The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 2: Los Angeles Wildfires (feat. David Wallace-Wells)

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

What is the best movie weapon of all time and why is it obviously the lightsaber? With the rumors of the New York Jets interviewing Rex Ryan for their head coaching job, Dan wonders how long it will be before the NFL decides it’s been long enough for Jon Gruden to get back into the game despite all he’s done wrong. Then, as the wildfires rage on in Los Angeles, David Wallace-Wells joins the show to discuss the increasing severity of wildfires all over the world as a result of rapidly accelerating climate change. While that's happening, Amin tries to calm himself with a meditation in a modified victory lap over Will Manso. You can help support victims of the California wildfires here: https://cpf.salsalabs.org/disasterrelief/index.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to DraftKings Network. This is the Dan Lebatard Show with Stugatz Podcast. This episode of the Dan Lebatard Show with Stugatz is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. I saw a great item on the internet and I don't know why it is these things always suck me in, but they will every last time suck me in. And I know Amin will appreciate this as someone who cares about the movie. Somebody just started a thread of best movie weapons of all time.

Oh! And once- Rocky's fist. Once I saw, you're terrible at this game, have been since 1978 because your every reference is Rocky related and it's not the way to play this game. You haven't updated your movie references since 1978 and you're proud of yourself for doing it that way and it stinks

It stinks like Trayland stinks and also numerically improved at Drago's fist Yeah, okay there it is so but but I when I saw and this always happens with these kinds of games When I saw what I thought was the best nominee, I'm like, well, no one's gonna be able to do better than Anton Chigurh's weapon in No Country for Old Men, where he's using a silencer that is meant to, I guess, de-brain cows or something.

And it's just an amazing movie weapon from one of the most amazing movie villains there's ever been. How about Rambo's machete? How about Will Smith and Men in Black being able to get your memory all gone with one push of a button? Not a weapon.

The Neuralizer? That's a weapon, it's a device. Didn't in one of the comic book movies, spoiler alert, someone just snap and half the people died? Avengers? Is that a weapon? Thanos killed half of all existence with a finger snap. I kind of feel like the glove was really the weapon. The infinity stones was the weapon.

And then he used them. What is the best movie weapon of all time? So if I ask you guys, is there a consensus on this? My wife selected the bowling pin in that Daniel Day-Lewis used to kill on the bowling alley, the pastor, what is his name? What is that? It's not Thanos, it's Nanos or something? What is the name? What is the name?

Nanos? What is the name of the preacher man that Daniel Day-Lewis killed with a bowling pin? It's a good nominee for my Dark Princess White. Thanos Jenkins. How about the bald guy's finger? Again, from the movies, to gods, from real life.

Anything from the movies to gods that's not Rocky, help yourself to anything. I gave you Rambo. In the movie genre, anything at all that isn't Sylvester Stallone. It would help me. Oh, the matchstick. It would, go Bretty.

Go Bretty, not in Cabretty. I mean, I wanted to ask you about whether or not you have in your history as a front office executive any experience with doing anything like what it is that happened with Mike Evans and the Bucks and incentives and money. Yeah, yeah, we do have a story. When I was in Phoenix Phoenix Grant Hill had an incentive

But it wasn't it wasn't a team incentive. It was a sneaker incentive So a lot of people don't know this the sneaker companies will often have incentives in the deals and for a grant Hill I think it was to average like 15 points a game or whatever it was and he needed 25 in the last game of the season and grant Grant, you know, Grant at this point, he's an elder statesman, he's a role player, he's average probably like, you know, not like just shy of 15, but it usually comes on, you know, just getting shots here and there.

But we knew we gotta get Grant his money. So we force fed him the ball. He shot more times in that last game than he had shot in the entire season. He shot more free throws than he shot, I think, in his entire tenure as a Phoenix Sun. And when he hit the number, the bench went crazy, and the announcers didn't know why.

