This is the Babylon Bee weekly news podcast for the week of 3/4/2020. In this episode of The Babylon Bee podcast, editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle discuss the week's big stories like Mike Pence ordering all the nation's women to wear special Coronavirus uniforms, Catholics giving up things for Lent which they shouldn't have been doing anyway, and Joe Biden claiming to be the only person left alive due to America's gun violence epidemic. We also talk to Annafi Wahed on her new startup TheFlipSide.io which is trying to make Americans listen to each other again. In the subscriber portion, Kyle and Ethan talk about a new California bill that seeks to ban all toys that don't actively confuse your children's sexuality and also Bernie Sanders' attempts to draw inspiration from history's strongest leaders to do what needs to be done. Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Show Outline Introduction - Kyle and Ethan talk about Bill & Ted movies, CDC Coronavirus guidelines being implemented to quarantine Ethan, Kyle's recent trip to a board game geek convention, and how Ethan and Dan had to run the Bee for a few days. Story 1 - Mike Pence Orders All Women To Wear New Coronavirus-Resistant Uniforms Donald Trump announced Mike Pence was leading up the Coronavirus response team. 6 people have died in the U.S., Worldwide deaths are over 3000 and its spread to 60 countries so far, stock markets have been shedding trillions of dollars in value. The NORMAL flu causes 12-61 thousand deaths annually Media types slammed Pence for praying with the response team for some reason? "We're so screwed." Story 2 - Catholic Plans To Spend Lent Giving Up Something He Really Shouldn't Have Been Doing In The First Place Lent/ Ash Wednesday / Fish doesn't count as meat for some reason. Anti-fish bigotry. Stuff that's not in the Bible Things they are giving up they shouldn't be doing anyway: Stop murdering hitchhikers Stop sleeping with girlfriend Refrain from punching babies Pushing old ladies into the street Stop putting bike locks on 7-11s (Kellen Erskine) Stop putting the shopping cart back in the corral (Also Kellen Erskine) Arson Eating tidepods Watching Friends marathon Sleeping with Prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto Crack Performing a ritual to summon Satan (at least not on Fridays) Uttering casual blasphemies Claiming ownership of GK Chesterton Story 3 - Joe Biden Claims He Is Only Human Left On Earth Not Killed By Gun Violence At a democratic debate, Joe Biden said 150 million Americans had been killed by gun violence since 2007. He was trying to slam Sanders who voted from some bill in 2005 that prevented frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors "150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability," Biden added. "More than all the wars including Vietnam from that point on." Topic of the Week - Civil Discourse with Annafi Wahed introducing The Flip Side.io. Love Mail/Hate Mail/ Feedback - Dave DeAndrea reads a paranoid hate mail and the guys hire someone who thinks our jokes are lame. Paid-subscriber portion (Starts at 01:09:52) Story 1 - Bernie Sanders Takes Quiet Moment To Seek Advice From Portraits Of His Favorite Dictators See Also: Sanders Tests Out New Mustache Styles In Preparation For Becoming Next Totalitarian Icon Story 2 - California Bill Prohibits Stores From Selling Toys That Don't Actively Confuse Children's Sexuality 'Gender neutral' plan for toys would get rid of boys' and girls' aisles in California stores Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, this is news you can trust.
The Keanu Reeves of Christian News Satire.
You're listening to the Babylon B with your hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
Yes, this is Keanu Reeves, and I'm sitting here with my pal, whoever that guy was that started with Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Alex Winter.
Alex Winter.
See, I know my names.
And that almost works visually with us too.
Yeah, I'm just morbidly obese.
Yeah.
Bill.
They're making a new Bill and Ted.
I saw that.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
They're going to be old.
But I love the Bill and Ted movies.
I have only seen the first one.
That's the one that's at Sandimas High School.
Yeah.
I was like, hey, I've been to that high school.
Yeah, I live.
I see signs for San Dimas near where I live.
I played tennis there.
Not for San Dimas High School.
Well, I should explain to everybody.
I am very sick and I shouldn't be podcasting right now, but I'm doing it anyway.
For the people.
We're following the CDC's guidelines for coronavirus.
Yeah, I'm wearing a mask.
And he's in the bubble with the little bubble arms that come out.
I don't think that my facial hair I didn't see on that chart they put out of facial hair.
didn't see yourself on there i didn't notice but i just have i can't remember my i basically look like a gold prospector right now i've I keep thinking I need to trim up, and then I'm getting sick and just stuff's happening.
So I'm just turning into hair and no less man, more hair.
I'm emailing myself.
We need to think we could do a good parody of that maybe.
Of what?
Of that facial hair chart.
It's already too fun.
It's already funny enough in itself.
I don't know if you can.
It's hard to parody comments.
Well, but we could do it with the Christian angle, like the Calvinist beard and the well, I have come off a very exciting weekend because I went to a convention and played board games for four days straight.
So with all.
Me and Dan ran the B for a couple days there.
How did it go?
Did anybody notice?
Nobody noticed.
I didn't get any complaints.
The only thing I know I noticed that when you're on, there's like you keep up with the politics so well that you knock it out of the park with these jokes like left and right where they're getting like thousands and thousands of shares.
And then I try to do these like little funny jokes.
No, nobody likes them.
We need a good mix of that though.
Yeah.
Funny jokes and the current events.
The main problem is I don't like current event jokes.
Like I'll see the joke go up and be like, oh, geez.
And then I'll see the numbers like, dang it.
What can't I think of that?
You guys did great.
I was very impressed while I was away.
Let me see.
I'm going to look at the articles here.
We've got.
Wait, which one was yours?
I thought you did one.
We got the tip of the.
The best one, the one that did the beast on was my mustaches on Bernie Sanders.
But I knew, I was like, we're going to have to do a Bernie Sanders joke because they're doing so well right now.
Let's think of something.
Are we going to read this one?
Is this one of our news articles?
I think so.
I won't ruin it, though.
That one was good.
And yeah, this is a very Ethan Day.
I'm just looking here.
The Photoshops are.
The Reckless Love?
The Photoshop trended better than when I'm running things.
That was when I was saddest about.
I thought more Christians would enjoy the band, the Reckless Love one.
I can't remember the husband.
You know, we've done a couple reckless love jokes.
Oh, really?
They never do well.
At worship song.
I guess you have to know the worship song, and then also you have to think it's dumb.
You have to think the worship song's dumb, and then the joke has to hit within that.
So it is very narrow, I guess.
Yeah.
I figured our audience was those kind of people that thinks that worship song is dumb.
Reckless, insane, slobbering love.
That might have done better.
It might have done better than our other reckless love joke, though.
Oh, but anyway, yeah, you know, I unplugged.
Like, I didn't check the numbers, which is rare for me.
That would be nice.
Because I'm always like, wow, what's the number?
Yeah, I kept trying to hit you up and I was like, I need to just leave him alone and we'll just do this.
I responded when I could.
I mean, I wasn't completely offline.
But yeah.
You know, it was a lot of fun.
So coming off an exciting weekend, like playing board games, this is like a real downer, you know.
Yeah.
Shoots and ladders, Monopoly, all that stuff.
The best game I played was called Fury of Dracula, and one guy's Dracula, and it's like a three or four hour board game.
It sounds satanic.
Where he's running around and then.
Well, I wasn't satanic because I was the good guys trying to kill Dracula.
But isn't that in all those things?
Like, parents will say it's satanic, but you're actually because there's demons and stuff in it.
But you're killing demons.
Everybody was mad at Doom.
It's like, hey, there's nothing more Christian than Doom.
Yeah, you're basically running around hell killing Satan's minions.
With a shotgun.
So what's more biblical than that, really?
Yeah.
That's just a picture of preaching the gospel.
Yeah.
Word picture.
So, youth pastors, there's your analogy for this for your sermons this week.
