The Healing Power of Comedy | A Bee Interview with Kat Timpf
Kat Timpf is one of the star anchors and writers on the Gutfeld! show on Fox News. Kat is an American libertarian columnist, television personality, and comedian. She joins Jarret and Emma at the Bee to discuss cancel culture, stand-up comedy, and her journey to Gutfeld! Go see Gutfeld live with special guest Tom Shillue and surprise guest Kat Timpf on November 19th in Suger Land, TX: https://ggutfeld.com/ Tune in to see Kat Timpf on Gutfeld! every 11pm ET weekly. Check out Kat Timpf's website: https://www.katherinetimpf.com/ Be sure to follow our new PODCAST Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebabylonbeepodcast/
She did stand-up comedy as a therapy, which is really cool.
That was interesting.
It's like the marvelous Miss Mazel, actually.
I thought I was talking to the marvelous Miss Mazel.
That's what it felt like.
Yeah.
And then she worked her way up into journalism and landed on the Greg Guttfeld show.
And she's known as like the right-hand woman of Gutfeld.
Gutfeld.
Which, by the way, she's going to be with Greg Gutfeld November 19th in Houston.
So if you want to check her out, you can see her there.
You can also check her on all of the, I mean, five nights a week with Greg Gutfeld.
Yeah.
She has socials.
She has a website.
Yeah.
Kat Timf.
Kat Timp.
Great conversation.
Check it out.
Okay.
Hey.
So, hey, guys, this is the interview show.
We're really excited to have Kat Timp on.
Thank you so much.
You're a libertarian columnist, a TV personality, reporter, comedian.
You are usually on Gutfeld.
Is that how you say that?
Yeah, almost always.
Almost always.
That is so cool.
So today we're going to talk a little bit about Kat and we're going to talk about comedy and journalism.
And, you know, one of our guys here, Adam Jenser, has been on Gutfeld a couple of times.
He said that he waved at you in the green room and you ignored him.
I did.
Yeah.
Probably didn't see it.
I'm like, it's funny because I'm actually, I've talked about this before.
I can be a little shy in certain situations or a little kind of keep to myself in like the green room.
Whereas I'm obviously not shy in like an interview situation or when I'm on TV or, you know, obviously I did stand up on and off for 10 years, not really doing much of it now.
Probably will again.
I'm kind of in my own head a lot of times in the green room.
No, you know, the crazy thing, Adam is exactly like that.
Like I've waved at Adam many times and he's ignored me.
I mean, he doesn't ignore me.
Yeah.
But I would never ignore somebody.
Probably just didn't register.
He likes Emma, though.
Like I don't, I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me.
We're both from Pennsylvania.
So there's like that.
Yeah, you guys have East Coast.
Yeah.
Sorry, Adam.
Yeah, no problem at all.
No problem at all.
He wanted us to confront you.
Yeah.
Okay.
This is an actual con, this is one of those.
This is just why we can put them on in Adam.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's so funny.
So how you got on Gutfeld?
You started doing that.
How long ago?
When did that start for you?
Well, I first got on Red Eye in, it was eight years ago in May.
And that was like the tail end of Greg actually hosting Red Eye.
And I was so excited because, you know, back when I was like a waitress and cashier and intern in Los Angeles right out of college, I would watch Red Eye and I would watch it, you know, like at my boyfriend's then boyfriend's brother's house.
And I'd be like, I would be great on this show, you know, and they were like, you're a cashier.
So that was like a dream of mine.
That's what happened to AOC too, I think, right?
They're like, you'd be great on that show.
The thing is, I was always wanted to do it.
And I had been doing some little guest appearances.
I was working at Campus Reform.
I would do little hits on Fox and Friends.
And I really wanted to have this sort of career.
So what I would do is I was living in DC at the time and I'd get the email from the Fox and Friends bookers and they'd say, oh, we really want a guest.
This is probably give you a hint of how long ago this was.
We want the millennial perspective on Obamacare, but we want a guest on set.
Are you in New York?
And I'd say, sure am.
But I would just go to the bus station and get on a bus, come to New York, you know, get a Forever 21 dress and sleep on a friend's couch and go do the segment.
So I was around a lot, but the show that I always wanted to do was Red Eye.
So I went, I got on the show.
I guess it went well.
They wanted me on every two weeks.