They're the Suns' bench, really, you know, up in arms over Grant Hill making that layup or making that free throw or whatever. Up in arms is a negative. Yeah, up in arms is not used correctly there. Why are people up in arms? Can you tell me like what up is it just? So raising they are raising guns over their heads up in arms. That's uh, that that is I don't know what that would be up in guns. It originated in the late 1500s as reference to an armed rebellion, so yes.

Okay, but is it physically running into a place with bayonets over your head because you're, you hear that noise. Yes, you're attacking in riot form with a bayonet over your head, somebody who can shoot you because you're using your gun to stab them. Billy's here. There's always follow-ups, Jeremy.

I do have follow-ups just because, forgive me for loving the origins of things. I just, up in arms, it was used incorrectly there. Ah, it was. No, it was just, it was simply used incorrectly. It's not something that can be disputed. I wanted to talk to the group about something that feels incorrect to me,

and I wonder if anyone cares. Rex Ryan being recycled in an interview by the Jets is amazing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is they don't need to interview him. They know how terrible he is. They've already done it. Hey, wait a second. We went to back to back AFC championship games.

But they know what he is. Let's get a damn snack. All right, they know how great he is fine whatever the interview is unnecessary least offensive of these two interviews john gruden his name being mentioned near anything should cause shame eternally for everyone involved with that league the idea that that can be recycled into something after what that has done publicly just because he smirks and is charming and we're in a different america than we were when he was the highest paid face and voice at the s p n on behalf of football enthusiasm i understand that rock the barstool

resuscitated him i don't blame second chances i think everybody should actually get second chances but that guy with those crimes going right to the top of the food chain again for the top of the jobs because the way to do all this stuff whether it's louis reddick over here or whether it's rex ryan is just be on television one of these football teams will think that's leadership enough just be around talking about football will figure out how to make it a leader and it doesn't matter what how many how much how much garbage is on the resume i love the jets having the guy that they fired as their GM, Mike Tanaman heading up this

search and like, all the fired guys end up at ESPN and that's who the Jets are going to hire to run their organization. Yeah, Mike Tanaman, where did he work also? ESPN. He's just calling everybody he went to work with. So bad. It's so lazy, man. But then what you're seeing is exactly what you described earlier, which is billionaires have toys. You think these people are sophisticated and discerning?

No, they're just like, oh, he sounds pretty smart, get him on here. Oh, there's a carousel going. I can't believe Ben, the funniest coaching news that I saw yesterday was Ben Johnson just being like, Jets, I'm good. Don't need an interview. No thanks. Seems like the origin of up in arms really dates back to 1297 when they first started using arms as a means for armor. In 1430, a coat of arms is first detected as something to refer to people bringing into a space with armor, but eventually, and it's unclear, that split changes somewhere in the late 1400s to late 1500s to turn arms specifically into up in arms

with weaponry as opposed to armor. Chris Cody, you are excellent at the carousel. Thank you again. Billy, you stink at the carousel. You don't participate in the carousel. Your carousel energy stinks. It hurts my neck. I was listening to all that information about arms.

Dan, to be fair, in every carousel, there's one that doesn't work. Yes. Right, right. Okay, but we always have four or five that don't work around here. I'm the bench on the carousel. Bench.

According to phrases.org, the use of up in arms has significantly decreased in the last 20 years. It was at its peak in printed material in the mid 1990s, but since then it's only decreased. Mean is the only one who's using it incorrectly these days in a way to get commentary and communication

off the ground, but incorrectly used. With a new twist, the bench is up in arms. It just didn't make sense. It was the wrong phrase to use. Thank you for all your contributions to the program. I wanted to ask how it is, Mike Ryan is not here, and there are some judgment things that I don't know about in terms of things that I can talk about or cannot talk about as it relates to the Fox Sports lawsuit as it relates to our negotiations with DraftKings and

