The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 49 | The Far-Left Feminist Disowned by His Own | Jamie Kilstein | The Glenn Beck Podcast

Episode Date: September 7, 2019

Comedian Jamie Kilstein had his whole world turned upside down by the #MeToo movement. Once a self-described far-left feminist, he was surprised at how quickly his own people disowned him over claims he knew were very skewed — and the support he got was from the people he once mocked. Now he’s sitting down for an interview with one of them, the notorious Glenn Beck himself. They discuss life for a comedian who’s tired of selling out to political correctness, the humbling rock-bottom experience that brought him here, and the honesty that the American people want so much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About this time every year, our attention turns to the solemn anniversary of 9-11. It's a moment when we all take time to reflect on those who gave their lives that day. Seems weird for those of us who remember it. What we promised ourselves we would do. Those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the years to come. Those who went to war. How are we treating them? Defending our liberties in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

And now, here we are 18 years later, we find ourselves. seemingly in a state of permanent war. We're warned that the Islamic State is poised to make a comeback. We watch as the crescent of Iranian influence extends its long shadow, and in Afghanistan, our leaders are now negotiating the terms of peace with the Taliban, which I thought we had wiped out at one point. Well, I want to tell you about a new film that is out. Ties all of this together. It's called Mosul.

It is the story of the last battle of the Iraq War, documenting the 2016-2017 fight against ISIS in Iraq's second largest city. directed actually by a CIA officer, Danielle Gabriel, Mosul, is the name of this film. It's much more than a war story. It is a journey that will take you up the Tigris River right into the heart of darkness of the ISIS caliphate, revealing an apocalyptic battle against two unyielding enemies, the violent Islamic extremism and the sectarian mistrust and hatred that will remain long after all of the politicians declare victory. It's available now on iTunes, or Amazon, Vimeo, just visit www.mose.orghashfilm.com.

You know, at some point in our lives, most of us hopefully learn the danger of acting like, what, I'm fine, I don't have any problems. If you don't learn that early, and if you add politics into that lack of humility or self-reflection, wow, you have a dangerous cocktail. Today's guest has undergone quite a transformation, and he had a huge slap in the face that woke him up.

One of the greatest lessons he learned is that if you act like you don't have any problems and you use that attitude to further your own political ideas, you're probably in for a reckoning. He made his career calling people sexist, then hashtag Me Too related accusations popped up against him in an article on a feminist blog. The blowback was really intense. people took the joy he used to take in attacking other people, attacking him.

He had burned bridges. Everybody turned against him. This is on the left. He had been banished from his own group, even though those accusations weren't true. He no longer had a tribe. That's when he went, maybe I've been part of the problem here. In the aftermath, he's gotten back into comedy. Last year, he started a podcast that has done really well.

His journey has had more bumps and twists than just what I'm telling you. It is hardly the start of it. I have a feeling Jamie Kielstein and I are going to be sitting down more than once because I've got a lot of questions. He is fascinating. Next on Studio 19. When I invite somebody at the studio, and I learned this in the opposite way, from a Katie Couric. When she first left the Today Show, she went to Yahoo,

and she was doing some sort of a podcast. And she approached me, she's like, please. And I'm like, I'm not doing any interviews, and I know what all these interviews are like. No, thank you. She's like, no, no, no, it won't be that way. I promise. I really, I need a big get for the podcast.

And I said, no, because you're going to sandbag me. And she's like, no, I won't. I promise you. I promise you, please, I need this favor. So I did it. And she sandbagged me. Yeah. I didn't see it. Just so horrible, just such a horrible human being. And when I invite somebody onto my show, it's important that if I'm inviting you into my house, yeah, I'm not going to

sandbag you. Right. And so when we met a few minutes ago in the hallway, uh, I said, you know, hey, don't, don't worry, you know, you, you're welcome here and there's no problem. And you said something really strange. You said, no, I'm more excited about doing this than I've been for a long time. I was, why? I didn't get nervous until you said, don't be nervous. And I was like, oh, crap, do I look

nervous? Because I was like, super stoked. Because, I mean, for a couple of reasons. One, I have dad issues and we used to fight. Two, I think that I'm starting to

there's been it's been really hard not to be calculated with my career and what i mean by that is when i was sort of disowned from the far left and i went from being rich to having no money like no money um there's a path for that and the path for that is to go right wing and to go and to go and not like this show, but to do the opposite of what I was. The people who wanted to talk to me kind of had ulterior motives. That still happens every once in a while. Like I have really cool fans from the left and the right. Every once in a while, you'll get the person who's like, hey man, like a big fan of yours. And you're like, oh, great, thanks. And they're like, we got to get these whores. And you're like, nope, nope, like you're not on my team. I don't want this. And, you know,

I had offered. I remember I got an offer. to to kind of write one of those books, you know, about leaving the left. And I know, and by the way, when this happened, I was living on a couch with my cat at my friend's house and literally holding my cat, like, crying, afraid I wouldn't be able to, like, afford to keep my cat. And if I wrote that book, you know, why I left the left and the right is right, I would get a check for like a billion dollars and I'd be set. And I don't think you'd be on this show.

I don't think I'd be on this show. And I wouldn't be happy. and it would read as disingenuous and it would crash and burn. I would become a different version of who I was before. And so I went, I mean, I was depressed and suicidal and I got out of that. And I got off social media and I started teaching Jiu-Jitsu for like a year in Los Angeles. And for the first time in my life, and I thought I would never go back to stand-up, never go back to podcasting.

And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was helping people where I was. I was teaching kids and I was teaching adults who were afraid to fight how to fight. And I was watching them spar. And I realized that all of this time I was screaming and yelling online wasn't anything. Like I've joked about this before, but I was literally the person where if like a girlfriend was like, Jamie, your mom's on the phone. I'd be like, tell her I can't talk. I'm tweeting about feminism.

You know, like I was ignoring people in my life to be self-righteous online. And so I really think it was because of that year of helping people. And by the way, I didn't know anyone's politics. Like, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA guys, a lot of them are like apolitical, like kind of conservative, definitely more like alpha than I'm used to being around. And I actually found out what it was like to talk to people who I disagree with and to help people in real life. So to your question, I will be called a thousand percent. I will be called Altright for doing this show. People are called All right for doing Rogan show.

And he's very liberal. I will be called right is an alternative to the right yeah it's not the right no they they don't believe in the bill of rights doesn't matter I would be I would be called all right I'll be called a sell out people will say oh he's going down this path where you know he was uh once he he lost financial freedom uh or once he lost his financial way on the left he's going to the right I'm like I wish I did that because I would have a lot more money than I have right now it is not sexy to pitch a podcast to like my agent in the time of Trump about nuance and moderation and having conversations with people who disagree with you. If I became the right wing version of Jamie and was

just screaming about woke culture all day on Twitter, I would be making a lot of money. If I went full right wing and ratted out all the people on the left, which is plenty to say, I would be making a lot of money, but I'm desperately trying to do the right thing. So the reason I'm excited about doing this, even though I will be called, whatever I will be called, is even as a liberal, what do we accomplish by just screaming at each other and by just being in our own echo chambers? I'm legitimately, I'm becoming a lot more moderate on certain issues. So I'm, I think, intellectually curious to talk to conservatives who I think are intelligent and learn things that I don't know.

I think I'm going shooting with someone who works here after this. Have you ever shot before? No, of course not. Oh, we got to. I'm coming. Oh, 100% come. I got to go. I've just been screaming and yelling about guns.

And I'm like, I've never shot a gun before. Oh, it's fun. Yeah. And I'm like, if I'm going to, even if I'm going to, by the way, criticize it, then I should have done it. And I should know what I'm doing. This is the thing that I think conservatives are starting to say now in their own circles. And, uh, and I'm just so sick and tired of the gun debate. Yeah.

If you don't know what a semi-automatic is, if you don't know, everything's a weapon of war. A knife is a weapon of war. Sure. If you don't know what these things do and how they work, and I mean, even just a basic understanding, I can't have a conversation with you. Well, and I want to have, I feel like there are probably, if I were a gun owner, if I were an NRA member, and I saw all these mass shootings, I more than anybody would want regulation. right or want changes or to talk about solutions correct and as you're getting called all these horrible

things yes like you're like happy about school shootings which has got to be a nRA members i'm talking about the leadership i'm talking about nRA members that i know they are the most law and order kind of people because they get so pissed off yes that they get the bad name so they're really responsible this was my hypothesis on the podcast on my podcast and I'm glad I'm right where I just you know it was like me as like an m-ma fighter whenever people would be like oh it's a blood sport I'm like oh you've never come to a gym because it's the nicest people in the world who would never get into a bar fight who have no ego because they're in their ass kicked every day they're wonderful people who would step in and help someone off the street as opposed to these liberals that would like run in the other direction and then

you know tweet about it um and I so I just naturally assumed that gun owners would be the same way. I would be livid. It's like when you criticize America and people go, well, then get out. You're not American. It's like, no, no, no, no. I'll criticize America because I love it.

I think that it's why we're the most triggered by our family, right? Because we love our family. I think it's important to criticize the things that you love. But I think that... It's important, however, like you get triggered with your family Yeah. I get triggered with my family. You come after my family?

Wait a minute. And I'm right in your face. 100%. Even though if I would stop and go, I might say, yeah, you know, you got a point on that one. Yeah. Okay. But we don't. We jump to defend.

Yeah, yeah. You're not allowed to hate my family. Only I can hate my family. Right. And so it's, it's what's happened is we get to these, we get to these cartoons to where conservatives are flag. waving, you know, F-16, you know, flying fireworks show. And that's what America is.

