The Josh Innes Show - The Grammy's Part 1: Slogans

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

I watched the Grammy's last night. It wasn't the most enjoyable thing ever. But, it wasn't intolerable. Anywho, let's start with a thought about Ben Stiller. These celebrities speak in slogans and end up sounding idiotic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from Staples experts who guide you on everything from product selection and ordering to payment. Join today at staplesprofessional.ca and get expert solutions tailored to your business. That was easy. All right, everybody. What's shaken? I watched the Grammys last night because I had to because Jilly watches it because she still does some top 40 stuff. So we watched it. It really isn't as insufferable as one might imagine, right?

Like I don't like any of these celebrities for the most part. and I don't think any of them would like me. So I watch it for what it is or what it was, which was just a stuffy award show with some people performing and winning awards for shit that I don't really care about, right? It wasn't nearly as political as you would have assumed it would be, right? Because going into that, you would assume that it would be

like a major political thing, given all that's going on in the world. That's also kind of what makes me intrigued by a lot of these celebrities, right? Like last week we were making fun of from, what was it, Molly Ringwald we were making fun of. So we're making fun of her the other day. And we're making fun of all these celebrities who are telling you that the world is ending and that we are in Nazi Germany. Remember kids, we are in Nazi Germany. Don't you forget it?

This is Nazi Germany. Yet somehow in Nazi Germany where the furors in charge, there are a bunch of rich people that still attend an award show, an award show where people are calling out and saying things about this alleged furor. When did that happen in Nazi Germany? Enlighten me. Somebody let me know when there were award shows in Nazi Germany. And at the award shows, everyone in attendance hated the furor and spoke outwardly about how much they hate the furor and wore pins that said,

stop the fucking furor. When did that happen in Nazi Germany? When, like, I find it hard to believe that in Nazi Germany, in the 1940s, there were just like, there were just people that were allowed to attend award shows. Like, when was the, where were the Grammys in Nazi Germany? Where were the Nazi Grammys? Where did that happen? Now, let's play a couple commercials and continue.

And that's my favorite thing about, like, all these celebrity people that speak out about all these issues and tell you that if you don't speak out, you're complicit. And, you know, silences, violence and all this other shit. I think that's my favorite is that these celebrities are telling you how the world is ending and we are in such a terrible, horrible, awful place. Yet, they can still sit courtside at next games. You know who was sitting courtside at the Knicks game last night? Anyone? Ben Stiller. The same Ben Stiller that penned a long letter letting you know how bad things are here in America. Let's see. Let's go back and read Ben Stiller's letter to America. Oh, I'm not going to read

this whole thing. Let's see. Here's the letter. I love our country, but like so many of us, I'm concerned about the future of our democracy. We've now seen the violent murder of American citizens killed in cold blood and broad daylight by masked ice agents. These were our neighbors. Their lives ended by armed militias entering our countries with impunity, our communities with impunity. False. These people, you are already lying and already misguided. These were not your neighbors. You live in a mansion somewhere in a gated community. These people who are outdoing your left-wing bidding are not your neighbors. I couldn't tell you the last time that Ben Stiller, live next to someone like Alex

Preti or Renee Good. When is, actually, let's do this. Let's find out where Ben, I'm sure he's got multiple houses. Where does Ben Stiller live? Let's see. Ben Stiller and his wife, Christine Taylor, primarily reside in a

3,400 square foot condo in the West Village of Manhattan, specifically at 150 St. Charles Street, which they purchased for 15 points. $3 million in 2016. They also own other properties, including a 33-acre estate in Chappaqua, Chippaqua, New York, a home in Hawaii and a home in Los Angeles.

The Manhattan home has three bedrooms. It's 3,400 square feet and a high-rise building with a lap pool and a gym. The 14 Ocean View acres near Hawaii and a 33-acre spread north of New York City. Their previous residents previously lived in a duplex on the Upper West Side of New York City. Please enlighten me. When was the last time Ben Stiller lived next to somebody like Renee Good? That is not your neighbor. You do not live next to these people.