as it relates to this project that we're doing with Dan Patrick in New Orleans that I don't know if it's already sold out. We just announced it yesterday. Dan versus Dan. Yeah. It should be Dan versus Dan. We erred in not naming it that. We did Dan interviews, Dan, and that was a mistake. This is a project or I mean... Well, I'm gonna explain to you what it means to me. Diorama or something like that. Thank you for asking. I appreciate you allowing me to promote this. You could go to TicketWe web.com and you could search lebatard but I'd like to explain to people why it is that I want to do this because it's gonna be a cool night for either fans of this show or fans of Dan Patrick show but no one in the history of the industry has influenced

this show more in terms of promoters, sorry, producers talking and just giving us permission to do some things that we have done with our career. And I really admire a man who, the second part of his career is more impressive to me than the first part of his career. In the first part of his career, he changed all of sports television because he didn't think that he could do the thing of creating a community of people who would listen to him after he left the ESPN to

make that radio show and he's got a community of among like five to ten communities anywhere in the history of this medium that in sports is an economy because he left the ESPN so successfully and has always been fair while doing it like that last parts to gods like hasn't had to cheapen himself at any turn with any hot take aggregations or any thing of the kind and when I talk about Pat Riley or Dan Patrick or people who have conquered the industry and I tell you my admiration is so profound for them. I don't give it in a way that's loose, and the reason that I give it is because somebody,

I believe, merits it with a career that is bigger and better than most I've ever seen. You gotta save some of this for the project. I mean... I will have plenty to tell people, and... Dan Patrick's eulogy. Come see it. Maybe we'll introduce Michael K. there as well to do Michael K.'s eulogy while we're there as well.

I simply want, look man, I am so, let me explain something to you here about watching, for example, Tony Reale at ESPN create an empire of voices and a community when it's really hard to do that even if for 25 years you're in the middle of a daily sports lineup. That show is going to disappear in six months the way Bryant Gumbel's show disappeared after 29 years instead of 30 doing some of the best stuff that's available

because the corporations are chewing everything up and eating everything up so that Tony Reilly, I don't know what he's gonna do in six months, but it's not gonna be help other sports writers be great at television on a show that creates community for listeners that are lasting and so I want to admire these people while they're still alive because we're killing some of the things that made them, made me, made me and us respect them. I mean Tony Reilly is alive right? He's young, he's healthy, he's got, he's got more career left, right? He's not at that phase yet where

he's gonna help the younger people out. To your point, I was shocked upon meeting Dan Patrick, how helpful he was willing to be to me and to many, many others. He is a great human being. The part I'm talking about though is being all of the things I'm saying and fair. Look, you can have whatever your issues are with overman or whatever side or me

or anybody because of whatever your divisions are do you know how hard it is to make it in this business for that long being a pillar of professionalism who doesn't say shitty things about people like doesn't like just is uh... you can have to be there you can think what you want about the bayless jim rome however it is people do what they do.

To do that fair, the degree of difficulty is damn near impossible. Can I play Devil's Advocate? He stars in a lot of shitty Adam Sandler movies. It's one of the perks. I mean. Also some good ones. Yeah.

Which ones were good? Adam Sandler gets like a lot of hate that I think is envy. I think if you made a movie, it would not be as good as Adam Sandler's. First of all, yes it would, but second of all, second of all, absolutely. You could not make a movie better than Adam Sandler. Give me the budget, I swear to God.

I've got three of them ready to go right now. I appreciate the confidence, but you're wrong. Not giving it away, not giving it away for free. Give me the Adam Sandler budget, number one. Number two, envy? Of course! Someone hands me hundreds of millions of dollars and all I do is invite my friends to go to Puerto Rico to have fun and then I fart and then I like cast my wife and my kids and everything

and then they hand me more hundreds of millions of dollars. Who doesn't want that? Of course I'm envious! For what it's worth it's tough to make a movie worse than Jack and Jill so Amid might have a point. That's fair. Dunkachino! Jack and Jill. That was real! He got Al Pacino, one of the greatest actors in the history of the medium,