It's the old red, white, and blue. That's what it is. And then the left, it just hates America. They're communists. Well, there are those people over here like, I'm going to blow them out of the water right now. And there are those people who genuinely hate America. But then there's people like, what's her name, Tulsi Gabbard, who's, she's going. going to serve. She's taking two weeks off. Now, I may disagree with her, but she doesn't hate America.

No, and what's so funny is she's actually called out Kamala Harris and called out a lot of the candidates on some of their more conservative policies. And the left instead that, man, the day after Twitter on the debates when Tulsi was trending, I was, I was thrilled to watch her call out a lot of the Democrats. And all these mainstream liberals were like, she's an Assad apologist. Like, this has got to be Russian bots who are making her trending. And it's like, Jesus, can't we take some criticism without saying this like Russian bots? Hillary Clinton, matter. Like, the rest of the stuff I'm, I don't really listen to. But regardless, it's like, she was the worst candidate ever.

She was a terrible candidate. Horrible. She was a terrible candidate. And to be like, it was Russia. It's, you know, we talk about AA and recovery. It's like if you are not going to take responsibility for your actions, you are never going to learn. You are going to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. We should be thrilled to have someone like Tulsi who has served, who will call out candidates on their BS.

She is a 1995 or even 2000 version of a Democrat that is like the All Star. Yeah. She would have been the All Star. Oh, yeah. Even maybe even 10 years ago, she is now because she doesn't hate. certain things because she won't crucify everything and everybody. Yeah. She won't be accepted by that core group that is needed for the primary.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And one more thing I wanted to say about when we were talking about guns, um, you said something that made me think of people have gotten very defensive, um, understandably because of those caricatures, right? Um,

every right wing person is being called a Nazi. which they are not. Every left wing person is being called a stone socialist, which like kind of, but like, I get it. But when, I think because people get so defensive online,

they're always being attacked. A lot of times they don't defend things that in their heart, they feel like they should. So what I mean by that is, my friend Jason, who works here, he posted something really wonderful

after the El Paso shooting about how we need to come together and we need to fix this. I saw Republicans using the words white supremacy, which I would have never assumed what happened. And I saw

most, every Republican I followed talked about something with guns has to change. And this dude is gun owner, go shooting, et cetera. And I retweeted that and I said,

this is what we got to do. I'm saying the same thing as someone from the left. We got to come together and we got to, figure this out without screaming at each other. And a bunch of my conservative followers, bunch of his conservative followers were saying some of the most heartfelt things.

You know, too many kids have died. Stuff that I literally and naively would assume that the right wouldn't care about that. They just wanted their guns. They just wanted their bunker of guns for when, you know, I literally just assumed that every buddy was like, they're going to come from my guns. Like they all think they're like Steven Seagall from the movies.

But in real life, they're like Steven Seagal in real life, you know? Just like very sadly, like come and get it. And by the way, the government would take your guns because they have tanks. And all these conservatives will be incredible. Wait, I want to just correct that before I forget. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, everybody else, they've done a pretty good job going against the United States of America. I don't accept because that is what the Second Amendment was for. You know, it wasn't like, I mean, it wasn't like they were like, what sport should we put into the Second Amendment?

Right, right, right. How about hunting? Right, right, right, right. That's not what it was. No. It was a fear of an out-of-control government, and everybody says, oh, you're going to fight with the tanks. Well, look at the guys who were living in the cave. Right.

They kind of did it. Right. And I don't ever want to get there, but I don't understand the left when they say, Donald Trump is a Nazi. We're going to be a fascist country. Quick, let's give him our guns. That's interesting. I've never heard. I've never heard of put that way. I don't get that. Well, but the

That's what the second amendment is for. But it's really interesting because when I believe it was under Reagan, when a lot of gun legislation was happening was when the Black Panthers were showing up, armed. And, you know, Killer Mike, who's this amazing rapper and activist and he pisses off liberals a lot from Run the Jewels. He talks about, he's like, I don't want the black communities giving up their guns because of what's happening. The clan, that was their deal.

Right. They went from house to house for your protection. Martin Luther King asked for a concealed carry permit. His sheriff said, for your own safety, sir, I don't think so. Oh, come on. Come on. Well, I want to continue this conversation while we are at the range, or whatever you guys call it, at the gun place. At the shooting blade.

I'm going to have to like just wear one of my jujitsu shirt. It's just to be like, I'm still a man when you see how scared I am with this kickback. But what I was going to say is all the conservatives were saying really heartfelt things. And a bunch, I don't want to say all of them, but a bunch of liberals who commented were like, oh, you're falling for it. You're falling into their trap. Right. And that was so disheartening to me because I'm like, this is what you claim you want. Here is a gun owner.

here is a conservative, here's a family man saying, I want to do something. A Republican saying, I want to do something. And if every time a Republican says, I want to help, or if every time a Democrat shows up to a conservative cause and says, I want to help, we just get shunned away, then nothing's going to happen. So what I was going to say before is I think that people are so defensive.

And because if the left is going to call every Republican a Nazi, and then Donald Trump does something really heinous. And a conservative wants to tweet about it. They're going to think about it. They're going to be like, why would I do this if I'm just going to get called a Nazi anyway, you know? I called, I called every major press person I know, Chuck Todd, all of them. Yeah. After Trump won.

Yeah. And I said, do not make my mistake. I made the mistake. Do not go on Katie Couric show. No, I made the mistake of, of not. seeing what I was saying was actually dividing and and tearing apart. I thought I had certitude. I thought that I was right. Well, in some things I was right. In other things, I wasn't. Yeah. But more importantly,

the way I said it and the way it was taken out of context and then put into, you know, tweets, it divided. And I said, don't. You're going to. to be tempted to say, everybody over there is a monster. Don't do it. None of them wanted to hear that advice because there's no money. Well, that's what I was going to say is. So they screwed up. So I don't totally buy the narrative about the left-wing media.

As someone who was left of left, I was always furious when they said MSNBC is like the right-wing fox because MSNBC is still pretty moderate. They're still owned by G. There was like 15 hours of Joe Scarborough on that show, you know what I mean? Where I was just like, you're just not going to compare it. Bill Donahue was fired when the Iraq War was incredibly popular and he was criticizing it. That wouldn't have happened on Fox in the opposite way. But when they say it's the liberal media or all fake news, it's you hit it where they're profit-driven.

They covered Trump more than they covered Bernie Sanders because they thought it was hilarious. and Trump would never win and it was very clickbaited. And then when they realized they screwed up and now the nation is furious, including a lot of conservatives that Trump won, now they're attacking Trump, attacking Trump, attacking Trump, attacking Trump. Which is only making it worse. So much worse. Because it's making people, like I said with social media,

just hunker down and be like, we're going to defend our guy no matter what. And if I got up every day and I had, if the media was reversed, I mean, I think we can both agree that the media is lopsided. Oh, they're the worst. Yeah, okay. So if I had control of the media, if Fox and, you know, Rush Limbaugh were the dominant voices in America and there were clones of them all around. And you were just in this little camp. Sure.

And we were like, you're a bunch of commies. Yeah. And we hate you. And you're the problem. You would be so defensive. Yeah. So defensive. You would run to.

anyone who would stand by your side. Well, and so this happened to me. Danger. This happened to me where when when I was going down that road financially of do I go right wing, you know, do I go like full conservative? And like, I had nights on that couch where I was like, I'm going to watch Ben Shapiro videos. I'm like, no, I'm still liberal. Where I tried. I really did try. It wasn't, it really wasn't money. A lot of it was conservatives were just being nice to me and I lost all my friends

and I got divorced and I felt like a pariah and I was in Los Angeles I don't live there anymore. I was in Los Angeles and I felt like if I walked into anywhere someone would hear some rumor about me or think something or everyone hated me

and I was going crazy. So when it was conservative who were just being nice and were like, hey man, what happened to you was like weird. And like conservative women were like reaching out to me and like stuff like that. And a lot of eventually liberals did too. But none of my old friends reached out to see if I was okay. Wow. How did that feel?

A whore. I mean, it was that was the worst part because like I've been, I've been financially screwed before. I dropped out of high school to start stand up. I lived in my car for two years, just trying to get gigs. When I wasn't getting gigs over here, I would fly overseas because they liked political stuff more. That's what, like, Hicks had to do, like, back in the day. And I would fly over there, and I'd make a bunch of money, come back.

I played the Sydney Opera House with me and Christopher Hitchens. And then I got back to New York the next week and couldn't get booked at, like, some crappy comedy club in New York. So, like, I've hustled and I've struggled. and I was like, if I have to go back there, cool. If I have to live in a studio apartment forever and teach kids jiu-jitsu, like, at least like I'll respect myself. Fine.

But that is what, that's what hurt a lot. I had, I remember when I first started to make it, a guy who was my idol growing up, just an idol. And I, I just, this guy meant everything to me. Noam Shamski. and he called me out of the blue one day because he wanted to offer me congratulations on all my success

and I was like I was like a eight-year-old kid all of a sudden I was just like oh hello how are you and I just was so because he was just the guy going up and I realized about two minutes in the phone call he was just trying to get money from me And I was just destroyed. And when you are, when you're either on the up or the down,

the, the games that are played by the people you thought were better than that. Yeah. That happened a little bit on my way up. I had people who would, who were, who would just bully me at clubs or like talk trash online. the second I would get something, I would get on Conan or I would get, I would just get an email with no like self-awareness at all. Just straight up like, hey, who books that? And I'm like, do you know you're terrible to me, right? Like you're a bad person.

