we're learning. So this guy, Glenn Simpson, suggested that it seemed like the golf courses could be a money laundering scheme for the Russian mafia, which would explain dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that make zero profit and actually cost money. That's how you launder money is like, yeah, that's how you make money disappear. Is there a special slot for active lawyer? Yeah, there you go.

But he said that it seemed like for the beginning part of his career, Trump had connections to a lot of Italian mafia figures and then gradually during the 90s became associated with Russian mafia figures. And it's just these are things that are coming out now and it seems like, oh, well, this could just be people, you know, trying to connect dots with Russian things. But this is all stuff that people are finding out like years and years ago before anybody even put the words Russia and Trump together in their mind. Yeah. It was the Trump saying Russia together on their own being like, oh yeah, we got a lot

of homies in Russia with, that could just toss us a hundred million like it's nothing. So. The other thing that was interesting about this story was hearing about how he tried to like when the great recession hit and his like businesses went totally in the shitter, how he was trying to argue like when with deutsche bank who had like a huge like he owed a ton of money was trying to be like well actually like maybe the payments i need to make maybe need to be smaller because they say in this article trump's logic in that case the 2008 financial crisis had crushed the

real estate business so completely that it should be considered like an act of God. Right. Like that he was even, this is how well he was doing as a business, right? That suddenly you want me to believe that someone who was trying to say, Oh, act of God in court because of how the state of your business is to try and get out of paying back your debt. Suddenly within a couple of years, you just got hundreds of millions of dollars shooting at your ass. And well, look, it's good to have friends. Right. friends right also if anybody i don't care where you're from but if you have 100 million dollars you're just trying to let me hold holler at me at miles of gray i have golf course ideas they're not exactly golf courses but let's talk we do need to move on to melania trump because she is our greatest statesman working right now. Stateswoman. Stateswoman, sure. Stateslady.

Is she a Slovenia person or a Slovakia person? I just want to use Don Blankenship nomenclature. Right. So we all remember that she ripped Michelle off for the 2016 RNC speech. So proudly and blatantly.

Just like this is bomb. Oh my God. I am killing it. At least in high school, we knew to like change, you know, like rephrase it in your own.

A couple words? Hell yeah. You know, so you can't like Google copy and paste that like my professors did. Man, luckily I was operating at a time before Google really,

like I was using AltaVista to find shit to plagiarize on the internet. Oh God. God. So, I mean, to plagiarize on the internet. Oh, God. God. So, I mean, not that we can really blame her. Michelle was the best first lady that has existed in the modern era. So, you know, she did it better than anyone else.

Why wouldn't you want to steal from her? So, Melania's big signature thing has been online bullying which is fucking hilarious and the biggest irony of all but we can just move on from that you know it's funny there's an article I think it was Vanity Fair I gotta find it but there were reports or like in the reporting of this article

they were saying that people the White House were asking her maybe to pick a different topic right and she was like no it's gonna be cyberbullying. What if this is her passive aggressive way, though? There is a lot of, well, she does, that's what she does. She's, you know, and that's why like a lot of people go, I feel bad. I don't feel bad for her. I don't feel bad for her, but girl, give us a couple winks, you know, do it like.

I'm like, I get it. Look, you're a parasite and you latched onto an old host. You thought the body would expire very soon. And it turns out motherfucker is as invincible as Wolverine. Anverine cockroach an actual cockroach that won't die body's made of adamantium here's the thing i think it's more like his body's made of whatever mcdonald's hamburgers are made of because those also it's not orange yeah so you just add something that's like for like it's not that i feel bad for her but i do want to read her books so badly I mean in 10 years I feel she's gonna have to drop one

I mean let's be real though she will just plagiarize Michelle Obama I think you can just do that My husband the first black president She's like the first whack president So what happened? She dropped this pamphlet

So the whole thing is part of like her new uh program for you know children that she she has called be best now again due to her history of biting michelle swag i just want to present to you a very huge moment uh that came out of like 2016 when mich Obama was sat down with Oprah. So, you know, that was a moment. It was a movie. And Oprah was just basically asking, what can men do? Just anyway, this is a very big moment between Michelle Obama and Oprah that many people probably remember.

What can men do leaving here? Be better. Be better at everything. So I think that was like at the International Women's Congress of the U.S. It was a women's gathering where this panel took place, this interview took place. So and that was like a big moment. It was iconic. Yeah.