Last time I checked Renee Good wasn't sitting courtside at the Knicks Lakers game. So please spare me the whole like these are our neighbors. You are two sentences into this letter to America and you are already full of shit. They were denied due process and life and dignity and death by an administration who refuted The reality the world saw, shifting blame to the victims and creating false narratives about their lives in those fateful days. The framers of our Constitution believed in checks and balances to power, adding the Bill of Rights specifically to protect individual liberties from potential government overreach. And yet here we are. Innocent people are being harassed, separated from their families, and in some cases killed.

Well, in fairness, friend, you got a lot of your people. This is not a defensive ICE. Because, by the way, I get a lot of the points about ICE. that it's possible to be in favor of making sure you get the shitty people out of here, which is something you should do, which is, by the way, something that's happened for years and years and years, which is, by the way, something that happens in other countries where all these celebrities claim to want to move to. It happens in those countries. And it's the same shit that Hillary Clinton and all these other people talked about for years and years and years about people who are here illegally and are committing crimes.

I am all in favor of getting rid of those people. However, a lot of the shit that you're seeing, now a lot of it's being blown up in the media, and there are a lot of lies and distortions of the truth being told about it. Don't think they're not. They are. But there is something off-putting about watching a bunch of dudes with guns in masks, patrolling the streets like this. And I get that the way the media covers a place, a factor in it.

I totally get that. But there's got to be a different fucking way. Like, it just looks fucked up. The optics of it are not good. So if the idea is you get rid of a lot of eagles, eagles who are out here committing crimes, get rid of them. But some of the optics you're getting from this is bad, right? And I know that not everything is about optics, but man, when I'm watching some of this shit, I'm like, there's got to be some form of a solution that's not just this absolutist dudes and masks combined with people talking shit to them and trying to start shit with them, escalating shit. Like this whole thing is a fucking disaster.

And my question would be, so let's ask this question. So let's say they do scale back. Let's say that the government or Trump or whomever says, you know what we're going to do? We're going to pull back on some of this ice stuff. Is that going to be enough for the people who are the wackos that are out protesting in the streets that are instigating shit? Because those people do exist. They are real and they are agitators. And all they have in their life is agitating.

They cannot be people who are happy doing anything else other than starting shit. That's who they just have to be angry about something. So these people will never be happy. So that's kind of like how it comes down to the idea of, you know, do you apologize to the mob? We talked about it with Paul Allen the other day. We've talked about it with other people. At what point do you, or these businesses that are apologizing for being open during the shutdown on Friday? At what point is bending the knee to the mob pointless because the mob,

will always be in your face. The mob has to have someone. They have to have an enemy because if the mob is happy, then what do they do with their time? What does the mob do with its time if they don't have an enemy like a Trump or whomever? If you went to them right now and said, all right, we're pulling back guys. What would those people do? That mob would need something else. It's the same way.

Like, you see it with the Rooney Rule and like no black coaches getting jobs in the NFL and the head coaching cycle. What if they came out and just said, every job is now going to be filled by a black candidate? There's going to be 32 black head coaches in the league. People would find something else to bitch about. So that's where the argument comes in with like, do you bend the knee? Do you cowtow to these people? Do you crater to these people? Or do you just ride with what you're doing?

Now, obviously, there is a middle ground somewhere in this because you do need to be getting rid of the shitty people that are doing the shitty things. But at what point is it absurd that you look out in the streets and there's dudes, these masked dudes, and I get why they're masked, because they don't want to get docks by a bunch of people for doing their job, which these people love to get their rocks off on. They love to docks ice people, and they love to docks people who are doing things they don't like or people who would disagree with them politically. That's what they like to do. But at what point do you watch this and go, this is fucked up? You know, and I don't have the answer for it. I'm not a fucking genius of this shit. I'm not a political savant by any means.

