Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh debunk the alleged Spotify strike as a deep state hoax aimed at silencing Joe Rogan, while Andrew Tate argues Trump's tax situation involves legal loopholes rather than cheating. They analyze media manipulation regarding Hunter Biden and the election, celebrate Israel Adesanya's UFC 273 victory, and debate Jimmy Butler's leadership in the NBA Finals against LeBron James, ultimately framing current events as a battle between political suppression and authentic expression. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Karate Balance And Creep00:07:24
And then centered a little bit.
Yeah, great.
All right.
Perfect.
But you're fine ass.
Listen, we have no introduction for this because it's happening right now in the moment.
I had to get to the bottom of this, okay?
Yeah, you did.
You had to get to the top of it, too.
Andrew?
Hey, that's a Freudian slip.
Done on purpose.
Okay, listen.
We gotta mouth this topic real quick, guys.
Mount this topic.
Okay, listen.
We got my man.
You're Robbie, bro.
I know your real name is Tanner, okay?
But to me, you're Robbie from Cobra Kai, Robbie Keene.
Okay?
Okay.
Okay, listen.
First of all, how old are you?
I am 21.
Okay, we just need to make sure we need to make sure that because I was going off last episode.
What?
What?
Al, what's up?
All right.
Anyway, okay, he needs to know his feelings are okay.
Everything's fine, Al.
Everything's fine.
So this is something that I needed to bring up because this was serious, okay?
I had, you were looking, as Akash said, too smoldering on the podcast, and it made me feel uncomfortable.
Son, you can smolder the podcast on the show.
I can't even speak.
I'm so nervous.
So listen, I'm fucking trembling right now.
I'm so excited.
I should have got a haircut.
So, in all seriousness, in all seriousness, you were looking too cute as fuck on the show, okay?
And I tried to bring this up in a very safe space, which I thought that this podcast was.
And then, don't touch your hair like that, bro.
Don't touch it.
Don't do that.
So, so these guys tried to front like you weren't as pretty as you are.
Okay?
Listen, listen.
They literally tried to do it.
You denied it.
Objectively, this kid is pretty as fuck.
All right?
But you have feelings for the kid, and I'm just saying he looks like Mark.
Okay, that's where shit got uncomfortable because I was just going to sexually harass you from a distance, right?
As we do nowadays, right?
Never thinking that we were going to have this conversation, but God bless.
Okay.
And then Akash had to make it personal by saying, Mark and you look similar.
Okay.
Are you personally offended by that?
Absolutely not.
I was.
I was offended, yeah, because I have like high-quality, you know, standards.
You know what I mean?
This is getting it.
What?
What, Al?
Does he know what Mark looks like?
Okay, so we're going to bring on Mark so that you can see Mark because I don't think that you guys...
He might be offended.
Nah, he's not offended.
Mark trying to look different than you, but y'all look at him.
Taylor, what you say?
Ignore the braids.
Okay, let's see the braids.
Oh, yeah, I got my braids.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
My hair looks crazy.
Yeah, you look Amish, bro.
You look absolutely ridiculous.
You look crazy right now.
What happened to the tops, dude?
No, but they look so cool with the hat on, but with off, you look crazy.
Abigail-looking-ass bitch over here, bro.
What's going on with this guy?
Dude, how am I supposed to look at that and then look at this?
Yo, he reminds you of the Mark you used to love.
Yeah, Mark, get out of here.
Little house on a prairie ass Mark.
Orthodox ass Carl at the bottom.
Living at Williamsburg too long, Mark.
Okay.
Problem is, though, is Mark completely white?
Oh!
Are you not Tanner?
Tanner not white?
Tanner Buchanan?
Okay, so the thing is, is you're so good at telling people's ethnicities.
Okay.
I've watched you since the new year, since all the COVID shit's been going on.
And like, I'm like super into you.
Oh, like, oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
She's got to go down.
Oh, hold on, keep going.
Hold on, keep going.
Hey, keep talking that shit, boy.
Keep talking that shit with your 21-year-old legal ass.
All the COVID shit that's been going on.
I got super into your videos and I thought it's just super great at telling who what ethnicities people are.
Yeah.
I don't think you can see past your beauty, dog.
I hate, well, I hate to unfortunately, I'm not completely white.
I know, you're Mexican, bro.
You're half Mexican.
I'm half Mexican.
Is that right?
That's what you got?
Try again.
Oh, shit.
75?
No, no, no, no.
Try again.
40% Portuguese or some white shit like that.
I'm not, I'm not Latin at all.
You're not Latin?
Black?
We tried to guess.
He's Asian.
Tell us, you cute motherfucker.
He's Asian.
Oh, you ruined it for me, dog.
I'm over it, bro.
I'm over it.
Danner, you fucking had me.
I thought you were this smoldering ass white boy.
I'm back.
Mark, you're back.
Let's go.
Let me undo those braids for you, Mark.
I gave you a hand.
I'm actually a quarter Filipino.
Oh, that's not real Asian.
Come on, y'all.
No, that's not real Asian.
They're not even Asian Asian.
That's Spanish Asian.
Son, you one-eighth Mexican, one-eighth Chinese.
Yeah, that's.
Come on, y'all.
Did you know karate before?
Or is that just like some shit you get to pick up, bro?
I'm saying, after studio, I'm saying I want to know if he could defend me.
You know what I mean?
That's what I'm trying to find out right now.
If some shit goes down, am I safe, Tanner?
You let me get to the second part of my question.
My bad, my bad, my bad, my bad.
Go, you can answer the question, but don't say anything past episode two of season two because I haven't gone past that.
It's okay.
You guys are still on that wheel with the water trying to learn how to do karate.
You got some Lululemon spandex on for some reason.
I should have missed that.
Sam was wearing something too.
I don't remember, but she was wearing something.
Oh, shit.
Yo, can you play that guitar for us, bro?
The only song that I'm comfortable singing and playing is Creep by Radiohead.
Oh, that is the whitest shit you could have possibly said on this podcast.
That's cameras.
Fully describes how I've been towards you the last.
I can play Creep by Radiohead if you want.
Sam, you want Creep?
All right, fine, fine.
We'll do Creepy's National Anthem.
It is our national anthem.
Sing to him like he's Danny LaRusso.
We're going to sing.
Just imagine I'm Sam.
Imagine I'm Sam.
All day I got.
You want me to start with the chorus?
Because that's the thing everybody knows.
Let's do that one.
You and I, we're on the wheel together.
It's all about balance.
Yo, one shout on Andrew, please.
Karate is about balance.
Miyagi-Do is all about balance.
I'll give you an intro.
All right, and then we'll go to the chorus.
Okay, good.
All right.
You know this one, Taylor?
Yeah, Andrew's not going to be able to stand up.
Here we go.
I'm a creep.
Oh, God.
Hey.
It's okay.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.
Salt Tax Saga Explained00:14:56
Facts.
No.
No.
She.
Oh, listen, Robbie, if you weren't so cute, I would've cut that shit off.
Okay.
Yo, Robbie, man.
I'm over you, buddy.
Robbie, bro.
Definitely a guitar player.
I'm just a guitar player, really.
Yo, Robbie, man, thank you so much, man.
Tanner.
Everybody go check out Tanner and Cobra Kai, man.
It's an absolutely great series.
That first season, I haven't watched this second season full yet, but the first season, I thought it was one of like the best.
Incredible.
Yeah, it was one of the best written stories that I've ever seen.
Like it, it was amazing.
You guys were all great, man.
So keep up the great work, man.
We'll stay in touch.
Okay.
I'll take you out to get some muffins or something.
All right.
See you guys.
Peace, man.
Thanks, brother.
All right, guys, let's get back to the show.
We got to talk about what everybody's talking about, and that's Trump not paying his taxes or doing what every American should.
Bro, okay?
Come on.
It is your American right to pay as little in taxes as you possibly can.
That's the game.
That is the game, right?
That's the entire game.
Matter of fact, like the only reason Bernie exists is because of that game.
Like if everybody just paid what they're supposed to, there's no Bernie.
Hey, no game.
There's no AOC.
Hey, no game.
Amazon would be here.
We don't have fucking jobs.
Hey, you know what, man?
This is, if you are a model.
You got to love it.
I love it, yo.
You got to love it.
This is the most successful he's ever seen to me.
I always hear Trump is a good businessman, and I question it.
And then when I hear he only pays $750, I'm like, that motherfucker doing it.
He's doing it.
He's about his business.
Bro, imagine that.
Only $750.
Now, here's the thing.
A lot of people out there, Al Kosh, you know this, they make a living.
We did this another times in our lives.
And then the government doesn't even trust them to pay their own taxes.
Right?
That's low-key disrespectful.
You're a teacher.
The government trusts you with America's youth, the next generation of Americans, but don't even trust you to pay your taxes.
Fair.
Takes your money from you first.
Fair.
Right?
Snatches that shit.
Takes more than what you're supposed to pay.
Right?
They go, all right, maybe you're supposed to pay $2,500 just in case we're going to take $3,000.
And then at the end of the year, we're going to give it back to you.
And then you're going to be super happy and thank us for giving you a business.
That's impressive.
And then you got to prove to me that you're worthy of getting it back.
And that's some fucked up shit.
You take my money, and I don't charge you.
I give you a loan.
Yep.
I give you a motherfucking loan.
How do banks work?
They give you loans.
You got to pay back more.
Yep.
I give the bank a free loan on my money.
Not the bank.
They don't even have permission.
They take the bank.
They just take this shit before you even get it.
Yo, like on some mafia shit.
This is my cut.
Whoa.
And then I'll give you your cut.
Trump's a hero, bro.
Trump is like, you're not taking nothing.
Let's talk about taxes, Trump.
Not anything else.
I don't care who you are.
It's like, you know what, the best way to look at it is this.
It's like, everybody wants a front about who they are politically.
Right?
Like, so we could all sit here and Al, you could tell me right now that you are a staunch Democrat.
Taylor, you could tell me right now you are a staunch Democrat.
You're going to let a Democrat do your taxes?
You want the most conservative, right-wing accountant that possibly exists.
Do you not?
I don't want no pro-choice accountants.
Yo, real talk?
Are you going to let a Democrat?
Oh, no, sorry.
Are you going to let a conservative give you an abortion?
I'm not letting a conservative get the abortion.
Hell no.
I want a Democrat to do that.
A conservative might fuck that shit up.
Correct.
Might make an oops.
Keep that baby in there.
Keep it alive.
Correct.
Let her or his personal values affect the job they're doing.
So I don't need no Democrat doing my taxes.
Absolutely not.
Come on.
It's time to save money.
Al, who does your taxes?
Lady of Jewish descent.
Good move.
You had me a little nervous with ladies, bro.
But then again, you only got to pay her 70 cents on the dollar.
That's good business.
Okay, Al?
You figured out a way to save money, which is what taxes is all about.
Yeah.
Yo, honestly, I got an Irish guy doing my taxes.
I'll be broke tomorrow.
Yeah, what are you doing?
I literally do.
I looked at his last name a lot.
His last name is Reed.
These guys can't even manage potatoes.
You trust them to manage your fucking... ISIS.
I once had a Greek guy doing my taxes.
Yo, I'm out.
I'm out.
Your country broke.
I know.
I was invested in fucking Oikos.
All my money.
Zero savings.
Anyway, point is, I think that if the Democrats are trying to smear Trump for not paying his taxes, bad move.
Bad move.
Bad move.
I like this move.
This is how much did Amazon pay in taxes?
Oh, Trump paid more than Amazon, and that just tells me Trump is less successful than Amazon.
Let me ask you a question, Akash.
Huh.
Okay.
And everybody who's listening right now at home, all around the world, okay, that's been in the service industry.
AOC used to do what?
Bartender.
Bartender.
Now, when you're a bartender or a server or someone who works in the service industry, I know where you're going.
Do you declare all your tips and pay taxes and all those tips?
Or do you try to cheat the tax man by taking that cash, putting it in that sports bra, and getting it the fuck out of here?
What do you think you do?
I don't think you report it.
Oh, my God.
Oh, do we have a tax cheat on our hand?
Or is that just the American thing to do?
We were supposed to pay taxes on that tea, and then what do we do?
Threw that shit on the bottom.
He said, fuck your taxes.
That's all Trump did.
He said, fuck your taxes.
That's all he did.
It said, fuck your taxes.
It's the most patriotic thing to do is not pay your taxes.
IRS, if you're listening, I do pay my taxes.
I just want to let you know.
I pay by the system that the rich people made so I could avoid as much of those fucking taxes I get.
That's my point.
I say this all the time.
The rules of the game are there.
Follow the rules, find the loopholes.
If you don't like it, support a flat tax, which sounds mad Republican.
But I promise you, if there's no loopholes, everybody just pays 18%.
That's just what the fuck it is.
You will get more money that way.
And you will get more money that way, but you'll find a way around it too.
I mean, we're always going to find a way around it.
Listen.
Oh, probably.
Of course.
We try to write off everything.
Now, listen, we're going to talk to an expert, someone who actually knows this.
Akash, myself, everybody on this podcast, Alex, Mia, Margana, Taylor.
We're all talking shit.
We don't know anything about tax code.
We're idiots.
I pay somebody a percentage of my income to do all these taxes and handle all this shit.
They could be robbing me blind right now.
They could be listening to this podcast and robbing me blind.
It's really true.
You guys know.
I don't look at any of these reports.
They send me reports every month.
I don't know a person who cares less about numbers than Andrew.
If you show him numbers, he's just like, get it out of here.
What, Taylor?
What?
No, I care less about numbers probably than you do.
Really?
I'll keep that in mind when it comes to paying you.
Thank you very much for letting me know.
But in all seriousness, we got to.
This is great information.
Please continue to divulge.
But in all seriousness, you have to, on some level, relate to not wanting to give the government money for taxes.
I understand taxes go to good things.
I understand they go to firemen, they go to policemen, they go to railroads, they go to schools, et cetera.
I'm not saying we should take money out of there, okay?
That being said, when you make money, right?
I'll be honest, I pay half my money in taxes.
That's just how the fuck it works, right?
