All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 22, 2019 - Jimmy Dore Show
01:08:46
20190822_TJDS_20190822_Podcast
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Get ready for an outstanding entertainment program.
The Jimmy Dore Show.
I'm calling up Bernie Sanders because the latest poll of college-age young people shows him leading the 2020 Democratic presidential field.
Hello.
I wrote the damn bill.
Read it and stop writing my ass.
I know you wrote the damn bill, Bernie.
That's why we like you.
Who is this we you speak of?
Our over 600,000 YouTube subscribers.
I call bullshit with a capital buttofuco.
I was just on Joe Rogan's podcast and got over 9 million views in your face, traditional media.
Yeah, Bernie, we're not traditional media.
Senator, I did a podcast with Joe Rogan.
I knew Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan was a guy I met for the first time, and I did his podcast.
Senator, you on OJ Rogan.
I think you're confusing me with somebody else.
You happy?
You just got your little soundbite.
Now you can send it to Inside Edition so Deborah Norville and a little happy sad correspondent who does all the inspiring I Got Cancer and Not a Miracle Happens stories can take whoop it into the living room of every catheter customer in America.
Well, fuck that noise with a pepperjack wheel.
Bernie's not playing that game no more.
Meaning you're bypassing traditional media because they never cover the full story.
Young man, woman, gender-fooled individual, or whomever you may be, we are going to build a nationwide movement of young people to create a government and an economy that works for all of us.
Even an annoying pest like yourself with boundary issues.
Hey, I'm all for that.
And if that doesn't work, we're going to blow up the goddamn joint.
What?
Huh?
I said good morning.
How are you?
The latest New Hampshire poll shows you leading Joe Biden by six points.
Look, I like Joe Biden.
Joe was a friend of mine, but he's got a lot of disclaimers.
Please ask your doctor if Joe is a friend of mine, it's right for you.
Joe is a friend of mine, may cause convulsions.
Joe is a friend of mine may tarnish your legacy.
Joe is a friend of mine may cause Brian Williams disease.
Joe is a friend of mine should not be used by anyone hoping to live past 40.
Do not take Joe as a friend of mine if you are allergic to people saying he did what?
Bernie, that same poll shows you leading Elizabeth Warren by nine points.
Look, I like Liz Warren.
Liz Warren is a friend of mine.
But Liz Warren as a friend of mine will not help against attacks of Hillary Clinton syndrome.
Liz Warren, as a friend of mine, might heighten the effects of David Brock disease.
Warning, do not take Liz Warren as a friend of mine while applying for a job at Yale.
Hey, look, before you go, can you give us some encouraging words, Bernie?
Yes, I can.
I just threw a glass of wine in someone's face and overturned my table.
It's the Jimmy Dore Show.
The show for...
...up-minded, lowly-lovered lefties.
The kind of people that are...
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper say.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to this week's Jimmy Door Show.
We'll see you in San Francisco on September 1st and then September 15th and 16th in Seattle.
Go to JimmyDoorComedy.com for a link for all the tickets to all our shows.
Hey, let's get to the jokes before we get to the joke, shall we?
Did you hear it's official?
I don't know if you've been on Twitter or Facebook, but I think the DNC's new slogan is going to be blame Russia and Susan surrendered no matter who in 2020.
Did you hear Trump wants to buy Greenland?
Did you hear about the whole thing?
And I agree with Trump that buying Greenland is of strategic interest because it would give Americans more room to grow their racism.
Am I right?
I mean, Greenland, why not expand our empire of homelessness, shitty jobs, and no healthcare.
Am I right?
Hey, the Amazon is burning.
Did you hear about that?
The Amazon is burning.
So why not take real action today by buying a pint of Ben and Jerry's new Rainforest Fudge Kerfuffle Crunch?
What's coming up on today's show?
Well, we're going to take a look at the New York Times editor and his statement that they were a little tiny bit flat-footed when it came to Russia Gate and the Mueller Report.
We bring on Aaron Matei.
That's right, BuzzSaw Mate is on the show today to discuss the big town hall that the New York Times conducted in their own newsroom.
And how did it turn out?
Well, the answers just may surprise you.
Plus, if we have time, Chris Matthews does his best, Sean Hannity, in pushing right-wing talking points about Medicare for all.
What's the point of having MSNBC if they sound just like Fox News anyway?
Plus, we got phone calls today from David Axelrod, Bernie Sanders, Peter King, and Barack Obama, plus a lot lot more.
That's today on the Jimmy Dore show.
Wow, it's senior political commentator for CNN, David Axelrod.
Hello.
You forgot political fire brands.
I literally brand my political content with my passion.
I'm available for speaking of that.
Book me for your event today.
I'll firebrand your next Kinsignera OT Party.
I'm represented by Omnipot.
Please call them.
Why did you call today, David Axelrod?
Oh, and I'm also a podcasting pioneer.
Have you heard my breakthrough internet radio show called The Axe Files?
*laughter*
I don't think I have.
It's called the Axe Files.
Guess who sponsors it?
We have a sponsor.
I don't know.
Who sponsors it?
Max body spray.
Wow, that's a big sponsor.
That must be lucrative.
No, it's my axe body spray, not the other spray.
I've literally battled my firebrand essence.
Spray some David Axel ride on your body, and you'll really feel the burn of firebrand passion.
Only the axe can provide.
Sounds great.
Yeah, it really makes the chicks horny.
Because when there's no fighting it, what exactly does Axe body spray smell like?
A small room crammed with manila folder file cabinets.
Very damp and musty.
Need I say more?
So are you still touring around with Karl Rove?
No, I'm taking some time off while the great Barbregala pitches.
What if Bagala can't do it?
Well, then we use my wax replica of myself.
Worked fine the first few months.
Only thing that finally gave it away was the lack of spittle dribbling down my chin.
Thank God we now have the technology to correct that flaw.
I'm taking some time off to teach my masterclass in political consulting.
What's the purpose of your class?
Well, Jimmy, I want to foster, provide, and promote civil, non-partisan, and thought-provoking conversation about election strategy.
What's it called?
Suck my piss flaps, you divisive, progressive, fucktart, penis-faced traitor.
But I may shorten it.
What's your take on the Democratic lineup so far?
Liz Warren is running a strategically brilliant campaign.
And I should know I'm strategically brilliant.
Oh, and I really regret talking to Mark Halbran about my new book.
Mistakes were made.
What's brilliant about her campaign?
She has a clear, unambiguous message that is thoroughly integrated with her biography.
You mean being a Republican until she was 47 years old and then flip-flopping on Medicare for All?
Exactly.
It keeps people wondering, and they like the excitement of uncertainty.