Why are you doing this? Not even opening it up with like, hey, I know this is bananas that I'm sending to you this. But then when I thought about it and in a weird way, it kind of made it easier for me. Because when I thought about the people who didn't reach out to me. Now look, if I was accused of like something heinous or whatever, um, okay, I get it. But I mean, I like publicly have talked about like suicide a lot and depression and addiction and then I disappear for a year. And so to have no one on the left reach out. The only people that reached out to me. Friends. Oh, yeah. The only people that reached out to me were comics. And I had spent years

I was on that part of the left where we would trash comics if they said something offensive, if they said whatever. And suddenly these comics that I abandoned, I abandoned being a comedian for being a political lefty, they were the ones who reached out. Rogan reached out. Doug Stanhope reached out. Like people who,

they were just like, hey, I hope you're not dead. I hope you're okay. And it reminded me that comics, while they are demonized and scrutinized so much nowadays, they're misfits and they're sweet.

And they know what it's like to feel broken, right? And they reached out. The ones who remember Lenny Bruce. Yes. But the ones who, like you, have gone awry and like, you know what? I'm going to virtue signal. Right. Those guys are really dangerous because do they not know? Yeah. So I'll tell you, so my trajectory was kind of interesting where I started off. So I idolized Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, George Carlin prior. And none of them would be working today.

They would all like, they would be in jail. And what's crazy? No, they wouldn't be in jail. They'd be in this cyber jail. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah.

We've always been afraid of the government. It's the mob. That's what's... It's just like, well, what the... Even like, and I should not bring this up, but it's a great example where, like, Louis C.K., let's not talk about what he did. There are prison sentences for people, right? And the left talks about that a lot. The left talks about forgiveness. The left talks about prison reform. Rightfully, I think. I think that our prison

system is also very broken. But you question the motive if you really believe that, if you can't forgive. Where they never want him to work at, like, he gets up at a comedy club and, they want that place shut down. And it's like, do you want this guy with daughters just to, he screwed up, he apologized. Again, I don't want to get into. Sarah Silverman. Yeah. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And Sarah Silverman, by the way, who also just got fired this week. Right.

That's what I mean. Oh, I thought you meant Sarah Silverman talked about how she was friends with Louie and she. No, Sarah Silverman, who did a deal in Blackface then comes back a couple of years later and says, wow, that was really stupid. But the thing in Blackface. was mocking people who were racist. Of course. Then she says, I was mocking the racist thing,

but I shouldn't have done it in Blackface. And now, years later, this doesn't make any sense at all. And that's the best comedy. And that's the comedy we used to idolize. For me, I can say that I believed most of the things that I talked about when I was on the radical left.

The one thing that I always felt gross was going after comedians, because I know that comedy comes from pain. So whenever someone's like, whenever I'm doing an interview and they're like, so were you the class clown? I was like, are you out of your mind? Like the class clown like called me gay

and beat the crap out of me. Like I was not the class clown. Like a lot of the comics were the nerdy, quiet, shy ones who would just write in notebooks. And my first memory of when laughter affected me was when something terrible, what happened to one of my parents. There would be a relapse.

There would be a cop showing up at our door. There would be an ambulance, whatever. And me and my brothers would be upstairs. And we were terrified and we didn't know what to do. And the second someone made a joke, and it would always be offensive because we have a family member being carted away in an ambulance.

Everyone would start laughing. And once you could laugh, it took the power away from this really terrifying issue. And then you could start to brainstorm and be like, okay, what do we do? It would almost like snap you out of a train. trance. And so whenever I talked about offensive things or whenever I talked about edgier things, it was never to offend people purposefully. It was like, let's dig really deep and see how far we

can go and then let's talk about it. And I think that's where comedy can be the most powerful. Now, there are comedians, usually newer comedians, who will see edgy comics, who will see someone like Richard Pryor who is confessing to this horrible domestic situation he was in and this drug addiction and as a new comic you go oh so I just talk about like hidden women and doing smoking crack and I was like no no no no like he would do it with vulnerability with whatever um and a lot of comedians they would rather hear a groan than silence because silence is the worst thing so they'll just throw out like some rape joke or some whatever and that stuff not I'm not even offended just as a comic I don't like that. But I felt like I had a phase where I was doing very well with stand-up. It was like the year I

was almost famous where I did Conan and the green room and Robin Williams took me under his wing and I had managers and agents and then it kind of plateaued and as my comedy sort of plateaued because again it was still like pretty edgy. I was definitely the guy that a lot of industry would be like, hey, we love what you do. And you're like, great, do you want to work with me? They're like, oh, Jesus, I would get fired. Like no, no, no, no. That was like, that was like, like, that was like, every meeting I had. But this podcast started to get more popular. And on the left, I was hilarious because we're not really known for our humor.

And I was suddenly like the cool kid. I was suddenly this high school dropout that was on MSNBC panels. And I had really intelligent smart fans who were using academic jargon I never heard before. So I felt smart and I felt accepted and all this stuff. And so the show just sort of started going less comedy more in that direction. And so I did become that. But that's not the comic I am. That's not who I started as.

It was just I was getting approval from those people. And a lot of times, I mean, I think you've been there. Like when you're getting approval and adulation and you suddenly feel like you're someone and you're doing something, it's powerful. it's really powerful. I think fame and fortune are battery acid to the soul. Yeah, I didn't even get the fortune part. That's the worst part about it. I wasn't even like, oh man, I'm a salad in my pool.

I was still like in Brooklyn. But it's because the minute you want it, the minute is the minute you're done. You're headed in the wrong direction. Right. Wrong direction. And that's what was happening to me. It's funny.

It's, you think you're above so much. And then you look back and you're like, God, I was that cliche. I was that cliche who was in a marriage that wasn't working. So I just bought all this stuff. And I said all these things because I was trying to project this image. And you really, it's like quicksand. Like you get stuck in it. And you don't even really realize that you're just making it worse and worse.

Did you, when you left Fox was there? Because I feel like. When you do rock bottom or when you do take a turn, you can go in two directions. You can get really bitter. And I talk to people who have been in similar situations to me and they're bitter. And I'm not. I would have died. I wouldn't have made it.

If I was like my ex-wife or these girls. Like, ugh. Like just gross to think about. Maybe it would have helped me in some ways. I don't care. And then in a weird way, I think rock bottom is what can. subvert that battery acid test in the sense that once you've hit that or once you've made a drastic change suddenly you do things for the right reasons and now I'm not trying to be rich.

I'm not trying to be famous. I'm like, I'm going to do what I do and hopefully I can make a living. So when, so when I hit rock bottom in the 90s. Okay. And very similar story to yours. Okay. Hit the bottom. It took me about four years to dig myself out and turn things around. And then my second bottom was completely different bottom.

Interesting. I need to pay attention to this. Yeah. It was, I don't think you're going to have a problem with it. It was, all right, I'm not, I'm going to be, all I wanted back. Yeah. You know, because you lose everything. Only thing I wanted back.

not money, not fame, nothing. All I wanted was my integrity. Yeah. Because I had blown my integrity. Got it. And so it's 95 and that's all I want. I want to be able to look at somebody and say, no, I mean this. And have them believe me.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So I worked so hard for that and really, really tried to do the right thing. Then a little arrogance, because you have success, arrogance creeps in. I was doing comedy on Fox deconstructing Fox and the cable news network by making

I was mocking a cable news show on a cable news show and I knew I have to I have to perform and I'm a decent performer I have to perform to be able to get people to watch an hour on Woodrow Wilson so how can

I make that really entertaining? Right. You know, oh, I can throw a frog in a blender and I can do this and I can pour gasoline over somebody and they'll watch it thinking that people will, especially people in media, would be smart enough to go, wait, wait, wait, take all that crap away. Sure, I hate him because he's this performer. But what he said here, here and here, is there any truth there? Right.

Because if that's true, that's a problem. Yeah. I thought people in the media would be more, would be less disingenuous and they would be curious, which was a problem. And at the end, I was, you know, sitting in my, my Bloomberg building apartment on the 56th floor looking at Central Park. Yeah. And I realized, oh my gosh, I want this really bad. Yeah. run for your life. Yeah.

And so I was afraid of fame and fortune because I had a little bit of it early in my life. Yeah. And once you want it, it doesn't matter. Your good intent is gone. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I've caught myself a couple times. I've caught myself where, and you see this online a lot. So there's there's the right, there's the left, and then there's the middle.

that I kind of align with, like, you know, the sort of like Jordan Peterson, IDW, Dave, and whatever. And I've had phases where I'm like, well, I'm just going to start retweeting all these, like, moderate dudes. And I'm going to start, like, attacking who they're attacking. And then I'm like, oh, my, I'm literally a moderate version of progressive Jamie. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. And I've also caught myself if I do a right wing show and I got a bunch of followers and

people are like, hey, disagree with you, but you know, great job in the show or whatever. Let's say I want to retweet something that I really like that AOC said. I'll be like, maybe I shouldn't do this. I've talked to friends of mine. It's hard. It's really hard. And especially when, you know, like, I'm in love. I moved out of L.A.

Like, I never thought I was going to have kids. Like, we want to have a family. And right now, you know, the money that I had would have been able to do that. And I have to start again. And you see people kind of going up who are just screaming and yelling on Twitter. And I know even now, even I haven't started doing it. I'm desperately trying not to. But the times I've gotten the most like Patreon people from my podcast have been when I,

and I haven't done this on purpose, but like when that liberal left because he's like, you talked about Clinton with Epstein. And I'm like, of course I'm going to. He left. And so a bunch of people went, screw that guy. and they became members.

And when I saw that, there's that part of you that goes, oh, if I make like a bigger deal about this on Twitter, I'll get more people or free. We were just having this conversation. My second bottom was, even with good intentions,

you just screwed everything up. This is where I'm like, and so I'm like, oh, crap. So I've spent the last five or six years, going, okay, so wait, How do you navigate? And every day, every single day, you know, I've got hundreds of people relying on me keeping a job going. You know, all this closes down.

