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Dec. 17, 2021 - Knowledge Fight
01:34:40
#628: July 10, 2003

Today, Dan and Jordan dip back into the past to take in a rare treat.  In this installment, Alex invites Ann Coulter onto the show hoping to humiliate her with his debate skills and superior grasp on "the truth."  This does not go well. Citations

Participants
Main voices
a
alex jones
14:58
a
ann coulter
06:08
d
dan friesen
51:34
j
jordan holmes
17:25
Appearances
Clips
s
steve quayle
00:02
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
alex jones
It's time to pray.
I have great respect for knowledge fight.
unidentified
Knowledge fight.
alex jones
I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys saying we are the bad guys.
Knowledge fight.
unidentified
Dan and Jordan.
Knowledge fight.
alex jones
Need money.
unidentified
Andy in Kansas.
Andy in Kansas.
alex jones
Stop it.
Andy in Kansas.
Andy in Kansas.
It's time to pray.
Andy in Kansas, you're on the air.
Thanks for holding us.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
I love your world.
Knowledge Fight.
KnowledgeFight.com I love you.
dan friesen
Hey everybody!
Welcome back to Knowledge Fight.
I'm Dan.
jordan holmes
I'm Jordan.
dan friesen
We're a couple dudes who like to sit around worship at the altar of Selene and talk a little bit about Alex Jones.
unidentified
Oh.
jordan holmes
Indeed.
dan friesen
Emrick, if you're nasty.
jordan holmes
Oh, no, I am not.
I'm actually quite polite.
Yeah.
Dan?
dan friesen
Jordan.
jordan holmes
Quick question.
dan friesen
What's up?
jordan holmes
What's your bright spot today?
dan friesen
I would ask that you go first.
jordan holmes
Okay.
My bright spot today, Dan, is I saw this new TV show anime called Sunny Boy.
dan friesen
Whoa, Sunny Boy.
jordan holmes
And it is...
Fucking spectacular.
It's so good.
It's an examination of this Japanese high school class that gets unmoored in space and time, right?
And so allowing that to happen, you get a wonderful mix of like Lord of the Flies examination of the dawn of civilization and society's growth and how shit falls apart along with...
Emotional messaging.
It's so good.
It's just so good.
It's a great, great show.
dan friesen
That sounds fun.
jordan holmes
I highly recommend it.
dan friesen
All right.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
unidentified
Cool.
Yeah.
jordan holmes
What's your bright spot?
dan friesen
There you go.
jordan holmes
I was waiting.
dan friesen
My bright spot is that rudeness you're exhibiting.
No, I actually, this is tough for me.
I actually don't know what my bright spot is.
I mean, I know what it is, but I don't know what the name of it is.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
I saw an energy drink that was at the store, and I got it, because it looked like an interesting flavor.
unidentified
Sure.
dan friesen
And I tried it, and it was great.
It was a Hawaiian shaved ice flavor.
jordan holmes
Interesting?
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
An energy drink with a Hawaiian shaved ice flavor?
dan friesen
Hawaiian shaved ice.
jordan holmes
Interesting.
dan friesen
Yeah, I mean, it was just basically like a strawberry watermelon kind of thing, but it was very tasty, and I don't remember the name of the brand, so, hey.
unidentified
Whatever.
dan friesen
And, you know, if I did remember the name of the brand, people would think I was just advertising.
unidentified
So, fuck that.
jordan holmes
No, this is way better.
dan friesen
Hawaiian shaved ice flavored energy drink of some brand.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I like it.
dan friesen
Bright spot.
jordan holmes
Absolutely.
dan friesen
So, Jordan, today we are in the past.
We are going to be talking about July 10th, 2003.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
You may notice that there's a little bit of a gap between our last episode and July 10th.
jordan holmes
A few days.
dan friesen
Yes.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So, here's what happened.
The audio is unlistenable.
I tried to fiddle with it and get it to a point where it could actually be usable, but it's just...
9th and 8th are...
It's outrageous.
It's comically bad, this audio.
But I did listen to a bit of the 8th, and Paul Joseph Watson showed up.
He'd just written his book.
jordan holmes
Wow!
That is a while back!
dan friesen
They were promoting Paul Joseph Watson's book, Order Out of Chaos.
Uh, 17?
jordan holmes
Yeah.
I don't know.
dan friesen
Yeah, but he's around, and that's a lot of fun, but hey, unlistenable audio.
unidentified
Too bad.
dan friesen
So here we are on the 10th.
I'm very excited about this episode.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
I've been waiting anxiously to be able to talk about this.
It's so much fun.
And before we get down to business, another thing that's fun, saying hello to some new wonks.
jordan holmes
Ooh, nicely done.
dan friesen
So first, they did Grand Dirty 2. Thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much.
Yes, they did do Grand Dirty.
dan friesen
This is something that apparently you're supposed to- Cowboy Bebop.
Okay.
jordan holmes
Cowboy Bebop, my friend.
dan friesen
All right.
Next, Bill Cooper's long lost right leg.
Thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
unidentified
Thank you very much.
dan friesen
Also Cowboy Bebop.
jordan holmes
Not quite Cowboy Bebop.
dan friesen
Next, petition for Alex Jones to move to TikTok so Dan can use it.
Thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much.
dan friesen
I will not.
jordan holmes
Never.
dan friesen
Next, Rayma.
Pronounced Rayma.
Thank you so much.
You are now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
unidentified
Thank you very much.
dan friesen
That is actually very handy, because I probably would have pronounced it Rima if I didn't have the help.
unidentified
That helps.
dan friesen
And the sexy bathwater.
Thank you so much.
You're now a policy wonk.
alex jones
I'm a policy wonk.
jordan holmes
Thank you very much!
unidentified
Thank you!
dan friesen
Now, Jordan.
jordan holmes
Yes, Dan.
dan friesen
July 10th.
jordan holmes
July 10th.
dan friesen
2003.
jordan holmes
7-10-03.
dan friesen
Could not be more thrilled that this audio was listenable.
Because if this wasn't, I would feel just so...
Deprived.
Here's how we start.
alex jones
Coming up later in the show, I have one of the chief neocons coming on the broadcast, one of the big spin doctors, one of the co-opters of the conservative movement in this country.
In fact, if you tune in to talk radio, whether it's a local show or a national show, they're all telling you that...
Well, Bush is okay.
Yeah, he wants your guns, but go ahead and turn them in.
It's the conservative thing to do.
Well, the Patriot Act doesn't take any of your rights.
Those lying liberals, you know, they're trying to tell you bad stories.
Well, I'm not a liberal, folks, and I've read both Patriot Acts, and they're so horrible.
That it staggers the mind that they would put this type of stuff on paper.
dan friesen
Alex has got a big neocon coming on the show.
jordan holmes
Who could it be?
Who's the big neocon?
dan friesen
Is it Irving Kristol?
jordan holmes
Oh, no, no.
dan friesen
Ooh, is it Wolfowitz?
Is it someone from the Project for a New American Century?
jordan holmes
Has the National Review been reborn with a clone of what's-his-face?
dan friesen
Who knows?
William F. Buckley?
jordan holmes
Yes!
How did I forget Buckley's name?
dan friesen
Oh, that's Alex's cousin.
jordan holmes
Exactly!
dan friesen
Look, we don't know who it is, and Alex won't say.
alex jones
So, that's coming up today.
We have a couple other guests, too, but we'll just announce the guests when they come on with us, because I don't want to...
Sometimes when I have a neocon coming on and we talk about it, then they end up not coming on the show.
So, we'll just sit back and enjoy that today.
The Trojan horses.
I'm going to have more of the Trojan horses on this show.
An endless parade of them.
dan friesen
Yeah, so Alex is going to have a parade of Trojan horses.
jordan holmes
I like it.
dan friesen
He's getting excited about this idea that now he's going to get these neocons on and he's just going to go toe-to-toe with them.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Very exciting.
But he can't say their names because if he does, they might cancel.
jordan holmes
The Trojan horse, when you let it in, was...
dan friesen
That was the big mistake.
jordan holmes
That was the problem.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
See, it wasn't that there was a Trojan horse outside.
That was a great place for the horse to be.
You want to keep it out there.
dan friesen
You defeat the Trojan horse by leaving it alone.
jordan holmes
You could have just let it go.
You don't want a parade of Trojan horses.
That's a parade worse than regular.
dan friesen
You're very right about that.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
This metaphor is clunky at best.
jordan holmes
Not good.
dan friesen
But I do love this idea that I can't say the name, because if I do, they're going to cancel.
jordan holmes
What kind of...
What kind of asshole hears their name in the first hour?
No way am I going on this show!
dan friesen
Well, I might cancel if I heard Alex talking like this.
alex jones
In the third hour today, I have one of the chief neocons coming on the show.
One of the top Trojan horses.
One of the technicians there to pacify real conservatism and to sell you the...
The sugar-coated cyanide tablet of the New World Order that is the neocon, big government, gun grab, open border, police state promoting fraud.
unidentified
Sure.
alex jones
We're going to have more and more of these slimy creatures on the show so that I can crush them in front of you and show you...
That they are fraud.
dan friesen
Yeah, I'd probably cancel.
jordan holmes
Hey, I'm gonna cancel.
Guys, I'm gonna give him a call real quick.
dan friesen
What an exciting prospect.
I'm a slimy creature.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
Which is only invited on the show to crush in front of his audience.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's a little bit combative before it's even begun.
dan friesen
Yeah, not great.
And it gets, I mean, this theme continues.
alex jones
I do have a big fat neocon coming on the show later, but I will dish and bow with their...
Their own lies against them.
jordan holmes
Sure.
alex jones
Their own spin against them.
And also, we have another guest as well.
We'll announce those when they come up.
dan friesen
At this point, I'm just thinking, like, he's trying to get this person to cancel.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah, it has to.
dan friesen
This is like, please just cancel.
jordan holmes
I am going to disembowel this person because if I actually talk to them, I will be disemboweled because I'm full of shit.
dan friesen
This is a big, fat, slimy neocon who I've only invited on the show as a trap to destroy them in front of my audience.
jordan holmes
Neocon who I'm going to demolish.
dan friesen
It doesn't scream good faith.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
And so I was listening to this.
I'm like, yes, yes, yes.
So excited.
This is going to be fun.
But I also was like, this person's going to cancel.
And then Alex is going to be like, well, what another coward.
That was kind of what I thought was going to happen.
It does not.
That is not what happens.
The person shows up and it's a mess.
jordan holmes
In studio?
unidentified
No.
jordan holmes
Oh, okay, okay.
dan friesen
But before we get to that, because that's in the third hour, plenty of other meat to get to.
On our last episode, going over the 2003 stuff, Alex had warned that on the 4th of July there might be a little bit of a terrorist attack.
unidentified
Sure!
jordan holmes
Well, I mean, it's a good day for it.
dan friesen
And so this caller asks about, like, hey man, what was going on with that?
What happened?
jordan holmes
Why wasn't there one?
unidentified
I heard you say something about you were worried about the...
Federal Reserve Bankers, that's my interpretation, setting loose a terrorist attack on the 4th of July.
alex jones
No, they said that.
I said I didn't know that would happen.
They put out a lot of fake terror alerts.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that helps.
dan friesen
Nailed it.
unidentified
We know they're only going to do it when our kids are in school.
You know, they've been training for that.
alex jones
Well, the big one, yeah, according to the Red Alert and the Washington Post and the Gazette News Service out of New Jersey, they've said we're, quote, enemies and we leave our homes.
Our children will be taken to undisclosed locations.