So now I'm able to write things off and do these Trump type things legally so you don't pay.
But the reality is, think about that.
Half?
Half of money in taxes?
That means I work from January to June for free?
Imagine someone hired you to work from January to June, Taylor, for free.
Y'all don't want to go back to working for free.
I'm just saying, hey, hey, we're not in the business of working for free no more.
You thought three fifths was bad.
Half?
Half is too much.
So the point is, you can resonate with not wanting to pay taxes.
Can you not?
Al, can you not?
What's so funny?
This is wild.
Keep going.
I love it, though.
I'm just saying.
What would be a fair amount of taxes?
10%.
I'll give a little 10%.
Go make your votes in your planes.
If it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the government.
That's a fucking day.
Thank you, Al.
Thank you, Al.
Come on, Al.
You know what else is good enough for Jesus?
A life, Al?
See, I'm on your side.
I'm all fucking fucked up.
You know what?
You know what, son?
Nah, you ain't paid enough.
No, but in all seriousness, but in all seriousness, that's right.
The church only takes 10%.
What's the largest landowner in the entire world, Mark?
Catholic Church.
Catholic Church?
What's the largest landowner in America?
Walmart.
No, I thought it's the Church of Scientology or some shit.
I don't know.
I think it's some church.
Oh, I don't know.
Those are some badass motherfuckers.
The church of Scientology.
For a minute, Robbie was breaking this shit down to me.
He was telling me.
Did the Church of Scientology, they want to get tax-exempt status because churches don't have to pay taxes.
Because even God knew that shit was fucked up.
Like, that's how you know the government knows is fucked up to tax us.
Yeah.
Is that they're like, all right, we can't tax God.
Like, we can tax these plebeians, but we can't tax the one upstairs.
So they wanted tax-exempt status, right?
And the government was like, no, you're like a fraudulent religion.
That's not real.
Like, we can't give you tax exemption.
That's bullshit, right?
And then they apparently, this is what Robbie told me, is that a few of them broke into the IRS, stole some crazy records of the fuck shit that the IRS does, and they said, hey, we'll either expose this to the world or you just give us tax-exempt status.
And the IRS was like, we won't want your money.
What?
What I'm saying is, we have a mission impossible to turn it off.
I don't know.
We got to talk to Tom Cruise about that.
That's literally.
He would be the guy, right?
Hanging from wires, grabbing files.
Catching drops of sweat.
That's a fire beat.
How has no one flip that?
I don't know.
I'm sure they have.
They have?
Yeah.
All right, my bad.
Anyway, point is we got to talk to an expert about this.
And I got my buddy who we're going to get online with right now.
You know him from The Rising.
You know him from his podcast.
I got to get his podcast name right.
I don't want to fuck up the podcast name.
But you know him from The Rising and you know him from the realignment podcast.
This is Sager and Jetty.
I'm telling you, this is, you can watch all this stuff on YouTube.
He went the YouTube model with his host, Crystal, and they are literally the only news source I trust.
And he's an absolutely fucking great dude.
And he's bringing truth to power.
And hopefully he answers the Zoom call right now.
Are we on?
I see his cute ass.
Okay, there it is.
Looking like a young Republican.
What's up, man?
I know.
He looks like Clark Kent.
So we have Sager and Jetty here, man.
Yo, Sager, first of all, I love what you guys do.
Go check out Sager's show, The Rising.
You can check it out daily.
And you guys do it.
What is it exactly?
You do a full-length show and chop it up into clips?
Yeah, basically.
We do like a two-hour show and it gets chopped into clips.
Okay, great.
I absolutely love it.
It's my source of news.
And just to break down what it is, you are, you skew conservative and Crystal skews liberal, but you don't hate each other.
You call out your own politics.
You call out the other side and you have a very fruitful conversation about what is happening in the world today, right?
Without like name calling, et cetera.
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, that's what we try to do.
And I think, I mean, if there's a core innovation to what we do, it's that we're willing to call out our own side.
I mean, we're about to talk about the Trump tax story.
You're not going to go on Fox and you're going to hear anybody who's on the right tell you the truth about what's in the story.
Okay, so break it down for us.
What is happening?
What's going on with the Trump story?
Like, what was your initial reactions?
We were texting a little bit earlier.
Is he not paying?
Okay, is he doing anything illegal?
That's number one.
As far as we know, no.
Okay.
Is he doing anything that we should look down upon?
Oh, yeah, 100%.
This is my thing, right?
Which is, yeah, we should look down upon it.
But if you want to look down upon Trump and what he's done here, which I 100% do, then you want to look down on every billionaire in America.
I don't think most people want to have that conversation.
Hold on, hold on.
Are we looking down upon him for avoiding taxes?
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, actually, in a way, he's only doing what people like him wrote the laws to do.
Exactly.
But that's also heroic.
Like, I don't know if you're familiar with our podcast here, but the people on this podcast, we all support people who find ways to pay less taxes.
100%.
100%.
Akash, Akash, can you speak on that?
I mean.
Yeah, Saga, you get it.
You're Indian.
We will never pay anything we're supposed to pay ever.
Everything is a haggle.
And my dick gets kind of hard thinking about cheating taxes.
Quite frankly.
Quite frankly.
So Akash supports it.
I support the idea of it's not necessarily cheating the taxes because he's not doing anything illegal.
He's taking advantage of these loopholes that people like him created in the tax code.
Right?
So is it a little bit hypocritical that there are these politicians calling him out, which at the same time have been lobbied to create these very loopholes within the tax code?
That's exactly it, man, which is that, look, I don't want to hear it from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
Yes.
They literally said, so Schumer, Pelosi, and Joe Biden all said that one of the first things they're going to do is bring back the salt tax deduction, which you New Yorkers are probably pissed off about.
The state and local tax deduction, which only benefits people who are millionaires in New York City and in San Francisco.
What is the salt benefit?
What is salt tax deduction?
What is that?
It's called state and local taxes.
So it used to be that you guys, because you have crazy taxes up there in New York City, could deduct the amount that you guys pay in your state and local taxes from your federal tax income burden.
That was repealed by Trump in the Trump tax bill.
One of the few good things actually in that tax bill.
This does not sound good to me at all.
I think that I think we're on the opposite sides of taxation within this conversation right now.
For you, it's bad.
For society, it's good, my man.
Yeah, We didn't come to America to care about society, Saga, right?
Everybody left their families to come here for selfish reasons so they could take care of their self-hoard the wealth, baby.
Yeah, also, salt tax saga is how India got its independence.
That's where we said this the last fucking straw.
You're not going to take our spices and salts from us.
That's what we're marching for.
Gandhi marched like 50 miles over this shit.
How dare you?
Sandals, bro.
How dare you support this?
Come on.
My great-grandmother was in that salt to march.
Just you need to come join us, yo.
Fuck a salt tax percent support.
Wait a minute.
Was she really in that salt market?
Yeah, she was in.
You know for a fact that she was there, or you fake news.
Yeah, it's like a proud, it's a proud history legacy, man.
Yeah, but I'm sure everybody was like, yo, I was there.
Like, I'm sure lots of people.
Maybe my grandfather lied to me.
Billionaires Hoarding Wealth00:13:53
I don't know.
Say again?
She died before I got to talk.
Look, my grandfather said that he was at the game where Babe Ruth pointed and hit the home run.
And my dad was like, no, you weren't, you fucking loser.
But that's what people back in the day did before cameras.
You just said you were there.
Like, imagine living in Selma and being black and like not being at that march.
Of course, you're going to tell people.
No, I was in the back.
Like, you're going to say that, right?
Yeah, you have to say it.
You have to.
Maybe you're right.
I don't know.
We should look into your great grandma, dude.
Yeah, I'd be happy.
I'll send you an ancestry.com thing, whatever.
I don't know.
I bet she was.
Yeah, we've been taking long-ass walks after heavy meals.
So probably she just cooked up some heavy ass like rookies and man, butter in the chicken.
And they were like, we just got to take a walk, yo.
Just tell me, stop feeling full.
Akash, what chicken bullshit are you talking about?
This is 100% butter chicken, yo.
Oh, he said he's 100% pure vegetarian.
He's calling you out of your meats.
Yo, my cast is allowed to eat meat, so I'm looking down on you with your mask.
He just outcasted you, mother.
Are you going to ask whatever, yo?
Hey, we're, listen, this is a Brahmin family, so I don't really care.
Oh, wait a minute.
Briefly close.
Hey, hey, let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something.
Let me tell you something.
A real Brahmin wouldn't know how to say Brummin.
Should I bring my little string out?
All right.
I should be wearing it.
You don't even know the name, Republican ass.
Saul now got the hair and everything, boy.
They got you, Saga.
They got you.
No, he's trying to tax us all.
Yeah, yo, I'm not into it.
No, listen.
What do you mean?
How?
I thought you're supposed to be conservative.
Republicans are supposed to be anti-tax.
No big gov. Yeah, dude.
This is what my whole show is about.
Fuck that.
Like, that's, I don't agree with that.
So, what's conservative about you?
That should have never brought you on this shit, man.
Fuck.
I like this.
52% of Republican voters actually support a wealth tax.
The whole reason Trump won is because he ran against all these other goobers who are spouting this anti-tax bullshit.
They're like, oh, we need lower taxes.
Oh, that's all we need.
Deficits.
All this other stuff.
Vast majority of Americans want to see rich people pay more taxes and they want better public services.
That's it.
That just kind of making sense.
He's kind of.
But that's just because the vast majority of Americans ain't rich.
No, that's a good point.
Let me ask you this, Sager.
Actual question, not trying to pick a bone or whatever or joke around.
What makes you conservative if you're in favor of higher taxes?
What am I missing?
Personally, what makes you presume?
Look, what's personally conservative about me?
I think like family is good.
I think we should have more family.
I think people should have more kids.
I think people should have more flexibility.
I mean, I think religious people should be able to be religious.
Like, and I know that sounds, most people on the left are like, I don't disagree with any of that.
But, yeah, you know, on an elite level in terms of policy, like some of the things that people do do, you know, disagree with those things.
So that's what makes me conservative.
So you want to take my money so you can have a big family is what you're trying to say.
Yeah, basically.
Yes.
I see.
I see.
I see where we're at.
Okay.
That's some rummage ass shit that doesn't take your money up.
Hell, come on, Sager.
Come back.
That's not politics, man.
Come on, yeah.
Okay.
So what I did read about when I was reading this thing up about Trump, right, was that the big story here might not really be the lack of taxes paid.
It might be the debt that he has.
So apparently he has like up to like $400 million in various debts, right?
And people are going, well, if there's a president of a country that's in debt to certain financial institutions, how can we be so sure that he isn't going to do things that benefit those financial institutions to possibly alleviate that debt or, you know, maybe they don't bump interest rates or just to have good favor.
So how, so is there any validity to that?
I think it's a fair point.
Like this is what I want to, I want to be clear here.
Look, like the president of the United States owing $400 million to anybody is like, is bad.
The president like not paying his taxes and acting like every other billionaire, I think that's bad.
Is that a real?
Sorry to interrupt.
Is that a real $400 million or is that a, I don't want to pay taxes $400 million?
So it is a real $400 million from what I can tell.
So like I said, this is clear, which is a lot of people are using Andrew's point.
And they're like, oh, my God, it could be owned by Russia.
It could be owned by, you know, this person.
No, man.
Look, look, it's public record.
It's literally out there in the financial disclosure.
I actually sent it to Andrew.
If you guys can throw it up on the screen, I don't know if you have it.
I'll send it to you.
Whatever.
But like, this actually, look at it.
Look, it's mostly Deutsche Bank and some other real estate financial holding companies.
And you can go through and you can look.
Those are majority U.S. controlled people.
But again, I don't want to excuse this stuff.
Like, I don't think it is a good thing that the president owes all this money to people.
Do I think he could be like blackmailed by a foreign entity because of it?
No.
You know, that's bullshit.
And so I just think we need to be very like clear here about what exactly is happening.
Right.
And do you think it's possible that they would call in those loans?
Because that's what the catastrophists are doing right now.
They're going, what if these debtors call in their loans?
How is he going to pay it off?
Well, doesn't he, not to defend Trump, but like, doesn't he have assets?
I imagine a couple of those buildings that his name's on, he probably owns, right?
Yes, dude.
He owns a Boeing 757.
Like he owns real estate all over the world.
That's a dope way to pay off your debt.
If they call in the loans, I think he'll be fine.
Like he probably could pay 400 million.
It might leave him strapped with cash, but yes, he owns more than $400 million in assets.
So the real story here, which everybody's missing, is rich people get to skip out on taxes.
Yeah.
And we're hyper-focused on Trump because obviously he's a lightning rod.
But maybe we should be focused on the tax code and trying to find ways to make it more, I guess, fair for the average person.
Yeah.
I mean, check this.
So the Federal Reserve actually came out with a chart today.
You see how we're bringing a hood out of Sagar?
He said, check this.
He said, yo, check this.
Let's go.
You can't talk like down to Horizon.
Listen up that time, baby.
Listen up that time.
We're doing it.
I see you hit one of these, bro.
Let's do it.
Okay, go.
Let me check it.
Check it.
What are we?
We're going to start going like this.
All right.
No, no, no, no.
I'm into it.
I'm into it.
Federal Reserve came out today.
Bottom 50% of Americans own almost no wealth.
And the rest of the data shows 79% of wealth in the United States is owned by either millionaires or billionaires.
So that's 80%.
80% of wealth by millionaires and billionaires.
That's only 11% of the country.
11%.
Okay.
So let's think about that.
I mean, does it make sense for 80% of wealth to be concentrated in the top 11% of the country?
And who are the people that the politicians listen to?
I mean, this is what we talk about on our show, which is that, like we said, these are the people who write the laws.
There are whole buildings here in DC who are built to lobby specifically for what Trump gets away with by not paying taxes, which is real estate deductions.
These are some of the most powerful people in Washington because, and I was trying to, I was kind of explaining this to you because it can seem complicated, but it's actually simple, which is a real estate developer buys a piece of property for $100 million.
Then he doesn't want to pay taxes.