Everybody's like the Doom Marine.
The Doom Marine.
Doom Marine.
I think it's called Doom Guy or Doom Guy.
Doom Marine.
He's got some other name.
The Demon Slayer, something like that.
Doomy Doom.
It was Demon Slayer, a Christian band?
Is that also Demon Hunter?
We got to get Demon Hunter.
Apparently, Chris, one of our writers, is friends with them.
We got to have an episode about Christian Metal and have Demon Hunter Guy on one of them.
I would like to do that for sure.
Doom Slayer, that's his name.
Because they're probably one of the best hardcore Christian bands there are.
Demon Hunter.
I'm not big on hardcore.
Do they like yell?
They sing too, but they have that like, he can break from like, you know, like super deaf, like, and then he can also sing like stained, like, so it's like a creed song that just breaks out.
Yeah, it's like creed suddenly morphs into sepulchura.
Did I say that right?
I've never been on it.
Pantera.
Yeah.
Any of those ones that sound like demonic words?
I have a burned copy of Pantera's album, and I wrote Cowboys from Heck.
You burned it?
Yeah.
Remember you used to burn the copy?
No, not burned it like that.
Cowboys from Heck.
I thought you were so holy that you bought a Pandera album just to burn it.
Yes.
I would have done that in my high school days.
I burned a few secular albums.
Did I tell you about my junior high pastor?
I did the burning.
My junior high pastor had a program where you could turn in your secular CDs.
Yeah, you told us about that.
All right.
Are we ready to consume the new?
Oh, I thought of a good name for our podcast or for like a good tagline.
Okay.
Consume the news without the news consuming you.
Nice.
I woke up this morning.
That was the first thing I thought of.
Wow.
See what happens when you go play board games for four days?
It refreshes your brain.
All right.
So let's consume.
We got to get Dave to say that.
Yeah.
Consume the news.
I just listened to Dave's episode.
Man, he sounds way different than us.
He's like this rich Dave DiAndrew.
And then all of a sudden we're like, I mean, also the things he was saying were just much smarter.
But his richness.
He has probably a $6,000 microphone.
He's a professional voiceover guy.
We just sound like idiots.
Compared to him, it's just bizarre.
Yeah.
The contrast.
I kept having to change my volume on my car because whenever Dave would talk, it would like my base.
He's like, and as soon as you reject the Genesis narrative, your theology collapses.
And I'm like, yeah.
Well, progressive Christians are dumb.
Squeak, squeak, squeak.
All right, let's get to our weekly stories.
Every week, there are stories.
These are some of them.
Well, as you can hear my companion coughing, we know that coronavirus has arrived.
And I was a smart man.
I went to Disneyland yesterday so I could build up a new.
Yeah.
And I met a few B fans.
They saw the Babylon B shirt.
Oh, yeah.
I sport my own swag.
Yeah.
Do you tell them?
Like, if they say, I love the Babylon B. You're like, oh, as a matter of fact.
Oh, so do I. Because I happen to be.
Ever heard the name Kyle Mam?
If it's a brief passing, like, oh, cool, Babylon B, then nothing.
But like, I was standing in line with one guy, and he's like, oh, Babylon B, I like that.
And I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, well, I run the story.
Does he say that?
Because if you're in California, you say, oh, Babylon B I liked him because he looked to the left and right to make sure nobody heard him.
Exactly.
I was talking about Democrats and this and that, and my wife's like, shh, get it down.
It's scary.
Anyway, but Mike Pence has a plan.
mike pence has ordered all women to wear new coronavirus resistant uniforms and these consist of a white bonnet and a red what is that Like a dress?
I don't know.
What do you call that?
A red.
It looks Amish.
And then you've got a red dress and a white.
It's from The Handmaid's Tale.
The Handmaid's Tale.
What is the Hand?
All I know is that The Handmaid's Tale has become this thing.
I've never seen a single episode.
I read some of the book, and it was boring, and I couldn't get it.
But it's like the feminist idea of what men want the world to be.
They want women to be walking around in these milkmaid-looking outfits.
It's almost a parody of what they would think we would think that we would want.
It is.
I mean, yeah.
But it's weird because either we want women to walk around and dressed as these fully clothed head-to-toe milkmaids, which is really what Islamic countries have their women dressed as, and they don't outrage about that.
Or we want them in skimpy outfits, like in bikinis.
Or just naked.
Walking around naked.
There's two extremes.
There's no in-between.
So which one do you want?
I want women to freely choose their outfits as they see fit.
As long as they're not wearing yoga pants and as long as they're not wearing spedy strap tank tops.
That's kidding my wife wears all the time.
Yeah, so you want the handmaidens too.
Handmaids too.
What is a handmaid?
Does she pedicures?
I read the first couple of chapters and it was like they were like supposed to make babies.
It's like the men control everything.
Gotcha.
They have their harem of harem.
Have you ever seen Bone Tomahawk?
What?
Have you ever seen Bone Tomahawk?
No.
You're striking me as Chris Farley interview mode.
You ever seen Bone Tomahawk?
If anybody's seen Bone Tomahawk, they'll know the horrifying thing that I'm referring to that I can't talk about on the podcast.
That'd be a way worse analogy than the handmaid's tale.
That's all I'll say.
Okay.
Well, yeah, so Mike Pence is leading up the coronavirus response team.
We've had several people die in the U.S. already.
Six.
I think it's six.
This document says two.
But since then, four have died since.
You shouldn't joke about people dying.
So over a few thousand worldwide, 60 countries, stock markets dipping.
Oh, it came up today, right?
It just shot back up this morning?
Yeah, I heard the stock market.
It rebounded.
Yeah.
Adam Ford was saying it's because of the he's all like it's because of Bernie That's what he said.
Because Bernie's.
Because when it looked like Bernie was pulling ahead at the stock market crash, and then once it looked like Biden was going to Biden made his comeback, all of a sudden it shot back up.
Because Nakami's not going to take it.
Is that how it worked with the stock market?
You just kind of tie it to whatever's going on that you want to tie it to?
Probably.
Does anybody know?
Nobody knows.
I don't think anybody understands.
Even know how it works.
Sorry, I derailed you.
No, I'm not.
I don't care.
Yeah, no rail.
There's no rail here.
We're like a I'm trying to think of something that doesn't have a rail, but that like turns freely and moves freely.
So, I mean, it's a car, I guess.
Well, if we're talking about the flu, I mean, I guess everybody's saying this, but it's just a reminder to put things in perspective.
The coronavirus, this whole thing, the normal old flu that we get every year causes 12 to 61,000 deaths every year, which is a lot of people.
It is a lot of people.
But we don't freak out about it.
That's crazy.
Yeah, I mean, we see the same thing with the gun violence and car deaths.
You know, how many people die of car deaths every year?
I saw, who was it?
Elizabeth Warren was calling car deaths traffic violence or something.
Traffic violence.
So we need to end traffic violence.
And this guy was like, what?
What is it?
Mixing up all these terms.
I don't know.
Violent.
What?
Can you say that about just an accident?
Yeah, like if you stub your toe, it's on a stair step.
Toe violence.
Yeah, stair violence.
Or even just like what happened in Nashville today is another horrible example of tornado violence.
Wind violence or something.
Thoughts and prayers to the families?
Yeah, definitely.
No thoughts.
Thoughts don't help.
Prayers.
Yeah.
Yeah, don't think.
That's another thing is that they were getting mad at Pence for praying.
Yeah.
They showed the response team praying over the virus.
It's like, oh, we're screwed.
Oh, no.
They're praying.
Yeah, what is this?
This idea that if you're praying, you're not going to do anything else.
Because in my experience, I mean, even just Christians in general, when you look at giving, religious people give way more than non-religious people.
Than those dumb idiot atheists.
Idiots.
Yeah.
And they pray.