And I have the Associated Press as early as 99, it's in the takeover, where they say FEMA was running this plan.
unidentified
I know.
So we can't trust them.
We can't open up the school year.
Now, you know, if you want to open up the revolution, that would be a good way to do it, is to not go along with the next school year.
That would open up a whole panacea of questions and investigations.
alex jones
Well, there's already, it's gone from 1 million five years ago to 2 million a year ago to 3 million kids homeschooling this year, this last school year.
And the way it's growing, the exodus, they are panicking.
That's why they're trying to shut that.
What?
dan friesen
What's even being discussed here?
jordan holmes
Why wasn't there a terrorist attack?
dan friesen
It's just because they said there was going to be one.
I didn't say there was going to be one.
They said there was going to be one, and I just reported that they were saying that there was going to be one, so maybe there was.
But it didn't happen, and I wasn't wrong.
They were lying.
It's kind of like that whole QAnon thing that's like misinformation is part of the...
It's part of it.
Sometimes when we say things are wrong, maybe it was just important to the plan that misinformation get out.
jordan holmes
It's art of war.
Disinformation is important for both enemies and us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
That's kind of the...
jordan holmes
I like his rejoinder of like, well, obviously there wasn't a terrorist attack.
They're only going to do it when our kids are in school, dummy.
dan friesen
That's what the caller brings up.
jordan holmes
Yeah, exactly.
dan friesen
That's an interesting premise.
So they're only going to do a giant terrorist attack when kids are in school, and therefore the way to stop this from happening is to never go back to school.
Exactly.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
It is so fictional.
It's a little bit like two D&D nerds arguing like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Dragons only attack near large mountains.
It's not going to be an attack on river runs.
dan friesen
So the way to protect from dragons, get rid of mountains.
Get rid of all mountains.
jordan holmes
Get rid of them.
Burn them up.
dan friesen
Yeah, and I like that Alex's response to that seems to be like, yeah, yeah.
So the way to stop the big one from coming is not have the kids in school, and that's why homeschooling is so popular, and that's why they're attacking the institution of homeschooling, because they need to have those kids in school for when the giant terrorist attack does happen.
All right.
jordan holmes
What kind of a day did the globalists have where they were like, oh, no, we were going to do it when all the kids were in school, but we took too long.
Now there's so many of them being homeschooled.
What are we going to do now?
dan friesen
Does, like, Matasuri school count?
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
Is Waldorf education counting to this?
I don't know.
I have questions.
I need Alex to clarify.
Anyway, my man, Dan from Illinois, is back.
jordan holmes
He's such a good dude.
dan friesen
He calls in every day.
alex jones
Oh, boy.
Dan in Illinois, you're on the air.
Go ahead.
dan friesen
Alex?
alex jones
Yes, sir.
unidentified
Too bad Rumsfeld couldn't...
He started out with the truth as far as saying it's not about weapons and mass destruction.
alex jones
Too bad they can't just go ahead and tell the truth and explain what they're doing.
We have a white paper published in 98 by him, and Dick Cheney's saying, quote, Saddam's not a threat.
He is a pretext for natural resources and a military base.
dan friesen
Interesting.
So Alex brings up this document, this letter.
And he can't be talking about the Rebuilding America's Defense document, the PNAC document, as it's often called, because the date is off.
He's saying it's in 1998.
What Alex is talking about is not a white paper, and the more you hear him use that term, the more you need to ask yourself if he even knows what that means.
This was a 1998 open letter that the Project for the New American Century sent to then-President Clinton, urging him to pursue regime change in Iraq.
The letter begins, quote, In your upcoming State of the Union address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat.
We urge you to seize that opportunity and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the United States and our friends and allies around the world.
That strategy should aim above all at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.
Agree with it or not, that statement absolutely doesn't seem like it's coming from folks who are saying that Saddam doesn't pose a threat.
jordan holmes
No, no, that one says Saddam's a pretty big threat and we gotta get rid of him.
dan friesen
Seems like it.
That was a memo from 1998 that was signed onto by Donald Rumsfeld, but not Dick Cheney, as Alex is saying.
Another signee, though, is a future Trump national security advisor, John Bolton.
jordan holmes
Hey, that's good stuff.
dan friesen
An apparatchik, as Alex would say.
A couple months after that letter was sent, the group followed up with another letter to Newt Gingrich, then the Speaker of the House, and Trent Lott, the then-Senate Majority Leader.
The letter was basically them reporting that they tried to get Clinton to work on getting Saddam out of power, but he wasn't biting.
They reiterated that it was their belief that policies of containment that had been in place regarding Saddam weren't working, and that if left unchecked, he posed a very severe threat, perhaps the worst since the Cold War.
These are the letters that were written in 1998 that were seen as being indicative of a longstanding desire on the part of the members of the Bush administration to topple Saddam's government.
It's either the case that Alex is just making up things about these documents or he has such a shaky grasp on what they say that he thinks that they're saying that Saddam isn't a threat and that it's just an opportunity for resources.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
I don't know.
jordan holmes
I mean, I guess what he's...
He's just editorializing that they were aware within those letters that they sent saying we should overthrow Saddam.
What was unsaid was that the reason we're doing this is because we want that fucking oil.
dan friesen
Well, that's an interesting interpretation.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And if Alex said secretly they were signaling, then the claim would be different.
jordan holmes
It would be very different.
dan friesen
He's saying that they sent...
And wrote the white papers saying that they knew that Saddam wasn't a threat and they just wanted resources to make a base, which is not what that letter says.
jordan holmes
It would be a bad idea to write a letter that says that.
And I'm going to throw this out there.
Because it could be obtained by Iraq.
dan friesen
People in the future?
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
Yeah, Iraq or people in the future.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
jordan holmes
It could have been caught by them.
I wouldn't put that in writing.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
So Alex gets another caller.
This isn't Dan in Illinois.
But this caller asks about, like, you know, hey, we talk about tyranny a lot, but what about the tyranny of the early part of our country?
How do you feel about that?
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
It's a good point.
jordan holmes
All right.
dan friesen
It's a lot of tyranny expressed towards non-white males.
jordan holmes
What about slavery?
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Alex has some interesting thoughts about this.
jordan holmes
I am not surprised.
alex jones
Jason, you've got a system set up in America where the individual is protected above the interest of the state or any criminal crime rings that set themselves up.
That didn't mean, though, that all the protections there were enforced or directed to the Indians or blacks in this country.
And it's up to blacks and Indians and any other human being to stand up and demand their God-given rights that the Ninth and Tenth Amendment and others only point out.
No one can take your liberties and freedoms, but certainly what happened to the American Indians was wrong to the Native Americans.
dan friesen
That is a cute view of history, but it's so detached from reality that I can't really believe that this is an expression of, like, idealism or naivete.
Seems like rationalizing is what he's doing.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's fine that they were slaves because if they didn't want to be slaves they should have fucking done something about it.
dan friesen
The idea that no one can take your rights is so dumb that it barely has meaning in the real world.
If U.S. history teaches us one thing it's that you can totally have your rights deprived from you.
You may still have those rights in an abstract sense like you deserve those rights but in terms of actual concrete reality if the U.S. says you can't vote you don't have the right to vote.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
In the United States, at least.
The angle that Alex is taking seems like a cop-out, but that has nothing to do with the absurdity of this position that he's like, well, maybe the rights, the protection of rights weren't enforced or directed to Native Americans or black Americans.
What does it mean to not have protection of rights directed at you?
It feels like it means you don't have those rights.
jordan holmes
I think what he's trying to say is that the Founding Fathers were itching at the bit to give everybody rights, but...
Because black people and Native Americans at that time didn't ask the Founding Fathers for those rights.
dan friesen
Did they not?
jordan holmes
They didn't ask.
unidentified
Okay.
jordan holmes
They didn't say anything.
They were just like, hey, I'm loving this genocide over here.
You guys keep it coming.
dan friesen
Yeah.
When you say that the protection or the enforcement of rights weren't directed at these people, it seems like you're just trying really hard to not say that the U.S. had laws on the books depriving people of specific rights based on their race or gender.
The stupidest part of this clip is that Alex is pretending that he thinks that groups like Native Americans and black Americans needed to stand up and demand their God-given rights.
That's dumb, because the way he's saying that, you'd really have to think that he would be right there on their side, supporting campaigns for equal rights for all Americans.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
That's not true.
He has stated his opposition to the Civil Rights Act in the past, because among other things, he feels that requiring businesses to serve people of all races could be a violation of their right of free association.
Further, his heroes and intellectual traditions that his worldview grows out of, they fought tooth and nail against the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
His favorite author, Gary Allen, wrote the book Communist Revolution in the Streets, portraying the calls by black Americans for equal rights as the result of a nefarious communist conspiracy.
Alex doesn't believe any of the things he's saying to this caller, he just knows that believing otherwise is...
Bad.
It's a bad look.
jordan holmes
Yeah, you can't really say that.
And then if somebody was like, hey, what about that time America made it illegal to be Chinese here?
You can't be like, oh, that was too far in the past.
dan friesen
Well, the Chinese Americans just didn't stand up.
jordan holmes
They didn't act!
dan friesen
They didn't ask to stay.
jordan holmes
I'm telling you.
You've got to ask for what you need.
Otherwise, you're going to let white people just run all over you.
dan friesen
They didn't ask to not be excluded.
jordan holmes
It was a terrible idea.
You've got to send a letter first.
unidentified
True.
dan friesen
It's got to be notarized.
jordan holmes
It's got to be notarized.
dan friesen
So Alex gets another caller, and this guy has an interesting idea about how to promote Alex to the masses.
jordan holmes
Make it illegal to be Chinese here.
dan friesen
No, his idea would not work well.
jordan holmes
Oh, okay.
alex jones
I really hope your staff and stuff try to get you on Comedy Central's daily show with Jon Stewart.
Well, I didn't want to mention this, but I told folks that Gary Busey has called me quite a bit.
I got his home number.
He's a listener of the show.
And he is a maniac, but he's on target on a lot of subjects.
I'm with Busey, and we've got it.
Unfortunately, we've got it from online.
I didn't see it.
Everybody called about it.
My buddy saw it live.
He's talking about nanotech computers, how dangerous they are, and he goes, but I can't talk about the New World Order on this show.
This is a quote.
I can't talk about the New World Order on this show.
And he goes, well, what's the New World Order?
And he goes, Police State 2000.
I know Gary got Police State 2000 from me in all my videos.
dan friesen
So the caller is saying, hey, you should go on The Daily Show.
And Alex's response to that is, hey, you know what?
Gary Busey likes me.
unidentified
Okay.
dan friesen
Alright.
I mean, I'm With Busey is a show that was on Comedy Central.
jordan holmes
That's true.
dan friesen
So I guess there's a little bit of connective tissue there, but...
jordan holmes
I forgot about I'm With Busey.
dan friesen
It's easy to forget.
jordan holmes
It is.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
I will only ever remember...
Look, I live a charmed life.
My Busey began, ended, point break.
alex jones
Sure.
jordan holmes
The end.
I never have to worry about another Busey.
dan friesen
What about that...
Wasn't it that baseball movie?
Wasn't it that baseball movie?
Rookie of the Year?
Isn't he in Rookie of the Year?
jordan holmes
Yes, he was in Rookie of the Year.
dan friesen
Yeah, come on.
jordan holmes
Yes, he was in Rookie of the Year with one of the all-time great reveals that the glove was actually his mom's and it's time to play softball.
dan friesen
Celebrity Rehab?
jordan holmes
He was on that show?
I don't remember that one.
How did he do?
