Today, Dan and Jordan welcome back to the show reporter and author of the book on Sandy Hook, Elizabeth Williamson, to have a chat about how things are going in the trial, important take-aways, and donut-related secrets.
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Knowledge Fight. | |
| I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, saying we are the bad guys. | ||
|
unidentified
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Knowledge Fight. | |
| Dan and George. | ||
| Knowledge fight. | ||
| Need money. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
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Stop it. | |
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
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It's time to pray. | |
| Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks for holding. | |
| Hello, Alex. | ||
| I'm a huge fan. | ||
| I love your room. | ||
| Knowledge Fight. | ||
| KnowledgeFight.com I love you. | ||
| Hey, everybody. | ||
| Welcome back to another episode of Knowledge Fight. | ||
| I'm Dan. | ||
| I'm Jordan. | ||
| We're a couple dudes who like to sit around, worship at the altar of Selene from afar while we're in this hotel room, and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. | ||
| Oh, indeed we are, Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Dan! | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Quick question for you. | ||
| What's up? | ||
| What's your bright spot today, buddy? | ||
| My bright spot, Jordan, is... | ||
| I'm going to steal yours. | ||
| You've already stolen mine! | ||
| You fighting with Robert Barnes on Twitter. | ||
| No, that one wasn't mine. | ||
| No, that's not mine, but yes, that is one of the great delights of my life. | ||
| An Infowars character accidentally stepped into your Twitter mentions and got blown up with all people saying good work, Barnes. | ||
| Getting ratioed like crazy. | ||
| Oh man, I wouldn't have a nickname that is that belittling and then step into that arena. | ||
| That would be me. | ||
| I would avoid that. | ||
| It was fun to see. | ||
| Of all the Twitter nonsense that you're getting into, that it was definitely a peak for me. | ||
| What about you? | ||
| My bright spot, or my dark spot, I don't know. | ||
| Whatever it is, we found out today that the man The myth, the legend will be testifying in open court. | ||
| Tomorrow, Alex Jones is supposed to take the stand in the trial. | ||
| As we're recording this, it'll basically be today as the episode's coming out. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And you would think, because here's why it's my bright spot. | ||
| Because if you were a wise man who was going to testify on your own behalf, you would absolutely stick to what you said in your deposition, thus proving that you are not a liar. | ||
| That seems like it's going to be tough. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, because he said a lot of things in that deposition. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, I think that'll be wild to see, and I don't know what to expect. | ||
| I think I'm going to shave my beard so I can... | ||
| Super incognito. | ||
| We should definitely be doing that. | ||
| But yeah, we'll see. | ||
| We'll be there and give you all a full report on the other side. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| So Jordan, today, as opposed to an episode talking about what's going on on Alex's show, I thought it would be fun to have... | ||
| A guest come in and talk about the goings-on here in the trial, talk about some of the experiences that we've been seeing, some of the coverage. | ||
| No way. | ||
| Would it be a guest who is also in Austin? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| No way! | ||
| Yes, but not in the room with us. | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| Stuff is dicey. | ||
| But, welcoming back to the podcast, Elizabeth Williamson. | ||
| Thank you for joining us. | ||
| Hey, you guys. | ||
| Good to be not with you. | ||
| Now, let me ask you this. | ||
| What is your bright spot? | ||
| Oh, yeah, obviously. | ||
| Oh, my gosh. | ||
| Okay, so completely not trial-related. | ||
| My bright spot was that for the first time since I've been here, which is almost a week, I did get out for a run this morning, and it was only 90 as opposed to 101. | ||
| So you must have gone for that run at like 3 a.m. or something? | ||
| It was at about 6.30. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| I would have figured it would be 110 by then. | ||
| Yeah, no kidding. | ||
| Yeah, well, by the end, I have to say, by the end, it was getting close to, yeah, vomitsville temperature. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| Well, congratulations on mustering the drive to do that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| I've been telling myself I'm going to go to the gym in our hotel for, well, we've been here a week. | ||
| I've been saying it for a week, and instead, I have s'mores snack mix. | ||
| I'm glad you enjoy them. | ||
| I bought them for you. | ||
| I think I did tell you guys about the shameful moment where I went out to go for a run and I wound up at Voodoo Donuts. | ||
| And I told you there is no shame in that. | ||
| Running away from being healthy! | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, that was really... | |
| What did you get at the Voodoo Donuts? | ||
| So they have a limited edition banana cream pie donut. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, that was a lot of frosting. | |
| And then the diet donut that I got just to feel a little bit better about myself. | ||
| So it's the voodoo donuts version of a salad. | ||
| It's cinnamon cake donut. | ||
| Ooh, yeah. | ||
| I got this peanut butter banana thing that was... | ||
| Some sort of an Elvis situation? | ||
| No idea, but it was the size of a horse's flank. | ||
| Like, it was absurd to try and fit that anywhere near my mouth. | ||
|
unidentified
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I ate a... | |
| I'm ashamed to say that over two days, I ate a third of it. | ||
| Ooh. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, mine was so sort of sticky. | |
| That I couldn't really finish it, and then I didn't know what to do with it because I didn't want to throw it into the hotel wastebasket. | ||
| Your room will just smell like a donut. | ||
|
unidentified
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I actually put it in the toilet. | |
| I thought this was going to be a, I threw it off the balcony situation. | ||
| I really thought that we were going to a different direction. | ||
| I mean, Did you leave it there? | ||
| It's a solution to the problem. | ||
| I flushed it. | ||
| It was kind of like cutting out the middle man, right? | ||
| That is crafty. | ||
| The alligators got a little bit bigger yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
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And they all smell like bananas. | |
| I personally can't get away from the Oh Captain My Captain, the Captain Crunch donut. | ||
| And I hate myself every single time. | ||
| Oh, it's good. | ||
| It's kind of stressful. | ||
| You're standing in that line and you don't really know, unless you do the QR code, which I'm not very good at, what your choices are. | ||
| So I'm looking at the sort of revolving, you know, that old school bakery, you know, like diner revolving display. | ||
| As you get up to the checkout, and you're like, all right, what do I choose? | ||
| What do I choose? | ||
| It's kind of a stressful moment, so I did see that poster. | ||
| I'm going to tell you something in a non-misogynist way. | ||
| I'm going to do my best to do this, okay? | ||
| They deliver, baby. | ||
| Oh, they do. | ||
|
unidentified
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They'll bring it to your door. | |
| Yeah, I had to do that myself, because I couldn't. | ||
| Well, basically the moment that you're describing, Liz. | ||