And I had no idea at the time that Greg was going to leave Red Eye and have his own weekly show on Saturdays called the Greg Gutfeld Show till they sort of emailed me saying, Can you, you know, be on this pilot?
And then they kept, I was so scared.
I was like, this is an audition, basically.
And they kept asking me on the pilots.
And then so I was brought on the show.
It was Joanne Nozachinski and I at the time.
And then now, obviously, it's a Monday through Friday thing.
So kind of crazy.
We maybe live in a simulation.
That's how weird it is that it actually worked out this way.
Do that.
That's probably a different thing.
Did you feel like confident when you got into that role, or did you feel that kind of like imposter syndrome where, oh, I mean, I'm not supposed to be here?
Oh, I mean, I threw up in the bathroom before my first Red Ex.
I was so scared.
Yes.
But I just pretended I wasn't.
Yeah.
I'd watched the show a lot before.
I, you know, was making fun of people, mostly myself.
I was self-deprecating.
I kind of just tried to act as though I was one of these people that I'd seen be a regular guest on the show all the time, the many, many times that I'd watched it.
I mean, I was truly terrified.
I was also pretty broke.
I was living in a horrible apartment in Harlem with a pretty bad vermin issue.
We didn't have gas for like months and months, you know, a lot of cold showers.
I couldn't, I, my heels that I wore, they were these black payless.
I think it, this is like a chain in the Detroit area shoes that I'd gotten for like Easter or some dance one year.
And they were all scuffed.
I colored them in with a Sharpie beforehand.
I think that was the second time I was on Red Eye.
And, you know, I was like, I really need this.
Do you think that?
I'm glad it worked out.
Do you think that hustle is like lost?
You know, because I, I mean, we're looking for interns here and I'm having a hard time just getting someone to reply to an email.
But when I was looking for an internship, I was contacting a bunch of people on LinkedIn.
I was trying to show up in places and, you know, go to coffee where this director supposedly goes to coffee.
Like, do you think that hustle is being lost?
And there's just like this lazy new generation that I'm part of?
Yeah, I don't think it encompasses.
It's part of Gen Z. That's not the millennials, though, is it?
Yeah, that's Gen Z.
I don't think it encompasses, you know, the entire generation, but I think a lot of the Gen Z, the Gen Z, I'm old.
I think they're reading the wrong memes.
You know, there's all these memes about, you know, is this job, you know, what's your work culture like?
Are you getting everything you need from work?
Your first job out of college is not supposed to be you getting everything you need.
My first job out of college that actually paid me was I was a cashier at Boston Market and I had internships along the way.
I think that there is when people go wrong, it's all these excuses for why you shouldn't be able to succeed.
And there certainly are things that can make it harder.
And I lived a lot of those things.
But if you keep that focus on that and not, okay, how can I do it anyway?
Then you're not going to ever get anywhere.
I got into Columbia Journalism School and it was my dream to go there.
And I was enrolled and I realized I would never be able to pay back an $80,000 loan on an entry-level journalist salary.
So that's when I started, you know, working in the food service industry and taking internships where I could learn these sort of skills for free.
So you're working at Boston Market and you're going to, you're going to clubs like doing comedy and stuff?
Are you, is that how it's working?
Or?
Yeah.
So I depends on what period of time.
There was one period of time where I got my first broadcasting job, which was a traffic producer and reporter.
It was $15 an hour.
And I had to get up at like 4 a.m. some days of the week to do the morning drive.
I'd go do my internship at the radio station until like 5 or 6 p.m.
And then I'd go to a diner and do the closing shift there, go home, take a nap on my yoga max.
I didn't have like bed money.
And then go do it again.
And then I got yeah, I and then so days when I didn't have to do that or when I had maybe a morning off or day off, I would go out to comedy clubs.
And this was a time in my life where things were tough.
Not they were money-wise, of course.
I was hustling a lot, but also I had originally moved to Los Angeles for an internship at Fox News.
And I was going to, I had a housing stipend with it.
And then I was going to, after the housing stipend, my boy, my college boyfriend, who just so happened to get a job in LA, I was going to move in with him for two weeks.
And then I was, we were going to break up and I was going to move to New York and go to Columbia.
So it didn't work out that way, which kind of meant I basically non-consensually moved in with him.
I just didn't go anywhere.
And then we, he was kind of like, hey, you know, this isn't, this isn't cool, which he's totally right.
So I got my own place.