Did he get rehabbed?
dan friesen
He seemed to not think he had a problem, which is not surprising.
jordan holmes
That's not a good place to start.
dan friesen
If I recall correctly, he was acting like he thought he was there to be a counselor.
jordan holmes
I like that.
I like that.
That's fun.
dan friesen
It led to a little bit of tension between him and Dr. Drew.
unidentified
Dr. Drew just needed an assistant, man.
dan friesen
Yeah, so I called in the Busey.
jordan holmes
So I called in Busey to help me with these dumb celebrities over here.
dan friesen
I do think I would be interested to see how Jon Stewart would try to handle Alex, though.
I think that would be an interesting meeting of the minds.
But yeah, it didn't happen.
jordan holmes
Nope.
dan friesen
So, are you ready to find out who the big fat slimy neocon is?
jordan holmes
Of course I am.
Is it Will Crystal?
dan friesen
It is not.
unidentified
Oh.
dan friesen
It is not.
jordan holmes
Is it Newt Gingrich?
dan friesen
It's not.
It's not Tucker Carlson.
jordan holmes
Okay.
dan friesen
Although he would have been someone that Alex would call that back then.
jordan holmes
And he was slimy as fuck.
dan friesen
Um, nope.
alex jones
I've got the neocon princess Ann Coulter scheduled to come up today on the show in the next hour.
And she says the Patriot Act doesn't take any of your rights.
The lying liberals must be stopped.
And, oh, Bush is a gun grabber, and that's good.
And, oh, but McCarthy, he's a good guy, so we can trust her.
Yeah, but she won't tell you that McCarthy got snuffed politically because he exposed that the globalists were behind the communists.
And that was McCarthy.
So we'll see if she defends McCarthy.
Yeah, man.
dan friesen
So it's Ann Coulter.
jordan holmes
So he is going to tell me that Ann Coulter...
Supported McCarthy.
dan friesen
Uh-huh.
jordan holmes
And that that is a bad thing.
dan friesen
No.
He wants to know if she supports McCarthy enough.
jordan holmes
Oh.
dan friesen
Yeah.
alex jones
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
Like, the supporting McCarthy is the, like, that's the Trojan horse aspect of it.
jordan holmes
Yes.
dan friesen
The other stuff, like the belief in the Patriot Act and neoconservativism and all this stuff, that's the stuff that she really believes, but then she tricks you into liking her, but with her support of McCarthy.
jordan holmes
Right, right.
dan friesen
That's the premise that Alex is going on.
jordan holmes
I thought a lot of people really got tricked by Ann Coulter's support of McCarthy.
I thought that was a big thing that tricked them.
dan friesen
Sneaky!
jordan holmes
She's so clever like that!
I can't believe she got away with it for so long!
dan friesen
So at this point in 2003, Ann Coulter had just released her book titled Treason!
Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
Around this time, Coulter was at the peak of her powers as a media troll who would just say inflammatory things and then get people mad at her to facilitate a cycle of attention.
It worked really well back then, far more so than now.
The book Treason was in a large part about how Coulter felt that McCarthyism was something that was created by the liberals' imagination and that McCarthy was in fact right and did a great job of rounding up communist spies.
jordan holmes
Like, we have all of his words, though.
They, like, wrote them down.
dan friesen
Yeah, it's true.
jordan holmes
Some of it was on TV.
dan friesen
Yeah, this stuff isn't true, but a big part of this show that we do here is humoring ideas.
So I decided to bite.
jordan holmes
Let's do it.
dan friesen
The Venona intercepts There are some things that they definitely could be used to demonstrate.
Like, for instance, that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were, in fact, Soviet spies.
jordan holmes
Yes, that was true.
I found that out whenever I read about it.
dan friesen
And the Venona intercepts do definitely back this up.
Right.
unidentified
There definitely was some indication that there were a few people within government who were cooperative with the Soviet Union and providing them with information.
dan friesen
That is a fair assessment of the Venona intercepts.
But to say that they go so far as to.
No, no.
Though a lot of the fervor around anti-communist witch hunts in that period, they're associated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, McCarthy himself presided over the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which he used to grandstand against alleged communists.
The transcripts of his hearings between 1953 and 1954 are all available, and they don't paint a great picture of the man.
These transcripts probably weren't available to Ann Coulter at the time of the writing of the book, though, since they were only made public in January 2003, and this book was probably...
That being said, even before 2003, there was plenty of public information that would lead someone to assess McCarthy as being an idiot and a piece of shit.
It's fun to imagine he was just trying to find out the communist spies in the government, but you have to recognize he was also doing stuff like the following.
Quote, The State Department's International Information Agency operated several overseas libraries that were freely available to citizens in host countries.
McCarthy declared them to be Soviet tools because there were books in the libraries authored by communists and their, quote, fellow travelers.
He harassed the libraries so fiercely as communist propagating tools that some of the libraries actually burned the books written by authors McCarthy deemed to be subversive.
So he's doing shit like that, too.
jordan holmes
At no point in time, at no point in time are we going to get 100% of people saying burning books is a dumb idea.
We're just never going to get there.
dan friesen
Yeah.
You can get most people on board, generally.
jordan holmes
I mean, but it should be 100.
dan friesen
So we've gotten into McCarthy a bit in the past, so I don't want to go too far down that road again, but I was just really interested when I heard Alex say that he was wanting to give Ann Coulter some kind of a McCarthy purity test.
Seeing that she defended him based on the Venona intercepts just kind of led down a weird road of looking into this and seeing like, oh, this does actually, it does back up some stuff, you know, like there were Soviet...
jordan holmes
So he's not gonna surprise me and be like, I'm gonna give her a litmus test on McCarthy.
Did you like Blood Meridian?
You know, like that kind of stuff.
dan friesen
A lot of this stuff doesn't even come up in Alex's interview, which is why we have to deal with it up top.
jordan holmes
Of course.
I was gonna say, of course.
dan friesen
Yeah.
It's just weird that citing the Venona Intercept is a fairly solid way to argue that there were Soviet spies running around in the Cold War period.
unidentified
Sure.
dan friesen
And yet, I've literally never heard Alex bring them up.
jordan holmes
That is weird.
dan friesen
Looking into Ann Coulter and her arguments in favor of McCarthy are the first time that they have ever come up in any of the discussion of things on this show.
jordan holmes
That is really weird.
dan friesen
You'd think he'd incorporate them into the routine.
jordan holmes
I mean, it's just so...
It's evidence.
dan friesen
It is.
jordan holmes
Maybe that's why I can't have it.
dan friesen
Yeah, but I think it also is evidence that has a finite point of utility.
Like, you can't use it to argue like he likes to, that McCarthy...
were running the communists.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Or whatever.
Right.
unidentified
Those are the things you don't really need evidence for because you're not going to have that evidence.
dan friesen
Yeah.
unidentified
Things like the Venona Intercepts are like, those are real, they exist, and they get you...
dan friesen
This far.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Not as far as Alex wants to go.
jordan holmes
No, no.
And in fact, they almost, by omission, make McCarthy look like an even more insane a person, considering it's like...
dan friesen
That's my take on it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, like, no, no, no, there was real shit going on, and he's like, nah, nah, nah, we gotta make sure Hollywood writers can't work.
dan friesen
Exactly.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Yeah, yeah.
So, we get to Alex bringing Ann Coulter in, and this is a meeting of the minds, my friend.
alex jones
Ann, thanks for coming on the show.
ann coulter
Sure, hi there.
alex jones
Tell us a little bit more about yourself, and we're going to break and come back and get into the meat and potatoes of your newest book.
ann coulter
I'm a five-foot-tall blonde.
Six-foot-tall, 5 '10".
alex jones
And you certainly break the stereotype of blondes not being smart.
My mom's a blonde.
She's real smart.
ann coulter
Yes, this is a rumor invented by liberals.
dan friesen
So I thought he was going to destroy her.
This seems pretty...
jordan holmes
Very collegial starting off.
dan friesen
Seems polite.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Kind of fun?
jordan holmes
Friendly?
Easy breezy?
You know, when the Trojan horse came in, they had a nice party.
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
It's the same thing.
You know, buttering her up before we destroy her.
dan friesen
Maybe.
Maybe.
Who knows?
alex jones
Tell us about your newest book.
ann coulter
It's about the 50-year history of treachery of the Democratic Party, of the Democratic Party becoming a refuge for traitors, for Soviet spies in the 50s.
And on to defeat in Vietnam, losing confidence to communism, being completely wrong through eight years of Reagan, and now back to their old tricks again in the war on terrorism.
alex jones
And boy, are they back to their old tricks again.
ann coulter
Yes, they are.
dan friesen
Boy, this show is so above the left-right paradigm.
jordan holmes
Wow.
dan friesen
Yeah.
unidentified
Wow.
dan friesen
Man.
jordan holmes
All Democrats are evil.
Anyways, you're the best.
Love you, too.
dan friesen
It does seem a bit more friendly than I expected.
And I kind of thought, like, oh, okay, Alex was talking big, hoping the person would bail.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
So he wouldn't have to do the interview.
But the fact that it is happening, Ann Calder's a big star at this point.
jordan holmes
She's got a lot of pull that he can grab onto if she likes it.
dan friesen
I thought that that was what was going to happen.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
I was wrong.
This falls apart really hard.
jordan holmes
Good.
dan friesen
But it starts out seeming like you're just being a kiss-ass.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is sycophantic.
dan friesen
But pretty quick, Alex has to, you know, clear the air.
Look, lady, I'm a Ron Paul type of guy.
jordan holmes
Time to get this going.
dan friesen
I need you to know this up front.
alex jones
Ann Coulter, I'm going to be honest with you right up front here on the air.
I consider myself a real conservative, a Ron Paul type, conservative slash libertarian.
Would you consider yourself a neocon, a neoconservative?
ann coulter
No, I'm a conservative.
alex jones
Okay, because a lot of the White House calls themselves neocons, and that's their own word.
And Bush says he'll re-sign the assault weapons ban and add some nice little tidbits to it.
Bush has voted with Hillary and others for open borders.
Hillary voted with Bush for the war, so I don't know if it's just a Republican-Democrat issue.
I mean, how do you respond to that, that Bush, I mean, we see the biggest growth in the federal government ever, and a lot of different things developing.
How do you respond to that?
Could conservatives do more to shine the spotlight on the dirt in our own house?
ann coulter
I think it's up to conservatives to fight these issues by persuading their fellow countrymen that we don't want big socialism, supported by Teddy Kennedy and Hillary.
And not just sit back and say, oh, Bush should be stopping all of this.
Bush is the president, as president and a Republican.
He has the whole mainstream media against him.
I think Ronald Reagan did this as well.
The president can really only focus, it seems to me, on about three issues.
And I think the issues Bush has chosen are the war on terrorism, taxes, and the judiciary.
But you can't re-persuade an entire nation to stop voting for benefits for them.
alex jones
Hey, hold on, Ann.
ann coulter
...to us to persuade the soccer moms out there and our congressmen and our senators that we don't want big socialism.
alex jones
But Ann Coulter, that's kind of a cop-out.
I mean, let's be honest here, and then we'll get into your book, but I want to get this out of the way in front.
unidentified
Wow.
dan friesen
So, I mean, it's mildly confrontational, but I think this is a little spicier than you'd expect pretty quick.
I'm liking that.
Ann's comment that the president can only really do three things, that's kind of telling.
If she's trying to make excuses for Bush by saying he shouldn't be judged except for based on the three issues he's decided to focus on, shouldn't she have the same latitude for any politician?
jordan holmes
No!
dan friesen
Any Democrat president?
jordan holmes
No!
dan friesen
Anne's biggest issue could be, let's say, reducing regulation, but that wasn't one of the three issues that Obama decided to focus on, so shouldn't she have the same kind of what-can-you-do attitude towards it?