| The kid in a candy store, but I'm not a kid. | ||
| I'm not going to soup Nazi a donut. | ||
| You bring it to my home. | ||
|
unidentified
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Exactly. | |
| It was kind of fun, though, to go there early in the morning because it's a combination of people who are like you, who really want to get there before the line forms, and people who are waiting for you to buy them one and give it to them on the street. | ||
| So, yeah. | ||
| When I was in town for the depositions, I went there at night. | ||
| I went there after we'd all got done with everything. | ||
| I think it was probably like 11 or something. | ||
| And there were just drunk people hanging out at Voodoo Donuts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, yeah. | |
| I think it is kind of an after-the-party kind of place. | ||
| I'm not sure that's what I want after a big night. | ||
| If you're a donut shop that stays open past 11... | ||
| You are giving drunk people donuts. | ||
| That's your business model. | ||
| I want nachos or something. | ||
| I want mine filled with chili. | ||
| I think if I went there after the bars, yeah, I'd want some kind of chili thing. | ||
| I think you just created a situation that gives Dan a heart attack in two years. | ||
| Chili mac. | ||
| Chili and mac and cheese inside a donut. | ||
| Oh, that's a million dollar idea, Liz. | ||
| You've killed him! | ||
| You've killed my best friend! | ||
| How dare you! | ||
| It's like a pastry turducken. | ||
| So good, so good! | ||
| Chili, mac and cheese. | ||
| Liz, we are here not just for donuts, although... | ||
| They are more positive in many ways than a lot of the other stuff that's happening in town. | ||
| I think that's why we fled to that subject. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You got it. | ||
| Greener pastures, flushing donuts. | ||
| I can't believe I told you that. | ||
| That's kind of a shameful episode. | ||
| Hey, listen, you didn't tell us. | ||
| You told everybody. | ||
| I know, I did. | ||
| This is humanizing. | ||
| Yes, yes. | ||
| Who amongst the wonks has not flushed a donut? | ||
| I will tell you it is very rare to not find a flushed donut. | ||
| It was not much of a donut. | ||
| It wasn't a whole big thing. | ||
| I just, you know, I didn't destroy the environment or ruin the plumbing. | ||
| Good, good. | ||
| Only my own plumbing by eating most of it. | ||
| That is how much we don't want to get to the trial, is that we almost got there, and then immediately we're like, nope! | ||
| Back to donuts! | ||
| So I wanted to ask you a little bit, because we're all in town to observe and experience this trial. | ||
| You in a far more professional capacity than us. | ||
| Usually, yes. | ||
| You also have had more experience on this story in particular, following the Sandy Hook story with your book that came out recently. | ||
| Yeah, to engage in a cliche, you literally wrote the book on this case. | ||
| Yeah, I did. | ||
| So I was wondering how you've experienced it so far. | ||
| So I have to say, you know, I worried about a little bit because As you say, writing the book, I got kind of invested in definitely the plight of the families and got to know them pretty well. | ||
| And today, listening to Mr. Crouch, Therapist who has worked with Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, I did have a couple moments where I was, I really got a little bit emotional about, you know, what he had to say about their struggle, you know, with everything, you know, and he described this sort of two buckets. | ||
| One, you lose your son in a mass shooting. | ||
| And the second bucket, people call you a liar and say that not only... | ||
| Was he not killed in that way that he never existed? | ||
| And at one point, you know, Mr. Crouch, the therapist, was being, you know, prompted to say, well, what does that actually mean, you know, when as a parent you're kind of dealing with those claims? | ||
| And he said, you know, it's just so important to Neil and Scarlett, Jesse's parents, that he mattered. | ||
| And Jesse, in particular, has a very particular narrative, and that's that when the gunman entered his classroom and started shooting, there was a pause in the shooting where either the magazine jammed or he was reloading, and Jesse yelled, run! | ||
| And nine children ran, and they survived. | ||
| One thing that I'm sure that Neil and Scarlett will speak about is that he was actually given a fallen hero's funeral because the police recognized that as an act of heroism. | ||
| The children who survived said what had happened and that's how they knew. | ||
| That part of his life is tremendously important to Neil and Scarlett, as you can imagine. | ||
| And this idea that that would be taken from them. | ||
| The first thing they both told me, and I met them separately, but the first thing they told me was that story. | ||
| And so it's so important to them. | ||
| And to have that stripped from them, You know, and their therapist obviously described it so well. | ||
| It's like saying, you know, it's taking that last bit that someone would cling to and saying that these were his final moments. | ||
| He was a fine child and saved his classmates in his final moments. | ||
| And to think that someone, in order to sell supplements or, you know, Would take that shred from you. | ||
| That really got me, I gotta say. | ||
| You know, the thing that got me about that is the therapist As much and as powerful as that story was, when he was asked, what's the most important thing to the parents? | ||
| What's the most important thing to them? | ||
| He didn't say that he was remembered as a hero or he was remembered as somebody who saved anybody. | ||
| He choked up and he said, the most important thing to me, or the most important thing to the parents, is just to let people know, to let the world know that he lived. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That he mattered. | ||
| That word, he mattered, that was when I actually did have to look down and compose myself. | ||
| Oh, I cried like a baby. | ||
| I was in my hotel room. | ||
| I didn't have to worry about people judging me in the courtroom. | ||
| I was weeping uncontrollably. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know why? | ||
| Because those words were Veronique De La Rosa, who is the mother of Noah Posner, who is the youngest Sandy Hook victim. | ||
| Right after the shooting, she said the same thing to Anderson Cooper in an interview. | ||
| She said, I just want people to know that he mattered. | ||
| He mattered. | ||
| That, I don't know, something about that, now I'm going to have to take a beat here, but something about that formulation is, you know, like, it just speaks to how much is stripped from you when you lose a loved one in this way, particularly your child, that you're then kind of by yourself saying, he mattered. | ||
| I mean, really? | ||
| That just speaks to the utter desolation that these parents must feel. | ||
| Yeah, I found almost everything that went on today quite heavy and impactful, of course, for a lot of those same reasons we're touching on. | ||
| And that's one reason that I think I want to ask you about a couple of questions about the trial, just because after we heard that testimony, we also saw the way that the defense behaved in their cross-examination and how the judge was not happy with their behavior. | ||
| Did you experience that in that kind of way? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so here's an interesting thing. | ||
| As you can well imagine, there are a lot of lawyers in these parts who are watching this trial because, as we know, it's live-streamed. | ||
| I know one of them was fighting with Jordan on Twitter earlier. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| Yeah, good work, Barnes. | ||
| Yeah, okay, him. | ||
| But also a lot of regular lawyers who are watching this and are just riveted by this because... | ||
| It's such a challenging case for, you know, the family's lawyers, obviously, and certainly for Alex Jones's lawyers. | ||