That was really not like a real, can you say on the show or no?
Well, you can.
We'll just leap it out.
Yeah.
Okay.
There's really no other word for it.
Squaler, I guess.
Yeah.
And he eventually broke up with me.
Yeah.
He eventually broke up with me.
And so I didn't really know anyone else other than, you know, people I was waiting tables with.
I was broke.
I didn't really know anyone else.
I ended up losing the traffic reporting job because I was not good.
I like, I wasn't good at directions.
I, they're, they were right.
And I found the only thing I was feeling so hopeless and like so powerless.
And the only thing that made me feel good was I would go to open mics and I would talk about this stuff on stage and try to make it funny.
And when I could make people laugh about some of these things that were not funny, that they were serious and they were problems.
And I was depressed all the time, it kind of removed some of the power from those things.
And that's been a philosophy that I've carried with me.
And it's something that unfortunately I think Gen Z also doesn't really understand.
The laughter that are just being able to have a sense of humor.
Yeah.
I don't know how I would have gotten through it.
I mean, I truly didn't.
I was completely alone.
And I remember when he broke up with me, he broke up with me first over text.
And I was like, no, you're not.
I drove to where he was.
Yeah.
So then he just broke up with me more.
And he made his decision.
Wasn't quite a problem.
He's one of my good friends now, actually.
So it's, it's kind of funny.
Things work out that way.
It's, it's funny to me now, but I was devastated at the time.
It was like whatever, 12 years ago, 11 years ago.
And, you know, he was like, well, maybe you should just move back home.
You don't really know anyone here.
And I was just so determined to not do that.
So I did everything I could to not do that.
And the only sort of social interaction I would really have most of the time was doing stand-up.
So you didn't pursue stand-up as a career.
You did it to try to like.
Yeah.
It's like therapy.
Yeah.
It started out that way.
I had some success at it.
I moved to DC.
I started doing it a lot.
Back in when I was living in DC, I was doing stand-up pretty much every single night.
I would tour as a feature with, you know, some comedians.
I came to New York.
I was doing more stand-up.
Right now, there's a few reasons why I don't do it right now.
And one of them is the obvious one of time.
I can't really devote the time that I would need to do it well.
Another one, unfortunately, is this whole thing with, you know, people recording cell phones.
You say something taken out of context.
People do that with me when I'm on television and you can see the whole context because they'll take a little tiny clip of something and they'll say, Oh, she wasn't saying they'll say, Oh, she was saying this when really I was talking about something completely different.
And then I have all these people, you know, all of a sudden my phones.
I'm like, Why is everyone mad at me?
Um, so it's it's kind of a shame, especially because with comedy, people will say, you know, I don't care.
You can joke about anything as long as it's funny.
But the problem with that is you can't really know if something's funny until you try it.
Yeah.
When I lived in DC, I would fill in on the morning show on the alternative rock station out there.
And the host of the show, he gave me, I mean, I'm maybe 23, 24 at this point.
He gave me advice.
He said, you can't be afraid to swing and miss.
When you're going to be on this three-hour show, you know, there's obviously the certain words can't say, but in terms of jokes, don't think about it too much because in the moment's already passed.
And if it falls flat, it falls flat, but you can't be afraid to swing and miss.
And that was some of the most helpful advice that I got that carried over even to doing a show like Gutfeld's.
And it's unfortunate that now you're telling comedians, well, if you miss, then you're done.
Nobody's going to be able to do comedy because so much of it is trial and error.
Well, it does seem like it's a dangerous time to be a comedian, like when Chris Rock tells a joke and Will Smith clocks him or something like that.
And I do, I do think you're, I think your, uh, your brand, like when we were watching you, your brand is kind of that you just say anything, right?
Like you're kind of this person, you're the friend that just says whatever's on her mind.
I mean, it's, it's really, and it's, and if it's about yourself, like self-deprecating, I mean, what are people going to do?
Say like, hey, don't call yourself that.
Right.
You know, do you prep anything or do you just like, or do you just rant?
Like, is that what, like, how do you prep for something like that?
Yeah, it's a mix.
I mean, I definitely, I also, I also help, I help write for the show too.
Okay.
Um, and then I get the topics ahead of time and I obviously read everything I can.
I, um, you know, I do write some jokes ahead of time, but also I found that you can't be too married to your material because especially on this show, it's you never know what direction it's going to go in.