Right. And every day, I'm smart. I know how to make it work. Right. And you have this choice and you're like, oh, man, I could do that. but it just takes and very few people you know

I came out so strongly against Donald Trump and I became I think bigoted and hateful because I wasn't listening for people's pain right when your friend does something just crazy and you're like wait hey man wait what

okay if they're your friend you say to them what the hell's happening in your life yes I didn't do that to my audience. Right. I just said, are you out of your mind? You idiots, right.

You idiot. Right. So I made the same mistake again. And I almost did that with this new show. Like I could feel where every day I was like going after like the woke people. That just happened to be the story I was talking about. And I'm like, this isn't it. This isn't what I want.

But it, the society doesn't reward you for that. You know, if you and I, we could even, and I, unfortunately, I know these people, you and I were a different and it's so all right when the cameras go on we're going to talk about this let's just battle it out yeah yeah yeah yeah that would be huge oh we could do stadium tours yes yeah 100% huge

pendjolette and I yeah we're good friends yeah and um he was just with him in Vegas and he said we have got to tour he said I don't care if anybody comes he said I just love our back and forth dialogue and I said well I'd like to tour too but uh I got I'm busy making money.

Right. You know, so would anyone come? And we both stood there and went, I'm not, I'm not sure, because we're both able to disagree and go, now, wait a minute. Right. Explain that to me. But I do think that people, God, I hope so, or else I'm doomed. Because I'm like, you have a bunch of staff.

I'm like, I have like a one bedroom apartment, a girlfriend and a cat. And I'm like, teetering right now, like looking at those Patreon numbers every day. Where I do think that. that when people ask me comedy advice, or they say they want to start a podcast, I go, it's the easiest advice in the world, but it's hard to take. Or it's like, you just have to be genuine. If you can be talking like this and get up on stage and be talking the same way and not trying to be someone else, you will be successful. And it takes years. People, it's so weird with comedy.

You could have the most respected intellectual, whoever. And that first open mic, they are talking like Andrew Dice Clay. Michelle Obama could do an open mic and she'd be like, oh, I'm nailing my wife. And you'd be like, what, Michelle, what is happening? Like, it is so bizarre what happens with comedy. But that's what I would do. I would say for podcasting, if Joe Rogan pitched his podcast to like an agent and was like,

yeah, some days we'll have hunters, maybe Alex Jones, we'll have some UFC guys. Then we'll have like Tulsi Gabbard. People would be like, that's so frantic. That's all over the place. You have to have like a theme and you have to have this. But he was just. genuine to himself. You're being genuine to yourself. You've built this. I'm being genuine to myself. I have this podcast. It is so much harder to start for me, what I noticed, because I know

if I was starting crap on Twitter, we used to make so much money on this old podcast with no advertising, just because I was every day, just like, rile on the troops, rile on the troops. With that said, the audience we, on this new podcast I have, the audience now might even be more conservative. At least the people who give money are. I'm watching liberals and conservatives talk on our Patreon page about someone was really depressed. And a bunch of people jumped in and was like, hey, try this because we talk about mental health on the podcast too, like besides politics. And those people are going to stick around. And I would, even from a business point of view, I would much rather 10,000 listeners that are with me for life and are good people and can hear me and be like, hey, I disagreed with that.

but I'm not going to like be a baby and walk off with my $5 a month or whatever. I would rather that than, I mean, dude, I had like a rabid fan base before and could sell out clubs and maybe 15 of them listen to my new show. I mean, when they got their orders that like Jamie's out, I was gone. I had a guy on Facebook the day before all of like all hellbrook clues was like, hey, I just want you to know because of you and your stand up like you saved my life. next day, it was Jamie's this monster, he's a bad

liberal, whatever. He didn't even delete that comment. You know how you can like add a comment on Facebook? He added to his original comment like screw you, I hope you whatever. And it was just like gone. I mean these were kids who, you know, listen to the show that like I helped with like suicide or I help with whatever

and like Jesus, I'm glad they're okay but that was a crazy thing just to see like everything good that I like tried to do. They're like, that doesn't count anymore. You know what I mean? Can we go back? Because I haven't gotten to a single question I wanted to ask me.

Oh, yeah, that's my bad. No, no, no. No, it's mine too. I find you fascinating. Let me go back in case somebody doesn't know who you are and what your trial is. Now that we've talked about the back at the worst interview ever. No, it's like Larty. It's like a David Lynch movie.

It's like jazz. Let's start with Where should we start? Should we start 2008? Okay. Where is that? I'm really bad with years. 2008.

Obama had just been elected. Okay. Okay. I was never really good at business in the sense that when I was doing very political material to start. It was right after 9-11.

People didn't really want that. Then when Obama got elected, I really liked Obama. But, and this I'll like pat myself on the back a little bit. One of the things I talk about the most on the podcast now is that people should have like principles over partisanship or like values over teams, whatever. And when Obama started doing stuff that I disagreed when Bush did it, I called Obama out. I called Obama out on Conan for drones and did not go over. I mean, the audience, like, the set looked fine, but they got, like, a lot of hatement. I've not been back on Conan.

So I, like, finally had this opportunity. And now I did it again, now that Trump is president and every comedian is making a ton of money off ago and after Trump. I'm like, don't you think we should all have conversations? Like, I've always been on, like, the wrong side. That's good. I think so. That's good. Lenny Bruce.

Right. I have a picture of him getting arrested that my friend gave me. And so 2000. I have a book for you to read. You've got to read The Pendulum. Oh, yeah. I haven't read it. It's great.

And it talks about how society swings back and forth. And people like you, people like me, are always right out of step. Yeah. Either a little ahead or a little behind. But those are the ones that make the difference. Yeah. And that's what you're not going to be loved. No.

And I told myself that, and I've had people say that to me with what I'm doing right now. I think, and we'll get into it, there's still such shame behind what happened to me that it's not like before. Like under Bush, I could feel like, you know, oh, I'm like Carlin. I'm like, you know, sticking it to the man and going after the powerful. But when people will say stuff like, you know, oh, I'm just going on, Clembeck Show because like the left doesn't like me anymore. It's like, I know that's not true, but also that's what I would have said to me. And it still makes me be like, like, am I? You know, now, if I was going on right-wing shows, I'm like, we got to build a wall.

Then it's like, all right, I'm a sellout, like, whatever. That's good. I don't think we ask ourselves enough. Am I? That's what, when I left Fox, that was the number one question. Yeah. A year before, two years before, I was at CNN. I was hammering.

My God, I remember that. Yeah, I was hammering. I was calling for Bush's impeachment. And I was the third most admired man in the country. You know, that... That was that year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this.

A year later, half the country hates me. Yeah, sure. And so I get to the end of that, and I'm like, okay, I know I'm not the guy that is the most admired. I'm not tied with the Pope and Nelson Mandela. That's insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm not this guy either. Right.

And I spent a long time, and I think you still do. And I think it's healthy to some degree to go, gosh, a lot of people are saying this about me. Not necessarily am I, which is where I started. But what is it I'm doing that causes them to feel that way? Is there something I can do differently that will negate that? Or what is it that they're seeing or their pain is showing? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah, and- Because you're built on pain. Yeah. You're built on pain. That's comedy. Right. It's just like a hill of pain. Yeah.

But then it's tricky. It's tricky when you're in survival mode too, because I've always been like a hustler from, and I mean that in a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, from, again, dropping out of high school to start stand-up, I was like, I know what I want to do. I'm not good at many things,

but the things I'm good at, I use that addict brain and I go hard. So I'm 17. I realize I want to, want to do stand-up instead of being like, oh, when I graduate out, whatever, I was like, nope, like I'm leaving high school. I literally can't focus on anything. I'm to take the train into New York every day, do open mics. Then I start to get booked a little bit, not getting booked enough, don't want to have a day job, going to live out of my car and just drive back

and forth to coffee houses and just get paid enough to make it to the next town. And that, I'm, I'm great with doing that. And so what I really have to keep in check now is, I mean, that that financial drop is a scary thing. And when literally I was like holding my cat crying, being like, can I afford this cat, um, you, I have to make sure my decisions, I have to triple check everything, you know, I mean, I sent my girlfriend, uh, like talking points from today just to be like, is this genuine, is this, you know, um, for this? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, not like plan talking points, but, um, you know, like, the, the advertiser or the the the the teaser um for this i was like i just i i need to make sure that i'm not going to you want to be genuine yeah and i you don't want to desperately court people correct just because it might get you an extra hundred bucks a month you know what it really bothers me we've got to stay on track but what really bothers me is i'll go someplace for instance i was on with samantha b okay okay and i did this big thing it blew up oh i remember that yeah yeah Yeah, blew up everywhere.

I was a hero suddenly on the left and hated on the right. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And I was like, wait, no, I haven't changed. I've changed the way I talk to people because I think if we change the way we talk to people, we can find common ground. Oh, I see. And we can live like that.