This is a pretty transparent dodging of the question.
I'm pretty glad that Alex just didn't let it stand.
You know, like, I don't know.
This is a cop-out.
Of course, Alex's objection to her answer isn't going to be anything close to where I'm coming from, but at least he's not giving up on it entirely.
You know, there is something to be said for, like, hold on a second.
jordan holmes
No, that's some bullshit.
A president can...
Listen, when you elect somebody to run a several trillion dollar enterprise per year called the American government, What you want to make sure they can only do is focus on three out of the ten million possible things going on at any given point.
dan friesen
I actually do think that there is some credence to what she's saying in terms of being a public advocate about...
jordan holmes
Every issue.
Being able to spend political capital is one of the ways that you can say there are only three things that he can focus on.
dan friesen
Your administration, if you're good at delegating things, can have other priorities that you're working towards.
Let's say your State Department is invested in X, Y, and Z. Sure.
Your Department of the Interior is doing all this stuff.
Your Education Department's doing these things.
There is a lot that the president could delegate.
but yeah I guess I wouldn't say they can only focus on three things but in terms of what you can publicly really make awareness towards you know maybe three maybe four you know there is a limit
amount of time that a president has uh true to advocate publicly for things and i do think that she makes a fine point that it is up to you know the conservative folk in america just to convince their fellow voters uh to go along with this true like whatever they think is the the The platform that people should be going towards.
jordan holmes
True, true.
But this is one of the stunning aspects of American politics, and actually politics in general, is how often presidents are insistent.
I'm insistent that the buck does not stop there.
Absolutely not.
It's not my fault.
I can only focus on three things.
You know, I got this going on, I got that going on.
You don't have to hold me responsible for all the stuff I delegate.
That kind of thing.
And that's kind of what I'm hearing again and again and again and again.
dan friesen
Yeah, yeah.
I take issue with the point that she's making, although...
A different version of the point she's making, I think I could see where it was coming from.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
It's kind of where I'm at.
jordan holmes
It's a distortion of a good point.
dan friesen
Yeah, so here's Alex's objection.
alex jones
But Ann Coulter, that's kind of a cop-out.
I mean, let's be honest here, and then we'll get into your book, but I want to get this out of the way up front.
Bush doesn't have to sign the assault weapons ban.
87% of Americans aren't against it in major polls.
89% in the Gallup poll against the open borders, which he's been pushing for.
ann coulter
What is open borders?
alex jones
Pardon me?
ann coulter
What do you mean?
unidentified
Uh-oh.
jordan holmes
Oh, no!
Oh, no!
Two grifters can't be asking to define terms?
dan friesen
Alex's kryptonite is definitions.
jordan holmes
You guys are going to be in real trouble here.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
You don't want to open that can of worms.
What does open borders mean?
What do any of our buzzwords mean?
unidentified
Uh-oh.
dan friesen
Also, Alex's objection seems to be like things that Bush didn't end up doing.
unidentified
Yeah.
Okay.
dan friesen
His objections seem to be things he's afraid of, which don't happen.
jordan holmes
He's above the left-right paradigm, and above the left-right paradigm, you don't have to worry about all the reality that the left-right paradigm deals with.
dan friesen
Above the left-right paradigm, you're just worried that everyone isn't going to be as extreme right as you want them to be.
jordan holmes
Right, right.
Above the left line, you're just looking at weird gremlins all over the place.
dan friesen
So your instinct was right that Alex does not want to have to define things.
Then he fails.
alex jones
Uh-oh.
ann coulter
What is open borders?
alex jones
Pardon me?
ann coulter
What do you mean?
alex jones
Oh, he had Fox up here right before 9-1-1 pushing for another blanket 10 million amnesty.
He's all part of this push for this Pan American Union.
I mean, look, I don't hear this on conservative talk radio.
Bush, the NRA, did put out an alert, though.
Bush says he's going to re-sign that assault weapons bill.
How can you say that he's got the whole media against him?
I don't care if he had the whole media against him.
He needs to...
To not sign that assault weapons ban.
ann coulter
Well, I think he also needs to get re-elected.
And there are a lot of soccer moms who vote out there.
And I'm just saying that a conservative president can't take on every issue at once.
He does have to look at being re-elected.
I think he'll probably be re-elected without much trouble.
alex jones
So you think it's okay to sign the assault weapons ban?
ann coulter
I don't think it's okay.
But I'm saying instead of sitting back and complaining that Bush isn't doing everything for us, I think we have to understand that there's only so much the president of the United States can do.
dan friesen
I think that clip is super revealing.
The first thing you see is that Alex can't define what he means by open borders in any sensible way.
Granting amnesty to a certain amount of people who are already here is not the equivalent of opening the borders.
The only other thing he could even come up with was that Bush supported the Pan-American Union.
None of this amounts to open borders, and I think that Alex is going to need to define what he means by Pan American Union, because that definitely has existed for a long time.
In 1889, the first international conference of the American states was held in D.C. This was, quote, for the purpose of discussing and recommending for adoption to their respective governments some plan of arbitration for the settlement of disagreements and disputes that may hereafter arise between them and for considering questions relating to the improvement of business intercourse and means of direct communication between said countries and to encourage such reciprocal commercial relations as will be beneficial to...
Yeah, that guy was a real dick.
which would go on to be named the Pan American Union, which then became the Organization of American States.
Alex isn't worried about a Pan American Union.
He's just worried that Bush is going to let more non-white people into the country.
But even so, he has a terrible grasp on being able to defend what is a really strong accusation, and that is that Bush supports open borders.
So he quickly pivots to the assault weapons ban.
Alex doesn't even really have good information to go on here.
All he can throw out is that the NRA put out an alert that they think Bush is going to ban assault weapons, and that's really weak.
It's interesting how Anne concedes the point, because I think she gets the sense that it's not even worth arguing.
So she retreats to the very reasonable point that a president can only do so much and has to consider getting re-elected.
I think here we can see a fundamental difference in how someone like Anne Coulter and someone like Alex Jones understands power and leadership.
For someone like Anne, being the president is part of a process.
You're picking up where your predecessor left off, and you're going to leave the next president the circumstances that your term ends in.
You can do a lot, but ultimately you can't alienate the voters who determine whether you'll stay in office.
You have to make concessions and recognize that imperfect compromises might need to be struck.
Someone like Alex doesn't view leaders that way.
He really does ascribe to a strongman dictator mold in terms of people he likes and would want to be in charge.
People who would come in with a set agenda that caters to Alex's social and political preferences and then put in place whatever, whether or not most people wanted it.
We saw this play out with Trump, and even back at this point, his supporter Ron Paul has a lot of similarities.
Because he's never been president, we don't know if he'd actually follow through with it, but Alex has every reason to think that the day Ron Paul got into office, he'd unilaterally withdraw us from the UN, he'd get rid of pretty much every social welfare program, shut down OSHA, and eliminate all foreign aid.
Alex has this fantasy of what Ron Paul would do, and thankfully for him, we never had to test the theory of whether or not he would do it.
And, on the other hand, has had experiences in the actual political world.
And she's had politicians she's supported become president.
Because she's very close to the actual workings of politics and doesn't have the same delusional idealism that Alex had in 2003 and still had about Trump, although he's threatening that if Trump disappoints him 20 more times, then it's going to be over.
jordan holmes
Any number of times now is going to be the last straw.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
I'm not certain it means much, but I really felt like this difference came through in this chunk of their conversation.
Alex has this delusional expectation that Bush do things that he's not doing already.
Whereas Anne has a pragmatism towards the political process.
At this point, I was like, she's gonna win.
Real easily.
This is not going to be good.
jordan holmes
It does not appear to be going well for Alex right out of the gate.
dan friesen
It does not seem like he's going to eviscerate her in front of the audience in order to dance upon her bones.
jordan holmes
If I were him, this would be a point where I'm starting to walk back my position, get real polite again.
Get real polite again.
You know what?
Let's talk more about your book.
dan friesen
Let's talk extensively.
jordan holmes
Your book is amazing.
Let's talk about how great McCarthy is.
dan friesen
Jesus.
So in this interview, Anne ends up making a point that I actually think is really good and insightful about Alex.
ann coulter
Too many conservatives sit back and think, you know, this is all Bush's fault.
Well, go out and persuade some soccer moms.
Go out and write an op-ed.
Complain to ABC, NBC, CBS.
Write to your congressman.
Write to your senator.
The problem with this is, look, about half the country voted for Al Gore in the last election.
We have to change that and can't just sit back and say, we got our guy in.
Now he's going to be our savior on everything.
I wish he were, but he's not going to be.
Even Ronald Reagan couldn't be.
You've got to focus as president on three big issues, and I wish both Reagan and Bush were more consistent.
So this is a fascinating point here.
dan friesen
Alex would never agree with it, but I think Anne is fairly right in accusing Alex of insisting that Bush do everything for him.
In the past, I wouldn't have looked at it this way, necessarily, because in many ways, Alex is doing something that could be described as politically active, the way that Anne's like, get out there and do something.
He's doing a radio show.
He's advocating for his political beliefs, which is in line with what Anne is suggesting people do.
But Anne's point is there, too, because Alex's show is basically just complaining about how Bush isn't doing everything that he wants him to do.
There's a passing of the buck in Alex's politics because he believes that things get done by strong, singular leaders, as opposed to the result of collective action, miscellaneous financial interests, and sometimes coincidences.
Bush signing the assault weapons ban, which he didn't do, wouldn't be the result of a ton of influences like millions of people electing members of Congress who would pass legislation for Bush to sign in the first place, or special interest groups lobbying for or against the bill.
It would just be a matter of Bush doing this to us because he's bad.
If Bush were good, then the millions of voters, or the majorities in Congress, or the lobbying groups, they wouldn't matter.
He would just do whatever Alex believed was right, even if doing so meant causing ridiculous political conflicts and possibly torpedoing his own career.
It's enticing to think of Alex's habit of looking at his favorite politicians as an all-powerful daddy like it started with Trump, but I don't know.
I think that feature is probably there a little bit consistently.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that is a...
I mean, to a certain...
Okay.
Okay.
That's a function, really, of his same show, though.
In his efforts with his show, he is consistently telling his audience, you don't have to do anything.
You give me the money so I can do stuff.
So, in essence, his political ideology is, well, I'm not the politician, so my job is to support whomever for them to do it for me in the same way that my listeners give me money so I can do bullshit.
So it seems like an almost one-to-one explanation for how he thinks everything operates.
dan friesen
Sure.
And there also seems to be, like, I guess the idea would be To use the political organizing of Alex's show, like there's enough listeners, and if they vote, we can vote for the person who will do everything we want them to do.
unidentified
Right, right.
dan friesen
So it is still kind of like, it's painfully idealistic in a way that, like, I guess I don't address nearly enough, I don't think.
jordan holmes
You know, we could theoretically vote for somebody who wanted universal health care, but apparently we won't.
dan friesen
And the goal is to convince people to vote for people who would.
jordan holmes
Yeah!
It's going well!
dan friesen
So Alex brings up a bill that Bush didn't veto and gets a little bit confused.
alex jones
Barbara Boxer said arm all the pilots.
It's better than having the F-16s shoot the planes down.
Bush said he didn't want to arm any of the pilots.
Now, how do you...
And then the conservatives did put pressure on him, and he let it go through.
He was stopping that, threatening a veto.