And then so her, they ask her for her program. It's called Be Best, which if I think about it, if you put in order of grammatically what's above better, it is best. But grammatically, Be Best doesn't quite track. Yeah. If Michelle Obama, when Oprah had said, what's your recommendation for men? If she had said, Be Best, people would have been like, oh, shit, is she having a stroke? What's happening right now? That's not a thing.

And then Melania would have hers be called be bester or some shit like that. Do goodest. Yeah. Her campaign, the main sort of theme is be best. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's an odd thing. It's a repackaging of many like sort of outreach programs that already exist. It's an odd thing.

It's a repackaging of many sort of outreach programs that already exist. So, for example, it's talking about cyberbullying to health to even getting kids to not abuse opioids. They're kind of a weird third prong of this program, which obviously I'm all for obviously educating kids because the opioid epidemic is real. Kids should try opioids, I think. No. Yeah, no, for real. I mean, look, until you're nodding off on your Nintendo Switch, you don't know what life is. You don't know the struggle. But, no, that was a kind of bizarre thing.

I wasn't aware of a childhood opioid epidemic. But I'm sure actually now in the era that we live in, access to opioids is much easier for children. So they could just buy, you know, just in their home could be around. So, yeah, definitely let the children know drugs are bad but the thing is in this one handbook she passed out specifically on cyberbullying you know her her big her big cause her big passion project uh she hers is called uh talking with kids about being online where it has like a bunch of stuff on there about what to do wait can we just talk about that title? Yeah, Talking With Kids. But the thing is, when you look back, the FTC put

under Obama put out a very similar pamphlet called Net Cetera Chatting With Kids. Chatting With Kids about being online. Yeah, so she kind of took your advice there. She changed one word and got rid of the main title. She got rid of the main title because there was a clever play on words, Net Cetera.

And she was like, that doesn't mean anything to me. That's too clever for me. title she got rid of the main title because there was a clever play on words net cetera uh and she was like that doesn't mean anything to me uh so it'd be like so it's too clever no she's like right no but that's she presumably just deleted that because she didn't know it like wow yeah but then when you go inside whole the shit is the exact same they kind of design is identical they updated sort of the shape of a phone to look more like a new iphone but like the wording is the The design is identical. basically repurposed, has 24 icons on it. And on both of them, it is the identical same icon, same order. Like they didn't change shit. They just basically took it. If you look at the cell phones, they're less thick around the rim.

Like they caught on to like rimless phones. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they updated the iPhone and we're like, okay, that's good. We're there. Yeah, you can check the footnotes if you really want to see these images. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they updated the iPhone and we're like, okay, that's good. We're there. Yeah, you can check the footnotes if you really want to see these images. Yeah, you should. So, I don't know.

It's just another example of them just not thinking people are paying attention, I guess. Yeah, definitely not. I mean, look, plagiarism is chill. Who better than the first lady to let kids know that? Yeah, but, I mean, at the same time, it's just like, this isn't the worst thing that no not at all it's just funny because this is it's so devoid of any kind of original thought or even effort i think it's funny just because of how much they shit on the obama administration to then be like oh but uh we actually like all of your plans right we actually like a lot of it melania certainly doesn't shit on them because she was laughing at Barack's jokes at Barbara

Bush's funeral. He's charming. I mean, how could you not? He's charming. He's a charming motherfucker. I would have told him, yeah. And she's used to being around that fucking, the guy who doesn't even wait for her when he gets out of the car.

That's the real Mr. President right there. So, we also. That's the real. Let him know. You know he probably told Michelle, he's like, don't get mad. I'm going to make Monty laugh. It's going to be a good photo. It's going to get Donald real pissed off.

He probably was like, we got a guest room. If you ever, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, hey, if it gets hot at the West Wing, granted, she doesn't go near the West Wing in that same article they also mentioned. He's like, yeah, we got a little condo if you need to just duck out for a second.

All right, we are going to bring in super producer anna hosnier to talk to us about a story that is just developing as we're recording this we're recording this on tuesday uh right around noon pacific time uh donald trump has just announced that the u.s will be withdrawing from the iran nuclear deal, which everybody expected because it was a signature achievement of the Obama administration and basically for reasons of racism and just ego and hatred. He hates everything that the Obama administration accomplished. But then there are conservatives who think that this deal was bad. Well, and he's also getting really cool opinions from John Bolton and Mike Pompeo and the rest of the gang. And Israel.

