Andrew Clavin dissects why future predictions fail, using Scott Adams’ persuasion framework to expose cognitive dissonance—like conservatives ignoring Trump’s ISIS defeat and judicial wins while media amplifies scandals like Weinstein’s abuse. Selma Hayek’s resilience contrasts Lena Dunham’s alleged silence on Weinstein, tied to her Clinton campaign ties, while Hollywood’s liberal bias faces backlash. The episode ends questioning systemic reform, from Golden Globes performativity to healthcare gaps, framing 2017 as a year of media narratives clashing with conservative achievements. [Automatically generated summary]
All right, we've got a very special guest for the holidays.
The technology getting him here has been very difficult, so we're gonna go to him right at the top of the show.
Let's see if we can pull him in.
Have we got him?
There he is.
Hey, Santa!
It's so nice of you to come here during the busy season.
It's a tough one, isn't it?
With the toys and the dolls and the elephants, the boats, the kitty cars.
It's a nightmare, Drew.
It's a nightmare.
Yeah, I would guess it is.
I mean, everyone else, they have assembly lines, 3D printers.
You know what I have?
Elves.
Elves!
It's the modern world.
I've got elves.
You'd think I'd make my toys in some third world commie hell hole like everybody else.
But Santa Claus has to be quaint.
Everyone wants Santa Claus to be quaint.
Santa Claus could be dead.
I could be dead lying in a gutter in the street.
Somebody'd walk by, they'd go, oh, it's Santa Claus.
He's dead.
How quaint.
That does sound very, very difficult.
I would think this season, though, it's a little easier because so many people are being found out as naughty during these sex scandals.
There must be a little less work for you to do.
But you probably think it's the sex scandal.
It's the sex scandals, right?
Of course.
I got to be honest with you.
It ain't that.
I mean, I used to get invited to award shows.
You know?
I used to get invited.
I said, when you're the source of light and joy for literally millions of children around the world, Woody Allen always wants you as his plus one.
Of course.
Yeah.
But if you ain't invited, these things suck.
I hate them.
I mean, a guy pretends to be a policeman for half an hour.
They give him a gold statue.
You know what I give him, Drew?
What do you get?
You know what I give him?
Bowl.
That's right.
Everybody in Hollywood's getting cold this year.
Thank heavens.
That guy, who's the loudmouth, the big hair?
The president of the United States.
Thanks to him, he brought the coal industry back.
Oh, yeah, that was good.
That was good.
I mean, if it wasn't for him, I don't know what I'd be giving these guys in Hollywood this year.
Probably indictments.
Well, that's good.
I mean, I'm glad this is, you know, because of all these grabbing women.
I think it's going to be a much easier time for you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's going to be a great time.
I mean, these guys, they pretend to be a cop for half an hour.
They go around grabbing the women.
They give themselves a statue.
You want to know something, Hollywood?
I got a secret.
I voted for Donald Trump.
That's right.
Me, Santa Claus, Donald Trump.
You know why?
Of course you know why.
It was the cold.
Is that Michael Knowles?
He always has the best cigars.
He does.
It's true.
The only reason I come around this place.
You kidding me?
I think he's waiting for you to bring the cigars.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I tell you what he's getting, but I think you already know.
I think we all can guess that.
Well, look, it sounds like it's been a tough season for you.
Oh, poof.
December 26th, I'm looking at a whiskey like this big.
Well, if you have time, I hope you come back on the show.
On this show?
Oh, ho, ho.
Movement Watch Vowels00:02:35
Well, thanks.
There he goes.
Unbelievable.
Trigger warning.
I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky donkey.
Life is tickety boo.
Birds are wingy, also singing hunky-dunkity.
Ship-shaped dipsy topsy, the world is it bitty zing.
It's a wonderful day.
Hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing.
Oh, hurrah, hooray.
Oh, hooray, hurrah.
Do we get the best guests or what?
That is unbelievable.
Our technology is the best.
Remember when we couldn't even get Knowles and he would be in the next room?
Now we're going all the way up to the North Pole.
All right, well, that's something to keep with you through the Clavenless weekend.
Also, you want to go on and listen to Another Kingdom.
You know, I've got more pitches coming up.
We need your help.
Another Kingdom is a suspense fantasy podcast that you can get on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
And it's starring Michael Knowles, America's sweetheart.
And please go on and leave good ratings and subscribe.
It really does, it really does help us a lot.
And if you don't know what time it is, it's almost Christmas time.
And the way you can tell is by looking at your movement watch.
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No, they really are.
They're beautiful, beautiful watches, and they're kind of watch that you would think was going to cost you hundreds of bucks.
Not necessarily.
These guys, these guys, this was started by two young fellows who just decided they love good watches, but they don't want to shell out a gazillion dollars for them all the time.
So they developed a beautiful, clean, excellent design for a watch.
You can see it.
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I get compliments on it all the time.
But the way they sell it online, they don't have to charge the kind of prices you would get in a, you know, at the mall.
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You can get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns by going to movement.com.
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Join the movement for Christmas.
So the Alabama election has everybody doing what these pundits do: they're reading the tea leaves, they're reading the numbers, they're looking to the future.
Everyone except Roy Moore.
Roy Moore hasn't gotten the word yet.
He is still calling for a recount.
Here he is.