So he gets somebody to assess the building for $90 million and then can write off $10 million in deductions for years and years and years in the future, even though he never lost any real income.
Or let's say if the building gets more expensive because he upgraded it, you can write off your investment costs.
Either way, you don't pay any money.
This is the key thing to understand here.
Yeah.
So just to clarify what you're talking about, you're talking about depreciation.
And I think a lot of people were tweeting about it.
And this applies to anything.
This applies to like the equipment in this studio right here.
Right.
So I think what happens is they say that equipment lasts for five years.
Right.
So you can essentially write off one fifth of the cost of the equipment per year for five years.
You can actually write it off in the first year if you want.
But they're basically saying, yo, the equipment's getting worse and it's going to get older and it actually doesn't hold the same value that you bought it.
The appraisal thing was interesting to me also because I never heard that before.
Oh, so with the building, for example, if you have a building and you bought it for $100 million and then next year they're like, yeah, but look, the bathrooms are all old and all of a sudden worn down, it's worth $90 million.
That $10 million, you get to write off that loss, if you will, in the value of the asset.
So what's really interesting is you write off the loss, but then you put $10 million in to make up for that loss of your own money and you get to write off the investment that you're putting in.
And now you're writing off 20 million.
Exactly.
So basically what they do is...
And you're probably raising the rent because you improved the building and you're going to tell your tenants, hey, look what we did to the building, more rent.
So you're just making money both ways.
The name of the game, I guess, is how do I prove that everything I have is losing as much money as I'm making?
And then you come out to zero.
And as long as you're at zero, you maintain all the wealth that's within the asset.
You're describing the business model of Amazon.
This is Amazon, right?
They don't pay any taxes.
You know why?
Break it down.
Because look, this is how corporations do it, not just people.
This is why we've got to have a whole conversation.
Amazon has this thing called Amazon Web Services.
Most people don't even know this.
They think Amazon is a retail company.
No, it's a server company.
Vast majority of its income.
So what it does is it takes this money printing machine, Amazon Web Services, and then invests it and covers losses.
That's how they're able to sell you.
You know, you go on Amazon, you see like Amazon basics products and it's always cheaper than whatever the competitor is.
That's not because they know how to make it cheaper or they send it cheaper.
They can just take the loss because it's being subsidized by another part of the company.
And that way they never technically have profit because they're always investing their money into other areas.
But what does that mean?
That means that they can kill all of their competitors.
So they never pay any taxes, but somehow Jeff Bezos is worth, what, fucking $200 billion?
How does that happen?
Like, this is what we have to understand.
It's all a scam.
I went on a, I did a tour once of Europe, right?
And I didn't look at the contracts as well as I should have because I never liked reading any of the shit.
I just looked at the number at the bottom and I was like, oh, this is what I'm going to make.
I'll be good.
Right.
And this is actually the tour where Alex got arrested.
Alex is our video producer over here.
And so it ended up being very costly outside of that.
Well done, Alex.
And don't go to Sweden, Sager, okay?
They're rough on the Browns.
I don't know if we would last there, huh?
I don't think so.
No, no, no.
I don't think so.
So what class are you again, Cast?
Are you?
Rajput.
Rajput, yeah, yeah.
Would you sell him down the river, dude?
Would you be like, take the Roshput eater, one of those meat eaters.
Absolutely would.
Yeah, I was trust him.
So I'm there.
And at the end of the tour, I'm looking at the money that I made.
And I had like some shows in London that really sold out.
And then we did some shows in like Sweden that didn't sell that many tickets.
And the shows in London, we just kept adding shows and it was crazy.
And I looked at what we made in Sweden and I was like, all right, we didn't make that much money, but like that's on the promoter of the gig.
I guess he lost money on that gig.
You know, it is what it is.
And then I looked at the overall contract and I realized that the gigs were cross-collateralized, which means, which is what Amazon does essentially to protect themselves, right?
So they were like, hey, if we don't meet a certain amount of money in Sweden, we're going to take it from the London shows, right?
And that's what these companies are doing to allow themselves to grow is they don't even have to profit.
As long as they got one thing that's making money, they just write off those losses.
It's like what a lot of, I think, sports team owners do too.
It's like the sports.
Sports.
NFL, same way.
NFL, they might lose money or the team might lose money, but they have a real estate business or they have some other business, a restaurant business, and they'll write off the losses in their sports team versus the gains that they make in whatever.
And that's why I don't believe when NBA owners are like, we lose 200 million a year supporting the team.
It's like, I know you show that you lost 200 million to pay less taxes.
I don't think you actually lost 200 million.
But you never believe it.
My question to you, Sager, is what would be your tax solution?
Because it feels like any wealth tax you create, they're going to find a way out of it and then everybody else is going to pick up the bill.
Great question too, man, which is I'm not necessarily in favor of wealth tax.
Like whenever people say wealth tax, like I think what they're saying is billionaires should pay more taxes.
I've done a lot of research into this.
Basically, as far as you can see, a wealth tax would probably is, I wouldn't say it's unfair, but it would just discourage.
I mean, look, like maybe this is my conservative part of me, but like we still have a lot of fucking billionaires for a reason, right?
Like people do create awesome companies here in the United States.
And like you don't necessarily want to discourage that.
What you want, and what I want is balance.
Like I think it's crazy for the top 50% to own nothing, especially people who are younger, you know, like probably listening to this podcast are like 30 years old, have literally no chance at accumulating any wealth whatsoever.
So I actually think it comes mostly from the financial industry.
Everything you need, every dollar you need is sitting right on Wall Street in hedge fund transactions and so many of the different things that these guys get away with.
1,000 X profit, all of that.
It's not a mystery.
Like it's sitting right there.
Like these guys are able to make record-setting profits every single year by depreciating their stuff and moving around their assets and the amount of money that is interchanging.
You can tax financial transactions.
You could raise a billion.
Here's another one.
We're talking about taxes.
This is a study that came out actually from the National Bureau of Economic Research, just in case anybody wants to start checking me.
And it says that you could raise $1 trillion, a trillion in revenue with a one-seventh size investment on IRS, just tax enforcement.
So that's not even a new tax.
That's just enforcing tax laws that we have on the books right now.
So there you go, like a trillion dollars.
That's a lot of money.
That's more than the entire military budget.
This is the easier things I'm starting to think about.
Sagar, those all sound great, but how much would we make if we just bought Greenland?
I mean, Greenland is priceless, man.
You can't even put a number on it, right?
I think that's the solution, to be honest with you.
Look, I love Greenland, so we should buy it.
Dude, I appreciate your time, man.
Thank you so much for clearing this up.
You sound like an undercover Bernie, bro.
I just want to say, I know that you always tell me that.
It's not true.
It's not true.
It's true.
Buying Greenland For Sleep00:03:30
My positions on immigration and everything, then they get mad.
Oh, really?
Oh, my God.
Tell me, tell me.
Tell me.
Tell me.
What is the.
Oh, God, dude.
You're going to make me.
We don't have to go down.
We can.
That's fine.
I want to know.
I want to know.
Do you wish that they were a great grandmother?
This is an old school Bernie position, so they really shouldn't be mad at me.
Okay, okay.
You know, you go back and you look at what Bernie Sanders is saying in 2015 and what you're saying in 2020.
He was like, open borders is a Koch brothers proposal or something.
And then all of a sudden, you know, the Democratic Party and elite media shifts one way, and now Bernie's all for open borders.
So some people get mad that I said that.
He's effectively for open borders, even though the guy used to understand that that depresses a lot of Americans' wages.
Okay, now, last question.
This is very important to a lot of our listeners.
So answer carefully.
Okay.
Cashmere.
You know what it is, yo.
You only have to think twice about this, Sager.
You know what the fuck it is, yo.
You're right.
I already know what it is.
You know what it's like?
I didn't even hear a question.
What is it?
What is it?
Now, Sagar, Pakistan or India, bro?
Look, my position can be summed up in two words.
Fuck Pakistan.
Our residence political experts.
This is the most flagrant news.
I say that as both as an American citizen and as a person of Indian descent.
Hey, man.
I don't care about that second one, yo.
That's what's up.
Stay true.
Oh, God.
Yo, Sagar, we love you, man.
Tell them where they can find you one more time.
That's right.
It's Realignment Podcast or on Rising over at The Hill on YouTube.
E.Sagar on Twitter and Instagram.
Thank you guys for having me.
And congrats on the Patreon thing.
And for real, I'm telling you, Sagari, you do these great, what do you call them?
Monologues.
Okay, so he does these, but you call them your, it's called a my radar.
My radar.
Yeah, yeah, his radar.
So, and you do it daily.
And it's great.
It's a deep dive onto a single subject.
And he was really nuanced and really researched.
And I get a lot of information from them.
I think you guys should check it out.
Literally, it's one of those things where even today I went for it before I texted you on YouTube to see if you did it on the Trump tax thing today.
Are you there?
Nah, he loves.
I'm glad, dude.
I'm glad you're glad that you guys can talk about it.
No, no.
It's important.
Yeah, yeah, no.
But what I'm saying is, I'll often look to you as a resource for information.
So be like, I'll be seeing you cut out there.
So it's all good.
I'll be like, let me see if Sagar did a radar on this thing and I'll get some information.
So make sure you go check it out.
We'll throw a link in the description.
But thank you so much, man.
I appreciate you, brother.
Jay Hind.
Thanks, guys.
See you later.
Peace.
All right, guys.
We're going to take a break for a second because you're not sleeping well.
That's guaranteed.
You're not sleeping well.
You're not sleeping as good as you should be.
Nobody is in quarantine.
Honestly, I haven't.
I haven't.
I've been getting fucked up sleep.
And there are things that can help you sleep that are out there.
And it is a no-brainer if you do not take advantage of those things.
Okay.
We partnered up with this company called Calm.
You've probably heard of it.
A lot of you have heard it.
You might have seen ads on YouTube, Instagram, that kind of stuff.
But I'm telling you, this company is legit.
Okay.
They have a whole library of programs designed for a healthy sleep.
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I'm telling you, 85 million people around the world use Calm to take care of their minds and get better sleep.
It puts you in the mood to pass the fuck out.
You know what else helps you sleep?
Debate Mood Pass Out00:03:37
Getting a great ass deal.
And if you go to calm.com/slash flagrant, you get a limited time offer of 40% off a comm premium subscription.
Guys, this is a no fucking brain.
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Honestly, if you're having trouble sleeping, no bullshit, give it a try.
Give it a try.
It will center your mind.
I know a lot of us always say this: I want to go to sleep, but my mind is going crazy.
I'm thinking of a million fucking things.
Just listen to Stephen Fry.
You'll pass right the fuck out.
Imagine you book that commercial or you book that reading.
You are so boring that you make people go to sleep.
We have a job for you.
Yeah.
Anyway, go check it out.
Comedy.com/slash flagrant.
That's right.
Remember, it's calm, like C-A-L-M.com/slash flagrant.
Go check it out.
Also, guys, the Big Daisy Energy Tour is back.
We're doing it.
I have already told you guys about October 21st through the 24th at Acme Comedy Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Come through.
Limited seating social distancing rules will apply.
So hurry up and buy the tickets before they sell out.
Also, we just added a show October 9th at the Connecticut Comedy Festival.
Our boy Emilio, owner of New York Comedy Club, is putting on a comedy festival.
And I'm headlining October 9th in Trumbull, Connecticut.
Get tickets at akashing.com.
We got, let's get back to the show.
All right, while we talk about Trump, let's talk about this debate.
Okay.
Today, when this episode comes out, there's going to be a debate.
I believe it's at nine o'clock, wherever you watch debates.
I don't know where you watch debates.
Can you watch them anywhere?
Is it like one of those things where it's one of those on every channel type of thing?
Is it, or is it on a specific channel?
Because this is like major ad revenue.
I would try to get the exclusive rights for this debate.
I don't know if you can, to be honest with you.
What is it, Mark?
I'm looking it up here.
It looks like my go.
Yeah, it looks like it's being played in most places.
That's probably the right thing for the nation.
But if I was a for-profit TV network, I would want exclusive rights to this debate specifically.
Yeah.
Would you not?
Oh, absolutely.
Because this will be the first debate that I watch in history.
I think I only watched highlights of the past debates.
Oh, wow.
I don't think I actually sat there and watched the debate.
I watched the highlights and I'd be like, oh, that's crazy.
He called him Lil Marco or he called him Lil Energy Jab.
I'm like hearing things.
Maybe I like switched around the channels and I got to the debate, stood there for a little bit, and then like I moved on.
I'm excited to watch this debate.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
Oh, debates are the only fun part about politics to me.
I like the presidential debate.
Did you watch them?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah, I do.
When was the last time that you watched the debate?
Obama.
Like both of the times.
I watched the Trump debates with Hillary.
Let me take that back.
And I watched the Trump debates with Hillary.
Yeah.
Yeah, let me take that back.
I think I've watched a lot of debates.
Yeah, let me.
I don't know what I was saying right there, man.
I definitely watched that debate the last time when he was debating Hillary when he brought out the Clinton's accusers in the front row.
Yeah.
That was lit.
Yeah, now that I remember, this is kind of like Seinfeld.
Like I swear I never watched the show, but I can remember every episode.
So I just block it out.
Oh, yeah.
So I guess the debates have been entertaining.
Nah, this one's different, though.
But this was different.
Now, here's the thing.
This has potential to be an amazing debate.
But I wonder if it gets crushed by high expectations.
Low expectations are key to life, right?
You think you're going to watch a political debate.
You're like, this is going to be the most boring fucking thing in the world.
But let me at least try to be informed about which one of these liars that I'm going to vote for, right?
And then you go and you're like, oh, it's a roast.
And he's just roasting these other famous people that have had their asses kissed their entire lives and they literally are melting next to them because they don't know how to handle criticism.
This is fun.
Yeah.
We're all going into this like, oh, you're going to roast Biden.
Roasting Famous Politicians00:15:10
And then Biden is going to malfunction.
Yeah.
We don't know what the fuck Biden's going to say.
He could drop an M-bomb.
You have no clue what's going to come out of Biden's mouth, right?