I mean, Netanyahu's TED Talk really must have got to him. Right. That was only in English. And the first reaction to Trump's speech about leaving the deal was like, wait, did Benjamin Netanyahu write that? But sorry about that long rambling introduction. Ana, thank you for joining us. We're all going to die. Okay.

All right. And that was producer Ana Hosnier. So what can you tell us about this is something that you dedicated an entire episode to on ethnically ambiguous or a big chunk of an episode? Yeah. In the episode, We in the episode we are the bomb which regret that title um we recorded in 1995 we um we talk i break down what he brought back to the 90s whoo uh i broke down what the iran nuclear deal was and what happens if we lose it. And it's not good. It's not necessarily good for America

and it's not good for Iran. I think for most people who are arguing for it was like, it's preventing Iran from arming itself with a nuclear weapon. And given any of the sort of deficiencies or the shortcomings of it, that it works. And we've relieved sanctions prior to this moment. And it seemed like Iran, for the most part, was following through on the deal, despite the description that the president gave. Yeah, Iran followed through everything. The IAEA, which is like the Atomic Energy Commission, I don't know, they are in charge of making sure no one's building nuclear weapons, has confirmed that they have followed through with all the requirements for the nuclear deal even though netanyahu tried to pull out some strange evidence which they denied they said that's not real uh so

they've been doing everything on their part but since today when trump decided that the nuclear deal shouldn't exist because he doesn't have any facts and just wants to be a dick, apparently Rouhani has instructed Iran's atomic agency to prepare for industrial-level enrichment of uranium. So who is Rouhani? Rouhani is the president of Iran, and one of the requirements for the nuclear deal was that Iran seize any enrichment of uranium,

which is what people use to, not people, but what you can use to- I mean, it's what we use here at the Daily Zeitgeist. To make nuclear weapons. To make nuclear weapons, yes. So- Oh, wait. So he just announced that they are just going to start up-

He says to prepare the industrial level enrichment of uranium, but he asked the agency to wait a few weeks to gauge how Europeans react to Trump, because europe still is all about the iran deal right um trump just doesn't get things so he doesn't understand that this could end incredibly poorly also he wants to impose aggressive economic sanctions even though iran is really struggling in their economy right now like the rial has lost the rial which is their version of money, their dollar or whatever. Like their version of money. Has lost a lot of weight against a dollar. So right now a lot of Iranians are struggling and they're very upset with the government,

which is what led to the protests all of the end of last year. So it's going to be a very tough time for Iran. And I think this is incredibly fucked up. I mean, one of the criticisms of the Obama deal was that the promise had been that because America was withdrawing some of the sanctions, that Iran would be brought more into the international fold. Right. that Iran would be brought more into the international fold. Right. You know, it would be like, Iran's open for business, everybody. And they'd cut a ribbon and fucking Starbucks would pour in.

Right. And that didn't turn out to be the case. Yes, and that's mostly because American banks and credit unions don't work with foreign countries like Iran because for so long we've been told not to work with them. So it would take years for that to fully start to happen. And it was beginning to. It was slowly beginning to. Like Boeing signed like billion dollar deal to bring airplane parts, which actually about

100,000 people were hired to work on these airplanes for Boeing to build all these parts for Iran and send them over there. So if that deal is lost, then all these people in America lose their jobs. And all these diplomats and Iranian officials had worked hard to be like, no, trust us. This is going to happen. We're going to be friends from now on. And so all those people are being burned. A lot of diplomats are being burned.

Iran and the leadership in Iran is being burned because Hassan and the leadership in iran is being burned because hasan rouhani was sort of even though uh you know there was a lot of protests against him he was very sort of middle of the road yes he championed for this deal so the fact that it's falling apart it really gives like hard liners in iran he put his neck out leverage right to be like don't trust this western world which is bad because, don't trust this Western world, which is bad because we don't want this regime to continue to oppress people in this country. And a lot of the protests stem from the fact that Iran focuses so much of their energy on like outside wars, like with Syria and Yemen. And so little is looked into in the actual country.