Speaking of excitement, don't forget to explore my complete line of body fragrance products.
Find the one that fits your sensuality and style.
Available in cloudy gel or cloudy, lumpy gel.
Okay, bye now.
No.
This is after the second debate.
This is Chris Matthews.
Chris Matthews decides to do his best, Sean Hannity.
Honest.
Watch this.
So this is Chris Matthews is one of those guys who's, you know, we can't get Medicare for all.
We can't do it.
Or like when Axelrod goes on CNN and he's like, you know, we can't, we're just not going to get that Medicare for all Bill.
Don't know.
It's just not going to happen.
He doesn't say why.
They never say why it's not going to happen.
It's not going to happen because, let's face it, everybody in this government is bought by big pharma and health insurance companies, and that's why it's not going to happen.
That's why it's not going to happen, not because the people don't want it.
It's not going to happen because there isn't a will.
There's no political will because the people who pull the strings are the money people and everybody's corrupted.
They never explain why.
Well, come on, be a grown-up.
Grown-ups know how corrupt the government is.
That's what people mean when they say you can't have that stuff.
The only reason we can't have health care like the rest of the goddamn Western world is because of corruption in our government.
The reason why we don't have a functioning banking system is because Barack Obama was paid off by the fucking banks.
That's why.
And that's not me.
That's Dylan Radigan saying that.
An award-winning financial reporter, which is why he has to do his news reports from a park.
Okay, here we go.
Anybody was talking tonight about Medicare for All, or let's call it government-run healthcare.
To quote, let's call it, let's call it government-run healthcare because that's scarier.
And I like to quote my Fox News compatriots.
Let's go ahead.
Let's just, I mean, watch this.
Well, I mean, it's as if he ran, he's doing this interview.
It's as if Beto is doing this interview on Fox News.
Watch this.
Everybody was talking tonight about Medicare for All, or let's call it government-run healthcare.
Right now, if you worked, everybody here works.
Everybody pays Medicare in this room.
Everybody pays a percentage of their pay until they're 65, and then they get something if they survive.
Okay?
Medicare for All means your whole life you get, according to Bernie, glasses, dentistry, everything free paid for by the government.
You know, you know, the shit that the rest of the westernized world takes for granted.
It's some kind of crazy radical idea to this guy.
Yeah.
And he's making it out like it sounds terrible.
Oh, you get all this.
You can go to the doctor if you're sick.
No matter how old you are, you can just go and then you get better.
You can go to the dentist like every year or something.
It's like this is a first world country or something.
Crazy, right, Beto?
Like, I don't know.
What am I supposed to say?
I have no opinions.
This is kind of remarkable.
This is, that's why I'm showing this.
I mean, it's truly remarkable.
Like, you got to get everything.
What's wrong with you physically?
They're going to take care of it.
What?
What?
You're supposed to rock walk around with some open wounds, aren't you?
Are you supposed to have bad vision and rotten teeth?
Or at least you wait a couple months.
Yeah.
I mean, what's going on?
We're just going to...
Nobody was talking tonight about Medicare for All.
Or let's call it government-run healthcare.
Right now, if you work, everybody here works.
Everybody pays Medicare in this room.
Everybody pays a percentage of their pay until they're 65, and then they get something if they survive.
Okay?
Medicare for All means your whole life you get, according to Bernie, glasses, dentistry, everything free.
Listen to him.
How outrageous.
Listen to him.
He sounds like Michael Savage.
And he said, I'm not going to talk about whether your taxes go up because that's a Republican talking point.
Don't your taxes have to.
As opposed to everything he's said up till this moment.
Oh, that's the Republican talking point.
How about everything else you just said, Chris?
Here we go.
Go up if you get benefits for life that right now you only get after you retire.
I think he's acknowledged as much, but he has.
He said it was a Republican talking point to ask the question.
He went after Jake Tapper to say, how much would this cost ignore taxes?
He attacked Jake Tapper for asking the question.
That is a Republican talking point.
First of all, it's funny he's the way he's doing this, right?
He says, I'm not going to parrot a Republican talking point.
Here's a question on that said Republican talking point.
They're saying this Republican.
Here's the Republican.
Here it is.
The way to explain Medicare for all, Chris, and he knows this, is that we have a system that covers everybody.
No one's going to go bankrupt and it's going to cost you less money.
And you never have to worry about going bankrupt and you never have to worry about getting covered.
You never have to worry about getting health care.
And it saves us trillions of dollars.
That's what he should be saying.
Yeah.
Instead, the only thing he's pushing Beto or work on is defending his network.
Yeah.
He was mean to Jake Tapper.
Yeah.
Say sorry to Jake Tapper.
Jake's feelings are hurt.
The Americans don't care about health care.
They care about Jake Tapper's feelings.
Now, somebody's better.
There's better be an apology.
I am worried about Jake Tapper.
Things are rough for Fredo.
We're worried about Jake.
Okay, here we go.
Warren, we'll get to Warren later.
Yeah, we'll get to Warren later.
I got some ridiculous questions for her, too.
Here we go.
I mean, here we are.
We have a journalist who's supposed to be on a progressive network pushing right-wing talking points to a conservative Democrat.
Yep.
This is progress.
This is amazing.
Yeah.
What I think you also heard on the stage was a false choice.
You had.
Oh, my God.
Okay.
So we'll just, my guess is he wants to scare everybody so bad that he's not the only one with white hair in the room.
you know what I mean uh uh uh I also read a headline.
I don't know if you caught it, but Beto O'Rourke is relaunching his campaign.
Yeah.
I mean, they can just replay that headline every couple months because he stops and then he starts again and he's like, yeah, he's relaunching his campaign now, Beto Aror.
Because he'll stop it because he's like going nowhere and then he'll start it again.
And he'll forget that he has the same problem every single time.
You know what that problem is?
He's Beto O'Rourke.
He comes off his own.
I'm sorry, Robert Francis O'Rourke.
Yes.
think he comes off phony?
I got to start to say, I just want to tell Chris Chris Matthews, it does make more sense to have GoFundMe page for cancer treatments and to have a real discussion about Medicare for All, which is how we handle it now, Chris.
And here's what he said to Elizabeth Warren.
You ready for this?
Watch, here we go.
Same shit.
Here we go.
Medicare for All is cheaper than our current system.
That's the Republic.
I knew the argument that you put it all together, you reduce the cost for healthcare premiums, and you get more benefits, and therefore you better come out ahead.
Yeah, I mean, I understand the argument involves math.
But can I just keep saying something that's kind of not really accurate?
You pay more in taxes.
Why don't you want to answer that question?
Because Jake said tonight.
Is this his Fox News audition reel?
No shit.
But you're going to pay more taxes.