to do a fake Dunkin' Donuts commercial where he sang and danced about the Dunkachino. Are you saying Sandler is overrated? What are you saying? He's not funny. I'm saying Dan Patrick is a hack for doing Sandler movies. Dan Hacktrick. And you know what, Dan? I've decided right now, I'm coming to New Orleans

and I'm coming in this Dan versus Dan thing. It's Dan and Dan or Dan You're coming to interviews Dan Thank you. I appreciate you. Yeah, we get to do it. I love having the payoff and Amin will be there Well, I'll be there to tell Dan Patrick to his face that he's a fraud They're not a fraud not a fraud because all the things you said are accurate. He is a trailblazer They used to say when you leave ESPN, it's over for you. And Dan Patrick was a guy that showed everybody like, no, it's not. There's life

and lucrative things on the other side of that. But he is a hack for doing all those Natus Allen movies. Absolutely. Didn't he play Dick from Dick's Sporting Goods in a movie? That's awesome Can I play for you guys some sound here, and I know we're gonna do I? Really will need to help from the audience from you guys Because I have assigned some work to Jeremy and others to cover the Jimmy Butler stuff even more than we are presently covering it and who i i want to know

where the right side of talking about all of this too much is even though uh... it it's in our wheelhouse uh... when i talk about respecting people with long legacies and when i talk about how much the media's changed to got you would understand why a pat riley are being eviscerated by people like gilbert arenas and paul piers and i really don't say that is indictment of either

gilbert arenas or paul piers i say it just to say that both of those human beings will say just about anything to make noise and they probably even though paul piers is a hall of famer they probably are a little looser with disrespect toward someone like pat riley than the average commentator because they're famous for saying outlandish things so let's hear from gilbert arenas here and i got i want to get a means thoughts on how fair this is or isn't because only gilbert arenas and paul pierce will do things like this

we are so bad you're nobody. He was right. He moved to the Knicks. He ain't doing nothing. He moved to Miami, right? He got shot. I mean, he got Dwayne Wade. He came and got Shaquille O'Neal. Then they bring a whole bunch of other players to help win.

You can't pretend you that guy is them. You're not bigger than them. You're pretending you are see the inner they left LeBron came they won a championship. You can't pretend you're bigger than LeBron LeBron leave This crashes Jimmy Butler comes he gets you to the championship if he tells you bring me one more star Motherf*** bring up one more star Cuz if he can get you to the championship with this bring me one more star motherf***** bring him one more star. Because if he can get you to the championship with this, bring me one more star, I got you.

So for you to pretend that you are the heat culture and you can do this, you're lying. Because when he leaves, motherf*****, nobody's coming there. Nobody's coming to, you got South Beach in your favor. And you treat South Beach like it's a f***ing prison. Gilbert is speaking from the truest point of view of a player.

What he's giving is the player perspective, which isn't invalid, but it also is not the whole picture, which is why when I see Amazon announce, hey, this is our broadcast team Taylor Rooks, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin. Great names. Great names. All funny people, all smart people, but you need another perspective in there. You need another perspective in there whether it's a coach, whether it's a former front office person, whoever because what a lot of shows, studio shows are doing

are leaning more and more on just the players. Billy says you need, you just, you're applying for work. Sounds like you're applying for a job right now. You're sitting here saying. You know you need me. That's what it sounds like. I didn't say that, I was just talking about. It sounded like you were saying that.

It sounded like those perspectives are fine, but what you need is the right perspective, my perspective. You need a balanced diet. You can't just have lima beans. But why would Pat Riley at this age or at any age for that matter care what Gilbert Arenas has to say about him? Pat Riley has had a Hall of Fame career. Pat Riley is considered one of the two, he the mountain rush more of nba head coaches do you think is he would do it to your very his job and a bunch of guys

who did with anything i have to say about him so i ask you this question sincerely do you think immortals are totally immune to insecurity especially as mortality approaches i'm i'm asking you this question sincerely Do you believe there's an age that people are so confident that they never doubt anything? I think they they will doubt their entire lives when it's coming from someone they perceive to be equal if that was Phil

Jackson saying that or someone like there is no equal Okay, but it would hit home more with Riley than Gilbert arenas who's just saying But there is no equal and Pat Riley is going through something that has no precedent in... You said Gilbert dismissed what he did in New York. Shit, New York hasn't gotten back there since. New York has been telling me how good they are. No, they're not. They haven't gotten back there since.