And it bothered me, and I checked in the interview all the time of myself, don't say anything that you're just you're don't lean too far to appeal speak how you really feel yeah and that's really hard but that's what people are starving I know and it's like I know how to write jokes if I wanted to write jokes tearing apart the left right now for a little while I'd probably be like on the top of the right way like I would just be I could sell out comedy clubs again and instead what I'm doing is I'm I told my agent, I was like, I don't think I should headline for a while. I want to go back to opening for people, which means I'm paying for, or I'm driving a, I'm driving on Sunday. I'm driving

five and a half hours to do a gig for a hundred bucks. I haven't done that since I was 22 years old. Wow. But I don't have an audience anymore. And I want to get on stage. And I want people to listen to my podcast. And so that's what I'm doing on Sunday. I land, I go home from here on Friday. I have one day I'm going to watch my friends fight. And then, uh, and then I'm driving to like Palm Desert to do a bar gig. Like these were the shows I used to do when I was 22. Um, good. I mean, I hate, I hate this because my father said this to me when I was, but he's like, you're going to be humbled and it's going to be so good. I kind of feel that way. It's going to be good. I kind of feel like leaving Los Angeles, which seems like a silly thing to do now that I'm getting back in a comedy, um,

is going to get me on stage for the right reasons again. Um, instead of just preaching to the choir or being like, what does this audience want to? You know, I went to, uh, I had some great shows in L.A. I had like the comedy store where my friends were running stuff. And, you know, the comedy store is run by like edgy comics. Like it's Bill Byrd, it's Joe Rogan, it's those guys. But all of the sort of like woke comedy rooms and stuff, my friend was going to introduce me to a booker of one.

And I went in there and it was so interesting to me because club comics a lot of times get made fun of, you know, for being generic or whatever. every time I played comedy clubs it was an incredibly diverse audience black Latino working class whatever when you would go to these like woke rooms where they're just doing the pandery left wing jokes

it was all like white hipsters who could afford to see a comedy show like Tuesday at 10 because they don't work the next day and I was like I'm not even talking like when I was on the left I wasn't even talking to the people I wanted to be talking to you know we would go drinking with like a bunch of writers for the nation and it was like all white people in park slope

and I was like oh my god I'm I'm literally not even getting to regular people and then you meet regular people and you realize that there's a lot of gray and a lot of them are like kind of conservative on this kind of liberal on this and you can bring people together by being like hey we can both be um you know like uh if we're talking about torture for example instead of me assuming like a right-wing person, like you just want to torture people and a right-wing person assuming that I'm just like naive

and want to like, you know, sing songs with a terrorist, we can go, well, what produces the information we need? And let's look at that, right? Like, I don't care the reasons. Let's just look at, you know, will this get us intel? And if not torturing him, proves if statistics show that that gets us more valid intelligence,

we do that. And if torture does. And I would think that also you would have to include in there because, you know, I'm for prison reform. I'm not an execution guy. And everybody would think that I would be. And I'm not for torture. And the biggest shame on the torture thing is we say we don't do it, but we'll ghost plane you to Saudi Arabia where they'll torture you for fun. Yeah, 100%.

You know, that's like, that's so immoral. Yeah. So the moral thing has to go in there, too. But like, I would have never guessed that about you in 2008. See, I'll bring it back to the question. I would have never guessed that, you know? And I'm like, look, I don't care if you want to get rid of the death penalty because you think it's too expensive or because you think it's immoral. Like, if we agree on that, let's just agree on that.

You know, we prison reform, not torturing people. That isn't just because, you know, I'm just like, we're better than that and I'm delicate and I don't want to think about like sad things. It's also because like, well, that could lead to extremism. That does lead to extremism. Those Guantanamo pictures will lead to extremists. And then what the left does is the left won't criticize like Islam at all because they don't want to be seen as as Islamophobic. And so you have one side that's ignoring part of it. And then you have the other side that's ignoring part of it.

They won't set, look, like, Islam is not a problem. Not at all. Islamists are. Not good. Not good. Right. That's the problem. And we don't have a, there is no vehicle that is popular yet that will say that difference.

And if you don't understand that difference. Right, right. So speaking of terrorism, my stand-up comedy career, 2008. So yeah, I think that's the year. I think these were going well then. I think that's probably around when I met Robin. I was starting to get on TV. And like I said, things kind of flatlined.

Because I also played into, you know, I would go overseas in every interview or every write-up or review was comparing me to Bill Hicks and George Carlin. And Bill Hicks and George Carlin was like middle fingers, they would go hard. So like I kind of played into that. And I was like drinking more. and I was, you know, I mean, the thing with comedy is a lot of times, the more screwed up you are, the more revered. I think that was another reason escaping and going into MMA and Jiu-Jitsu was so healthy for me, because it was the first time where people, like, read a self-help book or, like, talked positively about themselves,

or were sober just because they were training, not because they were alcoholics or degenerates. And I didn't have a lot of those role models in comedy. and because I have an addictive personality and a desperate need to be liked, you know, I mean, when I got back into comedy last year, I immediately started drinking again. I, at one point was like,

do I have to be depressed again? Like, all this positive work I did on myself was kind of gone because comics are like, you know, the screw up clowns. And so then what happened was, I kind of flatlined with stand up and... Got into radio,

it turned, or a podcasting turned to... just got more and more political. And because I was touring less because I wasn't getting booked, you know, originally our show, Citizen Radio. No, before that, it was called. Oh, interesting. Drunken Politics. Right.

Yeah. Which shows. No one knows that. Right. Like, I, how do I know that? I guess it's simply, yeah. But it's called what I was struck by is it's drunken politics and then citizen radio. Wow, that's such a microcounter.

Yeah, that, right? That describes exactly. The trajectory. Yes. Where it was like the reason the show was successful in the beginning, I believe, was at the time, you either had political shows that were just preachy or you had comedy shows that I was always the guy that a lot of places I would go. I was either too dirty or edgy or funny for the political people and I was too political

for the comedy people. So I had this manager at the time who I think we just got rejected for like a CNN. pitch. He was like, why don't you start a podcast? I don't know. Everyone's doing them. And we were like, all right. And just did it for us. It was like, yeah, we can just be edgy and offensive and liberal. And there was a need for that. There were a lot of people who wanted that. And what would happen was wherever I did my stand-up tour, our numbers would just shoot up. So it was all these comedy fans. So I would go to Australia and suddenly our Australian numbers were like through the roof. but then when I stopped getting booked

it was less comedy people finding us and more people finding us because of a Ralph Nader interview or a Nomechomsky interview or whatever and then that audience because it was less comedy people they would be like that offended me and me being like a white guy

and self-hating and a dropout so kind of like a chip, not a chip on my shoulder but a soft spot for if I feel like I'm being done. I will always assume I'm wrong is essentially it. I would just kind of apologize and be like, oh, I guess I am part of the problem. And it just started to be more political and less funny. And that's kind of when the trouble started. I want to talk to you about this more, just this segment of your life more. Yeah. Because I think I can really, really relate. Yeah. But you weren't just, you weren't. You weren't.

Mambi Pambi on this stuff. I mean, I saw the Joe Rogan. What was the Joe Rogan delusion? Oh, the bad one. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Man, I don't like you. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And Joe, I thought, was being really reasonable and I didn't really relate to you at all. But that's who you were right before the flaming. Yeah. Well, a lot of that comes from fear and defensiveness. And so, yeah, and certitude. So what happened was, I had done Rogan show a couple times, and it was great. Great, it was where I got like a large base of my fans. A comedian makes a Daniel Tosh, a very successful comedian, I automatically don't like them because they're successful.

The headline that I get, that the left gets is Daniel Tash tells woman in audience, it would be funny if she gets raped. That's not a funny thing to say. That's not a joke. There's no punchline. There's no rules of three. That's just telling a lady you hope she gets raped, which sounds horrible. Now, you know, I went back on Morgans recently and we like rehashed everything. It was great.

What he told me, and I didn't know this, the whole, the way it went down was Daniel Tosh shows up at this club. He goes, what do you want me to talk about? Audience members yell something. Some douchebag yells, rape. And he goes, oh, right, because rape's so funny. What can we talk about? shame, the stigmas, that makes like a pretty subversive great rape joke.

Then a woman in the audience goes, rapes, never funny, heckles him, he says that like dumb line, whatever. But there was more to the story. So I go on Rogan's show. I have no idea Joe's mad at me. I don't know that we have any, I didn't think we had any disagreements. So I'm like, even though I'm in this left wing world, I'm very, I'm not expecting this. Not only that, but I get.

stoned before I go on. This is a little fun fact. Not a lot of people know. I get stoned before I go on and I was sober for years. I think I was sober for like three years at this point. But I'm like, you gotta get stoned if you're doing Joe Rogan Show. Again, because I have no idea there's going to be any confrontation. That clip of me on Rogan Show should be used as an anti-drug commercial where it should be me being like, this will be fun, smoking weed.

And then cuts to 10 minutes later with Joe standing up going, would you rather be raped or murdered? And then it cuts back to me with my eyes wide and bloodshot and then it just says don't do drugs. It was so scary. But in that moment, it was I had, for the first time of my life,

I had money. For the first time of my life, I was in what I thought was a stable relationship, someone who's not going to leave me. And for the first time of my life, I had hardcore fans. And when this was happening, in the very beginning,

I just thought, like, look, I'm not suddenly like a pro rape guy or a pro rape joke guy. I didn't think that that argument was going to escalate. So when I was like, you know, kind of telling him like the rape statistics or whatever, you know, we ended this big argument. I'm stuttering. Suddenly my phone's blowing up because all of his fans are tweeting me like, oh, you cook. Like, I hope you get raped. My Twitter literally got hacked and someone just wrote rape all over it.

My career has never been easy. And it was just like, you know, and it was just like, you know, nightmare. So then the next day on our show was sort of like this like moment where I had to choose. I was like, well, comedy, I screwed it up. Like I lost it. Um, all of my friends, Rogan, all these people I really looked up to, they don't like me anymore because I, you know, at the time, really did think what I was saying was right. I, I wasn't like Daniel Tasha be censored or he should do comedy. Everyone on the left were saying, you know, cancel Daniel Tosh.

But I was like, I was like look, I like comedy that goes after powerful people. I don't want someone in the audience who was raped to feel horrible. I still feel that way, you know? I wouldn't make a rape judge just to make it. That's the problem with political correctness. It appeals to all of us.