Just say that.
I want everybody to just keep saying more taxes.
Taxes.
I want to scare the shit out of everybody because I want to frame Medicare for all in an incorrect way, in the scariest way possible, that only gives half the information to someone so we can confuse them on the issue and keep the status quo, which is where people die and 30 million Americans don't have health care.
I just want you to say yes to my deliberately misleading question so I get a soundbite and I get my paycheck and I go home.
Jake Tapper sad.
Why won't you answer?
Here we go.
That's a Republican talking point.
It's not a Republican talking point.
Because here's your question.
It's a question about where people are going to come out economically.
Look, why won't you answer my question that creates a false equivalency?
Why won't you answer that question?
My question is, how much will taxes go up?
I spent most of my life studying families that went broke and a huge chunk of them went broke because of high medical bills and many of them had health insurance.
So the question is not, do you have health insurance or not have health insurance?
The question is, how much are you going to have to dig in your pocket to pay?
I know that's the answer that you like to give.
What is it?
That's the answer you like to get.
That's the answer, Chris, because that's the, I know you like to give half an answer, which is what your donors want.
I mean, donors, advertisers, Pfizer.
I know you like to give half the question and half the information, which is your taxes are going to go up.
Not also that it's actually going to cost you less money because now you don't have to pay premiums or co-pays.
And your boss doesn't have to, instead of paying you in health insurance, he can actually pay you in money.
But Fox is the hate propaganda machine.
Right?
But Elizabeth Warren won't go on Fox.
Elizabeth Warren says Fox is there to divide you.
Fox is there to make money off hate.
This is a guy there to make money off people dying and suffering and physical sickness because he's pushing this line and he knows better.
And if he doesn't know better, then they should fucking get him off that show.
There was a sad headline this past week that it stated how two couple committed suicide because they looked at their medical bills and the lack of access to medication that they needed and they killed themselves.
Yeah.
And Chris is saying, that's what's crazy.
We just want to give him free everything.
That's what he would say.
So it's never an investment in the Americans as a people.
It's never an investment in ourselves.
It's always an investment in destruction.
He's never going to hold any politician accountable.
He never do that for the wars.
Did they ever push back on George Bush like this on the war?
No, he did.
Or Barack Obama on his bombing, 26,000 bombs right now.
Did he ever do that on anybody?
No.
But if you want to give somebody health care, this is what he's going to do.
This is MSNBC.
CNN.
No, this is Chris Matthews.
Oh, yeah, Chris Matthews.
Sorry, I saw the CNN thing in the background.
Got thrown off for a second.
Yeah.
Chris Matthews.
CNN.
MSNBC.
This is who MSNBC is.
Can you imagine getting an opportunity to go on their network and not bring this up?
Can you imagine getting an opportunity to go on MSNBC and not bring up that what's the difference between them and Fox News when they talk about Medicare for all?
Can you imagine what it's like?
Can you imagine having the opportunity to go on MSNBC and not bring up that they fire anybody who tells the truth about war?
Or have they fired Ed Schultz just for covering Bernie Sanders?
Imagine what a tool you are.
You get a chance to go on MSNBC and you don't take that opportunity to say that.
Which is why I'll never be on MSNBC.
You don't want an MSNBC contract.
Oh, come on.
That's how you know you're a real deal.
Right?
Yes.
Well, you have an MSNBC contract.
That's when you have, I mean, I want to have credibility like Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow.
That's why I would want an MS. Chris Hayes.
Why else?
Come on.
I want an MSNBC contract so I can actually tell the truth.
You want an MSNBC contract, too.
If I ever got an opportunity, I would pull a Harvey P car and I'd wear an MSNBC as owned by Comcast t-shirt.
Okay.
And I would just have that there.
And hopefully they'd still let me on.
They might not, but I'd wear like a coat over it and then like the reveal.
Yeah.
The reveal.
You have to reveal.
Look at this.
When they'd be like, yeah.
You'd have to put a shirt over it because they'd mic you and they'd see it when they're micing you.
Right.
Oh, I, yeah.
You'd have to do like this, like this.
And then you, then you'd have to just like, as you're sitting there waiting, and you go, and now we go to funny man Ron Placone.
Yeah, and then it's just like, boom, first of all, here's one of the many problems.
Now we're going to unpack this.
Let's see if there's more to this.
I don't even know if there is.
The question is your total cost.
Okay, but there's no answer.
Thank you.
There's no answer that's going to satisfy me because I've already got the answer.
These fucking liberals with their Medicare, they won't answer the questions.
So there's your piece of shit newsman pushing half a truth, misframing an issue on purpose in order to keep the status quo, which is fucking literally killing people.
And that's why Chris Matthews is a piece of shit, and that's why MSNBC is an evil organization.
And all those people who work for them are cogs and an evil wheel of misinformation to keep you sick, pouring us an endless war.
That's what they are.
And I don't ever want to be in that fucking club.
I don't want to be in a club that lets that guy in.
Do you, Ron?
Yeah, well, it's another one.
This also hits that big theme when you're talking about cable news, too, because like with Fox News, it's like, well, you know, that's kind of like Republican talking points.
That's what their brand is.
Right.
This guy repeats Republican talking points, and then he stops himself at one of them, and he's like, well, that's a Republican talking point, so I'm not going to say that.
As if all these other things were not.
It just goes to show you that there is no difference.
Oh, they all do the same.
Because they serve the same people.
They're all funded by the same people.
They all serve the same people.
I mean, Chomsky taught us this a long time ago.
Yep.
And all these people in journalism, they all walk around, they act like they haven't read that fucking book or that they're out.
They're not even aware of it.
They act like they're not even aware of it.
They act like I'm doing good work all the time.
Like they don't go, I know I think I am, but I know better that I'm fucking part of a cog in an evil wheel.
I know I self-censor.
I know I've been pre-selected.
I know because I'm a conformist, I have this job, which is why I get to sit in on editorial meetings because I'm a conformist.
Because if I was a guy who rocked the boat, I wouldn't be in this goddamn editorial meeting.
I wouldn't work for this fucking establishment news organization.
If I was a boat rocker, you know why?
Because the big establishment media is the boat.
That's why they're not going to hire someone who rocks the boat.
They're the fucking boat.
And if you get hired by MSNBC or CNN or the Washington Post, you're not a boat rocker.
That's my new term.
But you do get invited on a lot of yachts.
Ah, ironically.
There you go.
You know why?
Because you're not going to rock that yacht.
So I don't know if you heard the deal.
What happened is the New York police is finally firing the cop who choked out and killed Eric Garner over selling Lucy cigarettes.
Well, Representative Peter King, he made a tweet saying he disagreed with it.