Now, what do you say to that?
ann coulter
He didn't veto it.
alex jones
Because of pressure.
Yeah, man.
See, that makes your point for you.
unidentified
Oops.
If you...
dan friesen
It seems like Alex is almost arguing with himself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
jordan holmes
A wrench so big was thrown into his brain, he's now agreeing with her to defeat himself.
dan friesen
Yeah, so he realizes that he's made Ant's point.
jordan holmes
Yeah, really well.
dan friesen
And so he just decides to get mean.
alex jones
See, that makes your point for you, but at the same time, if a big name like you and articulate...
An individual like yourself, who's kind of a mascot, well, not kind of a mascot, you are for the conservatives, and I think that's fine.
We need intelligent women out there doing this.
Then we need to have you help put some pressure in there as well, and I haven't heard you do it.
I mean, you have done a little bit today, and I appreciate that.
ann coulter
Look, I do in my book.
I am advising your audience that we need to persuade the American people and our representatives and senators.
I mean, what's the alternative?
Vote for Al Gore?
No.
I'm just saying, this is what Reagan did, this is what Bush is doing.
There's only so much a president can do.
I've said this many times.
I'm sure you can come up with lots of stuff he did that I don't like.
dan friesen
Real dickish.
Real rude to call her a mascot.
And the reason that she's a mascot is because she's an intelligent, conservative woman.
jordan holmes
I was going to say that what he just told her is that you're our token intelligent woman, and obviously when we do have power, if it's consolidated, you will not be involved.
dan friesen
Well, you'll be involved as a mascot.
jordan holmes
Yeah, as a mascot.
Hey, let's...
Excuse me, Ann.
I would like you to verify real quick that the only thing the far right cares about is your gender because you're not saying anything new, baby.
That's pretty much what he's going for right there, right?
dan friesen
Yeah.
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's kind of insulting.
dan friesen
I mean, I hate Ann Coulter, but I don't think that she deserves that kind of thing from Alex.
jordan holmes
From Alex?
unidentified
No.
jordan holmes
Definitely not.
dan friesen
So Alex keeps bringing up, like, why is Bush going to sign the assault weapons ban?
You know, blah, blah, blah.
Patriot Act 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Only able to do so much.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
I can only answer this question the same way so many times.
You can bring up other examples, and my answer will be the same.
jordan holmes
Yes.
dan friesen
And it's getting annoying.
jordan holmes
What about that time that he went to that bar with a buddy who wasn't a friend of mine?
That guy was a real asshole.
Is he an asshole?
dan friesen
Right.
Ann is starting to get a little bit annoyed with Alex's style.
unidentified
Good.
alex jones
Why did he sign on to UNESCO?
ann coulter
I think there are some limits to how much the president can do.
He's not czar of the universe.
alex jones
Ann, what about UNESCO?
I mean...
ann coulter
No, we're not going to keep doing this.
alex jones
So you're not saying this is scripted like the liberals, are you?
ann coulter
No, I'm saying this is the same question over and over again, and I'm going to keep saying the same answer over and over again.
Yeah, there are a lot of things.
Do you want to hear that answer again?
You know, I could take a nap now, and you can keep replaying it.
A president can only focus on three issues.
His three issues, terrorism, taxes, judiciary.
He's focusing on those issues.
It's up to us to persuade our fellow Americans.
dan friesen
I don't agree with what she's saying, but in terms of how she's responding, Anne is right.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's about right.
dan friesen
Anne is right.
Alex has just asked this one question of, if Bush is so great, why'd he do this thing over and over again?
And Anne has made her answer totally clear.
And even, she's been fairly polite with Alex being kind of a dick, calling her a mascot because she's an intelligent conservative woman.
Again, I hate Ann Coulter, but in conversation with Alex, she comes off like less of an asshole interpersonally and more of a person who actually knows how to convey her point.
I want to talk for a second about UNESCO, though.
The organization was founded in 1946, and the United States was a founding member.
In 1984, during the Reagan administration, the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO, and it's historically a fairly open question about whether or not that was an appropriate decision.
There were some complaints of mismanagement by the then Director General, so it might not have been a totally frivolous decision.
But either way, in 1995, we'd seen a change in leadership at UNESCO and a renewed interest in rejoining.
President Clinton indicated that he wanted to rejoin at this point, but he was limited in his ability to do so by budgetary constraints.
As he left office, he requested that Bush rejoin, which he did in late 2003.
It's true that Bush was inclined to rejoin, but he honestly couldn't have done it on his own unilaterally.
In order to join, funding had to be appropriated, which was done by an act of Congress.
It wasn't the act of one person because the action needed to be, you know, the action needed other things to make it happen.
jordan holmes
There were multiple parts.
There's like more than one branch of government.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
And they do different things.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
So the story of UNESCO as it relates to the United States is actually a bit of a bummer.
Ron Paul tried to get the U.S. out of it every year he was in the House, and each time it went nowhere.
But then, in 2011, UNESCO allowed Palestine in as a member state, and that was a huge problem for the United States.
At that point, we just decided to stop paying dues to UNESCO, and in 2013, they stripped the United States of voting rights.
Then in 2017, Trump's State Department announced we were going to be withdrawing again.
And when we left, we owed over $600 million in unpaid dues.
jordan holmes
I think the United States...
dan friesen
It sounds like Trump.
jordan holmes
It's a great...
unidentified
Great!
jordan holmes
We're cool.
Great roommate for the rest of the world.
unidentified
Yeah.
jordan holmes
I think we're best bros.
dan friesen
Yeah.
Anyway, one of my big points here is that Bush signing on to UNESCO isn't some kind of a single event that happened entirely motivated by Bush himself.
It's a piece of a larger picture that Alex just doesn't handle.
He just refuses to deal with it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and it's a really depressing picture, you know?
It's a really dumb picture that it's entirely possible that Nancy Reagan's astrologist told...
Ronald fucking, I got soup for brains that we should get out of UNESCO, and that's all that you needed to do.
dan friesen
I understand why you're saying that, but just in the interest of total fairness, the arguments at that point in the 80s for getting out were more sensible than a lot of other decisions.
unidentified
For sure.
jordan holmes
For sure.
dan friesen
But yeah, at this point, Anne is starting to get a little bit like...
I guess she's just realizing where she is.
jordan holmes
Yeah!
dan friesen
And it's kind of like, oh, this isn't good.
I thought I was going to be promoting my book.
She had no idea who Alex is.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
It's pretty clear.
It's very obvious that she really thought this was going to be a boilerplate radio appearance.
dan friesen
An interview with a right-wing radio person about her book.
jordan holmes
The safest possible thing for Ann Coulter to do.
dan friesen
Yeah.
And now Alex decides, aha!
She's annoyed.
jordan holmes
Got her.
dan friesen
I'm going to taunt her.
jordan holmes
Now's the good time.
alex jones
And you're right.
You have replayed that a few times here for us.
unidentified
But, okay, we can then get into the book.
ann coulter
What about UNESCO?
What about this?
I'm sure there are lots of things.
We could spend six hours doing this.
dan friesen
Yeah, we could.
alex jones
Well, I think somebody needs to, because all I hear is worship of Bush, and we're going to have a real conservative country and get back to what America is and influential people like you and others.
ann coulter
Okay, run against him.
alex jones
Well, look, you have replayed that.
I understand your answer there.
I see we're going with that.
And, okay, I understand what you're saying.
Now, I don't think I've heard you get this hot on TV with the liberals, man.
You're getting pretty upset here.
ann coulter
I'm getting pretty bored.
dan friesen
Damn!
jordan holmes
I am not going to say that I don't appreciate two monstrous children bickering.
That's pretty fun.
dan friesen
Say what you like about Ann Coulter.
She has a wit to her.
jordan holmes
She does.
dan friesen
She has an ability to...
Speak extemporaneously in a way that can sometimes...
She seems like someone who's been in a debate.
jordan holmes
She got to her position of professional troll with the talent to become a professional douchebag.
dan friesen
Seeing it used against Alex...
It softens it a little bit, but it's still just...
jordan holmes
It does make you feel like maybe there's a certain time to tap into being a dick.
alex jones
Maybe.
jordan holmes
You know, when the time is right, you should have the powers of douchebaggery under your belt, you know?
dan friesen
That rejoinder of, like, I've never seen you this mad at liberals, I'm just bored.
jordan holmes
Yeah, that's solid.
That's a solid one.
dan friesen
Exactly the poke you need to poke back at Alex.
jordan holmes
Yeah, you're not gonna break through that at the dinner table.
dan friesen
Yeah.
So, we get to the Patriots.
Hatred Act 2 after this.
He was like, what about this?
jordan holmes
What about it?
dan friesen
And, man, Ann just doesn't give a shit.
alex jones
Hatred Act 2 has secret arrest of citizens for no reason, liability protection to police and military to act domestically.
I mean, this is stuff Bill Clinton tried to get past in his omnibus crime bill and failed.
Section 213 means they can break in your house without a warrant, take whatever they want, plant whatever they want in any criminal investigation, even if it's non-terrorism.
So you can say that, well, you haven't read it, but then you've been looking for the problems in it.
I'm begging you...
ann coulter
No, I haven't read the portion that provides for secret arrests with no reason.
I would be curious to see that.
alex jones
Okay, let me dig it out.
ann coulter
I'm sorry, I just don't believe it.
alex jones
Let me get it for you.
That's Section 501.
The Domestic Security Enhancement Act that they said didn't exist.
It's been introduced in the Senate, sponsored by the Democrats as S22, the Justice Domestic Security Enhancement Act.
Would you like me to read you some sections?
ann coulter
No.
alex jones
Okay.
dan friesen
Love it.
No.
jordan holmes
No, I don't.
dan friesen
So earlier in the interview when they were in a discussion about parts of the Patriot Act, Anne said that she hadn't read this.
So I can actually totally see how Alex would have interpreted that as her saying that she hadn't read it at all.
That kind of would be a fair reading of what she'd said.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
It is really fun, though, when she clarifies that she hadn't read what he's talking about and also doesn't care.
We've talked about this a bit in the past, but there was no Patriot Act 2. The bill that Alex is referring to as Patriot Act 2 didn't pass.
Also, there's no Section 501 in S22, the Senate bill.
The first section is 1101, so this citation that he's throwing out just isn't good.
I understand that this was a proposed bill, and it wasn't cool, and it was a bit scary, but it's really counterproductive for Alex to embellish shit about it in order to take a shortcut to getting the audience invested.
It didn't pass.
It doesn't allow the stuff Alex is claiming it does.
And by this point in July, it's been six months since any action had been taken on the bill.
It was introduced and it was sent to committee.
It's essentially a dead bill at this point in July.
And Alex has every reason to know that.
unidentified
Oh boy.
dan friesen
So now we go to calls.
Because I think Alex realized, like, I'm not getting anywhere here.
She's sniping at me.
jordan holmes
Oh, she's kicking my ass.
dan friesen
So I gotta get back up.
alex jones
Alrighty, well, let's take some calls.
Let's go ahead and talk to...
To Bill in Pennsylvania.
Bill, you're on the air with Ann Coulter.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yes, Alex.
How are you doing?
alex jones
Fine, sir.
unidentified
Hi, Ann.
In all due respect, Ann, I can't help but drawing this analogy.
Oftentimes I go into a place of business and I inquire about purchasing something, so I go to a clerk or a salesperson, and I walk away in disparagement because I oftentimes know more than they do.
And that seems to be the case here with Alex versus you.
ann coulter
I didn't write a book about the patient.
unidentified
Right.