I don't want to hurt somebody's feeling. You just be decent. Right. Yeah, because you get... But then it gets into this hey, you need to live over here in this ghetto and we're going to build a wall because you think this or said this. You're like, wait, wait, wait. Can you not use the word ghetto? Right. But 100% where it's like, again, we're digging for 10 year old tweets from Kevin Hartz instead of trying to like lift up this successful black guy. And he like, like, Silverman,

he had already apologized for it. Totally. Before it was a scandal. Right. And then no, you have the people on the other side who were like, oh, political correctness. And you're like, yeah, right. Like Kevin Hardy's like, no, why can't I say the N word? And you're like, well, that's not, right. That's you being a racist. That's not good either, right? There are two sides to all of this. So that next day, like, I was like, I guess I got to go after Rogan. Because all of our fans were like, yes. And they were paying the bills.

And again, I didn't feel like I was selling out. In my head, I believed it. Well, I'm defending women. Yeah. I'm defending women and I'm defending myself. And I was taken back. And I was hurt and I was scared and I knew that audience wasn't gonna leave. So then when you leave the show who accuses you who gives you a me to? Yeah, so We'll see how much I can like say about this without my goal when I've done when I've talked about this publicly has been not to

Yeah, no throw anybody else at that way. Yeah, okay um So, but I also feel like I never, I never really rightfully defended myself either. I had friends, I had a friend who spoke at the Women's March, was like a keynote speaker who called me after this happened and was like, you got to say something. You got to defend yourself. This is ridiculous. Like when you were being accused of makes my job harder going after actual creeps, right? And I didn't. And I didn't for two reasons.

one, I was suicidal. I had a girlfriend at the time who I'm not with anymore, but was very supportive, but she was out of town when it happened. And she had a bit of a jealousy problem already. So I was like, oh, she's 100% going to break up with me when she gets home.

So I have no job. I have no money. People are conflating consensual one-night stands and literally like tweeting me that I'm a rapist. And my girlfriend's totally going to break up with me. She gets home as I've been trying to figure out how to kill myself unsuccessfully and has my back. Don't know why, but like complete, I mean,

of course I know why, like, because she knows me and knows I'm not that person. And that's really what, the only reason I didn't 100% kill myself. So she also wanted me to respond. A bunch of my very famous liberal friends wanted me to respond, men and women. But I didn't respond because one, I was a coward and I was like, I cannot take any more blowback. The fact that I'm alive right now and that survived, well, like, my ex was like going to see her family, I was like, if I respond and that triggers one more response piece or one more Jezebel thing, I was like, mentally I'm out. So I just accepted that I was never going to do comedy again. I accepted that I was, I mean, dude, I was walking around with a hoodie and sunglasses like I was accused of rape in LA. Like I didn't want to go outside.

to this day when I hand over my credit card and someone says my last name or they recognize me my first thought is that they're going to think and it's never that they're always like wonderful and nice but that still happens to me um okay so the other reason I didn't say anything was and this may sound like old Jamie or like you know virtual signaling uh feminist whatever but I also didn't want to be the anti-me-2 guy because there's a lot of really good stuff like the Harvey Weinstein thing that happened. This is the, this, this goes back to what we talked about earlier. Yes. There is, I was very anti-Trump. In some regards, I still am. I was never pro-Trump.

Right. But in some regards, I'm not pro-Trump. I'm pro-some of his, some of his policies. Yeah. Right. And we have made Me Too. sacred. No, no, no. Due process. Do process. Because I want Weinstein to go and Epstein, I didn't cry when he was dead. No. And Weinstein, I want to go to jail. If he gets away with it, that is a black mark on America. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, but there's a difference between that and one night stand and it was consensual rape or even just a false accusation. Right. That's a huge different. That should not be part of me, too. And I still, but I've seen guys who have, like, gotten accused of stuff just suddenly turn into this, just woman hating.

And I was like, I can't do that. Like, I had a joke about Weinstein where I was like, I probably can't say this. Go ahead. Well, I said, I go, I hope Harvey Weinstein goes to jail. I hope he gets raped in jail. I go, I hope the guy who makes Harvey Weinstein suck his dick makes him do it for, like, a bit part in the prison play. No, you shouldn't have said that. No, I know.

I was very aware. I just said it. And so, yeah, very anti-wine scene. My line that I say, and I agree with this, or I still stand by this, is that if you, because you have a lot of people go, all these false accusations are, you know, it's terrible for men, blah, blah, blah. It's like, look, guys, calm down. We still have it better than women, right?

There are still infinitely more women who do not get justice for their sexual assaults or their rapes, then there are men who are falsely accused. With that said, every time you falsely accuse someone, or every time you conflate hookups, not even drunken hookups, very sober, consensual hookups with rape, you're diminishing the real... You're making it worse for women.

Yeah, and that's like, what's his name, Smollett, right? Jussie Smollett? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How could anyone support? I'm willing, if that was true, I'm willing to stand with him. Oh, yeah. But for that not to be true?

You're making a worse for everybody. For everybody who actually has had a racist encounter like that. I can tell you that a lot of the people who reached out to me first were women who were sexually assaulted. And they were like, this is insane what's happening to you. And it's a horrible thing. But it's like, of course they would think that. I mean, when Matt Damon publicly said that, hey, should we be treating Al Franken like we treat Harvey Weinstein? And the next day, Matt Damon is trending on Twitter.

Like, he suddenly was, like, accused of rape. Like, if we can't have the conversation, it's bad for everybody. But I think what's happening, I mean, where I can be sort of empathetic is, or where I try to be empathetic is women haven't had justice for a long time with a lot of these issues. And I think when it finally started to happen, everybody was like, here we go. This is like our time. Um, but there's going to be, the pendulum is going to swing the other way. And then people aren't going to take real story seriously where they're going to be like,

oh, is this like a z where it was like a date that like went wrong or like, you know, and, and that's, that's a scary thing for for women, I think. She'll be scary for all of us. Yeah. Um, I'm glad the men are learning that like, you know, not to be creeps. Oh, so what happened to me? I'm so this seems like I'm just dodging it. So what happened was, um, so actually,

and people, a lot of the timeline, a lot of the stuff that was written just wasn't true. We knew about what was going to happen about these girls who were upset. It was one girl who was upset before I left the show. And I was like, I was already in L.A. My ex and I were already separated. We were doing the show via Skype. She was still in New York. and I was like, why don't I, I'm like, I'm not having fun doing the show anyway, I moved to

LA, why don't I step down, and we've got to co-host and I'll give them a cut of like my money and I'll still help, I can produce it, whatever. And so that was the plan. So the, the, uh, so my like farewell episode was like this very tearful, um, thing where I'm like, I hope I helped people, whatever. And the girl was like if he steps down, like, I won't do anything. And then the next day, she just went like, just super hard. And essentially what it was was, I was in a marriage that wasn't working. After 10 years or something, I finally caved and I cheated. I had this like a fair. I instantly think I'm like in love because it was you know this young girl and she called me hot and I was like I've never been called hot and you know and She was really cool and she

She helped us with the show we didn't have like a staff, but she approached us to she approached me to work for the show We start working she starts working for the show then she's like I should come on the road I mean it was like this is the part I screwed up it was every cliche I should have had the guts to get out of a relationship that wasn't working or to keep a friendship when it clearly wasn't a relationship anymore. It was a partnership. And that's where I screwed up. That's the biggest mistake. That is the one thing I will own up to. And it's taken a long time because again, like my girlfriend's parents had to Google me. They're the most wonderful people in the world. They live here in town. You see the word sexual predator. You see the word abuse. That makes it

sounds like I put my hands on a woman. That makes it sound like I did something without consent. That is something that still shakes me when I Google me. If anyone looks at this article, please click other things you see that are positive on my Google page. It's horrible. However, and also when a lot of the stuff you're accused of isn't true, you're like, how am I supposed to learn from this? You know, if I drink and crash a car, I learn I need to quit drinking. But I'm like, when I didn't even do this, like, how am I supposed to become like a better person? But the thing I screwed up was that. So there's this whole affair. I keep trying to end it. I feel bad. This is the first time I'm suicidal because I'm just like, I'm a terrible person. Everyone thinks I'm in this

perfect relationship. Every progressive is like, all I want to do is be like you guys because we host this podcast and we're the cool progressive tattooed couple. And of course I would screw it up. Of course, after living out of my car and finally making money and finally having a career, I would find a way to screw it up. You know, I used to joke that because my old podcast never took sponsors or because we weren't on CNN and because we were independently supported and made so much money just from individual sponsors. I was like, I can never get fired. I'd have to like really screw up to lose this. And I did it. Of course I did it. So I end this and I go, I would rather go back to a loveless marriage than walk around with this shame. And I end it. And man, I mean, this is the most I've said, but like looking back like

I mean, the woman I was having the affair with, like said while we together, while I was trying to break it off, like one day I'm going to write a book about this. And in my head, I'm like, I'm not famous enough for that. So whatever, it's fine. And so then years go by. And I was like, just in this partnership and this friendship marriage and we were recording the show and the show was so popular. And I was depressed, but I kind of thought I deserved it. And then what had? happens is, uh, my ex-wife and I, it wasn't working. We had a conversation. We almost broke up. And we decide to try,

uh, like an open relationship. But it's a don't ask, don't tell one, which essentially means that I have to sneak around like I'm cheating. Um, and it's the same thing all over again. And,

uh, and, and, and I wasn't allowed to do anything in New York. So that kind of means like I can just sleep around on the road, essentially. And I'm also like, I'm a relationship guy. I thought I was in love with my first one-night stand. I don't like sleeping around. I don't like one-night stands. I'm like a dumb romantic. My friend made a joke to me the other day where he's like, man,

people think like your dick got you in trouble, but he's like, his your stupid heart that got you in trouble. And I was like, kind of. And so this article makes it sound like I was just cheating in my wife the whole time. It doesn't mention that like we were in an open relationship and trying to do this. So the second, I go to my ex, I go, we have to say on the show that we're in an open relationship, because I feel like a creep. I feel like I'm like sneaking around at shows, you know, it's kind of hard to get a girl when they're like, are you in a relationship? And you're like, I'm in a secret open relationship. Like, that sounds like you're lying and you're a scumbag. And again, I was just trying to do everything like above board. Yeah. And so we announced it on the show.