So let's get Representative King on the phone and discuss the tweet about the firing of the police officer who murdered Eric Garner.
Hello.
Representative King, it's Jimmy Doerr.
Oh, hey yeah, Jim.
What's going on with you?
Not much, Congressman, but I'd like to ask you about this tweet that you recently made.
Yeah.
People didn't take too kindly to that one.
Yeah, I imagine not.
Yeah, you know, I try to make a joke about Spider-Man leaving the Marvel universe or whatever, but, you know, it was a day late.
You kind of got to do those jokes the same day.
Also, it turned out that Chrissy Tygen basically had made the same joke, but better, of course.
So I got dragged.
I mean, what's the point of even trying to be funny on Twitter with Chrissy Tyben out there just killing it?
Chrissy Teigen?
It's Teigen.
How is it pronounced that?
I'm referring to the tweet where you said you were against the firing of Officer Pantaleo.
Oh, oh, that tweet?
What the fuck you talking about?
What the hell's wrong with that tweet?
Well, I think most people think it's good policy to fire cops who murder people.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
He didn't murder that guy.
He put him in a chokehold, and he kept him in one until he stopped breathing, and then the guy died.
Yeah, that sounds like murder.
Well, no, it's complicated.
No, it's not.
Listen, jerky.
Officer Joe Pontagliano was following police procedure.
The fact that this guy chose to die is beyond our control.
And this guy was a criminal, by the way.
He was breaking the law, so let's not, you know, sing his praises, as it were.
He was selling Lucy's Congressman loose cigarettes.
That's why he had the life choked out of him.
Well.
Well, what?
Well, we don't know what Elsie was up to.
That's just a crime that the cops saw.
Who knows what other nefarious activities he was also engaged in behind the scenes over there?
I got a question, Congressman.
Is inventing criminal activity out of whole cloth in order to retroactively justify the murder of a harmless human being also part of police procedure?
No, technically, no.
But I'm not a cop, so I get to do that.
Yeah, you're just a member of the United States House of Representatives.
No big deal.
Yeah, we got a lot more leeway in that regard.
Ah, good grief.
Look, Jims, I always stand with the boys in blue.
And they know that.
They know they can count on Peter King.
I support the NYPD, but even more so, the police union, which is squarely against his firing, by the way, as they should be.
Why is that?
Look, if we start a precedent where cops get fired for simply doing their job, where does that end?
Do you realize the chaos that would cause in this city?
I think if cops were fired for murder, that would start a good precedent.
Yeah, then what?
You got Lucy's flooding the streets.
Schoolyards, box, just goddamn Lucy's everywhere.
Everywhere you look.
Lucy's just zooming through the Harlem Tunnel with traffic and whatnot.
Congressman, what are you talking about?
IT Thomas, it'll pass.
New York will turn into Lucy Town unless we get cops like Officer Pantalonians out there on the streets ready to choke these fuckers out.
If, you know, it comes to that.
It sounds like you don't even believe in the concept of law enforcement at all, to be honest.
You just sound like you're fetishizing cruel, brutal street justice.
It's a jungle out there, Jim Jam.
You got to crack some skulls.
It also sounds like you're using dog whistle racism to appeal to your constituents.
Some of these guys in my district are pretty dense.
The dog whistle don't work.
I got to say explicitly racist shit to him To win them over.
Believe me, I got to be clear as a bell.
That's very depressing.
But I don't, you know, I don't say that shit to you, so it's okay.
I know where I can say it where I can't.
I'm progressive like that.
Well, this has been very enlightening.
I'm glad to hear your impassioned defense of your extra-legal police state.
Take care, Congressman.
You take care, too, you fucking pansy.
Hey, you know, we no longer have an Amazon link because we're not doing that.
We're not playing that game.
But here's another great way you can help support the show is you become a premium member.
We give you a couple of hours of premium bonus content every week, and it's a great way to help support the show.
You can do it by going to jimmydoorcomedy.com, clicking on join premium.
It's the most affordable premium program in the business, and it's a great way to help put your thumb back in the eye of the bastards.
Thanks for everybody who was already a premium member.
And if you haven't, you're missing out.
We give you lots of bonus content.
Thanks for your support.
All right, so let's get to the story.
Look at this article.
It says the New York Times executive editor says we were, quote, a little tiny bit flat-footed with the Mueller coverage.
Now, that's quite a qualifier.
We are, and that's, of course, I brought on Aaron to talk about this.
He's the only guy who won an award debunking Russia Gate.
So I'm going to set it up why he came to say this.
So the New York Times have been messing up heavy er than normal lately.
Like they've had to get their Washington editor to step down because he went mental on Twitter.
Did you see that?
Yeah.
Did you see that?
Their editor, not some low-level reporter.
The guy they put in charge in D.C. is loco, legit crazy.
That's the guy they put in charge.
Brett, again, not some low-level idiot who wrote a story.
No, the guy in charge in D.C. had to give him a straitjacket and get him out of there.
After the El Paso shooting, Trump gave a speech.
And now Trump is very famous for being a race bait.
Lots of people call him a racist.
I certainly do.
I think he has a history of racism.
That's what I'm talking about, his history of discriminating against people.
And so the New York Times published this headline after he gave a speech about the El Paso shooting.
It said, Trump urges unity versus racism.
And oh my God, people went nuts, right?
So Nate Silver even said that he was upset with it.
Said, that's not the headline I would use.
Then Alexandrio Casio-Cortez says, let this front page serve as a reminder of how white supremacy is aided by and often relies upon the cowardice of mainstream institutions.
Even Corey Booker jumped in.
He said lives literally depend on you doing better.
New York Times, please do.
Okay, so now everybody who voted for Hillary will tell you that they're being right-wingers saying that because you're not allowed to criticize the corporate news or you're considered a Trumper, right?
But people didn't care if they got called a Trumper and they criticized the New York Times for doing bad work.
And guess what happened?
The New York Times switched the headline.
And the headline now says, assailing hate but not guns.
Because they took enough heat.
So then the editor of the New York Times held a like a town hall with his own newsroom, which, you know, I worked in a newsroom and that could be very helpful.
I could see how that would be helpful to have a town hall in your own newsroom to clear shit up, right?
I could see how that could be helpful.
This is what Slate wrote about it.
The reason why he called the meeting in the first place, which is about those headlines and how they're going to cover Trump.
And we're going to get around to Buzzsaw Mate and what they said about the Mueller report.
So it says staffers.
So then they had staffers and they repeatedly asked Bakay.
That's how you pronounce his name, Aaron Bakay?
Dean Backett.
Backett?
Really?
Backett?
Yeah.
Yes.
Why not go with the cool production?
Let's go with Bucket, sure.