We made it to the finals. They were not as good at any point over the last twenty years living off of what riley did it with them as a stop between places where he did it gilbert arena's like look paul pierce's resume is fine it ain't riley's resume gilbert arena's is sure as shit isn't but like look gilbert like i said he's speaking from a player's perspective also gilbert knows how to put a little extra on it perspective also Gilbert knows how to put a little extra on it right Paul knows how to put a little extra on it and also Paul is dancing on the grave of for him the organization that represents the biggest rival right he when he looks across the way it's like that's the team I really really didn't like so obviously these

guys are gonna do their thing in terms of a little dance on the grave of or the perceived grave of the Miami Heat, but I'm with Stu Gotts. I don't think Gilbert Arena saying that stuff bothers Pat Riley. I think Riley laughs at that. He's tuning in. I don't think he has any way of knowing how to even find that. Respectfully to all parties involved. I think, I think when Dan LeBattard says some stuff, no, that's different. That's on at the arena. Exactly. The Dan LeBattard show with Stu Gotts is sponsored by Better Help. Every January feels like a fresh start. 365 blank pages just waiting for your story to be written. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist,

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Sell. Track your car's value with Carvana Value Tracker today. Don Lebatard! There's sunglasses in boxes today, but in my bed in the hospital, ending our lives all the same. Stugats! It's the final night count. This is the Dan LeBathardt Show with the Stugats. David Wallace Weld joins us now. This is an awkward transition. You will forgive me for the awkwardness of this transition.

It seems at every point, we've blessedly gotten away from this over the last couple of months. Real life intrudes on whatever nonsense it is we're doing around here to remind you that a whole lot of people are in peril for a whole lot of reasons and subjects that feel a little apocalyptic. So David Wallace-Welves is joining us now

and he's an opinion writer for the New York Times. He's helped us ruin this show before. He's also the author of a bestselling book called The Uninhabitable Earth and these fires that have swept in with wind over Santa Monica, a place that I did not know that there could be fires, have created such atrocity that firefighters can't get in because cars are being abandoned and we're seeing some stuff in America that it feels like we have not seen before. So David, thank you for joining us and can you just take me through this horror

when it's going to stop? Because it seems to me that when it comes to climate that we have not seen before. So David, thank you for joining us, and can you just take me through this horror, when it's gonna stop? Because it seems to me that when it comes to climate related stuff, all of this is only going to get worse. We don't have an ability to stop some things that are coming that keep and keep getting more kinds of worse.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're tempted often to call events like this a new normal, and even that is difficult for us to really wrap our heads around if this kind of disaster that we're seeing in the Pacific Palisades especially, but across Los Angeles becomes a new normal that really changes the way that we might think about life in that part of the country. But of course, climate change means higher temperatures down the line. Inevitably, that will be happening for at least several decades, probably for as

much as the rest of the century. And that means that fire risk will be growing too. We don't know exactly how much, but much worse than it is today. And unfortunately, all the things that we might be doing to kind of navigate that new landscape, making better housing policies so that we're not building homes in the path of fire. And we have with literally tens of millions of homes in the American West being built directly

in high fire risk areas over the last couple of decades. We're also not doing enough to thin our forests and prevent fuel buildup, which means that when fires happen, they can be incredibly destructive. But we are also now in a new fire regime in part because of the new climate conditions we're living under, whereby it's no longer just the trees or the

brush that we need to worry about, homes themselves have become flammable to an extent that they were not before, and can themselves become fuel. So when you think about what is effectively an urban or maybe you could generously call it semi suburban development, like we're seeing in the Pacific Palisades, it's no longer enough to look down the street and say, oh, there's all that pavement, there's all that concrete, there are all these modern homes. Those homes themselves can be what carries the fire from place to place.