Uh, you really don't.
And so if you're, I've seen people, you know, come on the show and even I've made this mistake before where you feel so good about this joke and you want to tell this joke and then the conversation goes elsewhere and then you just try to get it in.
It's, it does, it's not as effective as if you had just been living in the moment.
So a lot of my best moments on the show have been things that have been off the cuff, but it's also the times I've gotten in trouble the most.
And you shouldn't be getting in that much trouble, any comedian, for something you said off the cuff, because that will create a mental block where it'll, it'll be impossible for me to do my job or for anybody involved in anything with comedy to do their job.
Like what David's going back to the, you know, the slap, what David Spade said something great when someone said, well, why, when he said it was a G.I. Jane joke, why didn't you say it's an alopecia joke?
And David Spade said, because comedians don't have a medical chart for everybody in the audience.
You can't.
And that's even more true when you're not at the Oscars and you're just a standard comedian, you know, doing the road and there's this crowd of random people.
You don't know what every single person there is going through or thinking and you can't and you can't worry about that or you're never going to make jokes about anything.
That's true.
I think back to what you said about kind of just being in your head the whole time.
I even doing our show, like when we do the podcast and we have interview, we have interviews, we have people come on.
I'm con, I mean, it is this balance between the stuff that you thought you were going to say and the stuff that you end up saying and the stuff that happens in the moment.
And so it is, it is constant.
It's like it requires your entire brain.
You have to be present.
You also have to be thinking.
You sort of have to be thinking on a lot of levels to make the show interesting or to not sound like an idiot.
I feel like to me, like I'm always like, oh, dude, that was so stupid.
Shouldn't have said that stupid, you know like, or I shouldn't have done it like that.
So I'm constantly second guessing.
I totally relate to that.
Do you think it it makes you like more fearful to to be off the cuff, or does it help you to like become?
I mean, now I see it where I don't think what Dave Chappelle said was controversial about trans people, and it seems like he's even more supportive of trans people than than you, any conservative or or myself.
But, like you know um, he has all this more attention because of it and more Netflix specials because of it.
Do you think it will help you if to be a little bit more controversial?
Well, in my opinion, his joke wasn't really even about trans people so much as it was about the idea that you can't say certain things, and he was like, I have enough money that I don't care and I'm gonna say it.
So it was more in my opinion.
Um, I think that there's nothing, though I don't like to debate jokes like that though, like it was okay because he meant this, or it was okay because of this or that, or it's okay because oh, look his, you know his friend is this, it's.
I think it's just more that jokes about everything are okay, and I think that things that are more serious and more controversial, it's more important to joke about them.
You know, because of the reasons that I've talked about earlier, for me, if I worried too much about you know, being off the cuff or what I would, you know, getting in trouble, then I don't think I'd be able to do my job.
I think that I sometimes, you know, hold back a little bit on like social media, which is annoying because it's also like, oh, I this, I want to tweet this, but you know I'm not going to.
Does it my, because I don't get in trouble.
But it's also like I'm not getting paid for Twitter, I mean like you can get fired for it but you don't get paid for it, which it's.
I don't even know why any of us are on there, but I am every single day.
I think controversial is also really subjective, because I myself, you know, I'm not at all socially conservative.
I am extremely, you know, fiscally conservative.
I'm just small government across the board and live and let live right.
And so for me there's certain things that I believe that a conservative audience definitely doesn't agree with a, you know, more traditionally conservative audience, but then there's also even and I would say far more so in my life experience people who are on the left.
I mean, all they need to do is know that I work at FOX and then they hate me, which is why I said made a joke on the show the other day, which is actually not a joke.
I have done this.
When you're just at a party and someone says hey, what do you do?
I just say porn, because it's less controversial.
I work in porn than that.
I work at FOX NEWS.
Yeah, they're like, oh.
So if I worried, I don't have any one audience like group that's on my side, like something I believe is controversial to somebody or some side.
So um, I would, I'd have I have had to give that up a long time ago or decide to start saying things I don't believe, which I'm not.
I can't do.
You got to be authentic.
It is interesting though, because I feel like some of the main comedians right now, Are you saying things that a couple of years ago, maybe two or three years ago, would have been really controversial, even like Bill Burr and his special that came out and all the stuff that you're hearing now.
It seems to be kind of popular to be a little bit more controversial.
It's getting a little bit more accepted to say things that are unpopular.