Okay.
So, but no, does he say Backett?
He says Backett.
In Canada, you can choose.
In Canada, you get to choose, right?
All right.
So staffers repeatedly asked Backett about the paper's reluctance to use the word racist, in part because his explanations seem inconsistent, calling it a bizarre.
So they asked him about it, and he said it was a bizarre litmus test of whether they should use racist when referring to Trump.
He argued it was more powerful to avoid directly using that label.
In fact, the quote is the best way to capture a remark like the kind of remarks the president makes is to use them, to lay it out in perspective, he said.
That is much more powerful than the use of the word.
So his first explanation says the reason why we don't call him a racist is because it's more powerful not to.
And then this is where he contradicts himself.
When asked a few minutes later about the paper's historic use of racist to describe segregationist demonstrators in Arkansas in 1957, he said, I don't think anybody would avoid using racist in a scene like that.
So what he's doing is, well, by the first account, racist wasn't powerful enough language to describe Trump.
And then the second account, Trump wasn't bad enough to be called a racist.
The New York Times editor, if you feel bad when you read the New York Times because you feel like they're bullshitting you, his own newsroom feels badly as bad as you do because he's bullshitting them just like they bullshit you.
Because that's a bullshit answer, what he just gave.
So let me throw it to Aaron.
Aaron, I know this isn't why I brought you on, not your area of expertise, but what do you make of that?
Yeah, it's wishy-washy.
But, you know, everyone here is being wishy-washy like that.
Even like that Nate Silver criticism.
What did he say?
He's like, I'm not sure I would have framed it that way.
I'm like, that's the best way to say it.
Like, that's like the furthest that Nate Silver could go to criticize the New York Times.
This is a big problem inside the New York Times right now.
There's a lot of people in there that they feel like they're not pushing back hard enough on Trump, and they're not calling him a racist enough and that they're being, you know, they're going along, they're being lapdogs to power like they always, always have been.
Do you agree with their criticisms?
Or what do you think about the newsroom's criticism of the Times?
Well, this is the problem with the Trump era is that lapdogs for the corporate elite have used Trump as an excuse to not take on the corporate elite.
So they basically define power in this country to one person, which is Donald Trump.
So as long as they're calling out Donald Trump, and the thing is, the problem with there, Donald Trump's easy to call out.
I mean, like, it's easy pickings.
He's a racist.
He's a misogynist.
He's a buffoon.
I mean, there's a million things you can take on Trump for.
And they sort of made Trump the litmus test for whether or not one is doing your job as a journalist and being confrontational, adversarial towards power.
The problem is that power in this country goes far beyond Trump.
And in fact, the ways power has ruled this country is what gave us Donald Trump because it gave us a bankrupt, corrupt, neoliberal system, which Trump then exploited to win election by painting himself as a foe Of that system.
So the Trump era has created this strange dynamic where you have all these journalists posing as being, you know, champions of truth and taking on power.
But really, what that means is confining their criticism to one person, Trump, and also confining it to a very narrow set of principles.
They challenge him on racism and misogyny, which is good, but they don't challenge him on war.
They don't challenge him for basically continuing many of the same policies of the Democrats, including locking up immigrant families, deporting people on a mass scale, continuing all these wars the Democrats either continued or started themselves.
And so, you know, it's Trump has been used that way as a deflection.
So that's why we have to be careful when we're talking about whether or not the Times is being adversarial towards Trump or not.
So we were just, that's a great, you made great points.
We're just, we just covered a story before you came on in the intercept about how oil company executives are caught laughing and bragging about that they're getting laws passed all around the country to criminalize protests.
You think that would be the front page story of the New York Times.
That is not.
You'd think that that would be the front page story every day for a month if they're actually an oppositional paper, but they're not.
They are owned by billionaires.
They serve the elite.
And if you buy a paper, that's good.
That's good, but they don't really need you.
That's how I feel about the New York Times.
So let's get to the to the, so that's, you know, it's nice to see that even the people in the newsroom at the New York Times can't stand the editor at the New York Times.
Even they are sick and tired of his mealy mouth bullshit.
I'm going to read you word for word.
So he gave an opening statement to his newsroom.
And his name is Dean Baguette or Backett or Baguet.
And he's the super duper chief editor at the New York Times.
And I'll just read to you real quick what he said.
He says, so we've had a couple of significant missteps.
And I know you're concerned about that, and I am too, but there's something larger at play here.
This is a really hard story.
He repeats that over and over.
This is a really hard story.
Newsrooms haven't confronted one like this since the 1960s.
I guess he's talking about the civil rights movement and racism and bigoted politicians.
Is that what he's talking about?
Yeah, I assume so.
Okay, so then he goes, it got trickier after, we don't know what he said.
It got trickier after blah, blah, went from being a story about whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia and obstruction of justice to being a more head-on story about the president's character.
Okay.
So what I hear, what I read there is when he says it got trickier after it went from being a story about whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian obstruction to being more head-on.
So what it means is we're never going to talk about the real issues.
We're going to talk about Russia.
We'll talk about obstruction.
And now we're going to talk about racism, but we're never going to talk about the real reason you got Donald Trump.
That's what I make out of that.
Well, yeah, no, I totally agree.
And this is why there's been this dangerous revisionism when it comes to the New York Times history.
As you mentioned earlier, there's this idea that the New York Times has just been astray in the last couple of months because they didn't call Trump a racist.
But the New York Times has been promoting and apologizing for militarist and racist policies for its entire existence.
And Corey Booker saying that lives depend on you.
Well, the New York Times has been used to destroy lives.
That's what the New York Times is there for.
It promoted the Iraq war.
It promoted basically every single war.
There's not one war that the U.S. has launched in the last, I don't know, say 40 decades, possibly ever, where the New York Times has not cheerleaded for it.
You know, back when the Bush administration did a coup in Venezuela, 2002, the New York Times editorial saying that this is great.
So that's what they do.
So it's really, it's a dangerous illusion to pretend that the New York Times has lost its way just under Trump.
Okay, so well said, exactly right.
He goes on to say, we built.
We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well.
Now we have to regroup and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story.
So the story that he built his newsroom to cover was Russia Gate, correct, Aaron?
That's exactly right.
So now we have to regroup.
Why do you think they have to regroup?
Because RussiaGate has been proven to be a hoax or because it doesn't have any legs left.
Well, I'd say both.
They hyped this story for over two years that Trump, I mean, it's hard to remember now because now we're in a different era.
We're in the post-collusion era now.
But, you know, you remember for two over two years, this is all the New York Times and MSNBC talked about, and they built this false impression that Trump had some illicit contacts with the Russian government and that Mueller was closing in and that, you know, this was a presidency in peril.