I want to see what's going to happen.
What if it's the most boring, poised debate by both parties?
You don't think so?
When has Trump been in his population?
Here's the thing.
There's no audience.
There's no one for him to play to entertain.
He's performing into a void, right?
So while he might be like, I'm getting these jokes off, if everybody's straight facing him and not reacting at all, does he have any reason to keep on performing?
He's like a comic on Zoom.
He's just losing confidence.
Tell us about your shows, dog.
Tell us about your shows.
You'd be losing confidence in that void.
Son, you got to just read your jokes like a monologue.
That delayed laughter, right?
You look at them quietly.
This ain't what I'm here for.
This ain't why I chose this profession.
So I wonder if that's what's going to happen.
It's possible.
That's the only thing that saves Biden is there's no audience.
If there's no Biden, sorry, if there's no audience, Biden could potentially end up just having a regular conversational debate with Trump.
He's got no one to play into, and he's not trying to land these fucking jokes.
Yeah.
That's potential.
That being said, the other side of that coin is this.
When Trump is in interviews with people, there isn't any audience, right?
And he's still saying wild shit.
Yeah, you're right.
So he's kind of just a wild boy.
Yeah, he's wild, bro.
You saw the shit he tweeted?
What do you tweet?
Where he says, yo, we got to get Sleepy Joe drug tested before the debate.
What?
Who I like.
He's like, oh, he's not.
The full tweet is like, it's going to be uneven.
He's going to be on drugs for him to be able to stay awake or some shit like that.
And then he tweeted like seven hours ago.
He goes, it looks like Joe Biden has refused the drug test.
Gee, wonder why.
I mean, if I'm Biden, I'm going, yo, you should test Trump too.
Because apparently Trump's been on like some form of like amphetamines for years now.
Like some like super Adderall.
Yeah, people think he's coked up.
They think he's coked up or on math or some shit like that.
But if he's on super Adderall, why the fuck are we not on Adderall, bro?
Yo, I've heard Adderall is like the limitless drug.
Son, it's amazing.
It's the best drug I've ever tried in my entire life.
And I'm not saying that people should go do it.
I'm sure it's really bad for you, but it's unbelievable.
It sounds like they should go do it.
You should.
No, you shouldn't do it.
You shouldn't do it, but you should if you have anything important to do.
If you have anything of important...
You should do it.
No, no, no.
This is the only time I'll tell you to do a drug if you have something important to do outside of sex.
But if you do, because I'll definitely tell you to take Blue Chew for sex.
But if you have something important to do, a test, a job where you really need to concentrate, you need to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time, obviously Adderall, phenomenal.
I legit know kids who got into med school because of Adderall.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Alex is concerned about something.
Listen, you got to get your doctor to prescribe it, obviously.
You know what I mean?
But if I was your doctor, I would prescribe the fuck out of that shit.
Because that drug is absolutely amazing.
I've only done it at Burning Man.
Keep that in mind.
I've only done it at Burning Man, okay?
But Al and I went through.
No, no, no.
You were taking Adderall too.
That's at least what you took.
Yeah, you're a dude.
You were taking fucking foot massages from dudes and shit like that.
You were a wild boy out there, bro.
You were getting foot massaged before you even have any drugs in you.
Burning Man was about love.
Peace out.
Apparently, dogs.
All I'm saying is that Adderall shit, maybe Biden's on it, but you know what?
Trump is too.
And Biden should call him out.
By the way, why don't we both take drug tests?
I can't wait to see this shit tomorrow, son.
You're excited.
Well, it's tonight for everybody listening, but we're recording Monday.
But go, I'm excited because the tax thing just dropped and Trump hasn't had enough time to prepare for that.
Go, go, go.
Usually with the crowd, he can just like say his just talking points and then they go wild or whatever the case is.
But now, like you said, no audience.
He's going to just keep bringing up the taxes.
And then when he tries to get off the taxes, hey, here's some Corona with the right.
And then I'm coming back with taxes.
It's going to be taxes, Corona.
Grab him by the pussy dropped three days before a debate.
Trump handled that shit.
I thought that was a better performance.
If you watch both debates, first debate, I thought he lost.
Second debate, after Grab Him by the Pussy, I thought he won.
He don't care, bro.
He's with it.
Let's go.
I still think he needs the audience, though.
I think an audience absolutely helps him.
100%.
That being said, I don't think that the tax thing matters that much for him.
But I will say this, that this is where the conspiracy that like the media is controlled by the left and they're working in cahoots to take down Trump.
This is where this shit comes from.
Two days before the debate, this piece comes out that's saying Trump doesn't pay his taxes that we already know because four years ago a piece came out saying he doesn't pay his taxes.
So to me, and I think maybe the average person is looking at this and they're going, hey, is the media working with the Democrats? to try to find a way to poke a hole in Trump so that he loses some steam going into the debate and so that he's on the defensive the entire time and he can't attack Biden.
I think that's where people end up going with this information.
Maybe the New York Times been working on this report for three months and then maybe they're working on it before the debate.
And maybe the New York Times is going, where can we get the most juice out of this story?
Oh, right near the debate.
Yeah, we can't forget.
Newspapers are fighting for relevancy too.
They were raised.
Twitter journalism, they're a dying breach.
Craigslist was the fucking, they're endangered.
And now with Twitter, they're pretty much extinct.
But you see what I'm saying?
Let's get some juice out of this deer.
And they have a person against them.
And they got the majority because they don't like them.
Exactly.
So where it looks like, it looks like from the outside how they could be like partnering up, the only thing that they could have in common is ratings, profit, dollar bills at the end of the day.
Oh, we're going to drop this right before the debate.
Why is that?
Well, because they're going to be the most focused on Trump right before the debate.
So we'll tap right into the main vein, which is Trump and Biden.
I wouldn't be surprised if Fox News dropped some Biden shit.
Oh, that's right.
They did.
Then last week they dropped the shit about Hunter Biden again.
$3 million.
Yeah, it was like the prostitute thing.
He was like the sex trafficking thing that he was involved with.
I didn't know sex trafficking.
I know that like a Russian billionaire gave him $3 million, $3.5 million for some.
And people are alleging that that money was funneled through like a sex trafficking thing or like the institution thing that he was using over prostitution.
Alleged.
So perfectly.
So it's like these are both parties working the system.
Yeah.
Right.
And you only see the nefarious shit of the opposition.
You know what's interesting.
You know what I mean?
Like you're not going to tap into, you're not going to tap into the shit that your team is doing was fucked up because you're like, no, you should expose that.
That's truth.
That information needs to be out there.
But when the other people do some shit, you're like, oh, you're just ganging up on us before the debate.
You know what's interesting to that point?
There's this documentary about like Lewinsky and Bill Clinton and that whole scandal.
When everything broke, do you know what Hillary, the first thing she did on her news report was?
You know what she called it?
A right-wing conspiracy.
They said his entire strategy when the Monica News broke is let's just distract people with something else.
That's exactly what we accuse Trump of doing.
What does Trump always say?
That's a left-wing conspiracy.
These are rules that Trump was the first one to play with.
Oh, no.
But when it was the Democrats, when it was liberals being like, oh, that's our guy.
Nobody cared.
Hey, man, that's just his thing.
And now we're looking at Republicans like, how can you ignore all these things?
How can you just call everything a conspiracy?
It's out of Clinton's playbook.
Yo, just like the tax loopholes he's using are out of their playbook.
Bruh.
Right?
Like, we got to stop acting like all the elites, regardless of Democrat or Republican, don't benefit from the same system.
Oh, God, the Bushes, the Clintons.
It's the same shit.
Yeah, they're both benefiting.
They're both benefiting.
They're all benefiting.
The Obamas are now benefiting.
The Obamas are now entering that upper echelon of like of wealth.
You know, are you kidding me?
Cashing in.
Cashing in.
They got the huge Netflix deal.
And God bless, go get your money.
No one's saying don't get your money.
But when you're willing to get that money and you're willing to take advantage of those systems in place that are just for the people that are rich, don't criticize the other motherfuckers doing the same thing as you.
And I think that's the thing that the internet has really exposed to the average viewer, like myself or you or you guys, right?
Is we're looking at them going, hey, the facade is done.
Do you guys not realize we could see what you do?
There's like public record.
I don't got to go to the library no more.
Look at a microfiche.
I could Google which bills you put into law and which tax breaks you sign up for.
And that's part of Trump's appeal.
I don't have to look for it.
It's here.
You're not lying to me.
You are who you are.
So it's kind of cool that like it's going to force politicians to be a little bit more honest.
I think that's where you get the AOCs.
Like criticize AOC whoever you want.
Like there are certain things that she's being maybe hypocritical about, sure.
But there are other things that she's trying to hold her party accountable for as well.
And it's kind of lit.
And to be honest, it's the only way that you can function as a new wave politician.
Yeah.
I don't know if there's any of these traditionalists left.
And I don't know if they're going to be able to compete in the next 20 years.
Yeah, everything changed.
I think Trump changed everything.
AOC is a part of that.
The basically right-wing AOC, the guy in the wheelchair, he basically the same.
Like it's the new wave is like kind of extreme, understands the internet, understands how to manipulate it.
Did you see the you can see the fraudulence on the other way when you saw what Biden said when he was talking to those troops?
This shit fucking hilarious.
He goes, he's talking to the troops.
He goes, he goes, I've made two good decisions in my life, choosing my wife, Jill, and choosing something Johnson or whatever like that.
And I guess Johnson was one of these high-ranking military figures that I guess was looking over these servicemen and women.
I don't know who the fuck it was.
And they don't react to it.
And he goes, clap, you dumb sons of bitches or something like that.
I love that.
What did he say again?
It was like fab you stupid bastards or something like that.
Yeah, clap you stupid bastards or something like that, right?
And it is so funny to see all these right-wing like Twitter conservatives immediately go, how could he speak?
How could he speak to the troops like this?
This is horrifying.
Doing the exact same thing that the left-wing Twitter trolls did to Trump when it came out that he allegedly said any people that died in war were losers.
Why are we going to visit them at the graveyard?
Right.
It's just like you're both playing the same system.
I hope those are the next people to get exposed.
Yeah.
Drifters.
Oh, yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Like the fake journalists that are like taking advantage of each side and defending somebody no matter what they do.
Yeah.
You're a fraud too.
You're a fraud too.
You're playing a character too.
That's why I love Sager or Sager.
Sorry.
I always fuck up his name, but that's why I love it.
It's like he is a conservative by principle, but he's willing to call out conservatives when they are not upholding the principles that he believes a conservative should have.
And that's what you should do.
And that's exactly.
We do not have a fucking monarchy.
Yeah.
And that's where a lot of people end up treating these politicians as.
Like there's some form of royalty.
And like no matter what they do, it's okay.
Yeah.
You're allowed to say, yo, you're on some fuck shit to your own party.
I believe in the principles of this party more than I believe in you as a person.
That's the whole point of a party.
It is a party.
No individual is greater than the party.
So to that end, you're not upholding these principles.
That's on you.
Will I still vote for you?
I guess.
But you're not doing your job.
You're not doing what we're supposed to do.
Yes.
Yes.
I wonder if a centrist could ever win an election against a populist.
It'd be tough.
It's tough, right?
It'd be tough.
I think Cuban has a chance just off of star power.
That's the only reason.
I would say Cuban would be a populist.
Maybe I don't know what populist means.
Spell that shit.
No, but meaning like if you had somebody come out there and try to represent everybody, and by trying to represent everybody, you're going to let everybody down a little.
Okay.
Right?
Right.
I don't know if that person.
Like Obama.
Like Obama.
Yeah.
But Obama was running up against Romney, right?
Yeah.
Romney the second time, McCain the first time.
And McCain the first time, right?
Both centrists.
Like McCain for a Republican, very centrist.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, I think a lot of Republicans would even give him pushback on being conservative.
Is it like too reasonable in a lot of areas?
Yeah, same with Romney.
He's like, he's gotten more liberal now, but even at the time, he was.
He was a very like reasonable Republican, if you will, right?
And that's why Obama had the ability, I think, to defeat them, right?
Because Obama was going up against a kind of like another centrist.
So these two centers were battling for the majority of the people and the majority of the people accepted, all right, I'm going to be happy with certain things and let down with other things, no matter who I pick.
So I like this guy a little bit more than that guy, right?
This guy outcharmed that guy.
With Trump, he's just going, yo, I only care about the people who fuck with me and I'm just going to give them shit and fuck everybody else.
I don't know if I'm going to give everybody a little bit candidate can win.
We'll see in this election.
I don't know what Biden's doing.
I mean, he's...
He's...
I don't know what his platform is.
That's what I think.
He could actually do well in the debate.
I think he's got a pretty easy job ahead of him.
Go on that.
And we've talked about this a little bit, but my suspicion is that all Biden has to do is prove himself to be competent.
Yes.
He doesn't have to beat Trump.
He doesn't have to outsmart him.
He doesn't have to have quick, witty insults.
He just needs to be able to prove to the American public and the people that are undecided, like, yo, I got this shit.
Low expectations, key to life.
He has the lowest expectations.
And people, if he can put consensus together, people will be like, oh, he can do it.
If this isn't a bloodbath tomorrow, I'm going to be like, I think he won.
Because I expect him to be embarrassed on every level.
There is a, yeah, it's interesting because if that is what happens, the conservative smear campaign on Biden is what created his win.
Yeah.
Oh, that's great.
By painting Biden as this person who can barely put together a sentence, right?
By just constantly retweeting these versions of him fucking things up and all the gaffes and popularizing what that is and saying he's a corpse.
I mean, I've been saying he's a fucking corpse for months.
And it's probably because I'm consuming all this content.
The only time I see him, he's fucking up or saying dumb shit, right?
Telling Charlemagne that he's not black.
Like it is random when you see someone do that, right?
And you're like, okay, this guy's not all there.
If he goes out there and he's somewhat competent, he exceeds my expectations of him.
I'm like, ooh, okay, he might got it.
And that's all because of how the Republicans painted him.
This is interesting.
It could backfire.
It's really not even that hard.
To do what?
To beat Trump.