Well, but you cover all these issues, and I don't think you should really...
ann coulter
I disagree with his analysis of the Patriot Act.
unidentified
Pardon?
ann coulter
I disagree with his analysis of the Patriot Act.
alex jones
Ma 'am, but you haven't read it.
ann coulter
It has nothing to do with my book.
unidentified
Well, I know, but maybe these are issues that you talk about, evidently, on these talk shows.
Maybe you should educate yourself.
alex jones
No, I don't.
Yeah, I've heard you on a bunch of shows.
I've heard you on a bunch of shows say that it doesn't take liberties, and the liberals are lying.
It's not a liberal issue is what I'm saying.
unidentified
I mean, ma 'am, you are in support of the president.
ann coulter
No, I have said liberals are lying, claiming there's a civil liberties crisis in America right now.
unidentified
There is!
ann coulter
And if you think that, I think you're wrong, too.
alex jones
And I think you give the liberals powerful cannon fodder by it not being a conservative issue to demand that Bush not violate the Bill of Rights or Constitution, or Bill Clinton, or anybody else.
dan friesen
That caller's a real asshole.
Yeah.
The back and forth of it is no good, but at this point in the episode, like...
Alex maybe was starting to win me back a little bit.
Like, Ann's shittiness is starting to show through a little more.
unidentified
Yeah.
dan friesen
That's the Ann Coulter I remember.
Like, supporting the war, not being concerned about possible rights violations, and what have you.
Now, I'll grant that I don't believe Alex's principle is actually sincere here.
There are plenty of instances of potentially rights-violating things that Trump proposed or even put into place by executive order, and Alex had no problem with them.
Even as someone I don't fully trust the sincerity of, I still find his position here more palatable and responsible than...
not caring about violations of rights.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
And what have you.
jordan holmes
Yeah, she didn't.
dan friesen
No, I think that her glibness on that...
I, you know, I strongly disagree with.
Although I just, I think the way that Alex is interacting with this, like, she's on the phone, another person's on the phone, and the two of them are teaming up against the guest, I think is probably poor form.
jordan holmes
Just that, that, fuck, it was, it's like a sports talk show.
That's what it's really sounding like, is somebody calling into the goddamn strength coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and being like, why didn't you run the 45 at the, yeah, it's that bullshit.
dan friesen
Yeah.
And so, another thing that I think is also in terms of, like, the Alex v.
Ann thing, where I kind of side more with Alex, is that Ann is very clear that she supports the war on terror.
jordan holmes
Of course.
unidentified
You support the so-called administration's war on terrorism, correct?
ann coulter
Yes.
alex jones
She's written a chapter on it, yeah.
unidentified
Okay, well, if that's the case, then I would suggest maybe you should research this very critical legislation.
That you don't seem to know anything about.
ann coulter
Give me an example of someone whose civil rights have been violated.
alex jones
We have American citizens being taken to Camp X-Ray.
The White House admits people have been, quote, tortured to death at Bagram Air Base.
ann coulter
Tortured to death.
That's preposterous.
alex jones
What are you talking about?
unidentified
Wow.
alex jones
That's admitted by the White House.
Two weeks ago they said they won't, quote, allow that to happen anymore.
ann coulter
That is absurd.
The government has not tortured anyone to death.
Wow.
alex jones
That's absolutely absurd.
It's not absurd.
They admitted it.
ann coulter
Oh, really?
alex jones
Yeah, the White House.
Yes, the CIA section chief of the Middle East.
ann coulter
This is insane.
alex jones
The government has not tortured anyone to death.
dan friesen
See, you even fell for the sleight of hand that Alex did there.
So the problem with this conversation and how it's been carried out is very clear here.
These two people are talking about things so imprecisely that a pretty decent argument can be made that they're both right and they're also both correct in saying the other is wrong.
Up to this point, the discussion has been about the Patriot Act and Patriot Act 2, and it's centered entirely around the notion of the infringement of American citizens' rights.
So when Anne asks for an example of that, it's fair to assume that she's looking for an example of a citizen of the United States.
And even she's clear in her question that she's talking about the violation of civil rights.
Alex follows this up by saying that U.S. citizens were taken to Camp X-Ray, which continues the theme of discussing U.S. citizens.
He then jumps to torture at Bagram Internment Facility, which really complicates things, because now the conversation is incoherent.
Anne has every reason to think that they're still talking about U.S. citizens and their rights possibly being violated, so she's absolutely correct that the U.S. didn't torture any U.S. citizens to death at Bagram.
Simultaneously, Alex is so used to jumping all over the place and not staying on topic that he probably doesn't even realize that...
He's now shifted over to talking about non-US citizens in a discussion about civil rights.
And he's correct.
In December 2002, our soldiers killed two citizens of Afghanistan at Bagram, and they had been tortured.
Both Alex and Anne will probably leave the exchange thinking the other is completely insane and wrong, and Alex will take this as proof that she's a liar who rejects proven reality.
But it's actually just a case of people not being precise with what they're talking about, and ultimately, in this specific exchange, Alex is far more guilty of making this conversation nonsensical.
It's hard to tell if that's a debate strategy or if his mind just doesn't have the normal guardrails that most people have, but either way, the result is the same.
Also, Camp X-Ray is a part of Guantanamo Bay.
A man named Yasser Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan and declared an enemy combatant.
He was raised in Saudi Arabia, but he was born in Louisiana, so the government claimed that when they held him in Camp X-Ray, they didn't know that he was a U.S. citizen.
Once it was known that he was a citizen, he was sent to a jail in the United States.
According to findings in a Supreme Court opinion from his case against Donald Rumsfeld, he was taken to Guantanamo in January 2002, and it became clear that he was a citizen in April 2002, and he was sent to Norfolk, Virginia.
According to the information that they have, they didn't know he was a citizen.
They did find out they did not allow him to be held at Camp X-Ray.
jordan holmes
Whatever you want.
dan friesen
To be clear.
I'm not saying that any of this is okay.
It's just not relevant to the point Alex is trying to make.
I would say I'm opposed to people being taken to Guantanamo, US citizen or not, and that I don't think that this case in any way indicates a desire on the part of our government to put US citizens in camps or establish that precedent.
I think it's all nonsensical.
I think the argument they're having...
Right.
The point here is that because Anne and Alex have such incompatible communication styles, it's almost impossible for them to actually have a conversation that means anything.
And this exchange really illustrates it.
jordan holmes
They're always talking about two different things.
dan friesen
But notice how you responded to their nonsensical, incoherent conversation.
You prioritized...
The fact that people were tortured, because that is a more important issue, realistically speaking.
jordan holmes
Oh, sure.
dan friesen
You sided with Alex.
You were responding to Ann Coulter saying that no one was tortured to death as, like, she's wrong.
jordan holmes
Oh, no.
I was responding to Ann Coulter saying, find me someone whose civil rights were violated.
Because in my head, it's like, well, listen.
That doesn't prove anything towards any argument.
But in America, if you want to find somebody who's civil rights, you can find an example.
dan friesen
She meant specifically as a result of the Patriot Act.
And whether or not you could produce that person.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
Alex can't.
jordan holmes
No, absolutely not.
dan friesen
It's clear that he can't.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah.
It's just so stupid.
That was where it started being just like, what are we doing?
Why are you asking me for an example?
I agree with you.
dan friesen
I think it's stupid, but it's also the game that Alex is playing.
He's making a claim.
He's not used to people challenging his claims.
His claim is challenged.
He can't defend it.
He can't back it up at all.
That's fascinating.
Second.
I don't believe you at all.
I think that you did not see the sleight of hand from U.S. citizen to people being tortured.
jordan holmes
Oh yeah, no, I didn't see that.
dan friesen
I think it's really easy to miss.
If you're not paying attention, you could very easily get that.
And when he's saying that people were tortured, you could be like, you'd forget.
That the conversation was centered around U.S. citizens.
jordan holmes
Right.
No, and I understand that that is an important thing for a conversation that is trying to go somewhere, is to maintain a, like, if we're talking about U.S. citizens, then we can only have a point if we're both talking about the same thing.
dan friesen
Well, if the question I asked you was based on the rights of U.S. citizens, and you respond with something about...
Other people who aren't U.S. citizens.
unidentified
Right, right, right.
dan friesen
Then what are we doing?
jordan holmes
No, of course.
It's a pointless conversation.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
But I just don't care about U.S. citizens versus non-citizens.
I think that's ridiculous.
I am 100% for open borders.
dan friesen
I think I was trying to make that point that I don't care about the distinction.
jordan holmes
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
But, yeah, it's just interesting to me to see the path that this goes and how from an external perspective, really looking at it, you can see, all right, here's where this is going off track.
And neither of them really recognize, like, the other one, except Anne kind of does a little bit later.
Yeah.
unidentified
At this point in the conversation, they just are butting heads about completely...
dan friesen
It does feel like Alex is...
jordan holmes
Trying to find a weak point.
And if he can find a weak point, then he's going to hammer it home and never speak about anything else again.
So we're just getting a lot of, like, little pokes here and there.
dan friesen
And Ann tries to stay on topic because I think, you know, she's smart enough to recognize, like, what are we talking about?
alex jones
Or type in White House admits that Taliban fighters were tortured to death at Magram Air Base.
I mean, there's hundreds of articles.
It's admitted.
It's admitted.
ann coulter
You're talking about civil rights violations.
alex jones
What do you mean they've had the pundits?
ann coulter
You just switched it over to Bagram.
alex jones
Hold on.
Yes.
Yes.
And they said they fly them.
To Egypt and to Jordan for third parties to torture them.
ann coulter
We're talking about Americans in this country.
I asked for a civil rights violation in this country.
alex jones
Well, yeah, there's citizens who've been taken.
They're going to be tried before a military trial.
Hold on, let me answer your question.
Massawi and others, they've got to dig the articles out right now.
There's a bunch of citizens, British citizens, Australian Americans, being taken to Camp X-Ray.
They're building an execution chamber.
Paul Wolfowitz will appoint the three military judges that will try them without juries.
They can't face their accusers.
It's a kangaroo court.
ann coulter
Right, and we're talking about civil rights violations in this country.
alex jones
Yeah, enemy combatant designations of American citizens.
ann coulter
No, that is a wartime crime.
Yes, that may have happened.
Are you denouncing the entire U.S. military over this?
alex jones
No, I think it's horrible that they're huffing depleted uranium, and I think it's horrible they got hit by VX and sarin, according to hundreds of publications in universities, University of Texas at Dallas.
And I think it's horrible they weren't given treatment for that.
I do support the troops, yes.
I think the anthrax shot was very dangerous, and they finally suspended it.
I mean, yeah, I do support the troops.
But I don't let people say, do you support the troops?
Well, you've got to support what I say, or you don't support them.
ann coulter
Oh, is that what we were talking about?
alex jones
They are now saying that they will use it for banking, for everything, for all crimes.
An article in the Washington Times titled...
ann coulter
All over the place they're using the Patriot Act.
alex jones
Ann, you said you haven't read the Patriot Act.
ann coulter
No, I said I read it.
I said I hadn't read the part about how innocent Americans can be arrested secretly on the basis of no evidence.
I believe I'm quoting you on that.
alex jones
Yes, it actually says that.
Section 501.
ann coulter
Which says what?
alex jones
Tied into Section 802.
ann coulter
Innocent Americans can be arrested for no reason in secret proceedings.
alex jones
Yes, it says that they don't even need to think a crime's been committed, that you can be snatched off the street secretly and held.
ann coulter
That's not in the Patriot Act.
alex jones
Yes, Patriot Act 2. Yes, it is.
dan friesen
Oh, boy.