They built up this totally false image.
And then it came crashing down.
It came crashing down when Mueller finished his investigation, didn't indict anybody for a Trump-Russia conspiracy, issued a report that found no Trump-Russia conspiracy.
And then, of course, recently we had Mueller's testimony where Mueller proved to be clueless about his own investigation.
So every possible pillar of this stupid thing has come crashing down.
And then, as Dean Backett says, now they're caught flat-footed because they built their newsroom around this.
And by the way, they didn't just built their newsroom to cover this story as if they're sort of dispassionate journalists searching for the truth.
They built it to peddle it.
Peddle.
And they did that through many things, by ignoring all the countervailing information that undermined the conspiracy theory and all the information that tamped down this crazy hysteria about Russia being attacking the U.S. with something akin to Pearl Harbor or 9-11.
And the facts were all there.
You and me covered it, but everyone else pretty much ignored it or peddled it.
And they also peddled it by being a recipient of selective leaks from people in the intelligence community and in Congress, Adam Schiff most likely, who gave them stuff in a misleading way that created a false impression of there being something there when there wasn't.
And it wasn't just giving them selective information.
They also gave them straight up false information.
And the New York Times hasn't been held to account for that yet.
So to go back to February 2017, New York Times published a story.
It was crazy.
And there's been no accountability for it yet.
February 2017.
And the headline is something like, you know, Trump officials had contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials.
And it was all about, it was based on leaks from U.S. officials that they had caught the Trump campaign having contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials, giving this impression that, you know, there was something illicit going on.
And, you know, Jim Comey denied that story months later, but the New York Times never retracted it.
And the obvious thing the New York Times should have done there on top of retracting that story should have been, well, why was somebody telling us that there was high-level contacts between Trump and Russia?
And if that was actually false, then why were they telling us that?
But they refused to ask that basic question and instead let themselves be used to peddle this information and let themselves essentially be useful idiots, the same thing that people that you and I were accused of being when we challenged all this stuff.
So, you know, there's a lot for them to account for there.
And they never will.
So he ends that by saying that we have to shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story.
I'd love your help with that.
As Audra Birch said when I talked to her this weekend, this one is a story about what it means to be an American in 2019.
It is a story that requires deep investigation into people who peddle hatred.
But it is also a story that requires imaginative use of all of our muscles to write about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years.
In the coming weeks, we'll be assigning some new people to politics who can offer different ways of looking at the world.
Aaron, that is great news for you.
I'm sure that Dean Backett from the New York Times is going to hire someone who has a totally different view who happened to be correct about Mueller and the Russia Gate investigation.
I'm sure he's going to call you up, or is he going to use just the same people who got everything 100% wrong?
Well, you know, I am encouraged there to see him use the C word, class.
Yeah.
I mean, how often do we hear somebody in mainstream politics or media say the word class?
Never, ever.
When Bernie Sanders says it now, even on the campaign trail, it's like, what?
What is that word?
Because that's the forbidden word.
Because that word means looking at the fact that we actually have class in this country in the idea of class war.
But whether or not the New York Times, which has been an agent of the class war for decades, will now suddenly look at class in a serious, insightful way.
I'm personally not very hopeful.
I mean, look at their op-ed page.
It's the worst op-ed page in the world.
It's like nothing but a series of apologists for U.S. violence and U.S. economic warfare on its own people and the people around the world.
You know, Thomas Friedman, Brett Stevens, David Brooks, on and on and on and on.
It's basically right-wing white men.
And the funniest thing was that you remember back when Trump was elected, we were told that one of the best things we could do to resist was to subscribe to the New York Times.
Yes.
Right?
That was what we were supposed to do.
And the New York Times rewarded us by hiring all these right-wing hacks to be their op-ed columnists.
Yeah, they immediately hired climate change deniers.
Barry Weiss.
Yes.
Smugnerant Barry Weiss.
We'll also, he said, and then he goes on to say, we'll also ask reporters to write more deeply about the country, race, and other divisions.
I really want your help in navigating this story.
What I'm saying is that our readers and some of our staff cheer us when we take on Donald Trump, but they jeer at us when we take on Joe Biden.
Oh, those pesky readers.
Those pesky readers.
So he's blaming their readers.
That's kind of what he's doing there, right?
Yeah.
And I mean, what is the point he's trying to make?
Like, does that mean that they're not going to take on Joe Biden?
They're here not to be serious journalists, but they're here to basically take partisan sides.
I hope that's not what he's saying.
Well, he goes on, the next sentence he says is they sometimes, meaning they're readers, they sometimes want us to pretend that he, Donald Trump, was not elected president.
But he was elected president.
And our job is to figure out why and how and to hold the administration to account.
Okay, so you know that it's been three years since he's been elected and you're just now trying to figure out why he got elected.
Three years and I got news for you.
It's not a Rubik's Cube on why he got elected.
40 years of the elite neoliberal class throwing workers overboard and fucking them right in their faces.
Barack Obama comes back from public life and he takes $500,000 and a clip from banks.
They're doing it right in your face.
They don't care.
That's why we got Donald Trump.
That's why.
But I guarantee you, every story the New York Times writes about why we got Donald Trump will be about racism, right?
Well, I think that's a pretty likely scenario.
And it's interesting when he, you know, the reason we got RussiaGate is because people like Dean Backett refused to do what he's now saying he wants to do now.
Yes.
As you're pointing out, now three years later, he wants to understand how it is that Donald Trump got elected.
But it was a refusal to do that from the start.
And that was a mentality laid down by the Clinton Democrats.
And even though they lost to Donald Trump, the media marched in lockstep with them.
And instead of doing an honest self-reflection about how it is that enough people were convinced to vote for Donald J. Trump, who portrayed himself as a working class champion and who spoke out against military intervention, all of which was a con, instead of doing that, they decided to blame Russia for their loss.
And the amazing thing is, at least Dean Backett is acknowledging reality somewhat now, but you still have people like Nira Tandon still blaming Susan Sarandon for Donald Trump's victory.
Not the fact that the Hillary Clinton campaign itself propped up Donald Trump with the Pied Pipe Strategy, right?
Yeah.
And that they refused to visit Wisconsin and Michigan and that their candidate had no message.
And to the extent they had a message, it was celebrating an economy that had left out so many people across the country.
So it's great seeing at least that Dean Backett is somewhat acknowledging that the job of the New York Times is to figure out such important things as how Donald Trump got elected president.
But it's amazing, as you say, that we're hearing this now three years later.
And we're only hearing it because the thing they latched onto, Russia Gate, has totally collapsed, which is so it's just not sustainable anymore.
And yeah, you know, it's tough because obviously racism is a huge issue in this country.