Praying is just, you're means you're being mindful of a thing, which means you're probably going to be more active about it.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, think about any missions trip you've been on, like, or, you know, service trip, and then you're going to go build something or whatever.
You know, they all gather in a circle in the morning and pray.
And then it's not like they go, oh, well, job is done.
Hope the building gets up there.
Pray in the morning and then they head out and do it.
I mean, that's it's weird to think because they're praying, they're not doing anything else.
Yeah.
So it's such once again a caricature.
It is a caricature.
It's like the handmaid's tale.
That brought it full circle.
That was maybe the cleanest news report we've ever done.
Next story.
Uh, Catholic.
Oh, hey, it was Ash Wednesday last week.
Catholic.
I'm trying to read the headline and it says Catholic.
The first word is Catholic, and I was confused by it.
Catholic.
Catholic plans to spend Lent giving up something he really shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
We all know this person.
So, yeah, so Ash Wednesday happened last week.
That's where everybody puts weird ashes on their forehead.
It looks kind of like a zombie apocalypse in town, like you're walking around, and everybody's got weird ashes on their forehead.
I wonder if this podcast would be better.
I would listen to a podcast that's just Ethan describing current events.
Yeah, they put these weird ashes on their forehead.
We were talking about vasectomies last time.
You're like, not what they do with the sheep, but the other thing.
Sorry, just not supposed to make you laugh.
I laugh.
I'm going to cough the lungs out.
Be very serious the rest of the time.
So, do you guys do Lent?
Dan, Ethan, and I'm never big on Lent.
Dan is anti-papal tradition.
He's shaking his head.
I didn't learn this to this year that they only eat fish during Lent during Lent?
Yeah.
Or only on Fridays or something crazy like that?
Well, I thought that was always.
Is it always that Catholics can't eat meat on Fridays?
What?
Right.
I know that, but I thought that they were.
He has a mic, but he isn't talking to it.
It's weird.
So you can't eat any meat, but then there's the exception.
You can eat fish on Fridays.
Got it.
Wait.
Okay.
But that's just during Lent.
Yeah.
Because I was Catholic as a kid, and we never had any issues with eating meat.
But I don't remember doing anything for Lent.
I do have a quick story, though, about, I can't remember if this was oil or ashes, but we were at the church.
Did I tell the story and I got attacked by a priest?
What?
Did I get it when I got like a zone up or something?
I got completely attacked by a priest, like to the floor.
Really?
So as Catholic, I was like, I was like 10 years old.
And I was always kind of scared of our priest.
He was this kind of like scary-looking Irish guy that always looked a little angry.
And he whistled when he taught when he said any letter S in any word, like whistled really loud and make the mics feed back.
And so we were at this thing where everybody crowds around the church stage and he's rubbing this stuff on everybody's forehead, going around everybody, you know, this thumb, big dirty thumb.
So he's coming to me, and she's always afraid to have this one because he's usually kind of a distant to have this moment where he's looking at me, touching my forehead, it kind of freaked me out.
I know he was kind of like a drunk and stuff.
He's just weird.
Anyway, so he gets to me and as his thumb touches my forehead, suddenly he gets like the eyes of Satan.
Like he looks at me like, like, like crazy.
Let the record show Ethan's eyes just looked like Satan.
Did I make the eyes of Satan?
And I tried.
And he starts to shove his thumb into my head as if he's trying to poke my brain out of the back of my head, like driving it in.
I start to fall back.
He full-on jumps on top of me, tackles me to the floor, and then everybody grabs him and lifts him up.
I had been standing too far away from the stage, and he stepped off the stage and accidentally fell on top of me when he went to wait.
So I was standing.
I wasn't standing.
So he didn't actually attack you.
He wasn't attacking me.
It just looked like it.
He actually just fell onto me.
That was like a nice twist ending.
Like that twist ending.
Yeah.
You should tell me.
But then he still probably hated me after that because he's like, you made me.
Wait, I can't talk Irish.
Hey, you made me fall off the stage, that boy.
That's what he probably was thinking.
That's probably exactly.
Do you think he thinks in that accent?
I guess so.
My best Irish.
I can't.
This is going to be a fun podcast because I'm actually doing this.
Are you getting sick too?
No, I don't think.
I hope we're not.
You better not get me sick.
But I was screaming on Dan got me sick.
At Disneyland.
I like to embarrass my children when we get on roller coasters.
And I sit next to them and act.com.
And as soon as it takes off from the station, I throw my hands up and go, Dad, this ride's slow.
And they're getting all.
It's fun to let Lucy just scream like a woman in a burning building when you're.
You know, I try to be very on a ride.
I try to be very GK Chesterton about my experiences at these places.
Like, I just look around.
Childlike wonder?
The wonder.
Okay.
And I look around.
You're like, yes.
And I like, you know, I'll take pictures of things and like that.
You know, and I feel like, oh, this is dumb.
I'm a tourist.
I should be, I feel like a tourist.
I should be cool.
How many, can you even count how many times you've been to Disneyland now in the last few months?
Because it has to wear off at some point.
Well, the way I look at it, it's like, how many times in my life will I have a year of Disneyland passes where I'm working a job that allows me to leave a little bit early sometimes, head over there, and my kids are right in that age.
You know, in another year or two, Emmett's going to be like, no, Disneyland's dumb.
That's true.
So I'm trying to have the Chestertonian sense of wonder.
I also experienced this when I was in Pittsburgh.
Do you?
When I was in Pittsburgh for that speech at Jubilee Professional, I was like looking up at these huge buildings.
And again, I felt this embarrassment.
Like I'm taking pictures of these buildings.
And I was like, why should I be embarrassed about this?
It's like the guy is like, that's that Louis C.K. bit where he talks about the guy in the airplane.
He'd be like excited about, my gosh, we can fly.
This is crazy.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like when you have a kid, when your kid's on the plane for the first time, they're like, oh my gosh, we're going in the air.
Like, we should all be doing that.
Yeah, and I always feel like I'm, you know, I'm not cool because I'm looking out the window of the airplane.
Yeah, I love looking out the window.
And it's like, this is amazing.
We're in this tiny tube, this tiny metal tube, five miles up.
I don't know what we were talking about.
But speaking of Lent.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So.
So what are some of the things that these Catholic guys and girls are giving up that they shouldn't have been doing the first place anyway?
Any examples?
Yeah.
So this is kind of the Catholic who goes, yeah, you know, I'm going to, I'm not going to.
I'm going to stop murdering hitchhikers.
Yeah, that's a good one.
So you'd stop murdering hitchhikers for Lent.
You could stop sleeping with your girlfriend.
That's a good way to show your devotion to God for 40 days.
Just 40 days.
And then immediately.
Yeah, immediately reasonable.
So when does Lent ends on Easter?
Or is it the day after?
Talk the wrong guy.
So when Lent ends, like immediately you celebrate time for some fornication.
I did it.
I wonder if on God's scoreboard you were in any points with him for doing that.
He's like, that's pretty good.
He's like, I don't know, 40 days.
That's 40 days worth of people that didn't get murdered.
They were hitchhiking.
So score on that.
You're still going to hell, but good job.
Refrain from punching babies.
That's good.
Just stop doing that.
Yeah.
You could give up pushing old ladies into the street.
I know a guy who said he was going to stop putting bike locks on 7-Elevens, locking people inside.
That's a really funny joke.
You should do that in a stand-up bit.
His name was Kellen Erskine.
Oh, that wrote that joke.
Another Kellen Erskine joke we're going to steal.
You could.
Wait, wait.
Yeah, that's the wrong way around, I think.
Oh, yeah.
So you give up not putting the shopping cart.
In the corral?
Back in the corral.
I don't know.
It's called a corral.
It sounds very like Wild West.
Time to corral up these shopping carts.