So. Right. And that's kind of one of the reasons why Trump is like, it's a bad deal because he expect the deal to just be like, well, we will sign this and then you play nice everywhere. And then he sees shit going on everywhere else and go, this deal is rotten without understanding what the whole purpose of this agreement. And like you're saying, there are other countries that are still dedicated to this deal. They continue to say we will honor everything. But, you know But again, like you say, it fucks things up because our banks won't do business with Iran. And these secondary sanctions that Trump has put back in place makes it even harder for some of the European allies who were

beginning to do business in Iran to continue that. So the knock-on effects are very significant. Yeah. It really reminds me of back when America was desperate to go to a war with Iraq. And so it was just like they were pooling evidence from all these different places and they were going in to make presentations being like, look, this photograph shows that they have weapons of mass destruction. cake and uh saddam hussein said this 20 years ago and therefore uh it just seems the same here it's like netanyahu's presentation is ted talk that he delivered for an audience of one it was written exactly for trump and it was using stuff from before this nuclear deal uh to so he's just like pulling old shit from computers that they had like taken from computers. The presentation essentially was they had a clandestine nuclear project prior to signing the deal. Prior to this deal. And so they're using that.

Trump is using, you know, the fact that business hasn't opened up as quickly as they had hoped and that they were hostile to some in other situations. And that like it's just any excuse. It's like whenever you have a dude who's looking for a fight and he's like, what the fuck did you just say? What are you looking at? And it's like, well, you just yelled at me.

So I looked in your direction and, uh, this is not about anything that ever happened to me. Don't worry about it. But, um, also say goodbye to any sort of cheap gas prices in the future. Yeah.

Gas price. You're going to go up. cheap gas prices in the future. Yeah, gas prices are going to go up, up, up. That's one thing. Don't fuck with the country that gives you about 3.8 million barrels a day. Is that really true? Yeah, that's about a million barrels a day more than 2015. Public transportation. They've upped it a lot since sanctions were eased up. So thanks, y'all.

I don't know how our gas could get any higher. Yeah. All right. So let's ride these bicycles. We are all going to die. Bye, everybody. That's a bleak outlook. But yeah, we're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil.

I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent

is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds, Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists,

but the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades.

It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like

Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carrie Champion,

and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them.

Why is that? Just come here and play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is braggadocious. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire?

Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. We want to talk about some news that was big breaking news in the last 24 hours in half the country. And we'll talk about how the other half of the country is greeting this news. But so Michael Avenatti came out and just dropped some A. Who's also very tan, by the way, for somebody. Very tan man. I spend a lot of time

At Lake of the Ozarks So you guys understand that He is a fellow St. Louis Woo hoo South side Uh huh He is I'm not allowed to go over there

And Oh You stay on the east side Of St. Louis I'm on the middle of St. Louis In a little town called University City Oh University City

Oh with Nelly Yeah That's right Dirty So You know Slow Down East side of St. Louis. I'm on the middle of St. Louis, in a little town called University City. Oh, University City? Oh, with Nelly? Yeah. That's right. Dirty. So, you know Slow Down from the Lunatics? Remember him? He was the dude who wore the Spider-Man mask.

All right, Nelly, because he yodels. I'm from St. Louis, dirty. Oh, yeah. A little combré. Thank you. 17-year-old impression of Nelly. Thank you. No, it's good. Because the Yodel Kid is bringing that shit back and getting all this credit.

But Nelly was the first. Nelly was yodeling, yo. Yeah. Miles, tell us what Michael Evanati. Oh, God. Michael Evanati, first of all, I want to say that he is either the coolest guy ever, who I'm loving every second of what he's saying because he makes me feel like he has so many receipts, or he's the biggest, fullest shit guy ever, and we can't believe a fucking word he says. That's what I was always modulating in over the last few weeks. When he comes in, he goes, he'll be like, he'll be like, Rachel Maddow, Rachel, Rachel, the things that are going to come out, buckle your seatbelts.

And you're like, man, fuck out of here. Like, let me see something or shut the fuck up. And so yesterday he pulled out some receipts. Showed us something for sure. So he talks about this company, Essential Consultants LLC, which is the LLC that made the payment to Stormy Daniels. Brilliantly named. Yes. And according to their filings, they say they exist as a real estate consulting company

that collects fees for investment consulting work. Yeah. Okay. So this company was created in October 17th, 2016, most likely for the sole purpose of obscuring this payment to Stormy Daniels. As they look into it though, things got a little bit murkier. So first of all, this thing is like the textbook definition of a shell company. Like there's no employees other than Michael Cohen. They have no front facing anything, no website. Nobody's heard of them. They don't. When you say they, you mean he essentially.