I don't know.
Do you think that it's getting more friendly for that?
Or is it just one-sided?
Like you can be controversial as long as you still stay on one side of it.
Like you could say something about the government shouldn't pay off your own student loan debt and that appeases the conservative side, but you can't be in that.
Like, is it hard to do that and then also say, no, I support gay marriage?
Because now you're not on the conservative side.
I think it can be tough.
I think it's also worse than that, where if you say one thing, like, for example, if I say, you know, student loan debt cancellation is actually stealing, like you can have people be like, oh, yeah, well, why do you hate gay people?
Like, there's not even a consideration that there might be somebody who has differing views on different issues.
I also think when you talk about people like Bilbert or people like Dave Chappelle or even like Ricky Gervais, like those are like, these people are super rich and they have these careers and they have these bona fides and they don't really have to worry about being canceled.
Like, how are they going to be canceled?
I think it's, it's definitely good to see people that are, you know, comedians not afraid of pushing boundaries.
I just think that, you know, overall, I think more people should be less afraid because it's not just, you know, professional comedians.
I think that, you know, comedy and speaking frankly and listening to each other and not assuming the worst intentions in each other is something that has the benefit of bringing all of us closer together, whether you do comedy or not.
And telling a joke among friends about a tough thing can be helpful, whether you're going to take that joke and do it on stage or not.
And in terms of, you know, saying things and, you know, that might not be popular with a certain audience.
For me, I just made a decision early on that, you know, it can be tough to deal with hate, but the only, so the only way that I can deal with hate is if I know that I'm at least getting hated for something that it is that I really believe rather than getting hated for something that I don't believe or that because that I was afraid to say, because I don't know how anybody would handle that saying, you know, I'm getting this backlash, but actually I agree with the person giving me the backlash.
I don't know how you handle that.
Now, so when you started getting the hate, when did that start with Red Eye or was that when you started doing Gutfeld?
Like, you know, did you notice that you were, you know, people are starting to talk about you online and stuff?
And how did you respond to that?
How did you react?
Well, I got some hate.
I mean, when I started doing Fox appearances, when I was a stand-up comedian in DC, I was doing stand-up comedy before.
And I had comedians, you know, in the scene who just hated me because I started appearing here.
I was even being paid here.
I was like doing those like Millennial Obamacare segments, you know, and like truly being really mean to me, saying things about me on podcasts, being mean to my face, all this other stuff.
Certainly they didn't even watch a single thing that I, you know, ever did because I have a different view on the way healthcare should look.
It's really crazy when you think about it.
It's also, you never know what's going to be super controversial.
I mean, the worst hate that I've ever gotten was from Red Eye.
And it was, I mean, a Star Wars joke.
And it was really, the backlash was bad.
Like, I had to get like.
It's the worst community.
They're the worst.
Yeah.
No, all I said was that I said I'd never seen Star Wars because I've been too busy liking cool things and being attractive.
And it really struck a nerve.
Yeah.
That's on our notes to ask you.
Like, do you want to repent of your attention?
But then I wrote a column for National Review.
I was writing there about how not sorry I was.
Oh, yeah.
So it was bad.
Like people were like death threats.
And there's also so much, there was like, I don't mean like, I want to kill you.
That's not a death threat.
Like an email, like, I'll be at your place in Brooklyn at 8 a.m. With their lights?
Hide, like actually like need, yeah, like actual death threats.
So and that was, you know, the start.
So I, that joke, I like total on red eye and I just like went home and I didn't think about it again.
And then a month later, some, you know, YouTuber, like nerd guy, he did this whole big long video of my comments and then like fact checked me by a slideshow of hot chicks wearing Star Wars t-shirts.
And so it was a month after I even said this stuff.
And I was saying, why is why all of a sudden are all these people telling me they're going to kill me?
And then lo and behold.
Sounds like the dark side of the force has gotten that joke because I've still never seen it.
Oh, I mean, you should know it more.
It's important to see.
I think maybe you should, you know, take some time to.
Well, I didn't even get, I mean, there was that Darth Vader, maybe he's something with like a force and he can kill people from afar.
That's all you need to know.
That's the only reason I know that is because someone did a cartoon video of that happening to me.
They did this whole animation.
Oh, that's and I didn't understand the joke.
I mean, it's kind of flattering.
I don't know if he was joking either.
Yeah.