So what you see here is such a great example of how Alex can't answer any questions or dig deeper into any of these narratives and talking points, even at this point in his career, even in 2003.
Anne has asked him for an example of someone who had their rights violated because of the Patriot Act, and he's incapable of coming up with a single example.
Whether or not there are people who fit that description, if Alex can't come up with something that defends his claim, he's lost the point in terms of the conversation and has no reason to take seriously his claim.
No one has ever really challenged him on this point before, especially on the show, so Alex is unprepared to do anything other than what he always does on the show, which is to bounce all over the place.
The conversation of civil rights swings to the use of torture against foreign combatants, and once Anne realizes that this switch has happened, she tries to get back on track and remind Alex that they're talking about U.S. citizen civil rights.
Alex tries to bring up various country citizens being designated as enemy combatants, which, again, agree with it or not, Anne has a perfectly sensible response to in that...
You know, aiding the enemy is a wartime crime.
My point is not about which side here I agree with.
It's about who's actually making coherent sense and trying to stick to the point, and that person is undoubtedly Ann Coulter.
jordan holmes
Unfortunately.
dan friesen
Unfortunately, indeed.
The use of torture against foreign combatants is disgusting and should never be acceptable, but it doesn't intersect with the civil rights concerns that Alex is bringing up, so it's really irrelevant to the conversation.
Citizens of other countries being designated enemy combatants also doesn't really have anything to do with the point, but the notion that U.S. citizens are being taken to Camp X-Ray is partially relevant.
There's only one example that Alex could possibly have about this, which is Yasser Hamdi, who at this point had already been transferred to a U.S. prison once it was known he was a citizen.
At this point, the only other citizen who had been declared an enemy combatant was Jose Padilla, who was sentenced for planning to manufacture a radiological bomb and held at a military prison in South Carolina.
Both of these instances are interesting and a concern to civil liberties organizations, but neither of them were made possible by the Patriot Act.
This really has much more to do with the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was signed on September 18, 2001, which itself was highly reliant on a 1942 Supreme Court ruling, Ex parte Quirin, a case regarding the use of military tribunals for eight captured German saboteurs.
Instead of dealing with some of these subtleties, Alex just points a finger at the Patriot Act, because that's something that's easy to hang your hat on.
It's a good shorthand, and being opposed to it gives him some kind of a credibility in this left- and right-wing civil libertarian liberties community.
Strictly speaking, though, Anne is still right.
And if Alex wants to take issue with the designation of people as enemy combatants, that essentially requires a fundamental opposition to the way that the U.S. military operates.
Alex doesn't want to deal with that, so instead he jumps to another one of his preloaded talking points about what it means to support the troops.
Anne wasn't talking about supporting the troops or not.
That's a false point that Alex is responding to because he has that pre-scripted rant about how he's the one who supports the troops, and by throwing that out, he can pretend to have some kind of a moral high ground.
This is an incredibly pointless conversation they're having, and Alex is losing.
jordan holmes
Yeah, the point where she said, then do you...
If you fundamentally disagree with how the U.S. military works, then the answer you have to give is yes.
Should have been yes.
Yes, because then you can continue a conversation.
If you say, no, I still want them to do everything and I support the troops, then stop talking.
dan friesen
Yeah, that's just shifting the conversation in order to score a point.
jordan holmes
Absolutely.
dan friesen
So, we had another caller.
These callers suck.
unidentified
Could Ms. Coulter please...
Talk about the morality of a president that attends Bohemian Grove.
alex jones
Oh, yeah.
Bush admits he goes to the Grove in Skull and Bones, and these are not Christian organizations.
Are you aware of those, Ann?
ann coulter
Vaguely.
Men get dressed up in women's clothes and sing songs.
alex jones
Well, according to the Washington Times, they bus in male prostitutes.
ann coulter
That is absurd.
alex jones
Oh, bet me $10,000.
unidentified
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
alex jones
Hold on, John.
I'm not a betting man, but Ann, I'm ready to put my money where my mouth is.
ann coulter
George Bush attends functions with male prostitutes.
alex jones
Sacramento Bee, Associated Press, Parade Magazine, Spy Magazine.
I have all the news articles.
dan friesen
Whatever goes on at the Grove, the sources that Alex is citing don't back up his claim that gay sex workers are carted in to work for the group members.
There's no women around, and articles like the ones Alex references do discuss the vague homoeroticism that hangs in the air, including but not limited to men playing women very lewdly in stage performances and the audience hooting and hollering.
jordan holmes
Of course.
dan friesen
The stories that Alex is referencing do discuss prostitution, but the story doesn't match what he's saying.
Essentially, there is a nearby city to the Bohemian Grove called Monte Rio, and there's a bar there that was notorious for being a place where Bohemian Club members could slip away at night to order a sex worker.
According to a 1975 book by G. William Demoff, this is what the group members referred to as river jumping.
This Washington Times article that Alex is referring to is from 1989, and it doesn't actually have to do with Bohemian Grove at all.
It has to do with the fear that the Soviet Union was using male sex workers to ensnare politicians.
Not great.
Quote, we have known for many, many years that there is a department of the KGB whose job it is to prey on sexual deviance, said retired Lieutenant General Daniel Graham, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Because closet homosexuals in government service can easily be turned through blackmail for espionage purposes, General Graham said, quote, we have always in intelligence tried very hard not to be giving classified information to known homosexuals.
jordan holmes
Boy, could have gone the other direction.
You know, you could have just been...
It's okay to be gay.
dan friesen
Wow, that's interesting.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Totally cool source that is here, and it actually doesn't prove anything about Bohemian Grove.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
In 2004, which is after this episode was recorded, Prison Planet reposted a New York Post article about how there was a former gay porn star named Chad Savage who worked as a valet at the Grove, which is meant to imply that I guess he was secretly also a sex worker for the powerful man there.
This is a bit of a leap, and definitely not substantiated by the reporting.
The Grove spokesperson Sam Singer said, quote, the club doesn't care about his past.
It's totally possible that he was someone who worked in the service industry and also in porno.
It's not like sex work always pays everyone's bills.
People also sometimes have to have a second revenue stream.
Anyway, I can find no evidence of the claim that Alex is making, so Anne might be able to win $10,000 here if she takes Alex up on it.
And interestingly, if you do try to find claims of gay prostitutes being taken into Bohemian Grove, so many of the sources just link back to Alex.
jordan holmes
Of course.
unidentified
Of course.
dan friesen
It's really tough to...
Try and find, like, where is this coming from if not from an InfoWars article?
It's very weird.
jordan holmes
I do think that it is enjoyable to see a theoretically conservative luminary.
Being peppered with the questions of people who actually follow them.
That's great.
dan friesen
And will become a problem for them years down the line.
jordan holmes
Oh yeah.
So good.
It's always great whenever you have somebody who's like a screeching talking head on TV actually confronted with what they've created.
dan friesen
Yeah.
And meet your demise years from now.
jordan holmes
Exactly.
dan friesen
It's these people.
alex jones
Yup.
dan friesen
So we get another caller.
And this is where Anne is like, oh my god, I can't believe I'm talking to you weirdos.
alex jones
John in Tennessee, you're on the air with Ann Coulter.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yes.
Isn't the title of your new book a propaganda attempt to divert attention from the treason of Prescott Bush's criminal convictions for arming Adolf Hitler during World War II to divert attention from Sir Bush Jr.'s connection to the assassination of Ronald Reagan and Rand Contra.
alex jones
Ma 'am, ma 'am, ma 'am, ma 'am.
I have the Pittsburgh and New York news articles from 42 When Prescott was arrested, are you saying that didn't happen?
ann coulter
I'm saying this is absolutely nutty, and you ought to get back to concentrating on the black helicopters.
alex jones
Okay, which they now admit are surveilling the country with the drones, according to the Houston Chronicle and Senator Warner.
You mean those?
dan friesen
Oh boy.
So, I kind of feel like Anne is handling this pretty well, and I would definitely listen to a show where Alex and Anne were forced to take calls together.
jordan holmes
Oh, it'd be great.
dan friesen
That would be so much fun as punishment for both of them, as long as proceeds from the show went to a charity that both of them didn't support.
jordan holmes
Yes, they can't have anything to do with the money.
dan friesen
Prescott Bush was not criminally convicted, like this caller is saying, and like Alex is saying.
He was on the board of a couple of companies that did business with a man named Fritz Thyssen, who was an industrialist in Germany and had been a member of the Nazi party.
Doing business with Thyssen was totally not illegal until the end of 1941 when the U.S. entered World War II, since we were technically neutral up to that point.
In 1942, the assets of these companies were seized, and by that point, Thyssen had had a falling out with Hitler and was no longer a supporter of the Nazi party.
In fact, Thyssen had supported the rise of Hitler and the Nazis financially and materially, but had a strong break in 1939 when Germany decided to invade Poland.
jordan holmes
Oh, I thought it was like Hitler slept with his girlfriend or something.
dan friesen
In 1940, some of his private letters were published in Life magazine.
From the article, quote, In publishing the papers leading to my break with Adolf Hitler, I wish to show that the German nation, which elected Hitler its leader because of his professed opposition to communism, is innocent in the developments that turn national socialism into its opposite.
In his letters, he was pretty clearly opposed to the mistreatment of Jewish Germans.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
Quote, on November 9th, 1938, the Jews were robbed and tortured in the most cowardly and most brutal manner, and their synagogues destroyed all over Germany, I protested once more.
As an outward expression of my repugnance, I resigned my position of state counselor.
All my protests obtained no reply and no remedy.
Essentially, it's a pretty messy situation.
Materially, this guy, and by extension, the U.S. folks like Prescott Bush, who did business with him, had a direct impact in the rise of the Nazi party.
At the same time, looking at their precise actions and what they did, it's kind of different than if you were to look at Sure, sure.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
All these people have a certain amount of historical blame, but it's not always totally cut and dry.
And make no mistake, I'm not saying that Thiessen or Bush had great intentions.
They would have been happy to create an oppressive corporate state where labor rights were non-existent.
All of these characters suck in their own ways, but Alex has to call Bush a Nazi for this, because he can't unpack things to recognize that the real motivating factor for his involvement with Thiessen was...
Their shared opposition to communism, which Alex agrees with.
If he has to unpack this and talk about Thason's history, which only opens Alex up to having to discuss how the political machine he'd supported to defeat communism grew out of control into outright fascism.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
And that's probably not something Alex wants to get into.
jordan holmes
I am loving, loving the irony.
The irony of a woman who is coming on this show to sell me a book about how great McCarthy was is now telling other people this is the nuttiest thing she's ever heard.
It is way less nutty to call Prescott Bush a Nazi than it is to say McCarthy was a good guy.
dan friesen
Yeah, I guess it's debatable.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So I think, though, that one of the things you'll notice if you listen to this whole thing is that they ultimately just, they're both wrong.
Uh, pretty consistently.
Anne is at least structurally making points.
unidentified
Right.
dan friesen
So she's right in that sense.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
But they're wrong about so much, but they both think that they're right.
alex jones
We're at war right now.
ann coulter
This is no time to be looking for black helicopters.
alex jones
Okay, let's put John on hold.
ann coulter
I think we ought to be concerned about finding these weapons of destruction before they end up in New York rather than running off on these...
alex jones
You are, hey, you are a neocon, and you're out there shelling for the Trojan horse.
That is George Bush, who's a gun grabber, UN promoter, open borders.
I mean, the evidence, you know, the fruits on the tree, Ann, and we've been trying to be nice to you, and you've just denied things that are all over the mainstream news, many of them for 50 years, and you can't face up to the corruption of the Republican Party that's growing the size of the government.