Like, you could throw it.
You would think that that's part of his brilliance is you think that.
And then he just comes so over the top, you're like, what the fuck just happened?
It is like Blitzkrieg.
Like he just.
I just feel like.
I remember how he was in the last debate.
He just looked like a child to me walking around trying to interrupt Hillary.
Like, I just, it's so easy to just like kind of roast him up.
But some people were turned on by that shit.
They liked it.
And he was another thing about Trump that what he does, and I think this is why he wins in debates, is, and this is specifically when he does this, is you never get to see or rarely get to see a politician on a public platform get ridiculed.
Okay.
Sometimes you see it in debates and it becomes a fucking national news story.
Remember when Tulsi Gabbard said that thing about Kamala Harris, right?
And it fucking blew up the internet?
Yeah.
They take little pot shots at each other, but they know that they're on the same team, so they can't go too fucking deep.
And Tulsi really ain't on the team.
So she went deep and exploded.
Trump Bullies Biden Hard00:05:13
There are people for years that have hated the Clintons and hated Clintons politics.
So when you see somebody in public, in front of the whole world, slice open the Clintons, that is fucking satisfying.
They love that.
That's cathartic.
They don't care if you grab pussy or you didn't.
It doesn't even matter at that point.
It's like, yo, you did that shit for me.
Finally, someone called this bitch out on, you know, bad geopolitical decisions or whatever the fuck it is.
Even grabbing by the pussy just ended up being a way to call out Bill and how phony she is.
And that felt good.
And don't do it to those people.
Yep.
The Clintons were always an enemy.
The difference with the Biden situation, I don't think people see Biden so much as an enemy.
Correct.
He's like a grandpa.
So he's losing his mind a little bit.
And that's the thing that's a little bit concerning, right?
It is because...
Think about it.
If he's a grandpa and he's losing his mind a little bit.
I got a pops who's losing his mind a little bit.
Now, I don't want my dad running the country now, before, sure.
But now I'm like, you might not have all your faculties there to do it.
But if you're mean to the guy who's losing his mind a little bit, his memory's not all there, fumbling his words, and we all have a relative that's going through that, we might not go, oh, this is a fun roast.
We might go, yo, why are you being a dick?
Yeah, this is elder abuse.
This is elder abuse.
Yo, you're an asshole, bro.
I feel like they would do that to Bernie, not Biden.
See, Bernie's sharp, though.
I don't look at Bernie and go, oh, this is an old man breaking down.
He's been old his whole life.
I don't think Bernie's been young.
No, he was born 50 years ago.
He's born 50 years old.
He's Benjamin Button, but he's just an old man his whole life.
Yeah, he just, there's no button.
So it's tricky with Bernie where you feel less bad for him because he's got so much energy.
Motherfucker's shooting foul shots.
Yeah.
Right?
Bernie would have gone back at Trump, too.
I don't think he gives a fuck if the Democrats didn't set him up to lose.
Kermud.
Charisma?
Kurmudge.
Curmudgeon?
Curmudgeit.
Curmudgeon, yeah.
Curmudge.
Nah, Kermudji.
Curmudgeon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He just tuck his head in his shoulders and go, oh, go fuck yourself, right?
Like, he'd get real New York.
This guy's lived in Maine for the last 40 years and has not lost his Brooklyn accent at all.
Yeah, I don't know how that's possible.
Dude, I go to Long Island for like two days.
I'm immediately like, fuck, give me some water.
Like, I'm immediately absorbing whatever it is.
It's unbelievable.
It's almost arrogant that you don't pick up the accent of the place you're in.
New Yorkers would do that, though.
What do you mean?
That's a New Yorker asking to do is never lose the accent.
Yeah, you're right.
He's just like a lean, double-hearted.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
100%.
That's the most New York shit about Bernie.
He's liberal.
He's Jewish.
And he held on to his accent.
This is a New Yorker through and through.
It fucking really is.
I don't know.
We'll see what happens.
What do you think happens?
You think that Trump smokes him?
I think Trump smokes him.
But to your point, the expectations have been set so low.
Maybe we come in very pleased with it.
But I think objectively, Trump smokes him.
Al?
I think Trump gets tripped up with the tax thing and the coronavirus record, and he looks like he loses it.
So that's an interesting mark.
Yeah, I think Trump bullies him, but if he goes too hard, Trump looks like a dick.
Yep.
And then Biden just is coherent and people go, oh yeah, Biden's pretty reasonable and Trump's an asshole.
I'm undecided.
I'll go Biden.
That's the best case.
Some people could do that.
I'm not sure what will happen.
That is the best case scenario, I think, for Biden.
Hey, all I got to do is look coherent and professional.
And the more he says and the more he looks like a dick, it doesn't matter because I'm not winning over any of his super Trump supporters.
All I'm going for is the middle.
You want the douchebag or you want me?
You know what Taylor?
I think Trump is.
You start talking to that microphone, Taylor.
I swear to God.
Damn.
Trump is a good distractor, though.
So I feel like even if Biden was to shoot at him about coronavirus or whatever, he's going to come back.
He's going to not answer the question.
Oh, yeah.
100%.
Yeah.
So Trump has to answer for Corona and he has to answer for the taxes.
He's going to have to have responses for both of those.
Biden's got to answer for his kid and the Ukraine stuff.
And he's got to answer for probably the crime bill.
He also has to answer for not being Sleepy Joe.
Like, yes.
Oh, yeah.
And he's got to answer for his coherence.
Yeah.
Sleepy Joe, though, of all the Trump nicknames, seems the least damning to me.
Lion Ted, Crooked Hillary, even boring Jeb, who's so funny.
Yeah, low energy Jeb.
Low energy Jeb.
Sleepy Joe is like, hey, sleepy.
No big deal.
Lion crookie, that's crooked.
That's some shit that you're like, you look at them a little different.
If you can be manipulated like that, Sleepy Joe is like, whatever.
He's 90.
Yeah, but I'm saying like he doesn't even complete his sentences though.
Yeah, no, he has to be coherent.
Yeah, I agree.
But I think that's a really good point, too.
The nickname he chose isn't really that punishing.
No.
But that's, I bet you why our perception about Biden is different than all the other candidates.
Why?
Because the nickname is like subconsciously playing into that.
Like we look at Biden as just like an old, meek man, and we kind of feel bad for him.
And his nickname reflects that.
Ah, why wait when you're crooked, Hillary?
We don't feel bad for you.
She looks evil.
Yo, she is crooked now that you think about it.
Now that you point that out, she crooked as fuck.
Lion Ted, he do be lying.
Ted, he lying, yo.
Did Trump just create his own biggest fuck-up marketing wise?
Maybe.
Imagine that.
He creates the lowest expectations with Biden with the Biden's always babbling in the gaffes, etc.
And he gives him a nickname that doesn't make us hate him.
It actually makes us feel bad for him and it's almost endearing.
Fuck.
Spotify Rogan Deal Strike00:15:08
That's happened before.
Like marketing companies market too well.
Like they'll release a product like Axe Body Spray did this shit where they're like, oh, if you get Axe, like girls will be all over you.
And there's all these loser fucking dudes buying axe by like the tub full.
And then they were like, all right, we can't do this anymore because now losers buy axe.
So they ended up selling their spray to the wrong demographic.
Yeah, it was so effective.
Their marketing was so good that all these dorks were buying axe.
And they're like, we got to change it up.
Yeah, because we don't want dorks to have our shit.
We want the cool guy to have our shit.
Interesting.
Trump might have did that.
His marketing might have been so effective.
Oh my God.
That's kind of fucked up.
All right, guys, we're going to take a break, Pays and Bills, for a second.
Listen, you know, it's the NBA finals coming up.
You know, we're going to put a little cheddar on a game, a little cheese on a game.
You know what I mean?
Peel off a couple bills, try to make a little something.
And if we're going to do it, we're going to do it at mybookie.ag.
Okay.
Simple as that.
Mybookie.ag.
That is the one-stop shop for all your gambling needs online.
Okay.
You're going to use that promo code Flagrant.
And I'm going to tell you what you're going to get.
They're going to match your initial investment.
That means you put in money to gamble and they are going to match that amount of money.
And then you get to gamble with all of that.
That's free money to gamble.
And we're not done yet.
They're also going to throw a $10 NBA future bet in there as well.
So all you got to do is sign up, use that promo code Flagrant.
That's mybookie.ag and let's get gambling and let's spend, what is it?
I don't know.
Make some money, spend some money.
Let's make some money.
Let's make some money.
Okay.
Because that's what it is.
You gamble, you win, they pay.
Mybookie.ag promo code flagrant.
Let's get back to the show.
I want to address something that happened in the news.
I think it's like very important globally.
And that is there is a new number one comedy Patreon in the world.
Oh, shit.
I just, you know, the universe, really.
It's in the universe.
Matter of fact, in all of the, in the multiverse, in all of the different verses that exist.
In history.
In history.
Yep.
There is one number one comedy Patreon.
Wow.
And what one is it?
Anybody, is it?
It's not flagrant.
It's flagrant too, isn't it?
Wow.
It's flagrant too, isn't it?
Wow.
It is what it is.
Listen, all I got to say is, guys, when you invest in yourself, man, when you're truly independent, you know, you get to do these things.
You get to build these things.
You know, you get to build up that leverage.
You get to build that connectivity with your supporters.
And we got to extend a huge thank you to everybody that's helped us build that because there's a clip that someone cut and put out on Twitter.
And it was us, I think, a couple of years ago saying, all right, you know, we're top 20, but we're going for top 10.
We're going to top five.
And then we're going to go for number one.
And I believe that we got this.
If you ride with us, we're going to go there.
And, you know what?
We fucking did it.
Yeah, son.
We did it.
I love all y'all.
We did that shit.
We got to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not you.
You aren't really there.
Yeah, you just can't unlock it to him, but it's all good.
We appreciate you.
Perfect timing by you.
But what I will say is I love creating new goals.
Hell yeah.
It's the best thing when you achieve your goals and you got to create new goals.
So we're going to look forward to creating new goals, asshole army, everybody that support.
If you haven't checked it out yet, we're over there.
Patreon.com slash flagrant2.
If you want to come check us out, come fucks with us.
We appreciate you.
There's always a space for y'all over there.
And everybody who's already over there, if you guys got new ideas, new goals for us to unlock, let us know.
We're going to start brainstorming, thinking about it.
And I think come Friday, we'll have a cool new idea that we could all work towards for the next episode.
So yes, again, thank y'all so much, man.
It means a lot.
Anything, Akash, you want to say?
No, man.
Thank everybody in this room.
Thank everybody that signed up.
Anybody who's OG remembers I was basically homeless when we started it.
And I really think God did that so Andrew would take enough pity that he found room in his schedule because he was busy as fuck for the Patreon.
And then we just, we built some shit, man.
It's amazing.
It's fucking amazing.
It's beautiful, man.
Well, thanks again, guys.
All right.
So let's start the show.
I want to talk about, I want to talk about these Spotify Joe Rogan rumors.
This is adorable.
Yeah.
So there's, so apparently.
There's a news story out there that is there's employees at Spotify that are threatening to strike if Spotify doesn't have editorial control over Joe Rogan's content.
Okay.
Now, as far as I'm concerned, I can't find any proof that this is actually happening.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
So I don't know if this is even real.
What I assume this is, is a journalist of some sort, a blogger, if you will, probably had a friend that works at Spotify.
And the friend says, yo, I heard some people are not happy about Rogan's episodes.
They might strike or something.
Hearsay, nonsense.
It's no different than me and you going, yo, you know what?
We got to do some shows in Iceland, man.
That'd be dope to do some shows in Iceland.
And then all of a sudden people vlog, there's a new comedy tour, Flagrant Two's going to Iceland.
Okay.
Right?
No official report of any, have you read any official report or something?
No, but I've read it in enough publications that I assume there's something to it, but that could be my own just buying in because I saw it on a few different sites.
I think that's what it is.
I think what happens is when you have a name that says popular and polarizing as Rogan, people are going to talk about it.
Obviously, it's clicks.
Right.
Right.
This is going to be a clip.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
What we're doing right now, obviously.
So it's like, because you are news, you beget news.
So people start hearing this information and then Barstool's tweeting it out, but they haven't verified it.
They haven't spoken to anybody.
And then all these other places are tweeting it out.
They haven't verified.
They haven't really spoken to anybody.
So I think it's actually bullshit.
I don't think there's any strike because what grounds do they have to strike?
Have they listened to the music on their platform?
Think about it.
Nothing said in any Rogan episode could possibly be more offensive than, and I know everybody's assuming I'm going to go gangster rap, death metal, country music.
Dixie chicks are always killing dudes.
Bodies hit the floor.
Absolutely.
Bodies hit the floor.
Like there's all these different types of people.
They got them on a fire drill.
So there's all these type of different types of music where they're killing people, murdering people.
They're doing all these kind of crazy things within the music.
Far more offensive than like an intellectual discussion about 15-year-old trans kids being able to mutilate their body.
Right.
Right.
So I don't know.
For me, I think we're about to see a very interesting thing start to happen, especially with Spotify.
Yeah.
Is these platforms, as they start to get exclusive rights for content, have to decide if they're a content curator or if they're a content aggregator, right?
YouTube is no longer curating content, right?
They're just like, yo, put whatever you want up.
We're just a platform.
You know what I mean?
Like we're going to have some rules, but they're very limited rules.
You know, what we will do is we won't put ad dollars on your crazy video of you slaughtering a goat, but you could put your video of you slaughtering a goat up on YouTube and that's fine.
Right.
Once you pay for exclusivity on something, people are going to hold you responsible for the content that you're putting out.
Right?
Yeah.
So now that content is not beholden to the listeners of the content, it's beholden to all the listeners or the users of the platform.
Right.
And some of those users on that platform might be like, oh my God, these views are so offensive to me.
Take it down or I'm going to stop using your platform.
Cool.
And they're allowed to say that.
And then it's up for the platform to decide, is this person or creator, the content creator, worth potentially losing some people because they'll bring so many more.
Yeah.
Which is great for a guy like Rogan because he's the biggest whale there is.