| But they were saying, you know, one of the things that, you know, the unenviable position that Alex Jones's lawyer is in is that he, of course, cannot attack. | ||
| Neil and Scarlett when they testify tomorrow. | ||
| So the alternative that he has is to attack, you know, Dr. Lubit, who was the, you know, the forensic psychiatrist who had, you know, spoken with them, and to attack Mr. Crouch, their actual therapist. | ||
| So it's, you know, lower stakes to try and impeach them than to go head to head, of course, with. | ||
| Jesse's parents. | ||
| So that was sort of interesting. | ||
| But because the therapist, Mr. Crouch, was so kind of a sympathetic character himself, I mean, he actually filled up when he said that about he mattered. | ||
| He was filling up himself. | ||
| And he obviously feels very deeply... | ||
| You know, for Neil and Scarlett and for Jesse and JT, his older brother. | ||
| And so I think it was a lot more difficult than they had anticipated. | ||
| This wasn't a clinical guy. | ||
| You know, this was somebody who was really very much invested in the plight of this family. | ||
| And I think that made it super tough to kind of, on cross, come back and say, well, what about this? | ||
| And that whole thing of showing him the diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, was just a bizarre episode. | ||
| That was my favorite thing that I think has ever happened, I've ever seen in a courtroom. | ||
| It looked like he just Googled something. | ||
|
unidentified
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Exactly. | |
| He tried to catch, so what happened was... | ||
| He was trying to catch... | ||
| You're talking about the defense lawyer here. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| The defense lawyer was trying to catch the therapist in like a... | ||
| You don't know the exact definition of PTSD, do you? | ||
| So the first thing he did was he tried to bring up the definition to the therapist and realized that he had brought the wrong version of the DSM, which was an issue. | ||
| So then he went to the APA's website to try and find the definition in the DSM-5. | ||
| However, he found the APA's summary definition of the DSM-5. | ||
| And in so doing, revealed that he had no idea what he was talking about. | ||
| The therapist went, I don't think I know what you're showing me. | ||
| And then he just changed questions. | ||
| And then the lawyer turned around and ran into a chef. | ||
|
unidentified
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100% absolutely! | |
| Oh no, there were two guys walking by holding a glass pane! | ||
| Yeah, I was watching that and I found it to be really uncomfortable because even executed well, I don't really know how that's going to play. | ||
| And then just the fumbling of it was tragic. | ||
| That was really grim. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And isn't it funny, like, no matter who you're watching, it's a public performance. | ||
| And so you're kind of cringing, no matter, you know, like, just taking out, you know, lawyers for the defense, lawyers for the plaintiffs, you know, just taking all that out. | ||
| It's a public performance. | ||
| So whenever anyone stumbles, or there's some kind of, you know, Weird, awkward thing that happens. | ||
| You're just sort of vicariously cringing for them, regardless of where you are on the case at hand. | ||
| And so, yes, in that one, I was like, oh my gosh, how did that happen? | ||
| On the one hand, it's pretty daring to do this sort of ad hoc, I'm going to look something up, and I'm going to find it, and I'm going to present it in open court. | ||
| But you were sort of... | ||
| I found myself thinking, well, he is a therapist, and the DSM is something that therapists consult routinely. | ||
| So if you thought that you were going to call these definitions into question, maybe just go out to the bookstore. | ||
| Oh, no, no, no, no, no! | ||
| Reading! | ||
| Daring is a fun word that you're using there. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| It seems like desperate or dumb. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| Tragically stupid. | ||
| Foolhardy. | ||
| Foolhardy is a great word. | ||
| I'll leave that to y 'all to use my Texas, you know, just my little acquired Texas thing. | ||
| I should tell you, I have Googled a thesaurus. | ||
| I don't know the exact definitions of any of these words. | ||
| I've got a lot of words, though. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| That I did not understand. | ||
| Who do you think possibly understood that? | ||
| Did anyone understand that? | ||
| Probably no one. | ||
| Do you think anyone has ever even seen that before, right? | ||
| Like in real court? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, you know what? | ||
| Probably so. | ||
| I mean, in cases where you have people... | ||
| I imagine it comes up. | ||
| I'm really trying to understand. | ||
| I did not understand what happened there. | ||
| That must be one of those pillow-pounding middle-of-the-night moments for that lawyer. | ||
| You'd hope. | ||
| Also, I get the sense from... | ||
| I don't know, maybe just a vibe I'm getting off of him. | ||
| I don't think he beats himself up too much for coming off poorly. | ||
| That's just my sense. | ||
|
unidentified
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Definitely not. | |
| Texas Monthly is apparently doing a profile of Alex Jones' lawyer, Federico Andino Renal. | ||
| And I will read that with huge interest. | ||
| His name is Federico Andino Renal. | ||
| Oh, what's his name again? | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| I'm just kidding. | ||
| And, you know, I think he's kind of like, from what the Texas Monthly reporter was telling me, they are, and the lawyers for the families, that he's kind of like a well-known family name around here. | ||
| He had been... | ||
| An assistant U.S. attorney who was appointed by Eric Holder. | ||
| I think, Jordan, you picked up on that when I was tweeting that about his history. | ||
| And that it's not a matter of, you know, okay, sometimes it's, you know, this person will pay you or what have you. | ||
| There's some idea here that... | ||
| You know, that thing that lawyers say, you know, everybody deserves a defense. | ||
| That it might be more that than the payday. | ||
| Oh, yeah? | ||
| Oh, yeah? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, I'm sure. | ||
| I've seen his mentor sitting in court right next to him the entire time. | ||
| I'm sure it is not about money. | ||
| That's a curious situation. | ||
| Oh, it's all about... | ||
| It's all about everybody deserves their day in court, right? | ||
| Well, I mean, it's also, to quote The Wire, it's a career fucking case. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| This is the kind of thing that can really... | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| I gotta say, recognizing that aspect of his history, it makes some of the stuff that's going on look way worse. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because there have been repeated instances where he's shown witnesses things that he hasn't taken by. | ||
| To the plaintiff's attorneys for approval. | ||
| Which they've pointed out a couple times. | ||
| The judge has admonished him for that. | ||
| Those aren't mistakes that someone of that caliber would make. | ||
| No, I think that's more strategic. | ||
| At least not after mistake number four. | ||
| Then you've got to expect it's on purpose. | ||
| And the getting into a fight with Mark Bankston and giving him the bird in court. | ||
| That was really... | ||
| That felt like, for me, just observing that, that felt to me like suddenly he realized this is not the place I want to be. | ||
| I don't want to be within a thousand miles of where I am. | ||
| I am kind of getting beaten up here in this case. | ||
| That's one way to put it. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