I was like, this is some weird, weird stuff you guys are doing.
It's a lot of work for a death threat.
Well, the Star Wars people, the Star Trek people also are kind of religious.
They're kind of, I shouldn't say that because I'm kind of a Star Wars person.
No, I'm not.
I'm not.
I like, I think you should, you know, if you didn't watch Lord of the Rings, I'd be like, you should try it.
But Star Wars, I don't, I don't care either.
No.
But see, I'm not popular enough to get death threats like you.
So I can say that and get away with it.
I wasn't, that was years ago.
I mean, I wasn't, I was like, I didn't even work at Fox yet.
Wow.
You know, it was just, but they promoted me too.
I don't think I worked here.
I don't believe so.
Or maybe I just started, but I might have just started, but they were like Fox News host.
And that's what they always do.
It was like, I was making this.
I was like reporting live.
You're a loser.
Like, I was on it.
No, I wasn't, I was on a, I wasn't a host.
So thanks for their promotion.
I also, that they said it as if I was like Neil Cavuto saying, you know what I mean?
Like I was anchoring a show.
Like, you guys are losers.
Like, no, I was on a 3 a.m. comedy satire show and I'm absolutely not sorry.
Yeah.
Don't be sorry.
Don't stick it to those Star Wars people.
Yeah.
So just not to change subjects at all, but what's what does the world need?
Kat, what's in your opinion, what does the world need right now?
Yeah, I think that all of us need to just take everything a little less seriously.
I think that we need to kind of flip the script in terms of, okay, that you can't joke, you can't joke about these things because they are serious and realize that those are the things that need the healing power of comedy the most.
And I think we also need to weigh intention a lot more with speech.
There's this new trend now where the offended person is always right and it gives them this sort of power and control just by saying I'm offended.
And they're branded somehow as being compassionate.
When I think it's great, you know, to talk about your feelings.
I don't think it's bad to have hurt feelings or something hurt your feelings.
There's a difference between that and using it to try to control other people's speech.
That's not sensitive.
That's, you know, you're trying to shut that down.
I think that we need to weigh intention and not look for the worst of intentions in each other because there has been all these studies coming out saying that the public opinion on issues is not what people actually believe because people are too afraid to admit what they actually believe because the consequences for that are so high.
So, what we've essentially done is, as a society, we have set up rules for speech and for the way we talk about things that none of us even actually agree with.
And it's just because everybody's kind of too afraid.
Do you know, do you have something specific?
Like, I mean, I see a lot of there's a huge support for like the trans movement, but I see that like the regular person does not support giving like hormones or hormone blockers to children.
Do you see like examples of something that a lot of people act like they agree on something, but they actually just disagree?
Yeah, I there was that study that came out that had a whole host of things.
Um, social issues like that were one thing.
Um, I think that was one of them.
You know, college was another thing, student loans were another thing.
I think that if there's anything where you're like kind of whispering and you feel, you know, a certain way about something, I think it's also when it comes to the trans issue specifically.
Um, I'm, I'm super live and let live on everything, that included.
Um, but I get, I mean, I get scared to talk about it because it's, it's so easy to be a gotcha thing.
And I think that that is horrible.
I think that, for example, if you talk about, you know, Leah Thomas, there was people who were saying, okay, so based on the swimming standard for, you know, U.S. swimming, she wouldn't have qualified there.
And they had these sort of scientific concerns about this.
And then automatically it was, boom, you're transphobic.
And you could have plenty of concerns or questions or thoughts about it that had nothing to do with transphobia, which is a hatred of trans people because they're trans.
And ironically, if you're somebody for whom, you know, like that's your main issue, support of trans people.
That should be the last thing that you should want.
Because people who have maybe never met a trans person, they want to ask questions.
They're not going to do that because if they ask it in the wrong way, all of a sudden, you know, you're calling them names when really they just wanted to learn more about it.
And that actually breeds further resentment.
And I think that is something that's true with all issues.
When you say, oh, you said that wrong, you asked that the wrong way.
When you're afraid to talk about something, then that's a sign that no matter what, the discourse that we have surrounding the issue is wrong and it's not helping anyone, including the people it's supposed to protect, because getting someone to shut up is not the same thing as getting them to agree with you.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, I do think that people like Blair White are a lot better advocates for trans people than Leah Thomas because it's like, okay, yeah, if no one met a trans person and they just know about men competing in women's sports, the average person is going to not like you and they're going to lump you in a group and not like that entire group.