And that's exactly what we've seen in Los Angeles over the last 12 to 24 hours as this historic wind event swept in, winds blowing 100 miles an hour carrying embers miles farther from where the flames were actually burning. And in those conditions whenever an ignition starts, it lights out. I mean, it is literally the case that CAL fire has never been able to stop a fire burning with wind powered by winds like these. So when winds are blowing like this, they can try to protect some structures. They tried to protect the fire department in Palisades last night. But generally speaking, all we can do is wait for the winds to change. And even though almost all of

Pacific Palisades has been burned through already, the footage is incredible dreary, bleak, gray, mercifully just a couple of deaths, but nevertheless the neighborhood is devastated. We can expect something like 24 to 36 more hours of this wind event in California continuing, which means we may see other fires in the Los Angeles basin as destructive as this one emerge, and we're probably going to see continued devastation and destruction in the places where fires have already ignited. So it's a bad, it's a dark day in Los Angeles, and it's a reminder that we are, as you say, kind of careening into a quite terrifying climate future.

Explain please, and I know I ruin the show every time that I do this, but I think people need to be shouting from burning mountaintops about what it is that we're doing the uh... to the earth as we do things like uh... you know make polio great again and we deny that there is no climate crisis that's the energy secretary and oil industry c eo is saying there is no climate crisis can you please explain to me in california the precedent for what we're witnessing because there can be a coldness from people listening

to this until it's their home burning up and they lose all their stuff because, I don't know if it's hundreds of miles, but many, many miles from where people were expecting fire, there is now fire. Seven of the eight largest wildfires in California history have burned since the year 2000. If you look at the modern history of wildfire,

which stretches back more than a century now, really detailed statistics, we are in an entirely different fire regime than we have ever been in before. The same can be said for Canada, where they had completely off the charts fire season last year, so much fire burning in Canada that you could fit literally half the world's countries

inside the burn scar of Canadian fires just from last year. In many parts of the world, not just these fire hotspots, but everywhere in the northern latitudes where we are at risk of fire, we are intensifying that risk by heating the planet, which among other things, dries out fuel, evaporates water from the landscape, and turns, sorry, I said dries out fuel.

That's the way the fire people talk. They talk about trees as fuel. And that language shift is the result of climate change. We would not be talking about trees as fuel if those trees were full of water and full of life. Instead, long droughts and even a crazy waterfall followed by a brief drought can turn huge portions of the landscape into essentially a pile of tinder. And that is not just true across California, it's true across the American West, it's true across the Canadian forest, it's true across the Russian forest, increasingly it's true across the Mediterranean.

We're seeing just an entirely new kind and new scale of fire burning much more rapidly, much hotter, so hot that sometimes it can turn the silica in soil in California into glass just by burning through. And as I said earlier, so hot that it turns these homes, which used to be kind of natural fire break, into the equivalent of new fuel. All of that's happening because the planet's getting hotter. It's actually getting hotter at a faster rate now than it has ever gotten in the history of climate change and in the history of the planet. We are burning more fossil fuel

and producing more carbon emissions today in 2024 than we ever have in the history of the world. Which means to the extent that we think we have been hearing about climate change for a few decades, we're starting this transition, that is true. But as we're continuing to roll out solar and wind and bio-EVs and all the rest of it, we are still burning more fossil fuel every year than we have every year in the past, which means every year so far in my lifetime has been more destructive for the future of the planet's climate than every year before it. And in the U.S., we are now producing more oil and gas than we've ever produced in the

history of the country and more than any other country in the world. As recently as 2016, we were exporting no natural gas and no oil. And now we are the world's number one producer of both of those things, a bigger petrostate than all the petrostates we name call in the Middle East. And we look around when a fire burns through our homes in California. And unfortunately, I've been seeing on social media, at least, a lot of people trying to point the finger at government, local government, state government. I think this is a bigger problem.