And I think it'll be cool because I'm like the hardest things in my life I've talked about on the show. And the thing that kept me doing that show and the thing I get the most excited about when I'm doing this current show is when I can talk about my depression. You know, when Robin killed himself, we talked a lot about suicide, talked about addiction. And so I'm like, you know what? Open relationships are another kind of new, not really understood thing. I'm sort of struggling with it. Maybe this will be something that helps people too. So we talk about it.

And man, the, I spent so long being like, hashtag believe all women. If a woman's, uh, if a guy says a woman is like jealous or crazy, he's like lying and being sexist and covering it up. But man, the like the week of that we announced we're in an open relationship, even though it was years since I talked to the woman I had an affair with, she goes on this like message board or something, this is something like feminist message board. and was essentially like who's been wronged by supposed feminist Jamie Kielstein. And out of the many women that I've slept with,

found like one person that was like he flirted with me on DM. I've never sent like, I've never sent like a naked picture. I'm like the one comedian in the world who has no like scandalous pictures out there. He was on DM. And then another woman said, another woman said that I, she was like he he threatened one of my male friends what's not mentioned is she told me that guy raped her

and I go do you need me to do something about it and she said no and I said are you sure that was it and then there was another woman who it made it sound in this Jezobel article like I slept with her we didn't sleep together we didn't sleep together because before we hooked up she said

she goes, hey, just so you know, like, I don't want to, like, sleep with someone on the first date. And so I said, even if you change your mind, like, well, whatever is happening, I was like, that's the line and we're not going to. And we didn't because I'm not a creep. And she, and in this Jezebel article, so she said something like, it was the first time I felt safe with a man or something that implied that when we were together, I was decent. And then the Jezebel article goes, but weeks later, he called me a road on his podcast. And then Jezebel, our media, in parentheses, said Jezebel could not find this quote.

And it's like, right, because I'm not talking about like slaying road pique on my feminist podcast with my wife. Like, that's an insane thing. But even if all that's true, even if flirting while in an open relationship, having an affair, and even if I did, this girl's road. blah, blah, blah. That's me being a jerk. That's not rape. That's not abuse. That's not assault. That's a lot of people. It's a lot. It's a mistake. But that's it. And that, because of who I was and because of all the virtue signaling and the yelling that those accusations, there's nothing else there. You can read the article.

I have been treated like I was accused of like legitimate assault and everything was gone. And everything is, I mean, I almost broke when my girlfriend's parents found it because I'm like, it's like six years later, or like six or seven years since the affair, three years since the article happened. And it's like, yeah, my Wikipedia, like it still looks like I was just accused of like abuse. What's amazing is, you know, the, um, the human mind, forgetfulness is a good thing. Yeah. You know, time, uh, makes every, all of our memories a little more soft. Um, and they just passed a law in, uh, the EU about the right to be forgotten. Yeah. And the things like this, you know,

what's on my page, what's on your page, what's on somebody's page, what they did when they were 16 years old. Yeah. You know what? we change and that we have a right to have those things not be lived every single day for the rest of our lives my my dad I loved death um you know I told him I was doing this show and I was like I was like yeah we really like agree that like a lot of our rhetoric in the past was like toxic and we want to come together and teach people to like you know talk to each like humans my dad's like that's so great that's so great and then did like a Google search of you and then like wrote me back like five minutes later.

I was like, I don't think you should do this show. Because it will take the worst thing you've ever said in context or out. And same with me. And you know, if I want to get rid of, if I want to clean up my Google page, I either need to start getting gigs or it was like $3,000,

$5,000 like a month and like you can hire people to do it. And it's like, this is crazy. You just did a podcast on Epstein. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. Tell me what your thoughts are on this. I mean, my thoughts, look, I've never been a conspiracy guy.

I think that's how a lot of people feel right now, where all of my reasonable friends, I never thought 9-11 was an inside job. I never, when I saw the Epstein News, I was suddenly like, did we even land on the moon? Like, suddenly I became every insane caricature of a conspiracy guy. And what's crazy to me, is watching, like this monster of a man

is somehow bringing the right and left together where I think the one thing we all agree on, like some people think maybe it was Clinton, some people think maybe it's Trump, but suddenly for the first time in 2019, conservatives and liberals are both like, something's wrong. Yeah, but like Homeboy was murdered, right?

You know what I mean? Like, they're definitely... Did you see the autopsy? I saw, oh, about the broken neck? I just saw that. Okay, so it's, he, he, hung himself with paper sheets. Yeah.

Paper sheets. Yeah. Broke his neck in several places. The breaks are consistent with strangulation. They can happen when you're hanging yourself. But with a paper sheet. Not with that impact. So I just saw a special forces guy post about that,

about how the impact is much more aligned with someone who got their neck broken. Right. Also, I've been suicidal before. And I couldn't even read on the internet. I couldn't even look up like a loop knot without being able to figure it out. And I was like crying because I'm like, I'm not even going to be able to kill myself right. Like, let alone.

So like I got empathy. Like it is hard work to do that. Right. But it is, it's so scary. And it's also one of those moments. It's bringing people together because everyone loves a conspiracy theory. This is literally playing out like a movie. But it's also one of those moments where I'm seeing.

conservatives be like if Trump or Republicans are involved, then like, I'm distant, I'm out. Big time. I see Democrats being like, if Clinton's involved, I'm out. And it's one of those moments where it's not a liberal issue. It's not a conservative issue, but it's like a powerful person issue, where it's when you see people have so much power that this guy has just been tort, like, I don't know if he's a liberal or conservative. I don't care. But he was just so powerful and so untouchable that he was torturing. literally had like an island where he raped underage women, allegedly, probably, allegedly. And that he got away with it and that he had powerful friends on both sides of the aisle. It's a lot of times people can come together and realize that like, oh, it's the same people screwing over all of us.

And it's not, to me, it's not just that he did it and got away with it. It's that he did it and then got away with it to where he had special dispensations. in the court system. And then once he's in prison, somebody from the outside can get in and kill him. Yeah. Somebody, I mean. When he was,

I mean, when Jeffrey Dahmer was shived, you're like, course. I get that. Right. If he would have been shived in general pop, you'd be like,

of course, he was a child rapist. But also remember, this is different. Yes, and especially because Epstein was suicidal before. So even if he wasn't this huge, I mean,

he should have a ton of screwed. because of who he is and extra surveillance, but he was also suicidal. He should have been on suicide watch. It is so creepy. This whole story is so creepy. So did you, today I read on the radio, the verbatim text with an interviewer from New York magazine

with his Russian MMA fighter bodyguard. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. So this guy, I mean, when you read, It is total broken language. Look, I don't know what's saying here. Okay?

Yeah. And he's on the record in a 2015 interview that was on the record but never published. Okay. So they have the transcript of what he said then. Okay. And then the reporter says, oh, well, now he's dead. I can publish this and I want to see if I get more from him. Right.

So he calls him up and he's like, don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, no, you said this, this and this. I never said, no, I never said. And then the last probably two minutes of the interview are like, you're smarter than this. Don't, I don't have conversation like this on phone. Whoa. Be careful. What are you saying?

When I thought it couldn't be more like a movie, they inserted a generic Russian MMA body art. I will say this. I was a little rose-colored glasses when I was saying how this is dividing tribal. was like tribes. I did the first episode I did on Epstein when he got arrested. I had a couple liberals right in. I had one even like cancel their Patreon membership because I lumped in Clinton with Trump. And I think, and I would say to your listeners, to any conservatives listening as well,

if you are so partisan where you have a, I think you, I think you, I, I think you, I I think you still have to say alleged, right? Even though he's dead. Alleged child rapist. That if the dude on your team, if you find out that guy was friends with or knew him or knew what was happening and you're still going to be like, it's my guy. You know? Like this isn't like your favorite football team and you found out like the owner has like gambling debts. Like we have to get to a point where when something this horrible happens, if it's a Democrat or if it's a Republican, we can.

It's a show our values. It's a human issue. It's a human issue. And it doesn't mean, look, just because Bill Clinton was on the plane with him and he has a history of fooling around. Yeah. That doesn't mean he even knew about child rape. No. You know what I mean?

And there's a very different thing. It's a very different. Correct. Very different thing. Same thing. You know, people have said, well, Donald Trump had a party with him and cheerleaders at Marlago. Okay. were they high school cheerleaders?

Yeah. Because if they were high school chairleaders, that's bad. It's a mighty big jump. It's a very right. So you don't want to condemn anyone on this, but you also, if it is your guy, if it is your side, if there is corruption, my side should be truth, justice, and the American way. Well, and I'm sure we're going to get more into this in the podcast, but that's, that's, that's. one of the biggest problems now like we're not mourning the victims we're not mourning the women instead a lot of us are rushing to how can we tie it to Clinton or how can we tie it to

Trump yeah and we just get excited and and play Twitter like it's a video game when it's like yo there were a lot of real girls who were hurt and we just get so frothing at the mouth and our heart racing where it's can I pin it on the politician I don't like does this fit my anti-Trump agenda. Does this fit my anti-Clinton agenda? Instead of taking a moment just to be like, wow, this is terrible what happened. And it's, it's, to me, it's not just what happened. Yeah. It's what apparently may be happening right now. Right. Who the hell has that kind of power? How far off the scale? I mean, I've never been a guy who's doubted our FBI. I mean, Right.