And of course, racism and class are intertwined.
But the way racism is covered now, so many outlets cover it in a way that it's basically used to make us not talk about class.
And it's deemed to be mutually exclusive.
And I don't have any high hopes that the New York Times will do anything different.
Boy, you know, there's moments of our conversation.
I feel like we're doing an episode of Democracy now, except it's not as boring.
Well, and also we're willing to acknowledge that Russia Gate is bullshit.
Yes.
And they're still not doing that at Democracy Now?
They've kind of swept it under the rug.
Basically, you know, they drank the Kool-Aid, unfortunately, like everybody else.
Their top guest on Russia Gate was Marcy Wheeler, one of the foremost conspiracy theorists.
And, you know, at a certain point, you know, they have some sense.
So at a certain point, I think they realized that it wasn't going the way that everyone thought it was going to go.
So now I think they want us all to forget that they peddled it, but they did.
And I'm certainly not going to let people forget it because I think it's important.
Just as we're holding the New York Times to account, we should hold our progressive and adversarial journalists to account as well.
Yeah, I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to hold people accountable.
I don't know.
I can make a video that says the New York Times sucks, but I can't hold them account.
I can't hold people who did shitty work on Russia Gate account because there's no punishment I can give them except wag my finger at them and say you guys were horrible.
And it doesn't matter because they all got it wrong together.
So there'll never be a price to pay, just like with Iraq War and WMDs and Libya and all that shit.
They all get it.
So if everybody's wrong, then nobody's wrong.
Just like when George Bush said, nobody foresaw them flying planes in the building.
So if nobody foresaw it, then nobody's responsible, even though people, of course, foresaw that happening.
Their own military saw that happening.
And we had this I've devised planes of plans for it.
Anyway, let me go a little bit more what Dean Bequette said.
He says, this is hard stuff.
Isn't it amazing, Ron, that it's so hard that we got it right?
I already smoked pot today, and somehow I got it right more than the New York, the whole fucking New York Times.
Not one guy, the whole New York Times.
I got it, writer.
You got it, writer.
And fucking Aaron Matei got it, writer.
They must have been tired there.
It must have been really tight.
They were kind of really busy making sure every headline had the mixed approval.
It was tough.
It was just hard.
Such a hard story.
Such a hard story.
Such a hard story that a Jagoff nightclub comedian got it right in his fucking garage for three years straight.
Scooped you.
That's how hard of a story it was.
Such a hard story.
Do you see why I have zero respect for fucking journalists?
Zero.
Zero.
Such a hard story.
You see why when I'm in a room full of them, I have to take anti-vomit medicine?
No, Jimmy, you're not a journalist, right?
That's what they say.
They like to say.
No, you're not a journalist.
No, I'm not half as shitty as you are, if that's your question.
No, I'm not as shitty as you are.
So this is hard stuff.
We're covering a president who lies and says outlandish things.
First time.
You guys, no practice covering presidents who lie.
This is the first time.
First time, Aaron.
Aaron, first time.
Yeah.
Did your head almost explode when you mine did when I read that?
Oh, we're covering a dishonest president.
Wow.
Who saw that coming?
Yeah.
This is them basically using Trump to justify their servitude to power.
Yes.
Because if Trump is the only liar, then they can peddle the lies of every other liar in office before him, which is literally every single other president.
You know, Barack Obama lied plenty of times.
He told us that we had to bomb Libya to prevent a genocide, which was bullshit.
You know, George W. Bush lied about Iraqi WMD.
The New York Times led the pack in peddling that lie.
Bill Clinton told a series of lies with all his bombings, you know, when he bombed Iraq many times, crippled the country with genocidal sanctions.
The New York Times ran cover for all of that.
So this is the danger of Trump for people who actually care about journalism and actually care about holding power to account is the way that lapdogs of power can use him to avoid holding to account everybody else.
So he goes on and says it should summon all of our, meaning the Trump administration.
It should summon all of our resources and call upon all of our efforts to build a newsroom where diversity and open discussion is valued.
So you let me get this straight.
You built a newsroom.
You already built a newsroom where diversity and open discussions is not valued?
We forgot about that the first time.
Oh, fuck.
We built this newsroom.
We forgot to put in diversity of opinion.
That was item 12.
Who missed that one?
Well, I guess I'll have to have another town hall in our newsroom to explain how we forgot to build in diversity and open discussions.
So this is what they're doing.
So now he says, we're going to build a newsroom where diversity, it's as if they didn't have a paper before.
Like they're just going to start.
They're starting from scratch to build a paper.
Hey, do you think diversity and open discussion should be valued?
You know what?
Make a ballsy call and say, yeah.
What the fuck?
Like he's really sticking his neck out saying that.
Like that, to me, that's the dumbest thing he said in this whole thing.
That we're going to build a newsroom.
We're going to now, in 2019, build a newsroom where diversity and open discussions are valued.
What the fuck?
Did you know what he owes?
What are you breitbart?
He doesn't even include facts.
He doesn't even, that's right.
He doesn't say facts.
He doesn't say diversity, open discussion, and facts are valued.
No.
Just diversity of opinions.
You know, being the head of a big outlet or a corporation, it's like you're on a constant apology tour and a constant promising to do better.
You remember there was that wave of like Facebook ads saying, you know, okay, we know we screwed up.
This time we got it.
Yeah.
We heard you.
We really, and Uber are the same thing.
They all do it.
And this is the New York Times version of that.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
We got it wrong.
But now, I promise you.
So we were a bit flat-footed, but we fixed it.
We're a bit, there's a tiny bit flat-footed.
He's talking to a room full of reporters.
What, you know, so he's not, he's, they all are sitting there believing this bullshit?
Yes.
So here, real quick, this just comes right from his speech.
And somehow Slate got a copy of it.
And so they made a transcript of it.
So this is what he said.
This is what the super duper editor and chiefie chief from the New York Times said.
He said, chapter one of the story of Donald Trump, not only for our newsroom, but frankly for our readers, was, did Donald Trump have untoward relations with the Russians and was there obstruction of justice?
So that's the chapter one.
That was it.
That was not how we get here.
How did this happen?
Why, who voted for him?
Why didn't people come out and vote for Hillary?
None of that.
The only thing, chapter one, that was it.
And by the way, our readers wanted to know it too, so we're not assholes.
Is that what you get from that chat, from that paragraph, Aaron?
Totally.
And listen, Jimmy, I'll never stop laughing at what a farce this whole thing was.
That line there, did Donald Trump have untoward relations with the Russians?
You know, it's basically the intellectual equivalent of saying, did Donald Trump talk to Santa Claus?
But there really is no difference.