| And I'm... | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm really trying to keep a 30,000 foot view here. | |
| To me, it felt like that moment in a wrestling match when someone's losing and they go for a chair. | ||
| They're trying to get themselves disqualified. | ||
| That's a much better way of putting it than anything I can come up with right now. | ||
| As a fan of words, I'm going to have to go with my favorite adjective for him at this current time, which is eviscerated. | ||
| He's literally had his guts ripped from his body. | ||
| Yeah, that moment came after, you know, the judge had admonished him yet again, and he was losing that battle over exhibits, and he was feeling frustrated because, who knows, maybe in his mind he genuinely felt like he'd been done dirty, I don't know, but it just felt like a kind of, like, volcanic frustration that happened right there. | ||
| And for, you know, if he's like this kind of well-bred guy that, you know, we're hearing... | ||
| Then it's super surprising that he would be a childish bully. | ||
| A well-bred guy being a childish bully giving people the finger whenever they embarrass him? | ||
| That's crazy. | ||
| But for him, that's the equivalent of picking up a chair and smashing it over someone's head. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| That's something that you know you can't do. | ||
| Right. | ||
| It's wild, yeah. | ||
| But the thing that was sad was that... | ||
| That whole confrontation happened with the parents of a murdered child standing 10 feet away. | ||
| And I think strategically when the judge wasn't in the room. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I don't think he would have behaved that way if Judge Gamble was in there. | ||
| She said today that if she were available, she would have held him in contempt of court. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| She said, had I seen, had I been in the room when that happened? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So she was definitely... | ||
| Which I kind of love as a defense for not doing anything is like, well... | ||
| Because I only saw accurate live video of it occurring, I can't do anything about it. | ||
| Well, the ref didn't see the chair. | ||
| I mean, that isn't what it is, isn't it? | ||
| The ref turned his back, and then they hit him with the chair, and then he turned around, and he was like, well, I can't prove it. | ||
| It's like, if I turn around while I'm driving this car, and I see what you're doing to your brother... | ||
| Then there will be problems. | ||
| Like, I know it's happening, but the minute I see it with my own eyes, you kids are in trouble. | ||
| Yeah, it's your responsibility to do something once it's observed. | ||
| Not to ask you a question that might be uncomfortable, but exactly how many times have you felt like you and the judge are both moms really trying to handle unruly children? | ||
| I think that is kind of a theme here. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I think about that with Alex Jones. | ||
| I mean, just his behavior and the, you know, relatively rare occasions he turns up for the proceedings. | ||
| It's like this kid who has stalled out in middle school, you know? | ||
| I mean, even... | ||
| The whole idea that he's traveling around surrounded by bodyguards, I'm sort of thinking like a high school hallway and, you know, he's sort of like bought lunch for the whole football team. | ||
| Oh my God, there's 10 other people. | ||
| There's exactly 11 people with Alex. | ||
| It is literally the star quarterback being surrounded by the rest of the team. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| It's a defensive line. | ||
| I swear to God, I'll pay for your lunch if you just follow me down the hall to my locker so no one beats me up. | ||
| I need big muscle guys with guns to... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah! | |
| So actually, I wanted to talk about one thing that did happen. | ||
| I've made reference of this on a previous episode, but you experienced it, so I wanted to get your take on it. | ||
| It was from Tuesday of last week when Alex was there. | ||
| And was giving his little... | ||
| He was doing the press conference out in front of the courthouse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah. | |
| Yes. | ||
| This was a situation where there was no one but security guards and you and Sebastian Murdoch, I believe. | ||
| What was going on there? | ||
| From Hearst. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We had one other person. | ||
| Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dan. | ||
| Stop being so inaccurate. | ||
| Taking it out of context! | ||
| Anyways, sorry Liz. | ||
| I was observing this from a safe distance. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And when it appeared to me... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Where were you? | |
| Like three blocks away? | ||
| I had binoculars. | ||
| I was on the roof of the building across the street. | ||
| I was in the book depository. | ||
| No, I was maybe... | ||
| I was on the grassy knoll. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I was maybe 20 feet away, sort of just standing and vaping and giggling a little bit, because the spectacle of it was truly bizarre. | ||
| It appeared that, my assessment was, he didn't know that you were you and that Sebastian was Sebastian. | ||
| Yes, I think that's fair. | ||
| He just thought this was media. | ||
| Yes, right. | ||
| Yeah, which makes him happy. | ||
| Give me an idea of how many times you have met and spoken to Alex Jones via any different media. | ||
| Liz was masked up, to be fair. | ||
| True, true, true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Well, I've never recognized anybody who was wearing a mask before, so I do understand now that it makes perfect sense. | ||
| Alex has eye blindness. | ||
| Yeah, he's face blind. | ||
| So, yeah, I mean, I spent a lot of time with him, but it was in 2018. | ||
| So, I think, and also, I think in the heat of the, you know, like, publicity moment, I think he just sees, as you said, you know, I think he just sees people recording him as generic media, as an audience, you know, like, sort of faceless audience. | ||
| And so he was talking to, he did ask John from Hearst, you know, where are you from? | ||
| And John told him and he seemed to think, okay, this guy's safe to talk to. | ||
| And in fact, props to John because he did ask him, so what is this medical condition that your lawyers are saying is keeping you from being here? | ||
| I've got super cancer. | ||
| He was like... | ||
| Oh, it's just not important. | ||
|
unidentified
|
HIPAA! | |
| John, being a really good journalist, was like, this says that it's important. | ||
| So he was like, well, but really, you know, what is it? | ||
| And he goes, ah, it's not a big thing. | ||
| And he goes, no, really, what is it? | ||
| And he goes, well, it's a hernia. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So he has an untreated hernia, and that... | ||
| That is the medical condition that has prevented him from sitting through the trial. | ||
| I don't even believe that. | ||
| Yeah, I was going to say, that doesn't even sound reasonable to me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know. | |
| I thought he was going to say something like, you know, I got this thing on my forehead I have to get removed, or... | ||
| Honestly, I feel like my response to that is, do you even lift, bro? | ||
| Like, I feel like that's my... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, you can get a hernia just from yelling, probably. | |
| I'm sure if you're him. | ||
| That is true, yeah. | ||
| I would have asked if it was his, like, fifth or sixth bout of COVID that he's dealing with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Because he seems to keep getting that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Another reason to keep my mask on. | |
| Smart, smart. | ||