Picturing a guy riding around a horse in a Target parking lot with the last one.
He's right.
There's like all these shopping carts and a big herd stampede.
I personally, when I worked in dishwashing, I had to go out to the dumpster and I had to pick up all the garbage in the parking lot and then throw the dumpster.
And I actually loved that time of the day more than anything because I was away from being told what to do.
Nobody's yelling at me.
I enjoyed being out in the parking lot and being out there as long as possible.
So if it was clean, I was sad.
So like I always think if I leave the shopping cart out, I give this guy something to do, hang out in the parking lot, and I have to go back in there where he probably has some boss who's like got a mullet and like thick glasses and like a little tiny mustache and his name is Herb or something.
And he sees himself as like the dictator of his little world that is Safeway or whatever.
It's like, you want to get out there and get away from these jerks and be in the parking lot and probably listen to your earbuds or whatever.
I really wanted that to turn into a full-fledged rant.
And Herb tells you what to do.
And then you get like incredibly specific.
Herb's like, oh, mad at you because he didn't come see his band on Friday and their name is Maddox and they play 90s rock.
I don't know.
That's beautiful.
Thanks.
Yeah.
No, when I was a driver, a delivery driver, it was like, you have a three-hour run to the high desert or whatever.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
I was a delivery driver at Pizza.
Yeah, I was talking about when I was doing.
Yeah.
Anyway, Pizza Devil was awesome too.
So what else could this Catholic caricature give up for Lent?
Ethan?
Arson?
Eating Tide Pods.
That's truly a devoted.
That'd be a millennial one.
He could give up marathoning Friends.
Although Friends isn't on Netflix anymore, so he'd have to have the DVDs or something.
I never saw Friends.
I've never seen a single episode.
Really?
Yeah.
That's surprising.
It's on.
I'm free of that sin.
He could give up sleeping with prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto.
If that's too hard, though, he could still...
Would he still murder innocent people in Grand Theft Auto?
He could...
He could still sleep with the prostitutes, but simply not run them over afterwards.
And not steal their money by sleeping.
I've never slept with a prostitute in Grand Theft Auto.
I don't know how it works.
At least a fair business transaction.
That's one thing about Red Dead Redemption.
You can't do that, even though there's prostitutes everywhere.
The guy's got too much, he's got too much honor to do that.
Oh, but you can still sleep with the prostitutes?
No, he can't.
Oh, really?
Yeah, as far as I know.
I've tried hard.
I've been looking for hacks, mods, anything.
What else could they give up?
Yeah, they could also give up crack.
Just give up crack for 40 days.
They could give up performing a ritual to summon Satan on Fridays, at least.
At least not on Fridays.
So, yeah, basically, like, not eating meat.
They just give up uttering casual blasphemies.
What's an example of a casual blasphemy?
Like, oh, my G-O-D.
Okay, maybe.
That's a real one.
Well, I guess they just shouldn't do that anyway, though.
Yeah.
They could give up this list.
You need to read this last one.
They could give up claiming ownership of G.K. Chesterton.
G.K. Chesterton.
Did you write that?
I did it so that we could use the button, but Dan's just eating an apple and I'm looking at the board.
And we already did G.K. Chesterton references, and he missed.
He still missed it.
Dan's off his game today.
G.K. Chesterton.
All right, so let's see what Joe Biden's up to.
This week.
Let's do it.
Yeah.
Dan.
Joe Biden claims he is the only human left on earth not killed by gun violence.
That can't be true.
Well, correct, because we're alive.
And then who would have typed that article?
Yeah.
The math doesn't add up.
Who would have taken the picture?
Luckily, we're pro-science, and we figure out that this is a lie.
Yeah.
It's a fact check, mostly false.
Yeah, so Biden said that 150 million Americans had been killed by gun violence, like over the last decade or 2007.
Yeah.
He's trying to slam Sanders, who voted for some bill in 2005 that prevented frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors.
Interesting.
So he's trying to own Sanders and he owned himself.
This one almost works as a...
I was trying to see if they work with Frank's What an Idiot.
Joe Biden claims he's the only human left on earth not killed by gun violence.
What an idiot.
It works on everything.
It doesn't always work if you're doing the satire the other way.
So he's been, Joe Biden has been making a lot of mistakes.
Gaffing it up.
I mean, he's known for gaffes.
I always like the word gaff.
Gaff.
What did he say the other day?
He said, all men are created by the, you know, the thing.
Well, he said, yeah, what did he say?
He started to say God, and he's like, you know what I'm talking about or something like that.
I can't remember.
You know what's funny is he's having so many gaffes that this article is now old.
Yeah, this article's old.
Because it's now about a previous gaffe.
This is like six scars.
Yeah, because he had another one, too.
He said, all men and women are created by, you know, the thing.
Because he's quoting, what is he quoting?
Oh, yeah.
The Declaration.
We hold these truths to be self-evidence.
Yeah.
Because he started to say God, right?
And then he's like, oh, wait.
Because it's equal.
And he added, yeah, something weird.
We can't keep up with all the gaps.
Yeah, I was thinking we actually did an article on that.
He said Super Thursday.
Oh, yeah.
And then he said, oh, yeah, I forgot about that guy.
Yeah.
So we said, Biden, I'm the only candidate who can beat Ronald Reagan.
And it's spreading like crazy.
I think because people don't know that it's satire.
Probably spreads a little too close.
We should have gone with an older president.
Yeah, like William Henry Harrison or something.
I was going to go even further, like George Washington.
Yeah.
He would be an older president than much older.
William Henry Harrison.
Well, not much older.
Who's like a really obscure one from back then?
And it would have to be like a Republican, right?
So you could do Lincoln.
Or who's like, who's the one that died really quick?
William Henry Harrison.
Oh, you beat me to that joke.
I did.
Way ahead.
But then it wouldn't make sense.
I always like Polk because nobody ever talks about Polk.
And it's just a fun word to say.
Yeah, Polk.
And there's probably some good puns in there.
Polk.
I don't know what it is.
We'll have to brainstorm that later.
Polk, Polk, Polk.
Well, poor Joe.
Good old Joe.
Poor Joe.
I think a lot of old people probably do this kind of stuff.
Yeah, it'd be stressful being up there talking.
Or just normal.
Like, I'll talk to people and I'll say, like, yeah, how many people died from guns?
Like, I don't know, 50 million?
And they're like, no, that's way off.
Yeah, you're supposed to be superhuman.
Yeah, but when you're giving all these speeches in front of people, you got to be more on it.
I guess it's your job.
He's 78, too.
Like, he's basically my dad's age.
My dad.
I mean, my dad's got some mental stuff happening.
He's deteriorating.
He's old, but my dad could never give a single speech.
It's just crazy to me that he's as old as my dad right now.
And he's planning on being a president for four, if not more, eight years.
How's that going to happen?
That's craziness.
Yeah.
His teeth look great.
I don't know how he keeps his teeth so nice.
They really need to keep start.
I mean, all the candidates are in their 70s now.
Yeah.
The youngest of all, everybody is Elizabeth Warren, I believe.
We were talking in our writers' meeting yesterday about all the ways that the White House needs to prepare for this ancient president.
Yeah.
Because I believe John McCain was like 72 or something.
Yeah, and weren't they all saying?
All you could hear from everybody was like, he's too old.
It's too dangerous to have a 72-year-old.
What if he dies?
What would happen?
Yeah.
It's not like there's anything in the Constitution about during Trump's, right?
He died in the last few years, right?
Yes.
So he technically, if he had gotten two terms from the second time he ran, he would have died in the office.
Because when did he run?
2000?
He ran against Obama the first time.
2008.
Then he ran against him the second time again, right?
No, that was Romney.
No, he didn't run the same time.
Yeah, that was Romney the second time.
Actually, he would have lived out two terms if he had gotten in.