Because if you look, if you even read the Mueller report, you see there that Mueller even has a line where, and we've talked about this, where Mueller is talking about the period after the election.
And he says that the Russian government and top Russian elites want to make contact with the Trump administration.
And Mueller goes, they appeared not to have any pre-existing contacts and struggled to make inroads with the new administration because there were no actual Trump-Russia contacts.
So not only was there no conspiracy, they can't even find any contacts with anybody in the Trump orbit and anybody acting on behalf of the Kremlin, which is kind of the basis for a conspiracy.
But yet the people behind this, whoever they are in the Democratic Party, in the intelligence community, and in Congress, they conned everybody, including the New York Times, into believing into this Santa Claus-like fantasy.
And instead of doing their jobs and applying minimal evidentiary scrutiny, they went full steam ahead.
And that was left to, and I'm sorry to keep tooting our own horn, but again, you and I and a few others were some of the only ones to take the task of journalism and facts seriously.
And, you know, that's why he's having the speech now.
And for that, we were called conspiracy theorists and what else are we called?
Some kind of peddlers.
We were called useful idiots.
Useful idiots.
That's foot and apologists.
Right.
It's like about the irony of calling us useful idiots.
People saying that who were peddling the most idiotic conspiracy theory I've ever heard of.
I've ever heard, and they won't admit it to this day that it was a stupid conspiracy theory that was evidence-free.
They'll go, look, people still today, I saw under one of your tweets today, someone said, read the Mueller report to you.
To you.
Well, it's all in there.
I guess we just own it.
I guess we just don't put people in jail anymore for treason.
I guess that's why.
All right.
So now here's where it gets really good.
So chapter one was we had to cover Donald Trump.
Is he a Russian agent and did he obstruct?
Ready?
That was a really hard story, you guys.
Let's not forget we set ourselves up to cover that story.
I'm going to say it.
We won two Pulitzer Prize covering that story, which if you had a shred of dignity, if your mother raised you right, you would give back right now.
But guess what, Dean Baquette?
You don't have integrity.
You don't have dignity, which is why you got to be the editor of the New York fucking Times.
That's why you're a servant of the oligarchs, which is how you got to be the super duper editor of the New York Times.
You didn't get there because you're a rebel rouser telling the truth and uncovering the truth about our establishment.
You got there because you're a servant of our establishment.
And for you to say we won two Pulitzer Prize covering a bullshit story in a completely incorrect way and you're bragging about it.
Again, if you had any integrity, you would give those Pulitzer Prizes back.
But guess what, Aaron?
They don't have any integrity.
They don't have dignity at the New York Times.
They don't.
And that's not hyperbole.
That's a fucking fact.
This guy is admitting Russia Gate is a bullshit story.
We were wrong about it, but we won two Pulitzer Prizes.
Why?
Because the establishment lies to give each other hand jobs.
I totally agree.
If they had any integrity, they would return those Pulitzer Prizes.
Stories based partly on the Steele dossier, this bullshit collection of opposition research paid for by the Democrats, which, you know, mainstream outlets like the Times took seriously and investigated and tried to present as credible when they should have been pointing out that the whole thing was bullshit, just like all of Russia Gate was bullshit.
But yeah, they don't care about journalistic integrity in the way that, I don't know, people like us do, where journalistic integrity means being faithful to the facts and being faithful to the evidence and doing your basic job as a journalist.
They peddled a fashionable narrative.
And unfortunately, that problem and that dynamic goes way beyond the New York Times.
This is where the Mueller team and the outlets like The Times who covered it in such an awful way really played everybody.
And they played themselves.
The Mueller team wrote their indictments in a way that suggested that there was something untoward going on and illicit.
But if you read between the lines, you can see that there was nothing there.
It was all bullshit.
It was all qualified.
It was all subjective.
They never actually uncovered anything except for basically crimes that were committed as a result of their investigation.
So catching people on petty lies that they then hyped up.
And everybody bought into that.
So everybody got played.
At the New York Times, it was a bit willful because they must have known what was going on, but they went along with it because I guess this was profitable for them and this was their way to avoid talking about real issues.
But, you know, now they're, and this is their way of processing this fact that they played themselves.
You know, it's holy shit.
Bob Mueller is not going to do it.
Well, no shit.
This is what we've been telling everybody for three years now.
And this is why we had to waste so much time going through all these stupid, dumb details that don't matter anymore.
You think anybody cares now about like Constant Kalimnik or George Papadopoulos?
It's all bullshit.
It doesn't matter.
It's like, but it's like the reason we had to talk about it is because people in positions of authority were falsely portraying everything to build up a bullshit narrative.
And this is their way now of very in the most weasely way, as you've been pointing out, of acknowledging that.
But of course, without taking any real responsibility.
You don't think people are really concerned about Carter Page or Manafort or Manafort's tax history?
You don't really think people care about that?
Well, that's the funniest thing.
It's like this whole thing revolved, you know, as Max Blumenthal, my colleague at the Gray Zone, calls it, is like, is basically the Mueller thing took this pirate ship of freaks in the Trump administration, all these weird characters, and cast them as super villains in this weird, you know, transcontinental spy thriller.
You know, Carter Page is like a volunteer on the campaign, never spoke to anybody.
He wasn't even paid.
Same with George Papadopoulos, all these people, but they were elevated to the starring role in this bullshit thriller, you know.
And people like the New York Times, this serious news outlet, very sober and serious, with infinite resources, infinite resources.
They played a key role in peddling it.
They basically turned into purveyors of fiction, not journalism.
Hey, it's Barack Obama on the line.
I wonder if he's going to brag about the Nobel Peace Prize and talk about his legacy.
You hear that?
That's the sound of mine.
Nobel Peace Prize, beating your dumb ass to a pulp.
Eat my legacy, Byrne, bro.
Listen, Barack, were you ever an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein?
Well, that depends.
That depends on what.
Whether or not I mentioned in his will.
By the way, Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman or women when he was on that plane 26 times.
And even if he did, it's nobody's business.
Everybody's okay with it.
that's fine by me.
Hold.
Hey, you know there's a lot more to that phone call, but we don't have time in today's podcast.
How do you hear the entire phone call?
You got to become a premium member.
Go to JimmyDorkComedy.com, sign up.
It's the most affordable premium program in the business.
Today's show was written, That's Rider Was Written by Frank Connoff, Jim Earl, Ron Placone, Step Samurano, and Mark Van Landowick.
All the voices today performed by the one and the only the inimitable Mike McRae, who can be found at mikemcrae.com.
That's it for this week.
Let you be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me.
Don't freak out.
Don't freak out.
Do not freak.
Do not freak out.
Don't freak out.
▲
Export Selection