Yeah. They, the LLC. Sorry, I use that pronoun very loosely. Yes. He has nothing. No public presence at all. No public presence at all. And it's clear that based on this first transaction with Stormy Daniels that this company is set up for the sole purpose of making transactions that benefit the president in some way.

On behalf of the president. Now, clearly he would not do the Stormy Daniels payment and then like go on to do more shady shit with that same shell company, right? Oh, Jack. Come over now. That was a great setup. Because of course he fucking did this these guys are so dumb so first off let's just get through the shit that would normally be a huge scandal he received 1.2 million dollars from novartis the huge pharmaceutical company uh and because you know i don't know why they thought that he could advise the company as to how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. health care policy matters, including the Affordable Care Act.

Yeah. OK. So how is this different from just straight up lobbying? Well, if you're a lobbyist, you have to register as a lobbyist because you have to let it known that that money is a lobbying expedient. And there's a whole above board way of saying, yeah, I take money from- And the reason we have that system in place, right, is because otherwise it's just like, hey, I know this guy and I'm going to pay him some money and he's going to do this thing over here for me and it's the mafia instead of the fucking US government. Yeah, or the FEC or whoever to be able to basically monitor what's going on. Right. So yes, that's the first one.

So yeah, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Michael Cohen knows a lot about the ACA and he knows about just how to stabilize these Obamacare markets. Yeah, yeah. Okay. He's the guy for that. He's the guy for that. And let's just be generous and say that. And so he also received $200,000 from AT&T, which is cool too.

What's weird, though, is in that time, all these payments were received after the inauguration, mind you. So once the president in power. these payments were received after the inauguration mind you so once the president in power you know around this time at&t is in front of the doj's antitrust commission to whether or not they're going to approve a merger between at&t and time warner so i don't know that maybe it's starting to stink like shit a little bit right i don't know you tell me uh he also received money from a korean aerospace company for like insights. I'm sure this is what they will say too. But so far at best, it looks like some kind of pay to play scheme. Yeah. And the Korean aerospace company's incoming CEO had dinner with the president after they made that payment. So

there is evidence that there is pay to play shit going on access now this alone just those what we've talked about already is just straight up scandalous scandal like corruption that's how a corrupt government works olivia pope could not fucking dig him out you pay this dude's homie the president's like buddy and he then gets you to have dinner with the president like that's just that is straight up textbook corruption. Yeah. And it's even made worse when you look at certain factors like AT&T, like doing a huge merger.

Right. And then they're like, hey. Especially when he blocks other mergers. This alone is just swamp bullshit to begin with. All this shit, obviously it was all empty bullshit Trump was running on. But this right here, I mean, they need to answer this in a way that isn't just like, oh, I don't know. Because Michael Avenatti was also saying, well, if you have anything that proves what i'm saying is wrong

please show me those bank statements right because i have the motherfucking receipts and now you're just gonna have to go figure out how you're gonna lie your way out of this one so moving on that alone is a scandal now this is where it gets this is where we get to the holy shit part okay so we find out dr dray would say nice d yeah or yeah in january 2017 to august 2017 cohen received payments totaling 500 000 from putin pal slash oligarch victor vexelberg through the russians u.s based company called columbus nova but that's impossible because didn't we have sanctions against that guy? Well, hold on now. This is a U.S.-based company. In their statement, they're like, no, this company is entirely U.S.-owned.

This is absurd, blah, blah, blah. Well, check this shit out. Vexelberg's cousin is technically an American, and he's the one who runs the company. So it says his cousin's company that he's left it with. Yes, and also that company was listed as a subsidiary of a much larger uh sanctioned russian company so again stinks like bullshit and now the thing that's very just kind of odd is that the timing of it this money came in around january you know michael avenatti not that he was saying directly but it was offering like maybe we can speculate was did the russ Russians actually fund this payment?

Because Michael Avenatti said he pulled out a home equity loan or whatever to make payment. Michael Cohen said. Michael Cohen said. That's how he got the $130,000 to pay Stormy Daniels. It was a home equity loan. Yeah. But he hasn't verified that. There's no bank record of that or that he's presented that verifies that.

But we do see that suddenly he makes $130,000 payment and then boom, you get $500,000 for a Russian oligarch that they can't even explain what it is. My kid's college fund. Yeah, whatever. My kid's college fund. I got a loan for a Corvette. What's the big deal? I got a deal on four taxi medallions.