| So how long did it take for him to realize that this was not unknown media to him? | ||
| Yeah, I think when, so Seb from HuffPost, Seb Murdoch, asked him, well, what about this cryptocurrency that you got as an anonymous donation? | ||
| Because he was saying, I'm bankrupt, I'm bankrupt, I'm bankrupt. | ||
| So bankrupt! | ||
| Yeah, and Seb said, well, what about that $8 million? | ||
| And he said, well, it was actually, by the time we sold it, it was only worth $7 million. | ||
| Oh, I retract my criticism. | ||
| That is fair. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| So, you know, to most people, that does not equal bankrupt. | ||
| And so he, you know, persisted. | ||
| And then he said, I said something like, well, didn't you just pay a million dollars in sanctions? | ||
| And he was like, yeah. | ||
| And I said, so you're not exactly broke. | ||
| And he was like. | ||
| But when I pay it, it means it's gone, walnut brain. | ||
| That is a man who's got the goods. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And I was thinking, if you really wanted to insult me, why wouldn't you pick a smaller item? | ||
| Hey, listen, Brazil nut brain. | ||
| I was going to say, why aren't you just following me on Twitter and grabbing a couple from there? | ||
| They're universal. | ||
| I'm not that personal. | ||
| So you're pretty sure at that point, once Walnut Brain comes out. | ||
| Yeah, but I think he kind of, like, it was a dawning recognition that this, oh, this is that woman. | ||
| Yeah, I get it. | ||
| This is that woman from the New York Times. | ||
| Because then he said this, oh, no, he did look over while he was talking to Seb and he said, you know, this is a trial of the media. | ||
| These are fraud, like that New York Times person right there. | ||
| Nice. | ||
| And then I asked about the million dollars, and he said walnut brain, and then he went into this thing saying, this person is a monster and a fraud. | ||
| So I was sort of like, walnut brain, monster fraud, trifecta. | ||
| Well, here's the good news. | ||
| The only people he's saying these terrible things about you to is his security. | ||
| There's no one else there. | ||
| Yeah, and you know, at least if it's bodyguards, it's good to be walnut brain and not... | ||
| You know, armed threat. | ||
| True. | ||
| Yeah, armed loner. | ||
| It really did take a while for me to remember, whenever the bodyguards were sitting next to me, it took me a while for me to remember, like, they can't bring guns into the courtroom. | ||
| You realize that, Jordan? | ||
| Like, that's not okay. | ||
| And they're not going to, like, push you. | ||
| They might. | ||
| In a courtroom? | ||
| They have a license to push. | ||
| For money? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, that's fair. | ||
| I was watching all of this and I thought it was really fun because I could see a shift happening in the conversation. | ||
| And then after the shift, once it became a little bit hostile, Alex put on the bumper sticker on his face and took a picture with his lawyer. | ||
| And I've actually been really offended that some outlets have run with that picture on their story. | ||
| I know. | ||
| It was such an obvious gambit. | ||
| It's a well-framed picture. | ||
| I will give the photographer that, but I was there when it was taken. | ||
| This is Alex with a dumb bumper sticker on his mouth that he put on for show, shaking hands with his lawyer while no one watched. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| And he did that in the courtroom, too. | ||
| I mean, when he first sat down, even before opening arguments began on the first day, he pulled that out. | ||
| He put it over his face. | ||
| He mugged for Federico Andino Reynal, his lawyer. | ||
| Dan even laughed now. | ||
| Dan's even laughing now when you say his real name. | ||
| Well, it's a long name. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I just feel like it's important. | ||
| To be accurate. | ||
| So, yeah, so he was sort of mugging for him. | ||
| And then he put, he didn't put it away. | ||
| I mean, you know, Raynald gave him the side eye, kind of like, don't do that. | ||
| The parents are sitting right there. | ||
| The jury is there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, like, you know. | ||
| I'm not the only person that you're entertaining with this. | ||
| You're definitely doing this in view of the parents. | ||
| Yeah, this plays on your show, but this isn't that. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| Can I ask you this real quick? | ||
| Real quick. | ||
| Are you surprised? | ||
| I really never thought I would be surprised at what happened, but for some reason, I really thought when it actually came to being in the courtroom, There's no way they would behave like the way, like, they had to have prepared. | ||
| They've had so much time, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Are you surprised? | ||
| You know, yes and no. | ||
| So, one thing is that, first of all, I get this sense from Reynold, his lawyer, that... | ||
| He feels like, oh, I'm not sure what I got myself into. | ||
| I think that that explosion with flipping the bird and all that was a sort of expression of that. | ||
| I think today what happened to him with the DSM was another. | ||
| I think he feels like, oh my God, I don't know what I got myself into. | ||
| The idea that he was trying to kind of waffle about actually whether Jones would testify or not when he's been saying on his show. | ||
| Like, I'm so keen to testify. | ||
| And then he had to go check with him. | ||
| I think these are all sort of, you know, indications that, oh boy, you know, he should have known what he was getting himself into, but I don't think he was fully prepared for that. | ||
| And that's not exactly a knock on him, because is anyone ever fully prepared for things that Alex Jones does? | ||
| I'm going to have a disagreement with you there real quick. | ||
| I feel like... | ||
| Any kind of preparation, any kind of preparation, even the slightest amount, does not wind up with you having ten minutes left to call your main witness as to whether or not they will take the stand. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| Yeah, that was bananas. | ||
| Also, there were ten other lawyers. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Like, all the previous lawyers. | ||
| It could have been like, hey, what should I expect? | ||
| What should I do? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Oh, you mean like the 12 previous lawyers? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You could have had a focus group of his previous lawyers. | |
| You could have had one phone call. | ||
| We have a baker's dozen, basically. | ||
| Yes, it would have been like a crowded Zoom of his previous lawyers where you could say, what advice do you have for me? | ||
| Can't do that. | ||
| With one of Alex's lawyers, you're going to get a tubing. | ||
| That's just going to happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So he said, yeah, so I said, well, is Alex going to testify? | ||
| And he said, it's all up to Alex. | ||
| And I said, do you mean all of it? | ||
| And he was like, yep, everything. | ||
| It's all up to Alex. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I thought, uh-oh, because you know how that goes. | |
| It seems like a lot of stuff in his life is that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Seems like there's not a lot of great counsel in many areas or anybody really telling him, hey, cut it out. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I just, I would be so curious to know, you know, who knows, really? | ||
| Like, does he go home and say, well, that went about how I expected? | ||
| Or, oh my God, I can't believe I got myself into this. | ||
| You know, I think it might be the latter. | ||
| If you're talking about Alex, he goes home and says, hello, whiskey, my old friend. | ||
| I'm talking about his lawyer. | ||
| I don't know about him. | ||