We're conservatives.
We're not LaRoucheites over here, okay?
jordan holmes
I think you are.
I think you are, too.
I believe you are LaRougeites, yes.
dan friesen
I mean, they're both wrong.
Alex thinks he's made a point.
He thinks that he's actually...
Demonstrated that Anne is somehow disconnected from reality.
jordan holmes
Right.
dan friesen
And Anne is wrong because she's supporting these weapons of mass destruction.
jordan holmes
Insane.
dan friesen
Her points are wrong.
jordan holmes
These people are...
It's amazing.
It is like two people arguing over how the KKK should commit a genocide.
You know, like, no, no, no, no, you're wrong.
We should use a...
Like, what are you guys doing?
dan friesen
It is pretty strange.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
So they go to break and Alex comes back and this is just pathetic.
alex jones
I don't know about you, but Bush had better not sign that assault weapons ban.
Better not call for open borders.
I think that's top issues.
dan friesen
So perfect that it's the Pink Panther theme.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
Because both of those things Bush didn't do.
jordan holmes
Oh, man.
dan friesen
He's Clouseau with conspiracies.
jordan holmes
It's nonsense.
dan friesen
So Alex starts getting into like 9-11.
jordan holmes
Sure.
dan friesen
False flag stuff.
jordan holmes
Retreating to comfortable territory.
dan friesen
Exactly.
Is a little confused.
jordan holmes
Uh-oh.
alex jones
Why is, according to the International Herald Tribune, why does the Justice Department have their people standing over witnesses in the 911 investigation and, quote, intimidating them?
ann coulter
By standing there and scowling at them?
alex jones
Well, you're not, yeah.
Private meetings have got...
ann coulter
They're apparently easily intimidated.
That's why they're hijacking planes and flying them into buildings.
Oh, really?
alex jones
Hey, why were some of those hijackers trained at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, according to MSNBC?
ann coulter
What?
Now you're saying we trained the hijackers?
What is this now?
alex jones
Yeah, the military-industrial complex, according to Operation Northwoods, planned to carry out 911-style attacks.
Baltimore Sun, ABC Nightly News.
I don't know if you've heard of them.
ann coulter
You're just getting nuttier and nuttier.
alex jones
Well, it's like the USS Liberty, which they now admit we've had Admiral Moore on, former chairman John Cheese's staff, he admits the government tried to sink the ship to blame it on Egypt.
Oh, that's Admiral Moore, though.
ann coulter
George Bush was considering having Mohammed Atta in a highly placed position in the federal government.
jordan holmes
Not as good.
ann coulter
He was almost one of the hijackers.
Did you know that?
But he got away at the last minute.
alex jones
Well, nine of the hijackers are still alive, and unfortunately for you, Ann, our audience is educated and aware of what you're up to, this whole spin.
ann coulter
What I'm up to is I'm going to talk about a book, and I'm getting a bunch of nut theories thrown at me.
jordan holmes
Yeah, I came here to talk about how great and correct McCarthy was, and now I hear all these nutty conspiracy theories.
dan friesen
Listen, Dick, I came here to sell a book full of nutty theories.
I didn't come here to listen to your nutty theories.
jordan holmes
Isn't that exactly what you're saying?
dan friesen
Basically.
jordan holmes
I came here to lie my way.
dan friesen
But it's still delightful.
There's something about this, I think part of it is because it's in the past, and it's, you know, the past...
It can't hurt us more than it already has.
jordan holmes
Right, right, right.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
And so it's kind of fun to see her be annoyed and also be correct in her annoyance.
jordan holmes
A little.
dan friesen
And also wrong.
jordan holmes
About everything.
dan friesen
There's just layers.
jordan holmes
It is nice to see these two dum-dums.
Really just get to the heart of why they're incompatible and why the right-wing grift is, you know, destined to eat itself alive.
dan friesen
Sure.
jordan holmes
You know, it's because I'm selling my bullshit and I don't want to listen to your bullshit.
You know, and it's like, well, yeah, Alex is selling his bullshit and he doesn't want to listen to your bullshit.
dan friesen
Yeah, especially when your bullshit is, like, fairly contradictory.
jordan holmes
Yeah, and you're both fucking stupid.
dan friesen
There's that.
jordan holmes
So, it's just a going back and forth of people, and Ann Coulter gets to act like she's laughing at all of this shit, because it sounds more openly lunatic than what she's selling you, which is the same lunacy wrapped up in better words.
dan friesen
But she's got, like, a great life of privilege to get to after the phone calls.
jordan holmes
That's true.
dan friesen
She'll go and meet up with a friend, have a cocktail, and talk about...
I was on the phone with this lunatic.
jordan holmes
I was on these dicks.
unidentified
Yeah.
Yep.
dan friesen
So, Alex...
One last call for Ann.
Spoiler alert, she does not get a chance to answer.
And then Alex treats her like a real pile of garbage to end the show.
I mean, look, it's rude, but also kind of funny.
alex jones
Clint in Missouri.
Last caller for Ann Colfer.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Clint.
Okay.
Clint's gone.
Go ahead, Clint.
unidentified
Yeah, I just want to do...
Say that Ann had mentioned that Bush has to do certain things to get re-elected.
I think a lot of our perspectives are he should be more principled.
A president's duty is not getting elected.
There's more important things like preserving our Constitution.
Right now, the majority of Americans are more than willing to give away our freedoms.
alex jones
Absolutely.
Thanks, Clint.
Thank you, Clint.
Ann Colter, we really appreciate you coming on the show, and we hope you'll talk more about the neocons, gun-grabbing, open borders, and blocking Dan Burton's committee, and signing on to UNESCO, and signing campaign finance reform, restricting the First Amendment.
ann coulter
You think that might be a good idea, Ann?
Lyndon LaRouche, luck in the next election.
alex jones
Okay, hey, hey, have fun being a neocon Trojan horse, Ann.
Have fun being their little poster child, okay?
Hopefully you and your buddies can keep everybody in the dark long enough to get your new world order.
We know that's what it's all about.
I'm out of time, folks.
If you want to support this broadcast, don't buy her mindless book.
Just stuff that doesn't matter anymore.
Little side issues.
Expose the whole system.
Get my videos.
dan friesen
Pretty good.
Pretty sweet.
jordan holmes
That's good stuff.
That's good stuff.
dan friesen
In that clip, I mean, there's three things that are amazing.
First is the complete...
You can't answer the question.
jordan holmes
Nope.
dan friesen
That's supposed to be the last question for Anne.
Second, Anne jumping in with the...
I wish your candidate Lyndon LaRouche the best of luck in the next election.
That's a nice outro.
jordan holmes
That's not bad.
Don't buy her fucking book.
dan friesen
Don't buy that mindless book.
jordan holmes
Don't buy that shit drivel.
Don't buy this lady lying to you about McCarthy?
dan friesen
I think that Alex wanted that, like, don't buy her book to be way more earned than it was.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
That was really a...
jordan holmes
It sounded petulant.
dan friesen
Yeah, it sounded really, really childish.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah.
dan friesen
Like, it's just...
It's pretty funny, though.
jordan holmes
I appreciate...
I think...
dan friesen
I'm sorry.
jordan holmes
No, no, no, go for it.
dan friesen
I think that, like, this is a get for Alex.
At this point.
In 2003, Ann Coulter coming on his show is a big deal.
unidentified
Huge.
dan friesen
I think he handled this poorly.
I think that Ann Coulter doesn't give a shit about who he is, so it might not matter, but this kind of behavior would definitely be like, if she cared, she has access to all sorts of very famous people that could be guests on Alex's show, and now will not be.
jordan holmes
No.
dan friesen
Because the premise of the interview was supposed to be to promote her book.
And instead, he just said a bunch of dumb shit to her, annoyed her, and then at the end said, don't buy her book.
jordan holmes
Yeah.
dan friesen
It's kind of not how you treat a guest.
jordan holmes
I love both of them feeling bad about this.
dan friesen
I think she felt great.
jordan holmes
I don't think she did.
dan friesen
I think at the end, she got a good snippy line in.
jordan holmes
I think she got a good line in.
dan friesen
Then she's going to get a highball and have a great time.
unidentified
I'm telling you.
jordan holmes
I'm telling you.
I think she walked away from this thinking, I don't like what happened.
I like her feeling like that.
dan friesen
I'm sure she isn't thrilled.
unidentified
Yes.
dan friesen
But I don't know if it matters.
I don't think it matters to her.
jordan holmes
No, it doesn't matter to anybody who's super rich.
dan friesen
No, but I think Alex probably came away from this much more pissed off than she did.
jordan holmes
Oh, yeah, totally.
Again, I like that, too.
dan friesen
I think he was actually mad.
She was a little bit annoyed and playing around with it.
jordan holmes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
dan friesen
I do think the laughing and being like, this black helicopter shit.
jordan holmes
For sure.
dan friesen
You guys like, this is LaRouche nonsense.
jordan holmes
For sure, for sure.
dan friesen
I think there was actually an amusement on her part.
Like, I have accidentally stumbled into this video show full of complete weirdos who are calling and asking me about prostitutes at Bohemian Grove.
jordan holmes
I am amazed, amazed at people who will just agree to go on.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Just with no knowledge, don't know who that person is.
dan friesen
Yeah, it is strange.
I would predict that this is maybe one of the last high-profile interviews he gets for a while.
jordan holmes
I would say so.
dan friesen
Because it does not.
It's not a good marketing tool for like, hey, come talk to me.
I will treat you well.
jordan holmes
I know in 2003 or 2004 they didn't have group texts yet, but I'm sure she could still get on the phone pretty quick with a lot of people.
So at least in a day, there's hundreds of people who aren't going on Alex's show.
dan friesen
Well, it's possible.
But like I said, I think that she probably just got done with it and maybe wanted to tell a friend because it's funny.
jordan holmes
That is funny.
dan friesen
As opposed to like...
I can't imagine that she thinks he's relevant.
jordan holmes
No, that's true.
dan friesen
Like, if you have this kind of an interaction with somebody, first of all, you know that they aren't behaving as a gracious host.
Sure.
So probably you're like, this is an unprofessional asshole doing a radio show.
jordan holmes
True.
dan friesen
They can't be that successful.
Possible.
And then you hear the ideas that are being expressed, and you're like, this is fringe nonsense.
Ugh.
Hey, maybe I gotta talk to my agent.
They fucked me.
jordan holmes
Yeah, it must be.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
Oh, boy.
dan friesen
Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot.
I was really looking forward to this episode because of the tease of I got a big, slimy neocon.
And then it being Ann Coulter and it going so poorly.
jordan holmes
So bad.
dan friesen
Just off the rails.
What fun.
jordan holmes
That's great.
dan friesen
Yeah.
jordan holmes
That's just great stuff.
dan friesen
Good, clean fun.
jordan holmes
Absolutely.
And it's from 2003.
That's the best.
dan friesen
So, we'll be back.
But until then, we have a website.
jordan holmes
We do.
It's knowledgefight.com.
dan friesen
Yep.
We're also on Twitter.
jordan holmes
We are on Twitter.
It's at knowledgefight and I go to bed, Jordan.
unidentified
Yep.
dan friesen
We'll be back.
But until then, I'm Neo.
I'm Leo.
I'm DZXCork.
I'm Daryl Rundis.
steve quayle
And now, here comes the sex robots.
alex jones
Andy in Kansas.
You're on the air.
Thanks for holding.
unidentified
Hello, Alex.
I'm a first-time caller.
I'm a huge fan.
I love your work.
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