I was going to build a pool, so I got a loan. So what's the big deal? His dream car is definitely a Corvette. Oh, 100%. gonna build a pool so i got a loan so his dream car is definitely a corvette oh 100 and so yes we don't know what is going on because if you just take the the company stuff alone it's very hard to believe that of all the lobbyists you could go to of all the lawyers you if you're really trying to get this coverage that michael cohen right is the person i mean this is michael avenatti yesterday on msnbc

talking about it where someone was like just trying to speculate like well what if maybe he is an expert right are you suggesting that michael cohen does not have a phd in aerospace technology and pharmaceutical policy is that where i'm i'm not only going to suggest that but i'm going to state that as a fact but look i have two real questions i don't want to i don't want to know but this guy's the da Vinci of our time. Okay, two questions. Just still taking shots. Shout out to Michael Avenatti.

But yeah, it's just a, sure, pay to play, whatever it could be. But this other thing is now looking like, is this the scenario in which the Russians were like bankrolling certain aspects of the campaign, whether that's like silencing people who were going to bring up stories that could damage the campaign or what other shit. It just opens up a huge can of disgusting worms. And the other thing to note is that when this guy Vexelberg was in the States last, the FBI met him at the airport and straight up copied everything on his computers and phone. So they've already been having their eye on this guy. So, I mean, it's just, you know, this shit gets crazier and crazier. So then to cap that off. Right. This thing just sheds the light on the roaches and they go scattering. Trump this morning is now basically like threatening the press with their credentials. press like i get it's 91 fake news maybe i should just stop giving them uh access maybe take away their credentials yeah i mean that doesn't seem like a coincidence that the day after this shit breaks now he's talking about how fucked up the press is it's just that's just a sign to everybody

that yeah this yeah this is as shitty as it and they're also uh inquiring into allegations that suspicious activity reports on cohen's banking transactions were improperly disseminated. So basically, you know, instead of proving him wrong, Avenatti keeps feeling like, prove me wrong if I'm wrong, you know, where's the proof that you have to contradict this proof? Instead of providing that proof, they are going with the, wait, how'd you find that? Right, right. Because you said somebody is, they're talking about the leaks that that's being- Yeah. Improperly disseminated is basically them saying like, how'd you find that?

These are being leaked, which it's not uncommon at all for journalists, lawyers, others in the public eye to receive unauthorized leaks. That's how people end up becoming accountable for shit because you find out, oh, we know you're dirt. And that logic is so fucking stupid and it betrays the actual point and i was saying this earlier that's like a man getting caught cheating on his wife or she's like excuse me why the fuck do i have this picture of you making out with her at the fucking shake shack and he goes let me see that how the fuck did you get this picture who took this photo how the fuck did they get what the fuck is going on

no you are missing the whole point, my man. You don't want your feelings to get hurt. Maybe you don't read my diary. Right, right. Yeah, it's like you've been caught.

Don't then go, well, how did you catch me? No, the fuck are you talking about? Explain your fucking actions. The fuck are they talking about? Explain your actions,

because that's the next tactic. Right, right, right. Spit it right back at you. Well, what are you doing here? And just, I want to put this in the context of something we were talking about either earlier this week.

Time is a flat circle and a complete blur at this point. But we were talking about the fact that Trump was buying up all these golf courses with his own money, which is weird. Or quote unquote his own money. Quote unquote. He was buying them with cash. And he had always been buying stuff with debt. That was the way he was known as the debt king because he is good at nicknames

and also because he just needed to, that's the smart way to finance purchases, like giant purchases. And suddenly he starts buying all these golf courses with cash that people are like, where the fuck is he getting this cash from? And it's at a time when Russian oligarchs and the people surrounding Putin are doing everything in their power, just looking for ways to get their money out of Russia. They're just looking for anyone who will accept their money because we

were freezing their money, freezing Putin's money, because he was, like we were talking about, becoming the richest man in the world unofficially by just you know acquiring everything illegally within russia and then you know just giving it to cellists and like his friends you know like just he's literally like hey hold this three billion dollars essentially embezzling like the entire nation's money and now he is supposedly like almost twice as rich as bezos who is supposedly the richest person to ever live. Putin is way richer than him. Jeff broke boy.