Right.
So, yeah.
So, C?
Owned.
C?
Owned by truth.
Libs owned.
So we need to go find all the old tweets about, I guess, Twitter.
Was Twitter around too?
Yeah, we need to dig up some old tweets.
And just respond to all of them.
Ha, you idiot.
I like the idea of John McCain being like a poltergeist coming after all these people that were saying he's too old to be president.
He's like, I could have done it.
And he's like shattering their plates as they're sleeping in their beds.
Because that's what poltergeist do.
Yeah, they throw things across the floor.
The poltergeist are the ghosts that like.
So I guess poltergeists are usually supposed to be child-related, not old people-related.
I don't think necessarily.
I think that's just.
Probably from the popular media.
What does the word poltergeist mean?
It's like poltergeists, Geist in German.
Polter, chicken, poultry, chicken ghost.
I love how they just smash words together in German.
Huh?
Noisy.
Noisy ghosts.
Noisy ghosts.
Oh, that's actually.
They move things around.
Yeah.
Poltergeist is such a great word if you speak English.
If you speak German, that's the lamest thing ever.
Do you guys want to go see the new scary movie?
Noisy Goat.
Yeah, it's not age specific.
They're just ghosts that move things around or make noises.
Yeah, they're noisy.
We've established that they're noisy.
Yeah, they're noisy.
Because that's the name that's noisy ghosts.
They're like percussionists.
They're like drummers.
So if a church drummer dies or something, they would come back as a poltergeist.
Yeah, because they can't have drumsticks.
What's a drummer in German?
I don't know.
Drummer.
What are we doing?
German.
This is why people like, okay, drummer in German is Schlagzuger.
So a noisy drummer would be a poltergeist.
They have the best words.
We're going to get all kinds of angry emails about.
You have to speak more Germany when you talk German.
Yeah, I don't know how to do a German accent really well.
Polter Schlagzager.
That's beautiful.
That's what that was.
No results found for Polter Schlagzür.
Can we move on?
Why?
This is the best part of the podcast.
All right.
Well, we have a topic of the week this week, and let's do it.
Let's do it.
And now, the Babylon Bees Comic of the Week.
The topic of the week this week is poltergeists.
What?
No, I'm just kidding.
We're just going to Google German words and make up new German terminologies.
Yeah, no, we've talked before on this podcast, actually, a lot about civil discourse and civil discussion, and it's something that we've actually tried to practice by having people on that we disagree with.
Yeah, mildly.
And yeah, we'd like to have people that we disagree with more.
Yeah, if you are listening to this and you know somebody who'd be a great guest who completely vehemently disagrees with us, tell them to reach out to us.
Part of the problem is that these podcast deals kind of run in their partisan circles.
Yeah.
So if you have certain people on, it's like, oh, you're that kind of podcast.
And then you just have those kinds of people on.
And it's hard to break outside of that.
You know, I think Joe Rogan's managed.
He's managed the best to like get random people on that are more varied.
It's because the numbers, like they're just like, well, I'm running for president and he reaches practically a billion people.
Yeah.
So, yes, civil discourse.
Although we did do an episode in civil discourse and nobody listened to it.
Yeah, I know you like that one.
It was like our lowest downloaded ever.
Yep.
So I guess people don't like the idea.
I don't think people come to podcasts for the whole idea of civil discourse.
They don't like it.
No.
So I think, I mean, I think that has been the draw of Dave Rubin, I think, because he's not like a.
Yeah, he's the other one I was going to mention.
Yeah.
His whole goal isn't, he tries to talk to everybody or however much.
I mean, there's controversy about that, but I know that's what made me seek him out.
I was interested to hear interviews of people, especially when you interview people on the left and stuff.
I think that's what the thing that people don't get is when you interview somebody who you disagree with.
I don't do that to try to own them or set them straight.
I find it interesting to find where we actually agree.
Yeah.
To me, that's the most productive thing you can do in a conversation like that, to find out where we're more alike rather than or at least getting the hang of like or understanding what their goals are.
Where are our common goals, even if we're not going to agree?
I just had this thought the other day because we always think of the Republicans and the Democrats as two teams against each other.
We never think of like America as being a team.
Like we're all on a team.
We're very, very divided within this team.
We're on Team America.
That's right.
And every once in a while, sit back and look at the other person who thinks completely differently and think, hey, we're on the same team here.
Anyway, so we interviewed Anafi Wahed and she created the flipside.io.
Yeah, so what's interesting about her is that she comes from like the Hillary Clinton.
She actually worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign and from that whole side of politics.
So, but one thing she noticed was that there was kind of a lack of understanding within that side of the other side.
Yeah.
And conversely, there's a lack of understanding on the right of what's going on in the left.
So it was fascinating to talk to her and say, you know, what was going on in the Hillary Clinton campaign when all these returns were coming in and it was clear she was going to lose at that point.
Yeah, I think Trump winning had that effect on a lot of people.
They went, well, I really don't know what's going on in my own country.
Like, I thought I knew generally what people were thinking.
Yeah, I wasn't a Trump supporter, but, you know, just being like, well, I guess Hillary Clinton's going to win.
Yeah.
And then seeing that shock when it happened, it was just like, what on earth?
Yeah, even I, yeah, I think most people I know on the right were shocked when Trump won.
And then people on the left were definitely shocked because I think they tend to think they really have the pulse of the country figured out, especially after Obama.
They were pretty cocky.
They're like, oh, yeah, everything's shifted.
Everything's headed our way.
We're not those cavemen anymore.
Right.
And maybe it's because I live in Los Angeles.
Yeah.
But I didn't see.
I mean, the Trump support was like, I'm like, who are these people that are.
Yeah.
It just felt like such a comedy to me.
Like, Donald Trump's running for president.
As soon as he got nominated, I was like, well, the Republicans are screwed.
There's no way.
I thought it was the end of Republicans and just the end of conservatism.
I was like, okay, I knew a conservative was going to fizzle out at some point.
The commies were going to win, but I didn't think it was going to happen like this.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, so we talked to Anafi, and I enjoyed this conversation.
We were thinking we should have had her on for a full interview.
She's great.
We're going to have to have her on again sometime.
So usually we have people on for longer interviews.
We throw them in our interview show.
We kind of thought we would put this in a smaller segment somewhere near our news stories.
But I think it was good enough.
It was actually a great interview.
So we decided to make it the main topic of the week.
Yes, we did.
And here it is.
Presenting an exclusive Babylon B interview.
All right.
We are here with Anafi Wahed from the brand new site, which we need America Needs Badly.
Theflipside.io.
We have to add the IO on so people can find it.
Yes.
She told us that.
Anafi Wahed, welcome to the Babylon B podcast.
Hi, thank you for having me.
I'm really excited to be here.
So why?
Oh, sorry.
Kyle had a joke.
I said, no, I didn't.
I was going to say, we're excited to have you.
No, we are.
Our boss told us about your website, the flipside.io.
And I was excited about it.
I signed right up immediately at the email.
So why don't you tell us about yourself?
What is the flip side?
How did this happen?
Who are you?
Cool.
Well, happy to do that.
So my name is Anafi, and my background's not actually in media at all.
After college, I spent four months, four years, excuse me, in finance.
And then in the summer of 2016, I realized I didn't want to be in finance anymore and I didn't know what else to do.
So I went to work for the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Well, what else could you do after finance?
Exactly, right?
What could I possibly have done?
So I, you know, left my apartment, quit my job at Ernst ⁇ Young, and moved to New Hampshire for the last four months of the 2016 general election.
I was there from August through November, knocking on doors, recruiting volunteers.
I was a field organizer with the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
And it was during that time in New Hampshire, where, as I'm sure you know, people are very politically engaged.
And in the 2016 primary, New Hampshire went very Bernie and very Trump in their respective elections.