I mean, I think there are things that local policymakers can do. As I was saying earlier, changing housing, zoning policy, all the rest of it, being more prepared, spending more on preparedness and fuel thinning, also on the actual firefighting side of it, unfortunately, 30% of California firefighters are actually inmates in California prisons that are paid something like a dollar a day

to fight in these fires. So we're not taking seriously enough the threat of them to properly fund professional firefighting operations. But beyond that, we are obviously dealing with a much larger, you know, in some sense, existential threat and challenge, which is not the matter of individual small scale policy choices or the behavior or leadership of this or that governor or mayor, we are living in an entirely new climactic regime which presents new challenges, which humans can navigate

and we will survive. It won't be the end of us, but it represents a totally different risk landscape than anyone who has ever lived on the planet before has faced. Even those of us who lived in California and think, oh, we've had fires in the past, there's cultural memory of fires. That is all true. The fires we are facing now, especially in California, are much larger and more destructive

than we've ever seen before. And that's especially true when we talk about, as I was saying earlier, this new regime, it's called the return of the urban firestorm. We really used to think that homes only burned in like the 19th century in Chicago or in the 17th century in London. We didn't think that modern homes were susceptible to this kind of destruction and the new climate conditions in addition to the new zoning policy that has pushed so many of these homes into the wildland urban interface, into the path of fire. We are now living in a new era in which we can no longer take comfort in

homes as fire breaks and have to treat them as Potentially flammable fuel as well I want to congratulate this man for being the most long-winded guest in the history of the show not named Bill Walton his information is Extraordinary and exceptional and I understand why he's manic He's here to tell you that the world is ending and he's got a lot of facts on the situation and nobody's listening So it's a little alarming but because he has you that the world is ending and he's got a lot of facts on the situation and nobody's listening, so it's a little alarming. But because he has hijacked the program with all of his good information, I'm going to put him in the picture and picture. I'm going to do a little bit of a palate cleanser here and I'm going to

bring in Amin to do a bit of a victory lap, a sponsored segment from another room, where I get Amin Elhassen to do a victory lap because I've got to punish David Wallace Wells for ruining the show with his fire talk because there's no disputing most long-winded guests in the history of our show. No, it's just Bill Walton. Bill Walton's number one and now it's David Wallace Wells is number two. Yeah, but you're punishing a guy though you asked him to come on. I did that is correct. I need to punish him right now though I'm gonna put and I understand I just told you I understand why he's crazy because he's like telling, hey, these fires,

they seem bad, listen to me, and nobody's listening. So, of course, but what are you doing a victory lap on? Well, Dan, first and foremost, I want to let everybody know that I am using my Peloton app right here, and I'm going to be doing a morning meditation. You know what? That's not the spirit of it. How about you use You know what? That's not the spirit of it. How about you use the Peloton?

That's not the spirit of the Victory Lap. Because here, it's a DT. It's a DT Shaw, absolutely. Ooh, 10 minutes? Doing this morning in my car, not safe. Dan, the important thing to realize here for everybody who is curious about Peloton, it's not just cycling and jumping up and down.

This is the laziest thing I've ever seen. It's also other things like meditation. So I'm gonna start the meditation and I'm gonna meditate. This is not the point of the victory lap. The victory lap is for you to be winded and for us to get the payoff of your winded. It's not for you to do a meditation during the world is on fire.

Dan, you cannot shake me outside of my energy zone. I'm meditating right now, thinking about Will Manso and the apology he owed me. Look, it appears you punished all of us. You're supposed to be winded. The other guy's long winded. I'm gonna let both of you go now because you're not doing the show I wanna do.