He's going to bring everyone.
But what if you're a fledgling podcast that just gets signed to Spotify and there's pushback among Spotify listeners?
Then you're out.
And you're fucking out unless you change your content.
This is, it's very simple to me.
I actually wonder if there's validity to it because I also, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, aren't there certain episodes that aren't coming from YouTube onto Spotify?
I don't know the exact validity of that.
Maybe there are certain ones that weren't added.
Yeah, I had heard that.
I hadn't checked for myself, but I think that's the problem.
That was the rumor that like the Alex Jones one wasn't putting up.
And that's kind of where I think if they're fake rumors, that's where this snowballed from.
If they're real rumors, this is what I would say to any Spotify employee thinking about going on strike.
We always tell people, know your worth.
And normally that's a positive thing.
Hey, ask for more money.
Know your worth.
If you're a Spotify employee, know your fucking worth.
It is six figures, probably low six figures.
That's your worth.
Joe Rogan's worth, nine figures.
Who the fuck do you think is more easily replaceable?
Know your worth.
You will be jobless.
And that's great because I know plenty of people who would love to work at Spotify and wouldn't give a fuck about a podcast with intellectual discussions.
That's a good point.
Now you got something.
I just looked at the Alex Jones episodes and they're not up.
So Alex Jones episodes are not up.
Now, to be fair to Rogan, I think he said he's going to keep his 100 favorite episodes on YouTube.
So the Alex Jones episode and a bunch of these other episodes are still available on YouTube.
So it's not like he sells the rights of the catalog and then all those shows just disappear out of nowhere.
That being said, they probably did filter some of the episodes they want, which is fine.
And I imagine Rogan's like, all right, if more people are going to watch it on my platform, then that's fine too.
But it is interesting and we are going to see if enough pressure can be placed.
And again, I'm not worried about Rogan because Rogan can do whatever he wants.
I'm concerned with the content creator that's much smaller than Rogan.
I think those guys are going to, if you want to go with Spotify, Rogan got so big, you take me as I am.
And if not, I will walk.
I have nine and a half million YouTube subscribers anyway.
Yeah.
Probably making six figures a month, at least just off YouTube.
That's it.
Fuck the millions of listeners in the ad reads.
Like, I'm good.
A fledgling podcast.
This is the cost of doing business with Spotify.
Do you think that you're not hypocritical about it?
Like, for me, I just don't understand.
Like, there's so much content out there.
Like, there's so many podcasts that on Spotify that are like focused on like murder and like rape and like serial killers and all this other stuff.
So it's not like the content exists in a way that's like PG only.
Yep.
Right.
So clearly you're diving into the stuff that's rated R. Yep.
Right.
So what you're dealing with now is the policing of specific ideas.
It's the idea that promotes the phobia.
Whereas you could say, hey, this podcast talks about a serial killer.
It doesn't co-sign the killing.
Good point.
Now that we're talking about promoting the phobia or promoting negative behavior, if you will, there's a lot of music on the platform that you could argue promotes negative behavior.
Now, if you're saying, hey, that's just music, it doesn't make people go out and do stuff, right?
Well, yeah, maybe these are just podcasts.
They don't make people go out and do stuff.
Why is one more influential than the other?
I mean, the reality of the matter is, as influential as Joe Rogan is, I'm sure there's a lot more people that want to look like Kanye.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
You know what I also thought just crossed my mind as you were going through this?
You know whose album I just listened to on Spotify?
What was that?
Tori Lane's.
So that, so that brings us into the Tory discussion.
Now, we can, if I brought that up too early, we can keep talking to Rogan.
But the point is, to your point about like, we're talking about toxic people or whatever.
Rogan is a guy that has everybody from every platform on his podcast.
Right, right.
Not everybody does that.
You can't promote this guy and not promote Rogan and leave certain episodes off.
My general feeling is I don't find businesses, I don't have a problem with their hypocrisy as much because I know all they care about is money.
To me, you can be transparently phony in a sense as a business because that's like I want you to just be like, yeah, all we care about is money.
At least you're being honest.
If Spotify's like, no, we can't lose Rogan.
We can lose these 100 employees.
You're very easily replaceable.
It's a fucking pandemic.
Recession.
Plenty of people looking for jobs.
We'll replace you.
And then small podcasts, you're not worth these listeners.
You're out.
I don't mind that.
I know they're about profit.
So to me, be hypocritical, be phony, whatever.
Like you're about money.
It's not hypocritical at the end of the day if your only goal is money.
Right.
I just had a quick theory.
I think we might be hearing these things about the employees over at Spotify, maybe because they are unhappy to hear Rogan has some huge deal and maybe they were asking for a raise and Spotify is like, oh, we don't have the money.
Like I've heard that before.
Like, wait a minute, they turn around and this guy just got nine figures.
That's interesting.
Now, it shows how stupid they are because bringing somebody like that over to their platform is going to put them in position to get that raise.
Right.
And nobody subscribes to Spotify because you work in marketing.
You know what I mean?
Like, nobody's like, Samantha in marketing is there.
I got it.
Sign up for Spotify now.
Ideally, if she's doing her job, that's why everybody subscribes to Spotify.
Yeah, but I'm playing that specific.
You couldn't pick a worse department to criticize.
I was hoping you wouldn't poke a hole in that sanitation, maybe.
Okay.
See, my larger partner, I do wish I picked a different example.
I do wish I picked a different example.
I do understand.
I understand what you're saying.
Accounting.
Sure.
Yeah, yeah.
No, 100%.
It's just, for what I really think this is, I think this is political division.
Like, I think this is like politics or donors or influencers trying to find a way to silence Rogan.
And I think they're trying to build support.
Like, I think they're even stoking a fire that isn't there.
I think they're like, yeah, the employees are pissed off.
And then they're hoping that the employees there go, yeah, we are pissed off.
Yeah.
They're trying to start the fire that the employees end up continuing to grow and then maybe find a way to silence this guy that they're terrified of.
Because look what I always see is the second Rogan talks about anything, right?
Political, anything, it doesn't matter if he says I like Biden, he says I like Trump, doesn't matter.
The next day, immediately he's discredited.
Right.
How could you listen to this guy?
He's transphobic.
He's almost like he says he's right.
Exactly.
Same thing.
Right.
Yeah.
So I wonder if this is the powers that be going, hey, we got to get this Rogan guy out of here.
And now we might have the ability to do it because we could put pressure on the mother company.
Right.
And I think all that would do is that would just make Rogan go, you got to pay me no matter what.
And I'm going to keep putting my shit out on my platform.
Yeah.
You cannot touch the guy.
Yo, it seems weird.
It seems, I think I agree with you that it seems like a fluff piece kind of thing because the only site, like the site that is reporting all of them, like Barstool, like MMA, whatever, is from like digital music news.
It doesn't seem like that reputable.
And on top of that, I don't see why the story is only coming out now when the deal was announced in like, what, March, April or something?
Like, why is it like the employees knew who Rogan was when they signed the deal?
We knew what the amount allegedly was when the deal came out.
Why is it only now?
They want to silence him as we come up to the election.
When he's saying, oh, I'll moderate the debate.
I'll moderate a debate.
I'll do something political.
All of a sudden, all these like fluff pieces come out trying to slander him.
I really think that's it, right?
I think they're trying to remove him from political influence.
What can we do to remove him from political?
Can we scare him?
Can we scare him enough that he won't bring up these things on his podcast out of fear that the deal will go away?
Let's put out enough news stories where he feels like he can't say what he wants.
He can't share his opinion because it's too costly.
Streaming Labels Manipulate Playlists00:06:00
And he doesn't even do it.
Just get in his head and he'll tiptoe.
If he's like, oh, should I say it or should I not?
He'll pull back.
That's what I think.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that's what it might be.
I'm skeptical that there's any Spotify fans that are really like, we're going to protest.
I don't even know if it's happening on the inside at all.
Of course not.
I really don't think it is.
And there's no groundsuit because some of the music that we've all listened to is way more foul.
Way more foul.
No justification.
You could argue that some of the podcasts that he has on that they might take offense to, right?
You could argue that they're not meant to offend.
The intention is not meant to offend.
The attention is some sort of discourse, right?
It's an intellectual debate about a controversial topic.
That's it.
Intellectual debate about a controversial topic.
Saying, I'm going to let the bodies hit the floor, right?
Saying, I'm going to kill this guy who cheated on me on some Dixie Chick shit.
I'm going to poison the fucking man who kicked, like saying, I'm going to sell drugs and fuck these bitches and I'm going to kill motherfuckers that are in rival gangs, saying all that shit.
There's no intellectual discourse right there.
No.
This is, I'm the most badass motherfucker.
Yeah.
And then on top of that, if you're going after the character of the people themselves, there's artists on there that have way worse character than the road.
That's true.
Felonies.
Yeah, it's Akash's point, whatever.
Yeah.
And then to the Tori Lane's point, which is interesting, you saw it with 6ix9ine where they blacklisted him.
And then Torrey put out the album this weekend.
I guess he put out this weekend.
Saturday, I think.
Yeah.
Right?
So he puts out the album and I think he ends up selling 50,000 copies or something like that.
I don't know.
That's what academics posted.
That's where I get my news.
And I went and he wasn't getting any playlisting.
And he was, I think someone was complaining about that, or maybe Ak was like saying he wasn't getting a playlisting, meaning he wasn't showing up on these playlists that Spotify has.
Right.
And it's really interesting to me because this is a streaming service using their influence to suppress an artist, right?
We saw it also with Takashi.
Right.
All I thought after that was, wait, if they could suppress an artist without admitting they're doing it, but to suppress an artist, can they blow up an artist?
And if an artist was signed to a label that was, say, a percentage owner of the streaming platform, big equity owner, maybe just big investor, do you think they could blow up that artist?
Now, I'm not saying that this is the case.
Yeah, absolutely.
But for some reason, Spotify, whenever I'm listening to anything, will not stop recommending Machine Gun Kelly, Logic, and Joyner Lucas.
I've never listened to any of their music.
I'm sure they're nice guys.
I've never once said, I want to listen to a Machine Gun Kelly song except the Eminem Disc, which I thought was really good.
Outside of that, I've never once.
I press skip every single time, Machine Gun Kelly, Joyner Lucas, or Logic, come on.
I press skip.
I am telling the algorithm, do not give me this music.
There was a white rapper on Pandora that kept trying to send me, and I kept thumbs downing everything he was doing.
And they keep pushing that shit.
So that's a very valid point.
I'm curious.
Yeah.
If you could suppress an artist, can you promote one?
It could be as simple as Mark pointed out one time, the rap caviar playlist on Spotify is massive.
Just throw that out.
That's a private playlist, though.
Private playlist, but you could be Spotify.
That is Spotify?
It might be.
Okay, because they have like your daily drive or something like that, which is an algorithmed playlist.
I think the labels cut deals with the playlists.
Now we're talking.
Okay.
This is where shit gets interesting.
Labels, I'm assuming, are cutting deals.
Or if you want to get even more nefarious, stock owners.
Hey, we want to own $2 million worth of Spotify soccer, $20 million worth, $100 million, whatever it is.
We're an early investor in Spotify.
Okay.
I'm an early investor in Spotify.
I got artists under my label.
I would like you to give them a leg up against the competition.
You don't have to make people like their song, but you can keep on putting it in front of them.
And that's literally what the algorithm does.
How is that any different than the radio industry?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right?
Payola, record labels.
Also, like a digital version of Payola.
This is digital payola.
Wait, and this is where it gets interesting.
Record labels back in the day, they would pay the DJs and I think the stations in general.
Then it became illegal, but to play their records, right?
So realistically, the only way that an artist could get radio play is if they had a label, right?
And the only way that they could get into a record store, a Tower Records, is if they had a label because the label had the connections to Tower Records and what is it, VHM or whatever these places were, right?
Internet music comes out fair game for everybody again, right?
Streaming platforms pop up.
Now, all of a sudden, at first it was fair game for everyone, but now it looks like they're bumping certain musicians and giving them a little bit, I don't know, more popularity, visibility, et cetera, right?
Now we're right back into the record label model that we thought we just broke.
Yeah.
The new empires, I think, are going to look a lot like the old ones.
The exact same one.
Yeah.
It's only transitioned to the streaming platform.
Netflix looks a lot like TV.
You know what I mean?
Like in the sense of pushing.
I get so many Netflix originals pushed to me.
It's insane.
Yeah.
Everything recommended for you is a Netflix original somehow.
No like random shows that they bought from somebody else they think I would like.
It's always Netflix original.
It's the same.
It's any sanity.
And why would you not?
Yeah, that's true.
If you go invest in the content, you're going to want people to see it.
And if you're Spotify and you're somehow invested in these artists, or vice versa, if you're one of these like, I guess, labels or I don't even know, managers or something who's invested in Spotify or invested in Apple, invested in one of these streaming platforms, you're going to want to make sure that your artist is getting all the juice.
All I'm saying is, are we about to be put into a position where the only way that you can succeed in an artist is if you are signed to one of these?
That's the only way you can get the play?
Because right now, YouTube is the only platform where just a random artist could blow up.
Because YouTube is like, we're not going to be purchasing anything anymore.
And they really just do that because they don't want to be responsible for the content that's up there.
Heavyweight Fight Leg Attack00:12:45
100%.
But that might end up being the most fair playing ground there is.
Because Spotify is like, we don't give a fuck.
We buy who we like.
We promote their shit.
That's what it is.
YouTube is so scared of the controversy, it just kind of works out that it's more democratic.
All right, guys, we're going to take a break for a second because I need your girlfriends to appreciate your dick more.
And my girls started appreciating my dick more once I started trimming that shit up with Manscaped than it's plain and simple.
Okay.
I was letting it grow.
I was getting comfy in Corona.
I was letting the scraggly ones grow up on the testicles, grow up on the root.
Some even came up on a pickle.
And you know what?
Yeah, it was wild.
It was severe.
And I had my little Manscape kit.
You know, I had my little crop care kit, if you will.
Okay.
I had the crop preserver, got the ball deodorant, got all that stuff.