| Yeah, so that, you know, I don't know. | ||
| But yeah, no, I agree. | ||
| There have been a lot of moments. | ||
| I think he's actually, you can tell that he is a criminal prosecutor by the way he cross-examines the witnesses. | ||
| He's pretty aggressive. | ||
| He also just kind of rolls with it when the judge kind of slaps him down on the various things like we talked about. | ||
| He's pretty quick on his feet coming back from that kind of thing. | ||
| But that's not to say that this is going well because, boy, it's just, even if no one said a word, just the idea of Alex Jones and a Sandy Hook family. | ||
| You don't have to say a word to know that this is probably going to be a tough, tough rodeo. | ||
| You know, the ironic thing is it hadn't occurred to me until I was watching him and then put it together that he was a criminal defense lawyer and then started thinking about what, or no, a criminal prosecutor. | ||
| And then started thinking about what they do and then I started thinking... | ||
| 96% of cases go to a plea bargain in that kind of court. | ||
| So this is probably a guy who's really good at doing paperwork and negotiating with other lawyers as to what's an acceptable sentence. | ||
| Doesn't end up with a lot of trial. | ||
| As opposed to going to an actual trial, because he does not have experience in a trial. | ||
| I just can't believe that he does. | ||
| Yeah, I think some of the lawyers who have been watching this and kind of weighing in, you know, just... | ||
| Completely disinterested, except for the fact that they're lawyers, and this is fascinating, would disagree with you there. | ||
| I think those guys actually get a lot of prosecutorial courtroom experience. | ||
| Have I discussed how I don't care what lawyers think? | ||
| Uh-oh. | ||
| But on the other side, you know, in some of these personal injury cases or, you know, lawyers who are tort lawyers, in fact, the father of Josh Koskov, who represents the Sandy Hook families in Connecticut, his dad has since passed away, but I interviewed him for the book. | ||
| And he said, you know, one of the funny things that has happened is that people settle so frequently that We get less and less time in the courtroom. | ||
| So one of the reasons that this is catnip for the legal community is that you have two sets of lawyers who actually have a decent amount of courtroom experience. | ||
| And so it is kind of fascinating to see Raynall kind of... | ||
| Shit the bed like a fucking idiot? | ||
| Be unprepared and... | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have different ways of describing the same thing. | |
| Yes, we do. | ||
| But yeah, I mean, the whole thing is, if it weren't so tragic, I think it would be, in a textbook kind of way, really fascinating. | ||
| Yeah, I feel like rarely anybody drags their feet this long or pushes it this far. | ||
| Yes, exactly. | ||
| And then that determination to kind of roll back the clock and say, This is a defamation trial. | ||
| No, it's not. | ||
| You lost that because you had complete contempt for the judicial system. | ||
| So you lost your opportunity to make this a free speech case because you didn't wind up... | ||
| At trial because you would not comply with any, you know, not any, but most of the court orders and most of, you know, what you're supposed to do to prepare for that trial. | ||
| So that ship has sailed and now here you are in a damages trial and you're trying to turn it into a signal test of free speech, which I think most people would have been, you know, interested in. | ||
| That didn't happen because he stonewalled his way into a damages trial. | ||
| And so he is where he is. | ||
| And I think both he and his lawyer wish they were in a different place, but they're not. | ||
| Yeah, that's the thing that I find so frustrating about a lot of the responses that I see from people who are not necessarily paying that close of attention. | ||
| Not recognizing that Alex absolutely would have gotten a trial on the merits if he just cooperated in any way. | ||
| It's so frustrating to hear that point be made and then people just not hear it, not listen, not understand that the only reason that this is happening is because of... | ||
| I really almost want every article written about it to begin with a timeline of the number of times that Alex could have just apologized and stopped with no lawsuit whatsoever, could have just made a public apology and stopped with no lawsuit whatsoever, and then the number of times that once the lawsuit was brought, they could have done any... | ||
| Billion number of things to keep it from getting to where we are now. | ||
| And instead, everybody keeps writing like, the families are seeking damages. | ||
| Well, that's sort of a template of how trials are expressed. | ||
| But I get where you're coming from. | ||
| I have labored with that just in writing my stories, trying to say all the time that what they really want is... | ||
| I mean, this is the altruistic thing here. | ||
| They really are trying to shine a light on the fact that the lies around Sandy Hook, and here I'm like... | ||
| You know, talking about what I talk about in my book and that's that, you know... | ||
| It really was a foundational story of how misinformation has kind of taken hold in our discourse, you know, because it just went from, and Alex was at the center of a lot of this, you know, it went from that to Pizzagate, to QAnon, to coronavirus myths, to the Stop the Steal campaign, to the January 6th insurrection. | ||
| And, you know, his fingerprints are on Pretty much all of those. | ||
| Oh, and you can throw Charlottesville into the mix, too. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So, you know, his fingerprints are all over those developments. | ||
| And so in that sense, this is kind of it really is a kind of fake news on trial type thing. | ||
| It really is. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think that's one reason why people are so invested in it. | ||
| And this defense that he's trying to put forward really does concern First Amendment lawyers, this idea that there's so much garbage. | ||
| In the atmosphere, there are so many lies and mistruths in our national discourse right now that who's to know what's true or false? | ||
| This seems like such a specious, cynical argument, but actually... | ||
| The more of this stuff that is floating out there, the more lies are spread to millions of people, the more people will advance this defense. | ||
| And you will see it in these Dominion voting systems cases. | ||
| You'll see it in the January 6th insurrectionist cases. | ||
| You'll have people who will say, like Alex Jones said in his deposition, I had a kind of psychosis because I was lied to so many times. | ||
| In an interview... | ||
| With Glenn Greenwald, he just said he was drunk. | ||
| Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's a kind of insanity defense in a civil world. | ||
| A drunk insanity defense. | ||
| Yeah, a drunk insanity defense. | ||
| It's the Jamiroquai defense. | ||
| Yeah, I woke up the next morning and looked like I had it. | ||
| Virtual insanity? | ||
| Dan, come on. | ||
| I didn't put the pieces together. | ||
| I thought you were trying to pull a Shaggy It Wasn't Me or an Afro Man Because I Got High. | ||
| Listen, I'm just going to go with Jamiroquai. | ||
| Fine. | ||
| One other thing I was just thinking about was that if Alex does take the stand tomorrow, That is going to be wild for a number of reasons. | ||
| First of all, because he'll have to have cross-examination. | ||
| But then the other aspect of it is these questions that the jury has been giving have been pretty good. | ||
| I love that practice. | ||
| Yeah, because I do think that there's a lot of things that probably need clarification from the jury's point of view that maybe the lawyers aren't aware of. | ||
| And so I think that's really helpful, but I think, like, based on the trend of the questions we've been seeing, they could ask some really messed up things to Alex. | ||