Thank you for being on with us. I appreciate both of you. David Wallace-Welds, any last words? And I mean that literally. Don't look away from the damage. See it, see it clearly and try to take action. Thank you David. I appreciate it. How do you feel about Dan's treatment of you David? Just just be honest for a second. I'm proud to be ranked number two behind Bill Walden on any ranking. I mean what can I say? David your information

is great. It's just I'm perpetually wrestling with how much people don't wanna hear it, even though it's burning right in their face. Like, I can't even imagine. Stugats wanted to ask you whether we have any hope. I don't know how it is you don't feel hopeless as someone who has more information on this than any of us have, and know that people aren't paying enough attention to this.

Well, when I see that only two people died in these fires, I mean, it's horrifying and tragic that those are two deaths but we've seen fires like this over the last few years that killed dozens and so I think we are learning something about how to evacuate, how seriously to take the threat at the local level. We're not doing enough to prevent the fires from happening in the first place but maybe we are adjusting to that new reality in a way that will allow us tragic as it is horrifying it is, to see this as a manageable future full of fire threat but also a lot of human resilience. David, thank you.

Put him in Picture in Picture again here for us and just make him sit there and be punished and watch Amin end the segment the way that this segment needs to end, which is the world's laziest victory lap. Amin, go ahead and finish the segment with all of your good work, please. Dan, first of all, thank you, David. That was very informative. We need more people like you speaking truth to power

and not being harassed and berated by Dan LeBattard. Speaking of harassing, berated by Dan LeBattard. Hi, my name's Amin. We haven't met yet. Deep breaths because meditation in the morning is so important, especially when you're focused on demanding an apology from Will Manso. Two years ago, Will Manso was offended

when I said the Boston Celtics were a way more talented team, that the Heat had to overachieve and be perfect at every part of the execution in order to win, which was, at the time, for me, a compliment to the Miami Heat, and being able to execute. But somehow Wil Manso took offense,

and he berated me like Dan Leventar does, because he said, if they're so talented, why didn't they win? And I said, sometimes it's not just about talent to win. He's fallen asleep, David has fallen asleep. And the mantra, the mantra is like shitty. And I feel like the mantra, it feels to me, is a little offensive.

Like it feels to me like you're not respecting the mantra. I want the knife. Please. It's fine. Did you just make a golden child reference? Yes, Dan. This meditation is brought to you by Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton.

No, it's not a meditation, it's supposed to be a victory lap. The payoff is he's winded while celebrating that he got something right. Dan, if it comes to angering you or angering the sponsor, I'd rather anger you. David, thank you for being on with us. We're sorry.

You are always welcome here. We need more people like you. Thank you, sir. I can come here. I don't think David Wallace Wells is happy. I don't know. You guys tell me. Billy's shaking his head.

What do you think bothers him more, the fires or this show? I don't think he was bothered. I think he under... No, no. I don't think he was bothered. I think he understands the tension involved with telling people stuff they don't want to hear, but especially doing so long-winded in a way

that even further interrupts the show. That part, that part. The long-winded part? He could not have left the Zoom quicker, if that's any kind of. From personal experience, I can tell you, it doesn't feel good when you tell someone they're long-winded.

To be fair, Dan, you kinda saved it when you called them, or you compared him to Bill Walton. I think he really appreciated that. I wonder if he knows Bill Walton is no longer with us. Is that a $50 fine for David? I don't know. Oh, I thought you were talking about Dan. No, Dan knows.

Dan, Dan, you knew, right? The Venmo bucket fine chart is $1 per mistake, $2 cough and phlegm, $3 pestering, $5 tone, $7 not listening, $10 phone interruption, $50 if you kill somebody. David Wallace Wells is a heck of a name, is it not? I mean, it is a great name. Wallace Wells.

I feel like that was done better by David Foster Wallace, was it not? Am I wrong about this? I believe, who's that guy. Okay. I'm glad. I'm trying to try to meditate. Don't break me. The day on the Bataard show with Stu gots is sponsored by better help. Every January feels like a fresh start. 365 blank pages, just waiting for your story to be written. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist.

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