So talking to a lot of Bernie fans, talking to a lot of Trump fans, I realized what kind of bubble I had been living in my whole life, right?
I grew up in New York City.
I went to a very progressive liberal arts college and then moved back to New York and worked in Midtown for four years.
So my world was very different from rural farmers in New Hampshire.
But also it was made different because I grew up watching CNN and reading New York Times and not watching Fox and reading the National Review, for example.
So after the election, I think a lot of people on both sides were very surprised that Trump won.
And as my friends were asking me what happened, what went wrong, I said, oh, well, here's what some of the Republicans are thinking.
And I started sending them articles and it kind of began a life of its own.
Only last year did I quit my second day job to focus full-time on the flip side.
So here we are.
And what we do is we try to make it easier for people to get perspective from both sides.
So right now, if you really want to understand the two sides, you have to spend hours watching the news and going on Twitter and reading 20 op-eds.
What we do is we do all of that for you and we send you snippets from the best commentators on the left and the right and the middle.
So that's the flip side.
So how can we trust that you are not actually funded by the far left?
There's troll people living there forcing you to America.
If George Soros ever gave us his millions, I'm not sure we would turn it down because right now we're a very, very, very poor startup.
Same thing we would take it to.
We're majority owned by myself and my co-founder.
So like I said, I worked for the Hillary campaign.
I am a bleeding heart liberal.
My co-founder is a staunch conservative.
So we own most of the company, though we did receive some angel funding recently, which we're very excited about.
And then we actually have nearly 200 of our readers who are contributing financially every month.
So that's really exciting for us.
So can you confirm or deny that Hillary Clinton is a shape-shifting lizard person?
100% true.
Yes, I knew it.
Have you received any threats from any shady people in black suits ever since you started showing both sides of the argument?
It's really interesting because what we do on its surface is very simple, right?
We're reading a lot of op-eds and we find a paragraph from the Wall Street Journal and we find a paragraph from the New York Times and Washington Post and Fox News and we put it all together.
We pick one topic a day so it's a five minute read, right?
Well Infowars.
Not so much Infowars.
Sad.
But it's surprising how many people have such strong reactions to what we're doing.
And it's important, you know, right, we're not holding, you know, fake news, we're not spreading false information.
We are getting the commentary that we cite to make sure it's grounded in logic and fact and reality.
But still, some people accuse us of creating a false equivalency that is treating two things the same, even though they're not.
And other people just, again, think we're funded by one side or the other.
We have nefarious intentions.
It was really funny.
We saw a Facebook comment recently that said that because our mascot is a bear, it's a very cutesy bear.
I took immediate notice of Monaco.
But because it's a bear, it must mean that we're Russian propaganda.
Well, I wrote a book called Bears Want to Kill You.
So I'm actually kind of an expert on bear propaganda and just bear evil in general.
So I was a little worried when I saw bears all over your site portrayed in anything other than a murderous fashion.
Yeah, and since the bear is wearing that little Russian hat with the hammer and sickle, that probably tipped people off.
Yeah, that's true.
Oh, man.
I want Kyle to know first real quick, just because he was using the potty when we were talking earlier, but she told us, and I'm curious when this started for you.
She's a big fan of the Babylon B and has liked it for a while.
But she's from like the left.
I like to say the left.
We need to get Dave saying the left.
Elizabeth Garren is my favorite candidate right now.
So I'm definitely right now.
But she likes us.
Isn't that cool?
It feels good to hear that from somebody who's not a hard right.
Not that we like our right-wing listeners or fans too.
I've talked to a United Church of Christ female minister.
Why are you trying to one up snoffy right now?
Very far left theologically.
And she told me her favorite Babylon B headline is the one we did about the liberal Christian who tries to debate the atheist.
And they end up agreeing on everything.
She's like, that's so true of my side.
So I think people get it.
Even if it targets them a little more often.
You have a sense of humor.
Well, I want to say if you ever need to show another side of an issue, you're welcome to use a Babylon B article on your website if you ever have to.
Honestly, we've thought about making funny jokes.
We're not very funny, but maybe, yeah, we should cite Babylon B and The Onion and other good.
There's so much good satire out these days.
But then we're afraid, what if people take it seriously?
I know you're familiar with that controversy.
CNN apparently thinks you're actual news and it's all huffy and puffy.
So that's, you know, not a great idea, probably.
But someday.
So I'm curious, what was the attitude like?
What was the mood like at the Hillary Clinton campaign after it was all revealed that Trump got elected and it was clear that there were people that weren't being listened to, that there was a side, a whole side that wasn't being heard from the polls and all the reporting leading up to the election.
Yeah, I was actually not in New York.
I was still in New Hampshire.
So the New Hampshire main office in Manchester, we were going to throw a huge party.
We had a ton of alcohol.
We were getting ready.
You were ready.
We were so ready.
You have no idea.
I was knocking on doors until 7.45 p.m.
You know, I would get in the car, keep the engine running, jump up, say, hey, did you vote yet?
The car is running.
I can give you a lift right now.
Let's go.
I don't care if you're in your PJs.
Let's go.
We barely won New Hampshire and it's four electoral votes.
But yeah, we 100% expected to win.
And I think we were, at least in the New Hampshire office, kind of in denial.
Even at 9 or 10 p.m., we were like, oh, it just means the winning will be so much sweeter later.
But we had a conference call with the whole campaign at around 11 p.m.
That was when the writing was on the wall.
And Robbie Mook gets on and he's all thanking us, and we're all just devastating.
We're crying.
Did you scream at the sky?
Oh my gosh, I did so much screaming and crying and drinking.
So it's probably bad to get a side of the alcohol around.
Dangerous.
But it really did, you know, blindside us.
Especially in New Hampshire, we knew it was going to be difficult, but we were confident we were going to win so much that we were actually focused on the down ballot candidates.
So we were focused on Maggie Hassan.
We were focused on the state legislators and wanted to make sure they won because we thought, oh, well, Hillary is going to win.
And the talking points we would use is like, oh, well, Maggie Hassan needs to get to the Senate.
So Hillary Clinton will have people to work with her.
So obviously that did not pan out for us.
And I think what was interesting to me was that the reason I quit my job in the summer of 2016 and go to work for Hillary is I thought there was a very, very, very small chance that Trump would win, whereas none of my friends in New York thought so.
The Republicans I knew when I worked in finance were all voting for Hillary, you know.
So I was very much in my silo.
But I think because I was actually born in Bangladesh and my family and I moved here when I was eight, and I'm seeing all of the chaos that's happening in Bangladesh right now that I thought that really anything is possible.
And that's what we're seeing globally, right?
There's this huge polarization happening and just sort of just all of these different populist nationalist movements that are occurring and the rural-urban divide, the divide between people who are looking for more international coalitions versus the people who want to focus internally on domestic issues.
And I saw that trend a little faster than I think than my friends because I just follow international news and the news in Asia a little more closely.
Has there been any blowback?
Like, I know that there's this concept of giving platforms and normalizing.
You know, there's this idea, you hear it a lot from the left.
You know, like Joe Rogan gets accused of this a lot when he has people on that they hate.
Do you ever get that?
You get any blowback?
Unfortunately, we do, especially I've been fortunate to have been published in the Wall Street Journal.
I've been on Fox and Friends a few times.
And I canceled.
Right.
I have lost a couple of friends because I was doing this work.
And it's really interesting because, I mean, we get angry emails from people saying, How dare you legitimize Fox News?
And my reaction is always, Fox News is the most watched channel in America.
Our tiny startup isn't legitimizing anything.
It is legitimate.
So this denial is kind of shocking.
And that's not to say that there aren't things that are problematic on the channels and the commentary that we cite.
But part of it is we have to know what the other side is reading, what the other side is thinking.
So, I mean, honestly, there are viewpoints that we give a platform to that I find very problematic.