But most importantly, what I did is I got in there, I clipped away, I buzzed, and it is the easiest way to shave your balls.
It really is the easiest way to shave your balls.
They have different lengths that you can shave it down to.
I'm telling you, she looks at me like I'm a new man.
One, your dick gets bigger immediately.
Let's be honest.
You shave that pubic hair, your dick immediately looks bigger.
Okay.
That's an amazing thing.
Right there, Manscaped already.
You should sign up.
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But they have all these other things.
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They give your balls a nice little slice of heaven with aloe vera hazel extracts.
They got the crop cleanser, body wash, crop mop.
The foot duster.
It's a foot deodorant tonight to keep the stankiest feet smelling fresh.
The lawnmower 3.0 trimmer, that's the one where I shave my balls.
And I'm telling you, you get that.
It just looks amazing.
I started shaving other parts.
I went up into Grundle.
I went into that little Gooch area.
I took it down there.
It was so easy.
I was like, I might as well.
Back in the day, I'm there with like scissors.
I got a razor blade.
It's just too much work.
This shave down quickness.
It looks amazing.
Y'all all got to go do it.
So what you're going to do is you're going to go to manscape.com.
You're going to use the promo code Flagrant and you're going to get 20% off in free shipping.
It's literally one of my favorite things to say to people.
And I think on this very podcast, one week ago to this day, I believe it was one week ago to this day.
I said exactly how Style Bender was going to whoop this fucking juiced-up retard, Paulo Costa's ass, okay, who's talking crazy shit, talking crazy shit, and then got humbled.
And I said exactly how he was going to break it down.
I thought it was going to take a little bit longer.
I did say that.
I thought it was going to be maybe third or fourth round.
I didn't realize that Izzy was going to get him out of there in a second.
Embarrassed him.
Embarrassed.
Surgical.
God.
Surgical.
So if y'all don't know what you're talking about, you missed one of the most exciting fights we've seen in recent history.
Israel Adesonia, a friend of the show, amazing MMA fighter, UFC middleweight champion, destroyed, demolished Paolo Costa.
God, just dismantled.
Dismantled, surgical.
I mean, unbelievable.
Like, if you're like a nerd about fights, and again, I don't know that much about MMA.
I'm a huge boxing fan.
So I understand the striking side of MMA way better than I understand like the grappling and the wrestling.
Like, I just don't, I just don't know about it, right?
I don't know the strategy.
I don't know what they're trying to do.
And it looks cool when they're down there with the jiu-jitsu.
It can be like boring at times, but I just don't understand it.
But striking, I understand.
And seeing his approach, seeing Izzy's approach to taking out Costa was unbelievable.
Incredible.
Like, first of all, it was so brilliant that he attacks the leg, right?
It was actually the same strategy that go, what do you think?
Same strategy he used against Romero.
So a little, yes, but like a little bit different because Romero wouldn't engage with him.
But the idea.
But the idea was going after a leg.
But what I would say is it was the same strategy as his teammate used against Max Holloway by Izzy's teammate, right?
Max Holloway has this amazing jab.
He's an amazing striker.
And what Izzy's teammate did is he attacked that opening leg in their first fight.
Okay.
And that limited Max's ability to jab.
It limited Max's ability to strike.
And that's what Izzy did right here.
Paolo Costa comes straight forward.
He's a bruiser, right?
So what Izzy did is he starts attacking that fucking leg.
And now Paolo Costa is one, afraid to come forward, two, afraid to put any weight on it.
If you're not putting any weight on your front leg, how are you supposed to throw punches with power?
Yeah.
And he was setting them up for these strikes.
I mean, it was amazing.
Like he would pump fake a leg kick.
Paolo Costa would bring his leg up to block it.
And the second he brought it back down, then he fires the real leg kick.
I mean, just destroyed it.
And the guy was just broken.
You saw him out there, just fucking broke him, pieced him up, took him out there.
It was just beautiful.
It was absolutely beautiful.
You know what's cool?
Is Izzy been on this podcast a couple of times, for those of you who don't know?
And the first time he came on, he hadn't won any belts, but he talked about how power doesn't mean what people think it means.
He's like, I don't need power.
I got precision.
He said that exact thing.
He's like, I will hit you exactly where I want to hit you over and over again, and you will fall.
It might not have the same power behind it as these meatheads, but you will fall.
And to watch a guy manifest everything he said to this point of superstardom and dismantling this monster.
If you look at them on the screen, you're scared for Izzy.
And I don't know shit about MMA or fighting in general.
I was a little scared for Izzy, but he did exactly what he said he was going to do three years ago, and it got him exactly where he said he was going to go.
So fucking cool to see that happen.
Yeah, man.
I think, and again, I said it last week.
So, you know, I don't want to repeat too much of it, but I wasn't nervous for Izzy just because I know how big he is.
I think a lot of people don't realize how big he is.
And I swear when he does like the weigh-ins, he slouches or like spreads his legs wide so it looks he looks smaller.
But when he goes face to face with the guys, he kind of looks almost their height.
And then on fight day, he's like a whole head taller than them somehow.
I don't know how the fuck he manages to do that, but that's going to fuck with you a little bit, fuck with your confidence.
You think you're as tall as a dude you're about to fight, and then the next day, he's a whole head taller than you.
Yeah, I mean, I just thought looking at just the size of the whatever, the masks, I was like, oh, this guy's huge as fucking Costa.
And he's on juice.
Izzy said that the first time he came here.
He also said three years ago, I want to take Costa because before the USDA or whatever.
Usada.
Yeah, USADA gets him.
I want to get him because I know he's on steroids.
He called Costa three years ago.
Yeah.
I want to get him.
And you see this guy.
He looks like a fucking juice head.
And you're like, yo, I'm a little scared.
I, again, not knowing anything, was like, yo, I'm scared for Izzy and just embarrassed him.
Like you said, you watched Costa try to like be a showman the first round.
Second round, that's all gone.
Yeah.
Two minutes into the second round, he's knocked out, submitted, and then Izzy fucking ass fucks him twice.
So literally, Panama's ass fucking him twice and then gets off.
It was just incredible to watch.
Yeah, it's just amazing, man.
I think that was the first time I've seen somebody go down with a temple shot that didn't hit like flush.
Yeah.
Like it like grazed him and his legs were gone.
Yeah, and it's really interesting because Paolo Costa was known for having a really good chin.
Like he's been in brawls with people.
Like he was in a brawl with Yoel Romero.
Not a fight where it's a jab fest, that you're being super strategic and like maybe you're touching people, but not full power.
We're talking about all-out brawl.
And Izzy dropped this guy like it was nothing.
It was on a graze.
It was almost like he was ready to go down.
I think Izzy caught him with a leg kick before.
Yeah.
And that followed up with that.
Yeah.
But man, it was just fucking amazing to see.
And everybody is real quiet right now.
All the people out there that was like, they were criticizing Izzy for the Romero fight.
Remember, like, oh, it's a boring fight.
He's like, yeah, because Romero was terrified.
Romero knows.
And listen, I don't want to say another man is terrified of fighting.
You know, they would do something I'm not fucking doing at all.
But Romero knows that that was his fate if he tried to engage.
I actually credit Paolo Costa.
I credit him for like trying to do what he thought he was going to do against Izzy.
Nobody's going to do that against Izzy.
I don't care who you are.
Nobody's doing that against Izzy.
Not in the middleweight division.
And honestly, maybe not in the light heavyweight division.
Like it changes because there's a different, he doesn't have the same like length and size advantage, but the speed advantage he'd have over those light heavyweights and his just his striking ability.
I don't know any light heavyweight that can strike with him.
And he's not going to bang with you.
He's going to be in and out, pick you apart, strategically break you down, make you move into certain positions, and then capitalize on those positions.
Like it's a rap, bro.
So impressive to watch.
This is what I'm worried about.
Who's he going to fight next?
Like it was so dominant, right?
It was, I know everybody's saying right now because there's this new guy in the UFC that fought three times in a couple months.
His name is Hamzat, something like that.
He has like a cleft palette, right?
And I think Izzy called him Rat Lip, which is really funny.
And he's very impressive.
He had like a big knockout against this Journeyman fighter.
But it's a very different game when you're knocking out Journeyman fighters and you're going up against the best in the world and who could be the greatest to ever do it when he retires.
This was his 100th combat sport victory.
You know what I mean?
He's 20 and oh in the MMA, 75 and like 4, something like that in kickboxing, like 5-1 in boxing.
Like this guy could go down as the best.
He really could.
I think somebody were predicting that this guy, Jared Cannoneer.
Yeah, he's so what Izzy's at the point right now, and a lot of like fighters get to this point where like you actually have to promote your opponents, right?
Because like the reason this fight was exciting is because we all thought Costa had a chance.
Yeah.
And what I'm concerned about is he was so dominant over Costa is that we start going, well, who the fuck's going to be able to fight him?
Right?
Because then you lose an opponent.
There's one fight left.
Who?
John Bones Jones.
Well, John Bones left light heavyweight.
So he's middleweight, right?
Light heavyweight is one above that.
And he left that to go to heavyweight.
Right.
Could he drop down a light heavyweight?
Is he going up to light heavyweight?
Potentially, but he just left his belt.
He relinquished the belt.
Right.
So like you leave the belt to fight for the same weight without the belt.
It doesn't make sense.
To me, I think what John Bones is doing is, okay, let me go see if I can do some heavyweight fights and see if I can get another belt up there.
Right.
Which I think makes sense.
And now they're talking back and forth on Instagram or like Twitter or whatever it is.
And we'll see what happens.
But it would be a cool fight.
We'll see what happens.
But yeah, I mean, like, I just don't know who he ends up fighting.
Cannoneer's got to fight the guy that Izzy just beat.
Yep.
Right?
Robert Whitaker.
Yeah, Robert Whitaker.
So it's like.
That's what Izzy said after his fight, right?
That's the guy he was talking about?
Yeah.
He said, if you win this, you're next.
You get it next.
But it's like he has to build up Cannoneer.
Yeah.
So Cannoneer has to have this super dominant win.
And then we're excited about the Izzy fight.
But he's been so dominant that I can't even name another person.
Can you guys name another person?
No.
The closest fight he had is Gastalum.
Gasoloom was the close fight he had.
And that's another thing that I'm starting to realize.
And I got to talk to Izzy.
I've been messaging him a little bit afterwards, but I got to break him down.
Like just break down his thinking about this.
I don't know if Izzy is getting better.
Like I think he's been this elite a striker as long as he's been maybe in kickboxing.
And he's I don't think he's learning more kickboxing per se by being in MMA.
I think what it is is in his earlier fights and I got to ask him about this, but he was less confident of his ability in MMA.
He knew he was a beast with kickboxing, but now he's entering this field where he's like, well, I'm not an elite grappler and I'm not an elite wrestler and I might have to do those things in this fight.
So I got to be, I got to be all my P's and Q's.
And I think what's starting to happen is, especially with Gaslum, Gasolum was a wrestling background guy, you know?
And I think what happened is as he's just destroyed the elite fighters in the division, I think his confidence has built up in terms of what he can handle.
And I think this last performance was like, oh, it don't matter if you're a professional wrestler.
It don't matter if you're an NCAA wrestler.
It don't matter if you're a gold medalist.
He did say after I will destroy you.
He did say after the Gasoloon fight when he went to distance, he's like, there's a level of confidence I have now that's even higher.
Like I feel different.
Yeah.
So I wonder if that's what it is.
It's not necessarily skill per se that's improving, but it's just confidence in his skill that's improving.
But yeah, man, I'm excited.
I'm excited for what's happened, you know, next with him.
And who knows?
I really hope that this guy, Jared Cannoneer or whatever, has an amazing fight against Whitaker and then destroys him so it can be built up.
But if like, if Whitaker beats Cannoneer, I don't need to see Izzy fight Whitaker again.
No.
Yeah.
You literally knocked Whitaker out twice, cold in the same fight.
He gets saved by the bell, I think in the first round or the second round.
And then in the third round, you knock him out completely.
Do we need to see that fight again?
No.
No.
Absolutely.
I'm excited about that.
100%.
But yo, shouts to Izzy, man.
We got to get Izzy on the show.
You know, when all this, I'm sure he's, you know, in mid-celebration, but with all this is done, man.
You got to come back on here.
When you're in New York, you got to come back on Flagrant, man.
We love you, brother.
We're proud of you, man.
Keep up the great work.
Keep knocking these motherfuckers out.
Don't ever let them, don't ever let them try to disrespect without paying a price.
There's a price for disrespect.
Watching Izzy rub it in, too, man.
I miss most of the pre-fight trash talking.
I loved it.
Just the little bits I saw with the white belt that costumed and all that shit.
It's so corny.
And then Izzy just, man, just owned it.
Jimmy Butler Culture Clash00:15:48
Yeah.
And how funny was it that like he ends up mounting him at the end?
Yeah.
And then the butt fuck thing was absolutely hilarious.
Absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, congratulations, kiddo, man.
We're proud of you over here.
You keep it up.
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Let's get back to the show.
Guys, we officially have an NBA finals.
That's right.
Two teams have made it through the bubble, the Lakers and the Heat.
And as Jimmy Butler said so eloquently, the road to an NBA championship is through a LeBron James-led team.
And that is happening this year.
Lakers versus Heat.
I want to have a quick conversation about Jimmy Butler.
Yeah.
For those of you guys who don't follow basketball very much, Jimmy Butler is a player that is an enigma.
He's someone who is always like, he's really fascinating, man.
I think the closest thing that we have in the past to Jimmy Butler is Charles Barkley, like a guy who really just kind of, what is it, moved to the beat of his own drum?
I was going to say, if you remember Ricky Williams in football, Ricky Williams.
I think that's disrespecting Jimmy a little bit.
I think Jimmy's stronger mentally than Ricky.
Didn't Ricky have like an emotional breakdown?
Ricky was a little emotional, but just in the sense of just kind of like just his own guy.
You can't figure this guy out.
Ricky Williams also had a couple of great seasons and they abused this guy, like random way too much and probably ended his career early, but just in that sense of like, I don't exactly understand what I'm looking at.