Sure. FBI. You know, J. Edgar Hoover. That guy is in a league of a zone. Yeah, that's a different story. But in our general,

in my general lifetime, sure. I believe generally the cops and the FBI, even though I know there are really bad cops. Of course. You know, blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure now. I have a friend,

Patrick Byrne, he's a CEO of Overstock. Okay. Strong libertarian. Sure. He does. He does. He doesn't like Clinton.

He doesn't like Trump. Okay? He has no horse in this race. But he found himself in the middle of the Trump FBI investigation and the Clinton FBI investigation. And he's just come out and said, yeah, I have some information that this was all politic. All of this, both of these were just about politics. Yeah. And not about the truth.

I know him. I've pieced together enough of the Trump thing that I know of. Yeah. So he is in the center. I can't figure out the Clinton thing yet. Yeah. He's not saying. But.

I think anytime there were just women involved, he were like, ah, Bill was there. Yeah, no, but it was, it was, this is, if this is true, he says it's the biggest scandal in American history because it's, it's about the justice department. Yeah. I, is this who we are?

Are we going to allow, can we come together enough to go, wait, I don't care who goes down? Yeah. That has to be cleaned up because if the Justice Department goes bad, we're all screwed. This is too much. I mean, and it was a problem. I mean, forget, let's say Clinton and Trump didn't even know this guy. When you look at how he was treated in the court systems in Florida, I think, where. I mean, they acted like he just got a jaywalking.

So here's one of the, like, leave jail to like do like work. And so the system failed far before this like banging. Oh yeah. It was already, they were just like young foreign girls. Right. Didn't care about him. And this is a powerful dude who's well connected and tied to, you know, every. Who gets that kind of a jail sentence?

Okay. Nobody. No. Nobody. And the, the Russian said in the first interview. Yeah. Police know all about it. They would call I was supposed to bring him back at night,

but they would call night before and say, we're only going to check on you at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. Wow. And so I would drive him back at 6 a.m. Wow. I mean, he was talking about how the cops were coordinating with him. That's like the dad who has a kid and like after the divorce is trying to like make up for it and just be like,

yeah, you can drink when I go to bed. And like, here's when I'm going to sleep. That's insane. And again, just to bring it back to social media, to bring it back to Twitter, I mean, I'm glad that this is so so horrific that people are like not going to stand for it, you know, stand by it and are going to force the mainstream media to cover it, I think. But I also think a lot of it's for the wrong reasons. They just want their guy to go down. You're an alcoholic. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think. I'm like, probably. Yes. Here's the thing. If you're questioning it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably pretty good. Yeah, you should probably stay away from it.

I'm going to go stick with water. I think starting in around 2003, um, you know what? Alcoholics are going to save the world. It's going to be alcoholics to see the world. Because we know where our bottom is. Right.

You know what I mean? I get the bottom. I'm like, okay. I don't, mm-mm. I want to go there. Yeah. And you know if you're going to build it back up and you're going to not be as miserable as you were, you better build it on truth.

I hit my bottom on this culture a while ago and everything that's happening. You have. Yes. Where's America's bottom? Because they're scaring me. It might be death. I would say like the child rapist being pretend suicided in a jail cell could be like, could be part of it. Could be part of it.

I love that. Isn't that scare you, though? You know, Rudyard Kipling wrote, he wrote this great poem about the gods of the copybook headings, which is an old-timey way of saying, there are certain truths, you know, water will wet, fire will burn. And this poem is all about how societies forget those things and deny that they're not true because they want the beautiful things the marketplace promises. In the end is, there are only four things that are true since social.

progress began that the sow returns to her mire and the dog returns to his vomit and it's I can't remember the joining line but it is after after we pass through the time when no man has to pay for his sins yeah and we deny everything the gods of the copybook headings with terror and slaughter return Meaning you'll go so far that it will be horrific things that wake people back up. Yeah. Is this horrific enough? I mean, I think it is.

I think the problem is, one of the problems is, again, social media kind of treats it like it's a video game. So it's really easy to remove yourself from what's actually happening, right? So I know we're going to talk about this later, but if I was attacking, you or attacking someone on Twitter, I didn't see you as like a person. I saw you as a Twitter icon and a Twitter bio, right? And I think a lot of times people do it as a defense mechanism where things can get so bad that they do treat it like a video game or they try to make it about them or they gossip about it or for me like I make jokes about it. I think that people are hitting their rock bottoms kind of individually. I think that liberals who saw that that

that maybe trying to cancel people who misspoke or mistweeted may have led to depersoning. Yep. May have led to Donald Trump, maybe part of it. I think that a lot of Republicans are seeing how far extreme factions on the right have gone and they're kind of walking things back. And I think that I hope that conversations like this and that people trying to reach out to both sides are kind of the AA meetings, where we're trying to bring all of those

kind of disenfranchised right and left in together because the majority of people, you go online and you're like, we're all going to die. You walk outside and it's just like birds chirping, people walk in their dogs, and you're kind of like maybe we're okay. You know, when I have a conversation with a conservative in real life, it's great.

Three years ago, I would have assumed we would be getting into a fist fight. I mean, I think I literally challenged Jonah Goldberg, that Jonah? Yeah, Jonah to a fight. And like, Huffington Post covered it. It was on, like, the front page of Huffington Post. It was like, me with all my dumb tattoos. I think you would have won.

Yeah, well, yeah, I would have won. But I tried to be like, he has size on me. It's fine. But, like, that's where I was. And, you know, did I really want to fight the guy? Or did I think it would get clicks? Like, I thought it would get clicks. You know, I didn't think he was going to fight.

I think we see each other. I used to say we see each other's cartoons, but I think you're right. We see each other's avatars. We're not people anymore. We're just this little icon. Yep. And you have your team right next to you, you know, if you're L or if you're R. And then the other team knows, well, they're the bad guy.

They're the ones to attack. And maybe I've just been friends with conservatives for a little while. So I still have like the, I'm in like the rose color glasses phase. But right now I have had a lot more. I mean, even my podcast, even the Patreon, I've had conservatives right in and be like, here's money. I don't agree with you, but don't change for me. And I've had liberals cancel because I'm like, was Clinton hanging out with, you know, child rape island guy? And maybe that's just because those were the kind of liberals who liked me and, you know, I don't, I don't, because I really,

I want you to come back at some point. I love to. I just want to go through the Bill of Rights with you, because I bet you, I bet you would agree with at least nine out of the 10. Sure. So what are we, right? So what are we arguing? about? What is it we're arguing about? Because I think real conservative, progressive, is a early 20th century idea that was going to take us without the revolution of 1918 to this utopian socialist kind of world that Woodrow Wilson hated the Declaration of Independence and said the Constitution is irrelevant and doesn't work either. I don't think the liberals that I know, They don't believe that.

They believe in the Bill of Rights. Yes. But neither party is actually standing up for the Bill of Rights. And because of that, we're violating all kinds of stuff. Yes. And that's why it's not working. I think so much of it has to do with conversation, with one, not talking to people who disagree with us, but two, in the way we talk about it.

Because we are in a soundbite culture with the news, we see it with the Democratic debates, right? A bunch of people on the left got mad that Bernie Sanders was. on Joe Rogans. It was phenomenal because it was a candidate having time to talk about his views without just screaming and yelling and at 30 second sound bite. I mean, you've done cable news. I've done cable news. You do not have a lot of time to talk. And if you get a question that you don't want to talk about, they tell you how to pivot it, you know, like that's what politicians do. Like, well, we could talk about my island girl scandal, but what the people want to talk about is taxes and you know, whatever. They'll go into their BS spiel.

So it's the way we talk about things. I think that for me, being liberal, I want people to have, let's raise it this way. When I list the things that I am for, every conservative watching is probably going to be like, who wouldn't be for that, right? So like, I want people to have health care. I don't want people to die because they get sick. I want people to have access to food, to education. I think teachers should make a living wage. Pretty simple things.

I don't think we should attack countries unless we are in danger. When those troops come back, however, even if I disagreed at the war, I think they should be taken care of. I think we need to focus on mental health in this country. You know, pretty generic, just like decent person things. What I'm realizing in the conversation that doesn't happen is that a lot of, I assumed that no conservatives wanted that. So, for example, it's insane. So if you were against universal health care, my thought is, you want people to die because I was told universal health care is the way.

And so I was like, well, I guess you just want kids to die. After talking to conservatives, you learn it's like, no, they don't trust the government because the government screws a lot of things up. So they don't want the government being in charge of their health care. Not only that. When the government is the cop. Yeah. And the robber.

Yeah. Okay. Who do you call? Yeah. When it's when I have a private institution and they're screwing people. over, I know I can call the government and the press, but if the government, the press, uh, and the police are all that are running everything. Yeah. There's no one to run to. Well, so that's the problem though, is that a lot of these private corporations haven't been held accountable. I know.

You know, like that's not capitalism or constitutionalism. And this is what I'm talking about. So if we realize that we have the same goals, then we should be able to call out the, the left should be able to call out the government and the right should be able to call these. private corporations. Because both have taken advantage of regular people, right? The health insurance company, when your only goal is profit for shareholders, you're not going to get the best treatment. But when you're just leaving it up to the government and it's all covered in bureaucracy, you're also not going to get the best treatment. So why can't the right and the left come together and be like, both of these people do not have our best interests? What can we do? How can we take the best

from this and the best from that? What will bring you back to this? Will you come back? An invite? Yeah, an invite, and I'm there. You're invited to come back. Yeah, I really have enjoyed this. Thank you so much. Thank you for this.

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