Again, being on the left, being a Warren fan, as I mentioned, but as long as it's rooted in A to B logic, as long as it's something that has some kind of validity, I do think it's important for people to be exposed to those ideas.
I'm not one of those people that thinks words are violence, right?
There's the only way to, frankly, be able to defend your own side better is to know what the other side is thinking.
So that's what we're trying to do.
We're not in the business of converting anyone, just helping people understand where other people are coming from and hopefully every once in a while help them see, oh, that there's a valid point I haven't thought about.
Those are the greatest emails.
So, for every angry email we get, we get about 20 emails from people saying we're making their lives easier when they have to talk to their husbands or granddaughters about politics or when they have to talk to their coworker or they thought XYZ was going to happen, but thanks to the flip side, they realized it wouldn't.
Impeachment.
So those emails are really gratifying.
That's good and well deserved.
I think we all need to, we have a tendency to try to create this chasm between ourselves and our villains because the further that chasm is, the better we look.
Our sins look smaller the bigger that the bad guys' sins look.
That's why it's always nice to have, you know, sometimes I almost feel like we should be thankful that we have Hitlers and things that we can make us look so good.
That's going to be isolated.
I'm thankful for Hitler.
So thankful for Hitler.
Yeah, nice.
But it's convenient to think that you're the bad guys in your life.
The worse you make them in your head.
And the only way you can do that is by completely ignoring who they really are, what they really think.
If they're really close to you, if you and them aren't that different, then there's more of a chance that you might be part of the problem or you might have some things about yourself that need to be changed.
It all ties into the sin of pride, which is very much a big part of the Bible.
I encourage people to check out the website, theflipside.io.
You're getting good at saying that.
I think it's the first website with IO ever.
Sorry, I keep interrupting Anafi and I feel bad.
No, it's okay.
All the cool kids have the .io website.
But I was going to say earlier that John Oliver actually talked about Hitler yesterday on his HBO show.
So you're all in good company.
John Oliver.
Oh, man.
Did he say he was thankful for Hitler, though?
He did say something to that effect and then followed it up with, there's no way, you know, this gets misconstrued.
All right.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for coming on and for telling us that you like our website.
And for all your hard work at theflipside.io.
Yeah, and what you're doing to keep people from murdering misinformed.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
From being misinformed.
And treating both sides as human beings.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
It's been a really amazing experience breaking out of my own bubble.
It's so easy to be in the bubble between being geographically separated and then digitally separated thanks to Twitter.
But it's really interesting to just learn about different viewpoints.
And maybe next time I'm on the podcast, I can tell you about all the things I've sort of changed my mind on or expanded my.
Yeah.
I forgot I was going to ask you that.
I was so curious about that.
Are we really done?
Do you want to ask?
We'll do one last question.
Yeah, because I was curious about that.
When you made that shift, you started reaching out to people on the other side.
You started talking probably to people you weren't super familiar with.
So yeah, what was that like?
It was scary at first.
Everything is, there are so many things that I take for granted, even the nomenclature.
So heteronormativity is not a term that everybody knows.
Same thing with gender norms or just the way things are phrased.
I would often be sort of appalled at how callous some commentary sounded at first, just because I'm not used to being just, I'm not used to that tone.
But now over time, I've realized, oh, it's not that they're uncaring.
They just have a different way of communicating, which is actually one of the chasms that Jonathan Haidt talks about between liberals and conservatives and language.
And so the little things when we talk about immigration, on the left, we say undocumented immigrant.
On the right, we say illegal immigrant.
All of those little changes add up.
But in terms of how my views have changed, I used to not be a supporter of charter schools.
So something about, you know, taking public funding away from the public schools for a small select group of schools seemed really wrong to me.
But over time, I've actually come to realize: well, first of all, just how screwed up our public school system is.
And also, you know, the idea that not everyone wants the same education for themselves or their children.
And also, I was lucky.
I went to a New York City public school that should be actually called a charter school.
It's not, it's not under board of education.
It's a whole other thing.
And I was lucky because I did have school choice.
I had a choice between Hunter High School, where I ended up going, or I could have gone to Stuyvesant had I taken the test, or I could have gone to my local high school.
So if I was so grateful for that opportunity, you know, other people should have had that same opportunity as well.
And then actually, I was listening to the podcast episode right before this one where the author was talking about abortion.
And I remain pro-choice, but that's actually something I've really thought a lot about and realized how callous we on the left sound when we talk about reproductive rights.
And that's something that I am constantly urging people on my side to work on.
I am not on board with Michelle Wolfe's shout your abortion movement, whatever that was.
You know, I have now realized that I'm more on sort of old-fashioned, I guess, these days.
I'm on the Bill Clinton's, you know, abortion should be safe, legal, and rare side, which is not where the rest of my party is.
And I think that evolution came to be because I'm constantly talking to people who think so differently from me.
Nice.
Nice.
Well, we'll pray that that evolution continues until we get you to pray and accept Ronald Reagan into your home.
I look forward to it.
Put the red hat on her as she kneels in the sanctuary.
All right.
Well, thank you so much once again, Anafi.
I guess we already did our goodbyes.
It's been a pleasure.
Everybody, sign up for the email.
And, oh, and if you got any, if you find any liberal left-leaning people that are open to talking to people on the right, like you, you know, you know, like journalists, or I would love to have more guests on the show that are from that side, but I don't even know how to reach out to some of those people.
I'm scared.
So, like, let them know.
Tell them, hey, these Babbon B guys, we would like to have some people on that we don't agree with.
Yeah, get us Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, get us Hillary.
Working on it.
I'll make it happen someday.
Sounds good.
All right.
It's still a pleasure.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
Wow, what a great interview with Anafi Wahed.
I always feel like I'm getting her name wrong when I say that.
You sound a lot sicker since you interviewed her just a few seconds ago.
Yeah, I didn't want her to hear how sick I was.
So I was nice, guys to clean it up for her.
It's kind of like how Lent, when you stop doing a thing for 40 days, for about 20 minutes, I stopped being sick.
That was good.
I'm going to give up being sick for Lent.
Giving up coronavirus for Lent.
Yeah, it was a good conversation.
I'm always, it's always amazing.
And I know this, but people on the other side from you are humans.
And I know that's an obvious thing to say.
No, yeah, it's convenient to turn people into monsters because it makes you feel more heroic for being against them.
And it's a lot of work.
The only thing I respect what she's doing, it's a lot of work to dig into a person's beliefs that you really don't want.
It takes a lot of energy to get in their head and to see where they're really coming from.
So much easier to treat this like sports, you know, teams versus teams.
Who's winning, who's losing?
Is that how sports work?
I don't know.
I could barely talk.
I'm getting mucus just gunking up.
You talk.
Well, unless you're talking about a sport like, you know, tennis is just singles.
There's one versus one.
It wouldn't be teams.
Well, I mean, sports where everybody's shrieking.
Like team sports.
I've never seen tennis fans shriek and like paint each other.
Well, they don't paint each other, but paint themselves.
Get all painted up.
Ethan, would you mind painting?
The town can like there could be like, has there ever been like giant riots flipping cars over after a tennis match?
Probably.
Probably.
I don't know.
I do know people that travel very far.
Is Seth do that?
Seth Dylan?
Yeah, he'll go to the rich people.
They like going.
He'll go to like traveling super far to like see tennis matches.
They'll go to like the U.S. Open or whatever.
Like, is there not a tennis match at the local park?
Like, why do they have to go that far to see people play tennis?
Because it's an important match because it's like a championship match.
They have TV.
It's insane.
I cannot imagine.
Is going to a concert the same time.
That's where I start to agree with Bernie Sanders.
I'm like, what?
That's when you have too much money.
You're going to fly across the world to watch people play tennis.
That's the drama.
You need to give that money to the poor.