But at what point do you watch this and go, okay, this seems a bit much? And if that was the kind of discussion that people would want to have, that these celebrities would want to have, then I think that a lot of people would be willing to have that conversation. Here's the problem with celebrities. Celebrities live in this kind of absolute universe, right? And their universe is that this country is bad and no one is illegal. That's one of the things we heard at the Grammy Awards last night. Multiple people said this.

Nobody is illegal, particularly Billy Eilish, who said some shit about stolen land, which is preposterous. And we all know it's preposterous because she likes to talk about stolen land. But does she assume that the mansion she has isn't on stolen land too? Like go live in a fucking teepee somewhere and don't live in a mansion that's on stolen land, Billy Eilish. But these people are completely unrelatable. They don't live in the real world. They are complete buffoons for the most part. And now some people would argue that their hearts are in the right place, that they are just useful idiots, but their hearts are in the right place that they truly do care about helping people.

I am not of the belief that is true. Now, there are some people who I'm sure do really genuinely care. Maybe some of them are celebrities. But I think for the most part, you've got a group of people who are governed almost exclusively by public opinion and reactions on Twitter and likes and everything else, and they don't want to get canceled. so they jump on board with any movement that can speak in this absolute matter-of-fact way with shit like, you know, this was built on stolen land and stolen property isn't anybody's and nobody's illegal. Like just like the type of bullshit that you see on a T-shirt, slogan bullshit that has no actual meaning behind it at all, but it's easy to wrap your arms around if you're someone who believes in that.

So it's easy to sit there and listen to, you know, nobody is illegal on stolen property. again, these people don't want to have legitimate discussions, and that's the problem with the country, and that's the reason why this country's fucked in the way it is, because no one's ever going to have actual discussions about shit, because we are in a slogan universe, a universe of slogans over actions, right? Slogans matter more than actual discourse. You think Ben Stiller wants to have a discourse with anybody who, like, kind of leaned slightly right of center, but might agree with him on some shit, but not the other? No, Ben Stiller just wants to tell you that this is a country that was,

built on stolen land and that nobody is illegal. That is factually inaccurate. And by the way, we are not the only country out of all of the 200, of the 200 countries, like, or however many countries there are. I don't know. I don't know how many countries are. There's a lot of countries. But do you think we're the only country where people have a process that you have to be

vetted to get into the country and stay in the country? Do you think there are other countries where there aren't, like, are we the only country with illegal immigrants and people who get deported? Like, what planet do these people live on? But you watch these award shows, and they speak in these absolute terms that are just stupid, and you know that they'd be like talking to a box of rocks, because all these people do is repeat slogans.

That is all these people do. So you get these people that like to stand up at a podium and tell you that nobody is illegal, right? That's not true. It's simply not true. And if you can accept that there are people who are illegals, and like I would love to have a discussion with somebody about like a bin stiller. I really don't want to talk to Ben Stiller. But like somebody that goes, like I would love to have a smart civil conversation with someone that says, you know what?

There is a problem with it. Like it shouldn't come down to like basically everybody gets thrown under the one blanket of illegals, right? Because there are varying levels of illegal people. There are people that are truly here just trying to make a name for themselves and haven't gone through the process of. becoming legalized and they should obviously be treated differently than people who are in a cartel or bringing fucking fentanyl or other drugs or smuggling sex trafficking children or something like that they should be viewed differently here's the problem with the dipshit celebrities the dipshit celebrities live in this absolute world and in the absolute world

they live in like nobody's illegal so you mean to tell me that you don't believe that people who are gigantic pieces of shit that are are wreaking havoc and areas or committing crimes or raping and murdering women. Those people, you throw the same blanket over them as you do, the people who are being separated from their families or whatever the stories are and these are just good people that are trying to make a living. You have to be able to differentiate. The problem is these celebrity people cannot do that because nuance doesn't sell and it

doesn't move the needle. What moves the needle is bullshit idiotic statements like nobody is illegal. Well, you know that's bullshit. No human is illegal. You know that is bullshit, but it looks good on a coffee mug. It looks good on a T-shirt. It looks good next to your black box on your fucking Twitter profile. But you know it's bullshit.