Right. So can you imagine that conversation? Yeah. So we have a lot of smoke in the golf courses thing to think something shady is going on there with oligarchs. And now this comes out and it's like, they're just directly taking payments from oligarchs. Yeah. Well, that yeah and it's like they're just directly taking payments from oligarchs yeah well that's the thing with the election was if you were if part of being like

african-american or a minority in the united states was you knew that white people weren't really going to do anything because other white people were in control so even though and then that came out that you heard people from the republican party being like in the deep, deep south were like, you know, Putin's got ideas. Because as long as it's not Idi Amin, as long as it's not somebody from Brazil taking over, then it's the same old management company just has a Russian front now. Yeah. Right. With a different accent.

Yeah. So we're going to let these dudes walk all over us because they may be the only dudes that can save the race. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think there is a lot of implicit, passive white supremacy going on just under the cover. Like, while the open shit is coming out and people are like, where is this coming from?

Yeah. There's a lot of the undercover shit going on. Brandon, what is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? I like birds, man. I was looking at different types of cranes. Because I think birds are dope. Here's the thing, real quick, if I can. Can I jump in this real quick?

Yes, please. We got time for this? Here's the cool thing. I'm a religious person, right? I got a pretty strong faith. And I'm always amazed that the creator, be a he or a she or a bird or whatever for you

designed a planet brought a planet together and you didn't have to use color everything would be dope even if there was no color like I still eat a banana black and white TV this is grayscale

if everything was just on that grayscale but whoever was making this shit was like watch me fuck you up with this robin. But then this is a blue jay. Boom. Watch me fuck you up. Okay, so it's trees, right?

Yeah. But not all trees do the same shit. Like some is Christmas trees and some is oranges. You're like, what? I'm like, what about these? Are these oranges? Nah, dog. I was working with yellow that day, so they limit.

Bang, motherfucker. So I'm like this. So you were getting high watching Planet Earth last night. Right. I was high on Planet Earth last night. Yeah, exactly. There you go. There you go.

And I'm always intrigued by birds, because I'm like, Jesus, whoever is designing the planet sure does have a lot of extra paint left over for something that doesn't really have to come in that many colors, but does. What are the big sort of characteristics of a crane? Just like super long legs? It's like a tall pigeon. Oh, okay. And there's not a lot of cranes.

And cranes get confused with other types of birds. Like there's a million kinds of hawks, but a hawk isn't the same thing as a raptor, right? Like the dinosaur? Yeah, like a dinosaur. Oh, they evolved into a dinosaur They evolved into birds I hear this You see what I'm trying to tell you is that it's crazy out there If you look up in these trees

Evolution of Beauty is a good book For bird fanatics For people who like birds Also State Birds of California is a really good bird book Is it got like the drawings And stuff that identifies them? That'd be amazing, a bird book with no got like the drawings and stuff that identifies them that'd be amazing a bird book with no illustrations just describing it like yeah it's like kind of an orangish yellow

like fuck man this book is useless all right uh we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial

moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them. Why is that? Just come here and play basketball every single day,

and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game?

And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.

One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really hear them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is braggadocious. She is unapologetically black. I love her.

What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. Listen to The Making of a Rivalry, Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back i wanted to move on real quick to uh a tool that i didn't know about compete.com or i think i'd say a computer uh computer oh no uh so there's this website similarweb.com where you can look at the top websites in the world, like the most visited websites and the average visit duration.

It's just a cool little tool that I hadn't seen before. And so I was just going through, checking out the top sites. And interestingly, there are three porn sites that are bigger than Netflix. No way. Yeah. Right, because they're free. Yeah, that probably helps.

Also, the time on site is interesting because when you look at 10 minutes as sort of a good dividing line. So Google, average time on site Google's the biggest site in the world average time on site is eight minutes and 51 seconds YouTube it's 21 minutes which is crazy but that makes sense because it's just free television so people can watch it but other than YouTube the only sites that really get above 10 minutes are basically porn, which is like at 12 minutes, and Facebook, which is also at 12 minutes, which I think is interesting because Facebook is, like this is something that,

I was reading this article about how Facebook was contributing to this sort of social unrest. And it was basically like laying the groundwork for a genocide in this country where it was like a big way that people communicated with one another. And it was spreading all these like wild videos that were suggesting that one ethnic group was trying to chemically castrate the other ethnic group. And it was just... Oh, and this is in Sri Lanka, right? Yeah, Sri Lanka. And it's a feud between the Buddhist majority and the Muslim minorities.