But I'm going to do what I want to do.
But he does what he wants to do and I appreciate that.
I fuck with you on that for sure.
And Jimmy definitely has that.
Jimmy will do whatever.
If he wants to go fishing, he'll go fishing.
That's just what he's going to do.
He is a unique individual.
He's fine being himself.
He's fine giving it up for his teammates.
You know what I mean?
Like, this is a NBA veteran making tons of money, wears his rookie teammates jersey after one of the games.
Like who had a Tyler Harrow had a great game, but still like it is humbling to do that as a vet.
You know, like I don't know if LeBron is walking around with some rookie that had a good game.
I don't know if he's walking around Caruso's jersey if he has a good game.
It's humbling to do that to yourself, you know?
But he also will shit on his teammates.
He broke Andrew Wiggins.
I mean, not that Wiggins was really flying before, but like he mentally couldn't handle it emotionally.
And what was really interesting about Jimmy is that he always had this ability, amazing ability, but some people looked at him like a head case.
And then he would get under his teammate's skin.
And what's really interesting what's happened with the Heat is he found an environment that was conducive to his attitude about competition.
Yeah.
Right?
Pat Riley is an old school motherfucker with the Heat.
He is okay with that trash talk.
He's okay with alpha players being alphas.
He's okay with a culture that allows that to live and breathe.
And Jimmy, who went to, he was at Chicago, then he went to Minnesota, right?
Then he went to the 76ers.
Then he lands in Miami and has this amazing bubble experience in Miami.
It seems like he finally found the team that has a culture where he can thrive.
And I'm watching Jimmy and what he's been doing and how successfully he's been leading his team.
Right.
And I'm starting to think, is everything that we've liked about Russell Westbrook what we should have been liking about Jimmy Butler?
I think so.
Is Jimmy Butler?
That's a great way to put it.
Is Jimmy Butler the real Russell Westbrook?
That's fucking.
Don't get me wrong.
Like Russell Westbrook is an athletic marvel and he's such a great competitor.
But like his way of playing the game usually doesn't help his team win.
No.
And at times actually hurts it.
Jimmy is a dog.
He's out there doing whatever it takes.
If it's D and up, the toughest guy on the other team, if it's scoring, if it's bigging up his teammates, if it's screaming at everybody, he's a motivator, but he's a fucking winner, especially what he's done this time during a bubble.
And I'm wondering if everything that we've loved about Westbrook, we really actually love about Jimmy, he just wasn't in the environment where he could do it.
And to be honest, I owe him an apology because I love Jimmy, but then after he left Philly, I was like, maybe at some point the problem is you.
Yeah, you left Chicago.
It seems like bad terms.
Left Minnesota on horrible terms.
Don't seem to leave Philly on good terms.
Maybe it's you.
Then it turns out I think he just needed the right culture.
He doesn't, I don't think he understands this new star.
I think LeBron understands the new NBA star because LeBron is kind of the new man.
Break down what you mean.
Which is, I'm a little bit sensitive.
I need positive reinforcement.
I don't want you to yell at me.
I need to be coddled a bit.
Can we have our own personal handshake?
Can't we?
Yeah, let's go.
You and I have like a super cool handshake that's just me and you, and we'll do it between every single period.
Right.
Maybe at the beginning of every game, too.
That'd be really good.
It would make as a guy who spent mad time in therapy.
I get it.
But I grew up in an Indian household, and I also get the Jimmy Butler shit, which is like, I don't got time for your fucking game.
It was like what Jordan used to be.
Except Jimmy will seems like cosign you more if you do well.
Yeah.
Jordan wouldn't get pipping flowers like Jimmy's doing for Tyler Hero.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, Tyler Hero's not pipping, but like Horace Grant or whatever.
Horace Grant hated Jordan.
Yeah.
Tyler Hero is like, yo, he's doing it.
This is a guy who works his ass off.
He buys into the culture.
I'm going to big up this motherfucker every time I get a chance.
So at that point, Tyler Hero said, he's like, I really want to get to the finals for Jimmy.
It would be his first time in the finals.
Now, it's like, you're a guy who's lived and breathed basketball your whole life.
Yes, you're only 20, but like you've been dreaming about the finals your whole life.
Like, you want to get there for you.
But imagine like loving a teammate so much that you want to see them be there.
That's the first thing that comes to your mind.
That is dedication.
You don't get that unless you earn that respect.
So one thing that I love about this bubble is that we get to find out this really, truly unique character that is Jimmy Butler, when given the right situation, can really thrive and make his teammates better.
And it's really awesome.
One thing that absolutely terrifies me about it is that Kyrie Irving is watching this going, see, if I just have my right team, I just have my right culture.
This is what I could do.
And that's all that the only reason I've been bouncing around is because I'm just like, Jimmy, I just don't have the right guys around me.
But once I do, I got this.
That's fine.
Let him keep thinking that.
You know what I mean?
But could we also make the argument, right, that we said that about Jimmy before this?
Yeah, I guess you could.
But I just think also, on top of everything, Kyrie's body doesn't hold up.
And everybody, whenever I tweet the Kyrie stands, are like, when Kyrie is healthy, when is Kyrie healthy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fire.
40 games a year?
Jimmy Butler is a fucking, he is a healthy, he's a man.
Yeah.
You're not taking him out of games that easily.
You know what I mean?
This guy's built for it.
Kyrie ain't built for it.
He's three inches taller than me.
You know what I mean?
Get out of here, buddy.
What do you think happens?
What are your predictions for the finals?
I think people have been telling me Miami this whole time.
My homie Donish picked Miami in the first round.
He said they're getting out of the East.
I think I just hate them because they beat the Mavs in 06, but I haven't seen it this whole time.
And I think the LA is just going to overpower them.
But they're clearly scrappy as fuck.
I think they take it to six.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah.
They're going to have to be lights out.
Because the only thing that I'm looking at, I'm looking at both squads and I'm like, can LA keep up with the firepower from the three-point line that Miami has?
Dude, Duncan Robinson, Tyler Hero.
Hero is quick, dog.
Yeah.
It's just shot up so fast.
Yeah, yeah.
Duncan Robinson, too.
Yeah.
And it's just like, so what's going to happen there?
That's my curiosity.
Right?
Is it, I think the Lakers got it.
I don't think it should be difficult.
But if Miami goes bananas from the three-point line, I don't know how LA reacts to that.
Because who on LA can really knock down?
Contavious Caldwell Pulp.
Koosmi Greena.
Danny Green seems washed.
Maybe he can get into the LA finals.
I don't know.
So that's, I think, the only, I think that those guys got to come up big and they got to really, they got to beat them from behind the line.
I think this quarantine has actually benefited LeBron the way it benefited Chris Paul.
And you go and think about it because LeBron plays 45 minutes a game all the time, but he played less minutes this year, then got three months off, then hopped right into the playoffs.
And if you've been watching LeBron, I haven't watched every game, but I see him, the games I see, he just fucking takes over.
Yeah.
Because I think he got the energy to.
He had a full offseason and then hopped right into the playoffs.
And it's just when you watch, remember I saw LeBron live with the Heat playing the Nets one playoff game and they lost the game because LeBron just kind of let it come to him.
Yeah.
When LeBron decides to take over, there's really nothing you can do.
Even at 35, there's nothing you can do.
Yeah, he really closed out the nuggets, huh?
I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
The 3-1 team.
You guys watch a little bit?
I watch a little bit, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it was impressive.
It's just different.
He's just locked in right now in a way that I haven't seen before.
And I think this is the easiest by far matchup LeBron has ever had in the finals.
This is the first time you're looking at his team and you're like, oh, they're heavy favorites.
Yeah.
Maybe 2011 Mavericks, which he wasn't ready for.
But then since then, when was the last time you saw a LeBron team overpower the other team like this and think that's this heavy of a favorite?
Yeah, I can't see.
The Spurs the first time he was completely outclassed.
The Warriors three times in a row, they always have more talent.
Yeah.
And a better coach and better system and all that.
And it's funny, I agree with you, but for some reason, I feel like he has a chance.
Like the way they play, the team chemistry, the trust that they have in each other, the fact that they were even giving Iguedala the ball when he was playing like judo, the whole series, and they just put that trust in him and then he's fucking lit it up like that.
That's the team that.
Hey, they can pull one out even from such a strong team like a Legacy.
Yeah, I think they they're scrappy and i've clearly slept on this whole time.
I think they take it to six, but I think at the end, the talent is just so insurmountable with the brand nature.
Does it show you like um, the importance of a, of a culture?
Yes, you know, like he had this culture.
They talk about culture and then they have players that are on the roster not to play but simply to drive the cultural value.
Yeah right, like Udonis Haslam is not there to play basketball nope, he's there to instill culture and make sure the Rooks have someone they can go to.
But hold the vets accountable, because you're not going to talk to you, Donis.
Udonis, a dog too.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like you're not going to talk shit.
You might talk shit to Andrew Wiggins, sweet Canadian kid.
Yeah, you might talk uh shit to what?
Is it cat, whatever his fuck skinny ankles and exactly.
You might talk shit to Mess, but you're not gonna talk shit like that to you, Donnis, right?
So I wonder if you see other teams go.
Not only do we need to start building a culture, but we need to keep around the players that drive that culture.
Yeah, and even if we're signing him to like veterans minimums, it doesn't matter.
It's worth that.
Every player that he has is a fucking workhorse.
Bam out of bio by all accounts.
So that guy's nice, nice and a fucking like he works.
Yes, Tyler Hero, this guy wasn't highly regarded coming out of college.
How'd he get so nice?
He clearly worked.
Duncan Robinson undrafted.
Yo, there's a great message.
There's a dm.
Duncan Robinson is a senior at like Michigan State or something like that.
I forget which school he went to, like some school, I think it's Michigan.
He dms a writer for the Ringer and he goes, hey man um uh, you know, I listen to your podcast or I read your stuff, whatever it is and uh, i'm just really uh curious about you, know your line of work and i'm really curious about like, what you do and i'd love to just, you know, pick your brain if I could.
He's literally in his senior year preparing for not playing basketball professionally that's amazing.
And dming for job opportunities, which is pretty cool like taking the initiative right.
And now he's in the Nba finals amazing.
And hooping his fucking ass that's amazing.
You know a theory I just had about Jimmy Butler, maybe the thing he hates the most is wasted talent is someone who doesn't work to fulfill their potential.
Because i'm thinking about the players he did not like.
Andrew Wiggins yeah, talented fucking kid.
Number one pick overall, yeah, didn't seem to want it.
He didn't have the mentality to go get it.
Carl, Anthony Towns, Anthony Towns.
Ben Simmons Simmons, we talk about all the time, how you not have a jumper.
I think Jimmy saw him, said he don't, he don't want to fulfill his potential.
I don't like that motherfucker.
Where does he come?
Miami, he loves Tyler Hero because Tyler Hero is not a super talented guy.
I think he sees a guy who works his ass off because that's what Jimmy was.
Jimmy was not highly regarded.
I remember seeing him as a 3D guy.
Hey, D up, hit some threes, you're good.
Worked his way into being an all-star.
Duncan Robinson, undrafted, worked his way into being the best three-point shooter in the league.
Worked his way into being a superstar potentially.
I think Jimmy loves that because he sees himself in that.
Interesting.
And I think superstars, you don't fulfill their potential.
He sees what he wished he had and he sees what he would have done with that talent and he fucking hates that person.
That is best case scenario for Jimmy.
Yeah.
I wonder if worst case scenario is he's threatened by superstars.
Interesting.
And they make him act out.
Maybe.
I heard he loves Joelle Embiid, though.
And Embiid is a guy who will take attention away from everybody.
He doesn't try at all.
Joelle Embiid gives the least effort.
That's true.
Maybe not.
Maybe my whole theory is fucked.
Yo, I have a question.
Do you think the passing of Kobe Bryant or playing the last dance and like watching the last dance has had an impact on LeBron psychologically and how he approaches the finals?
Honestly, I don't think so.
I think that LeBron is super like locked in and he understands the goal and what he wants and like for his legacy.
I think that like he's leaning into the marketing of, you know, Kobe's passing us the torch and we couldn't lose in the mamba jerseys and like all those opportunities.
But I think on like a personal level, no.
I think Kobe adds one or 2%.
If he's 98% locked in, this gets him at 99, 99.5 because it's like, that was his friend who passed and now I'm wearing the fucking jersey of this guy.
Like I'm not, I can't lose.
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what would have happened if the last dance came out during the bubble.
Oh, yeah.
Because the last dance came out, right?
And then while everything was shut down, so we were all super inspired by the last dance, right?
Like in the same way that like, you know, Izzy fights last night, right?
Or Izzy fights on Saturday, right?
And I'm just so inspired.
I like go downstairs to my gym.
I start hitting the fucking punching bag and shit.
Like I'm kicking it.
My hip is all fucked up today.
Old man problems.
But like I think like immediately everybody's, I'm going to be so locked in in these playoffs just like MJ was.
And because we live in the, you know, in this content cycle where everything is constantly being refreshed and we forget about it, the last dance feels like it was a year ago to me.
Like we reviewed it.
It feels like it was 365 days ago.
Yeah.
No, that's fair.
I don't think that they're holding on to it the same way, but imagine it came out the same time as the finals.
Nuts.
Imagine it came out in the week before the finals, the downtime.
People would be salivating.
Nuts.
I mean, all these players would be going fucking berserk.
Let's go.
Every game would have been a fucking war.
Yeah.
To that point, though, what did MJ always look for when he was playing?
Motivation, extra motivation.
Even when you're that elite and that locked in, you need to find the motivation.
I think LeBron's more than the last dance would be Kobe.
Last Dance Feels Gone00:00:53
That was like my brother, man.
He's gone and I'm wearing his jersey.
It all feels like he's supposed to be here now.
This is the first time I'm not rooting against the Lakers.
I love hating the Lakers.
I can't root against them this year.
If they get it, great, man.
Good for them.
I think he feels that too of like, yo, this is destiny.
This is my fourth ring.
Let's go.
I'm locked in.
All right, guys.
Thank y'all so much for listening.
One more time.
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