But you're not allowed to do that.
Which is unfair.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's unfair.
And again, this goes back to back when, you know, all of that was happening with Leah Thomas.
This was kind of the same time as around the same time as the start of, you know, the war in Ukraine.
And I, we had to do the A-block, the first segment of the show was about Leah Thomas.
And I was just, I was, you know, I don't want to talk about this.
Like, I'd rather talk about the war.
And then I had that thought and I was like, that's not, there's something wrong.
There's something wrong with the way our collective discourse is on this issue.
If I would rather talk, like a war seems like a less touchy, sensitive subject than a women's college swimming competition.
There's something wrong.
So I think just more, more, more dialogue, not less.
I mean, because ultimately you can't legislate or even with, you know, not formal legislation, but just social rules, a belief out of somebody's head.
The only thing that you can do is kind of talk to that person about it, listen to them, have them listen to you, and have a respectful conversation where you come to it looking at, you know, not saying, okay, I already know who this person is based on this one opinion that they have.
They're a bad person.
I'm going to shout them down and tell them how bad they are.
And then I can walk away and tell all my friends who already agree with me what a brave hero I am.
That's not helping anybody.
And it's actually, it's hurting everybody because we're never going to get to a place where we can understand each other or even coexist if that's the standard for how we're talking to each other.
That's true.
Yeah.
We need to figure out a way to have conversations where we're not just name-calling.
But it's a weird, yeah.
And be assuming to ask questions too.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is interesting.
And also not with the legislation, it's like, you know, you have an opinion, but now you have the entire government behind you forcing that opinion down on everybody.
So everyone gets defensive again.
And it's kind of that whole, that whole same thing where people are just kind of like talking, but they have guns, you know?
And so it's kind of, you know, there's power behind what they're saying.
And I think that's why people are so defensive.
One of the wildest things to me was, I mean, this is back when, you know, Trump was the president and there was all these people who were sort of speaking about, you know, hate speech should be illegal and wanting the government to take control of this, but they're the same people who think Trump is Hitler.
And I'm like, do you not understand how ridiculous it is for you to hold both of those views?
Like, how do they both fit in your head?
Right.
Because if you want these law, the governments to be controlling these things, and then you're saying, you know, the execut, the leader of our, of our government, the executive, head executive is Hitler.
Like, how does it not compute that if you really believe either one of those things, you can't believe the other?
Right.
It's also just this crazy use of hyperbole.
Everybody's using these exaggerations to sort of, and it, and they obviously haven't read very many books on Hitler.
Like as much as possible.
No, no.
Like there's not a lot of, you know, historical context.
I feel like it's, it's like not really holding true with like the horror that Hitler did.
Like you're downgrading the horror if you compare Trump, you know, like who boomed the economy and did good things.
Like you're, if you just like willy-nilly compare that to Hitler, I mean, you're not really right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hitler is Hitler.
You know, Hitler, Hitler is literally Hitler.
He's his own guy.
Yeah.
That's that, you know, and it got to the point too where not only is it obviously such a horrible comparison, I mean, not just in terms of how it, you know, demeans anybody who suffered as a result of the Holocaust, but also just logically doesn't fit.
But also it got, people were saying it so much that it also became like hack.
Like, and we're, you're still hearing it.
You know, you still have people making those sorts of comparisons.
Well, it seems like the entire FBI thinks that he's Hitler right now.
It's just this race to the bottom for the most incendiary take.
And I think that social media has a lot to do with that.
Yeah.
It doesn't really reward nuance, but I think most of us are new, are nuanced people.
And I know that I'm a weirdo in the sense that I've never belonged to, you know, I'm not a Republican.
I'm not a Democrat.
I never have been.
Don't think I ever will be.
I've always voted third party.
But even, you know, people who are, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat and I vote that way, they might, they might have unexpected views on an issue or two.
We're all unique individuals.
And I think we go really wrong when we assume certain things about people.
And there's just far too much of that.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
Yeah, bro.
I cried the whole night in the bathroom.
Oh, and in the sixth grade, in the sixth grade, I wrote this big, long, like, note asking this guy out, and then I got too scared to give it to him, so I didn't, but he somehow found it and ran around the school bus going, no, I will not go out with you.
Like, I was ugly for a long time, but still.
When did that change?
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