And the Buddhists think that the Muslims are trying to literally... Sterilize them. Yeah, sterilizing agents and their food. And this is being spread by these Facebook videos. And so as I was reading this, I was like, yeah, but just in any objective reality, as the internet rises up, there's going to be a site where you can post videos.

So why is Facebook so bad? And the article actually specifically explains why. It's that Facebook is specifically engineered to make you spend as much time on Facebook as possible. So every single thing that they're showing to you has been specifically engineered not to bring you correct information, not to do anything, but make you watch it and stay there and share it and go on to the next video. And I think you see that in this similar web thing that the only sites, it's basically like pornography for our ego.

Yeah. Essentially it's ego pornography and sort of like brain quick fix pornography. So I don't know. It's so what you're saying is you're addicted to Facebook. I am personally not but I do think that you know for Facebook to be

safe and Facebook is the second biggest website in the world right now next to Google it just needs to change its like central tenant which is to you know but everything is engineered to keep you on Facebook for as long as possible. Right.

Yeah, and that's dangerous when you think about the kind of algorithms feeding you that kind of shit because they know, oh, this shit keeps people on because it's just fiery rhetoric. Right. It's confirming what you already think. If it's in Myanmar or Sri Lanka or wherever, it's, you wherever, it also has a hand in perpetuating this really shitty stuff. Yeah, posts that tap into, this is a quote from the New York Times article, posts that tap into negative primal emotions like anger or fear, studies have found, produce the highest engagement. And so those proliferate.

Yeah, which is why a lot of those videos where, was it ITV or Channel 4 in the UK, went undercover to talk to Cambridge Analytica, even those guys are saying, like, fear and anger are, like, really going to motivate people. Like, these are the ads that you want. Oh, yeah. I feel like that's the basic, you know, human reaction. Like, if you follow a lot of, like, celebs or people of note on Twitter, like like what's the thing they respond to the most? It's always like the hate comments and all that stuff.

Like I used to be real annoyed like at when I'd like be like, oh, you're dope at this thing or like I'll compliment him. And like they, you know, they don't even start. They don't care. And you'll see them spend all day fighting with people who hate them. And it's like, wow, you really would spend more time like interacting with people who hate them it's like wow you really would spend more time like interacting with people who hate you than to who who are just like driving you insane than people who are saying like oh man that's that's dope and you know right yeah um i never did there there are porn websites

on this i didn't even know we're popular i know that's another thing i've never heard of x and xx yeah oh yeah the x and xx is great because it's one of the last few. I mean, they just recently got into that territory, but they were one of the last few who didn't care about the sites that it came from. So you were able to get a lot of the low-key vids that were behind paywalls. XNXX is the 11th biggest website in the world i didn't know it existed in the world okay damn yeah in the world and it also has the highest average uh visit duration of any site other than youtube it's 14 minutes long yeah they beat porn hub too this is what i love about my co-host miles ray is he has had experiences with just the strangest

subcultures. He was telling us about the Krav Maga scene, like going to classes where, uh, you know, the instructors are just telling you. Dude, Krav Maga.

Okay. If we were going to talk about this, Krav Maga is the, uh, like the self-defense system developed by the IDF, the Israeli defense force. And when I was in high school, I did it for like two years or like just getting out of high school.

And every class, like there was this one instructor who this guy Sam, he was like an ex-IDF dude. Every situation, you know, most people go there because it's a very effective self-defense program. But every scenario where he would teach us a move was actually like an assault, like you were assaulting someone. It was never that. It wasn't self defense.

So he's like, it was never like, ladies, let's say you're walking back from the parking lot. Someone grabs you in the darkness. It was always like, guys, you know, maybe you're at the bar and this guy's talking shit to your girlfriend or something. You're going to come up to him. You're going to put your hand in his face. Then boom, you follow up with the right straight and like it was always like just shit that he was solving like club beef with like this very aggressive form of martial arts and be like yeah maybe the bouncer is telling you something you don't like like hey sir you're too drunk and you need to leave and

honestly cindy you know we know her she's the bartender she says you broke up three weeks ago and you shouldn't be here because you have a restraining order. Maybe you should let go. And then you say, what the fuck, bro? You're going to punch him in the throat. And then clearly there's two bouncers. They're going to grab. So it was.

Yes. All right. That's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show if you like the show uh means the world to miles he he needs your validation folks i hope you're having a great weekend and i will talk to you monday bye Thank you. So so In California, during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States.

One was the protege of Charles Manson, 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos. and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture

in the new iHeart Podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.