Now in my head, I'm trying to think of what a tennis riot would look like.
Like they go over to the table where they have the little cups of water and they just swing their hand and knock over the plastic.
I say, good sir.
I don't know.
That's the whole riot.
Would they command their valets to flip that man's car over for me?
They obviously couldn't do it themselves.
Their clothes are too nice.
They pay people to do it.
$100 to each brute who will flip that car over.
Thank you.
I need a brute squad.
Well, let's do some hate mail.
Let's do it.
I really miss Adam Ford.
Dan, you were really on your button game.
Yeah, good job.
Good job.
He wanted us to shut up.
He was waiting for us to get on with it.
Finger was just hovering over the buttons.
All right, so we have a great hate mail from someone.
So let's hear it from Dave.
I wish I had the resources to destroy organizations such as yours.
You post stories that are complete fabrications and promote them as the truth.
Then hide under the disclaimer at the bottom that the Babylon bees your trusted source for Christian news Santa, knowing that the vast majority of your readers are too stupid to be responsible.
In case you choose to share a redacted copy of my message, I'm keeping a copy.
Was that Michelangelo from the Ninja Turtles after like he went through?
There was like a dude.
He did a bunch of drugs and he's like oh old.
He's too stupid.
Like, you know, like Mikole Culkin from Home Alone.
Like he was so cute back then, but now it's been years.
You're like, whoa.
He's a little messed up and weird now.
He's a real weirdo.
He's like a nice guy, but a little weird.
It sounded like Michelangelo.
Like his career has been the Ninja Turtle.
His career is well behind him.
He's gotten dark.
He's gotten into some conspiracies.
He's been hiding in his sewer a little too long.
Yeah.
He did a few guest appearances on some sitcoms and stuff.
Yeah.
And now, but he only ever plays himself in anything.
Yeah.
He's always a parody of himself.
Yeah.
Poor Michelangelo.
He always has to say, pizza time.
So we shared, we just want to say that we did share this message in its entirety.
Nothing has been redacted.
It's like, what would we redact?
Have you ever redacted anything?
I don't have a lot of redacting experience.
For hate mail, I have.
I have.
Oh, we do redact swear words.
We'll redact, like, obviously the name, the swear words.
And then sometimes if it's just a really long thing and I just want to cut out the good part of it.
I'll just do it.
That's true.
Redact.
Read the good part of it.
We could post the emails in their entirety on the show notes, maybe, so people know that nothing's been redacted.
It's just not read out loud.
Yeah, I'm kind of wondering when we switch to video if we'll be able to throw up the messages sometimes on the screen.
I don't know how technology works.
We could do that.
We'll be able to do it.
Dan's like, oh, more work.
Yeah.
It'll be easy.
We'll have visuals.
We're going to be, you guys know that.
We're going to be doing videos soon.
Yeah, it's exciting.
We're getting everything very close.
Might be.
I don't know how exciting it is.
I don't know who wants to look at us.
I do.
I want to look at us.
Well, our YouTube commenters are constantly saying, when is video coming?
I'm amazed that people are listening to this on YouTube right now.
There's just a picture up, and they're listening.
And it's an entirely different audience.
It's an entirely different community because people are like, I've never heard of the Batman B until this.
Yeah, that's weird, too.
Audio stream on YouTube.
I think, yeah, because the people we interview links them to our show from other shows.
That makes sense.
All right, do we have another hate mail?
Do we?
Are we using this one?
Did they read this one?
Oh, yeah, they didn't like our writer's podcast.
I like this one.
Can I read it?
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, so a girl, too.
Can you read it?
It's from Cassandra.
I'll try.
Okay.
So it's a girl voice.
Your writer's podcast sucked.
You need real guests.
Trump in India, lame attempts.
So then she proceeds to give us a bunch of suggestions of all the things we could have joked about.
And the thing that shamed me is these are pretty good.
Trump attempts to curry favor.
Curry, get it, Curry.
Taj Mahal.
You only like that because it's a pun.
I love that.
It's not a headline.
I can't use it.
Taj Mahal is nice, but no Trump Tower.
We did mention the Taj Mahal, but I don't remember if we did that on the podcast or in, remember we did a pre-meeting and somebody said, oh, the Taj Mahal compared to Trump Tower.
So we have to.
See, we got it.
We got it.
We got it.
She listened better.
Cassandra.
Cassandra.
Well, it might not have been recorded.
I said it might have been the meeting before the podcast.
Trump visits his Thai sweatshop, tells six-year-old, you fired.
Deep culture.
I don't get that one.
I think they were saying that.
Just saying he has a sweatshop or something.
No, I think they're saying that's like a deep cultural reference to say you're fired.
Because it's from The Apprentice.
Maybe.
Oh, I didn't watch that.
Sorry if I messed that up, Cassandra.
Sorry, Cassandra.
I think that's...
We need to get her on the writing team, though.
I have great bowel movements better than Gandhi.
I can't do a Trump.
You only like that.
great bowel movements but i can't do it you know uh what's his name Steven Crowder is a pretty good Trump, I have to admit.
He can be obnoxious, but he has a hilarious Trump impression.
And then, oh, yeah, I'll return even better next life.
I do like the day of Trump embracing reincarnation.
We didn't play with reincarnation.
We should have done some reincarnation.
I was mostly a shame that she had concepts in here that I didn't think about.
Gandhi, reincarnation.
That's mainly it.
And I like the Korean bowel movements.
Yeah, bowel movements.
You just like the poop joke and the pun.
Do you think Cassandra would want to be in our writing group?
I don't know.
You don't like her?
I replied and said, you're hired.
Yeah, you did.
That's right.
But then she'll reject her.
Maybe she'll hear if she listened to the podcast.
Yeah.
Maybe she'll.
Tell her.
Cassandra, if you're listening, send us some headlines.
Because I see some potential here.
Kyle might reject you, even though he already said you're hired.
But as you guys heard from the last episode, our top writers have all gotten in through me, not Kyle.
This is true.
So you guys can not tell people to email me.
Just Cassandra email.
Oh, man.
Oh, dear.
You're really asking for it now.
But I want full headlines, Cassandra.
None of this stuff.
This is cheating.
Well, everybody, that has been the Babylon.
This has been the Babylon Bee podcast.
So pray for Ethan to not die of coronavirus.
And that's it.
That's it.
Goodbye.
I will be better next week, I hope.
And we're going to go on to some new other stories for our subscribers now.
Oh, yeah, we have to tease the.
Well, I always don't tease it anymore because what's his name, Does?
Dave.
Do you tease it on the news thing?
We only tease it on the interview, so I know, but I'm saying Dave actually says, like, you have to listen to this.
We could say we're going to talk about Bernie Sanders testing out new mustache styles.
Yeah.
And looking at portraits of his favorite dictators.
And we're also going to talk about gender neutral toys, how California wants only toys that confuse your children sexually.
That's a great ending to this podcast.
We're also going to have a bonus hate mail in the subscriber portion.
Wow.
I am gosh.
I would be really dumb if I didn't subscribe to the Babylon Bee.
I'm sure glad that I am.
That's an option.
The rest of this podcast is in our super exclusive premium subscriber lounge.
If you're not a Babylon Bee subscriber, go to BabylonB.com slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Access to our headline forum, 20% off the items in the Babylon Bee store, a gift, and more.
Please drop us a review on iTunes and share the podcast with a friend.
Feedback and love mail go to podcast at Babylonbee.com.
Follow Ethan at AxeCop and Kyle at D underscore Kyle underscore man on Twitter.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dillon for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Dave D'Andrea, the voice of the Babylon Bee, reminding you that dinosaurs are a lie of Satan perpetrated by Hollywood through endless Jurassic Park films.
All right, we are here with Anafi Wyhead from the brand new site which we need America Needs Badly.