| Well, maybe not messed up, like, you know, bizarre or anything, but, like, pointed questions that he does not want to answer, and then he appears to be evasive to the jury's own questions. | ||
| Like, he puts himself in a really, really dangerous position there. | ||
| Yeah, and that would be the best you could hope for, that he would evade them. | ||
| That's the best he could do. | ||
| The worst is contempt, right? | ||
| I mean, like getting thrown out of court. | ||
| Just exploding. | ||
| Which is what he did in his custody trial, remember? | ||
| That was where, you know, it was like his ex-wife had attorneys who really knew how to get under his skin, and he finally just exploded. | ||
| I talked with Charlie Warzel about that because he was in the courtroom, and he was saying if it would have been a regular thing, a bailiff would have escorted him out. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| He just exploded. | ||
| Well, it's good news for him because I'm sure Mark has no idea how to get under his skin. | ||
| Mark doesn't seem like the guy who knows how to get under anybody's skin. | ||
| From sitting in that deposition, I beg to differ. | ||
| I think he's got a few of his numbers. | ||
| But the good news is if a bailiff tries to get Alex out of the courtroom, Alex has a little army. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Oh, shit. | ||
| We're going to have a standoff. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Uh-oh. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I mean, I don't know. | ||
| I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Raynal, his lawyer, is working on him right now just to say, Alex, unless you're going to prostrate yourself before the court and abjectly apologize. | ||
| There's probably not a lot you can say that's going to help you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You being you, you know? | ||
| Any other person, maybe? | ||
| How could a little guy give that advice? | ||
| Like, that would be, I would be begging him to not do it. | ||
| Oh my god, Dan, you, you, how many, I mean, you remember better than I do, but how many times did Alex, in a softball, t-ball interview where his questions were answered for him, how many times did he say, I've never lied on purpose? | ||
| Like, eight? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Eight. | |
| Yeah, eight and forty minutes or something. | ||
| Glenn Greenwald. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And then he said he was drunk when he was saying these things about the Sandhook families twice. | ||
| Sorry, I didn't realize you were talking about the Greenwald thing. | ||
| I thought you were talking about something else. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| And then what was the other thing? | ||
| He said he decided in advance that the election was going to be stolen. | ||
| He said these really messed up things and just like... | ||
| No one asked him to. | ||
| He wasn't being pushed on anything. | ||
| Liz, do you remember when the defense lawyer asked Becca, Becca, of all people, of all people, do you know what confirmation bias is? | ||
| That was really, yeah. | ||
| Our next episode, Alex Jones was like, I decided before the election happened that it was stolen. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, this is a woman who was... | |
| Confirmation bias is like the most elementary term for her. | ||
| I can't even imagine. | ||
| I'm sure that came off to her as like, either do you have any idea of what I do, what my area of study is, or are you just purposely trying to belittle me? | ||
| It probably was legitimately the latter. | ||
| Or both! | ||
| Maybe both. | ||
| Yeah, I don't know. | ||
| You know, well-bred men with a lot of connections in a city generally treat women really well. | ||
| That's what I've noticed. | ||
| Yeah, but again, he has to attack people like that because he cannot attack the families. | ||
| So, you know, to kind of try to, you know... | ||
| Impeach her or belittle her or make her seem like she doesn't have the gravitas that she has, I think is just, at some levels, it's strategic because he really cannot lay a finger on Neil and Scarlett. | ||
| It just would be too awful. | ||
| It's weird, though, because I think on some level, the attempts at impeaching the psychiatrists and the therapists, I don't think it's really easy to see that. | ||
| If you're the jury and not see that as being an attack on the lived experience of Neil and Scarlett. | ||
| Because Neil and Scarlett aren't here, I can tell you their therapist that they are lying to you. | ||
| Right. | ||
| It's calling into question the things that they have told the therapist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| No, I agree. | ||
| I think that that, you know, because they were not, I think what he was relying on is that they would be much colder and more clinical than they actually were. | ||
| Yeah, I think that's right. | ||
| Especially the therapist. | ||
| I mean, that was, you know, I mean, he was, Mr. Crouch was literally starting to cry. | ||
| And he, you know, he was obviously very much feeling their pain. | ||
| And so to come after him as if he would have been this sort of like gray clinician, that's just not who he was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have seen in my patients many different desires. | |
| They have, yeah. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| If he would have been someone like that, it would have been. | ||
| You know, that would have been a great strategy, but because the man himself was so sympathetic, and because he had worked, you know, he was a sort of integral part of the community around Newtown, and he had worked with first responders, and he had very much lived the tragedy and the aftermath. | ||
| He was not the kind of basic, you know, hired gun expert at all. | ||
| That was one of the big things that backfired on the defense lawyer was when he was trying to almost say, like, because you're part of the community, you're so biased in their favor, you could never be an impartial witness. | ||
| And instead of, like, saying, instead of successfully getting the jury to be like, ah, this guy's biased, the jury was like, yeah, fucking right, man! | ||
| Thank God! | ||
| Yeah, no, yeah. | ||
| I mean, it would be impossible, I think, to be, well, not impossible because we've seen it, but I was going to say it would be nearly impossible to be in that community when those events happened and not feel an absolute empathy for everyone involved. | ||
| I mean, it's just, that's kind of part of being a human being, right? | ||
| So, again, that was... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I was sort of shaking my head because I don't really... | ||
| I mean, I can understand. | ||
| I think he prepared for a different person. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Put it that way. | |
| I think you're right. | ||
| But also, I would suggest that if some tragedy befell Austin, Alex would not feel... | ||
| Super bad for people. | ||
| I might agree with Dan on this one. | ||
| Being part of a community... | ||
| Does not necessarily make one... | ||
| No, you have to have some innate empathy. | ||
| And I don't think Alex would be in the position he's in if he weren't lacking in empathy. | ||
| Yeah, that's probably true. | ||
| Well, we should probably... | ||
| Wrap this up before too long, but I wanted to just say, I guess, and I'm sure you're on the same page with this, and I'm sure you have some thoughts on the matter of making sure that this all stays squarely focused on what this is actually about, as opposed to... | ||
| 100%. | ||
| Especially as we go into tomorrow, where in theory Alex is going to be there and... | ||
| Who knows what could happen? | ||
| Oh, it's the circus. | ||
| It's the clown show we're all interested in. | ||
| There is the danger of that. | ||
| And I know that you're someone who deeply appreciates what this is really about and what Neil and Scarlett have gone through, as well as many other parents and community and family members. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| What are your thoughts about that? | ||
| Do you have anything you want to say on that? | ||
| I mean, that is, I know that there was this sort of like, you know, whoa, you know, kind of sense in the courtroom when it became apparent that, you know, quite likely Jones will testify, although I still think there is a possibility he won't. | ||
| But I think the whole thing of, it is super unfortunate when it comes to the families because It's going to be super traumatic for them to sort of share that day and share the same space with him. | ||
| I'm sure they'll do everything they can to insulate them from being in the same place while he's testifying or what have you. | ||
| But I couldn't agree with you more. | ||
| This is a proceeding that has lots of aspects. | ||
| There's the legal part, the intellectual part of it, the competition of it, and all of that. | ||
| And I think in covering that and in thinking about it and being part of it and being immersed in it, it's easy to forget that this is about the parents. | ||
| Of a child who was murdered in cold blood after saving the lives of nine of his classmates. | ||
| And then his parents, as we said at the top, having that story to cling to and having thousands of people tear that narrative for them by saying it didn't happen. | ||
| You can intellectually know how... | ||
| Nuts that is. | ||
| But at the same time, and how ridiculous and how it should be a non-factor, right? | ||
| But it is, as the psychologist testified today, it is a factor. | ||
| You know, no one likes to feel misapprehended, even on a minor thing. | ||
| And to have somebody take that precious... | ||
| You know, narrative and, you know, everything that your child was away from you. | ||
| I mean, that's really what this is about. | ||
| And it's also about the broader thing, and that's that the families are doing this, not because they even expect that they're going to see any kind of, you know, monetary recompense from this, but really as, and I know this from talking with them for years for my book. | ||
| They are trying to send a message. | ||
| They really are trying to say, if this can happen to us, this could happen to your community. | ||
| Not the shooting, although God knows that could happen, but this idea that misinformation and disinformation and the scrambling of everything that we hold sacred when it comes to establishing truth and relying on facts. | ||
| It could come for you in your community. | ||
| It could happen to your family. | ||
| Blaring red signal that they are trying to send to people. | ||
| This is a problem. | ||
| If you didn't notice it around us, maybe you noticed it around January 6th. | ||
| Maybe you saw it around coronavirus. | ||
| These are all the same phenomenon. | ||
| And they're really trying to raise awareness here. | ||
| And we should be thanking them for that because... | ||
| Of all the people who should be spared having to have an additional burden of standing for something in America, it should be these grieving families. | ||
| And here they are saying, this is important, and please pay attention. | ||
| I just think we should thank them for that. | ||
| Definitely. | ||
| And you were mentioning the... | ||
| It's kind of like, | ||
| you know, being in the presence of someone who has abused you or You know, or that you've fought with in the past or that, you know, a person who means kind of trauma to you, right? | ||
| So, you know, I don't know about you, but I get kind of shaky and nervous and, you know, it's really scary. | ||
| And I actually do think, you know, hearing the two, the psychiatrist and their therapist say that today, they're scared. | ||
| I believe that. | ||
| That is absolutely true. | ||
| It's because it's heaped on top of what happened to them. | ||
| Everything was torn out from under them. | ||
| They lost all sense of control. | ||
| And now they lost their child. | ||
| Your whole world is thrown off its axis, and now, you know, they've lost control even over the story of how he died and his heroism and his last moments. | ||
| I mean, that's understandable. | ||
| Yeah, and to even add on to that, you have the added sort of, I don't know, the unfortunate thing on top of it that Alex is now... | ||
| Trying to control the narrative of their involvement in this suit. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep. | |
| So there's even almost a meta thing that's going on. | ||
| The idea that they are adding to their own pain by suing him is to be just, what? | ||
| Which did turn out, ironically, whenever Mark was like, okay, if you say that they're adding to their own pain, guess who's at fault for that? | ||
| It's you. | ||
| You've just added that to the damages. | ||
| We are now including that in the charge. | ||
| What a funny Mark. | ||
| There's no more Mark moment than being like, fine, man. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| See, if I'm Reynold, then I'm pulling out a steel chair. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| I'm surprised you didn't get a million middle fingers after that one. | ||
| Well, it's amazing because, you know, you would think like, okay, the lawsuit, that's additionally traumatizing. | ||
| Actually not. | ||
| What has happened is this has been four years of stonewalling and fighting and tooth and nail on the part of Alex. | ||
| So that's... | ||
| That's the traumatic thing. | ||
| It's the four years of trying to drag this out, trying to use every trick in the book, you know, all of that. | ||
| Does he have a right to defend himself? | ||
| Sure he does. | ||
| But that's not exactly what he was doing. | ||
| Well, he actually doesn't. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But that, you know, that... | ||
| It wasn't a fair fight from the beginning. | ||
| So to then turn around after four years of extending this pain and then say, well, you'd all be healed if you didn't sue me, is sort of the height of cynicism. | ||
| Yeah, and we would be foolish to expect anything better. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, I don't know if there's a better way to end it. | ||
| That's perfect. | ||
| Well, Liz, thank you so much for joining us again. | ||
| It was great to see you, and I'm sure I'll see you again at the courthouse, but also great to chat. | ||
| And thank you very much for doing your best to represent the families instead of just the trial. | ||
| In the articles that you've been writing in the Times. | ||
| I will stay in the shit, and you get to do it for professional people who actually can matter. | ||
| So, thank you. | ||
| Thank you both. | ||
| I'm so happy to talk with you, but also just your knowledge that you have of Alex. | ||
| Don't be nice to us. | ||
| We don't handle it well. | ||
| I know. | ||
| We're very nice to you. | ||
| Thank you for joining us. | ||
| This sound is me getting my security blanket s'mores mix. | ||
|
unidentified
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I know. | |
| All right. | ||
| I'm going to stop, but you know how I feel and how many others do as well. | ||
| That's very sweet. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, we will talk again soon, and Jordan will be back soon. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| But until then, we have a website. | ||
| We do have a website. | ||
| It's KnowledgeFight.com. | ||
| And we're also on Twitter. | ||
| We are on Twitter. | ||
| It's at KnowledgeFight.com. | ||
| We'll be back, but until then, I'm Neo. | ||
| I'm Leo. | ||
| I'm DZXClark. | ||
| I'm Daryl Rundis. | ||
| I hope you... | ||
| Ooh, I forgot. | ||
| I did Daryl Rundis accidentally. | ||
| Oh, no! | ||
| I'm out of nicknames. | ||
| Nice. | ||
| Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. | ||
| Thanks for holding. | ||
| Hello Alex, I'm a first time caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm a huge fan. | |
| I love your work. |