We are indeed in a struggle to preserve our republic, our civilization, and our religion, and to set free a suffering humanity.
And the battle rages on.
In this race, we have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots.
This has been a very close race, and we are awaiting certification by the Secretary of State.
All right, so he's not going.
So, anyway, oh, wait, I've got a phone call.
Just Judge Moore is the judge.
No, no, no, no.
We're not saying that you look like a black woman.
No, no, not at all.
Not that anything would be wrong with that.
Oh, there is.
Okay.
All right.
Well, I'm glad that guy didn't win the election.
So everybody is saying what's going to happen in the future.
But the thing is, I want to highlight some of the ways, because you're going to be thinking about this too, and I want to highlight some of the ways that I really feel people are getting things wrong.
You know, I'm reading, we had Scott Adams on, I don't know, a week, two weeks ago, and because of problems in the mails, I hadn't gotten his book in time to read it.
But now I'm reading it.
I'm almost through with it.
It's a really, really good book.
It's a really interesting book.
And he has this take on how good a persuader, what he calls it a persuader, Donald Trump is.
And he backs this up by the fact that he actually predicted that Trump would win the election on the basis of his persuasive abilities.
He talks about, he has this kind of atheist worldview that this is not to knock the book at all, but it doesn't actually make sense with what he's saying because he says we can't know reality.
The human mind can't know reality.
So, all we can do is have a worldview, and the way you test your worldview is: one, does it make you happy, and two, does it predict the future?
Now, I've actually said almost the same thing, except somewhat differently, and I think mine takes in a greater degree of the world.
That is, I think that your worldview should make you joyful.
It doesn't shouldn't make you happy, because when unhappy things happen, you should be unhappy.
That means you're being a realist, but it makes you joyful, by which I mean engaged with life, glad to be alive, actively feeling the dynamic presence of life in you, even when things are troubling or strike you with grief.
It should make you joyful, and it should protect the future, and it should fit the facts.
I mean, and this is one of the things that I think I have a difference with Scott about because he says that he says he doesn't know, people can't know reality, but he'll say, I abandoned a worldview because it didn't fit the facts.
He said, I used to believe in Santa, and that predicted the future, and it made me happy, but it didn't fit the facts.
So, you have to fit the facts as well.
But the thing is, when people don't predict the future, when they fail to predict the future accurately, the thing is that it actually is an insult to their worldview, and they know it.
And Adams talks about cognitive dissonance, which is that you think you're a smart guy, but you did something stupid.
So, you have to invent a fantasy that covers that up, that papers that over so you don't think, oh, wait, maybe I'm stupid, maybe I should get smarter.
People don't want to change their worldview, and one of the number one ways people miss the future is they've predicted it wrong and they don't change their mind.
And that is one of the things that I feel is happening, has happened to many of our friends on the right who refuse to accept what's going on because many of us, including me, including me, said, Oh my gosh, this guy is a nightmare.
He's a disaster.
This is going to be terrible.
If he gets elected, it's going to be a disaster.
And they don't want to let go of that worldview that was so wrong.
So, they create this fantasy that he's a disaster, that things are going wrong.
And the way they do that is predicting a future in which things will go wrong, even if they're not going wrong right now.
But the fact is, we don't know the future, we don't know what's going to happen, and even if it turns out they're right and disasters happen, it won't be because they got it right.
It'll just be because that was one of the possible futures.
The fact is, the living fact is, this has been politically one of the greatest years for conservatives in my memory, which now goes back a fairly long way.
Not since Reagan have we had, you know, people keep saying what a nice person George W. Bush was.
That's very true, but he was not a conservative.
And people keep complaining that Donald Trump is going to drag conservatism into another place.
But don't forget that George W. Bush dragged conservatism into this world, into these world wars, these very extensive foreign policy, which is very, very anti-conservative.
Conservatives were always the guys who said, wait, wait, wait, before we go to war, let's see, are we the police here?
Are we the guys who have to do this?
But George W. Bush was going to impose democracy on a large swath of the world which didn't want it.
And whether you think that's right or not, it was not the conservative policy.
So the Bush family has, despite their service, despite their personal decency, it has skewed conservatism more than Donald Trump has.
I know I go through this list a lot, but I'll just go through it really quickly again.
This has been the year in which ISIS was defeated because of Donald Trump's policies.
It's the year in which judges have been appointed, I think it's over 60 or about 60 judges to the federal bench, nominated to the federal bench who are actually constitutional conservatives.
And I heard Jonah Goldberg say, well, that's because Trump is delegating that to the Federalist Society.
I don't care why it is.
Whatever Trump is doing, it's getting done.
And the people on the right who said, who kept, they had this phrase, but Gorsuch, but Gorsuch, everything would, in their mind, would be going wrong, and they'd say, oh, yeah, but he appointed Gorsuch.
That's the only good thing you can say about him.
Listen, if that Baker doesn't have to deliver cakes against his religious convictions in that Supreme Court trial because of Gorsuch, but Gorsuch is going to be a big, big deal.
The regulations roll back is revolutionary.
And now the tax plan, we're very close.
They've now say that the House and Senate have got a deal on the tax plan, which means they could vote on it as early as next week, which would mean getting it out there before the Democrat comes in, Doug Jones comes in from Alabama.
So that's a big deal.
Here is Trump talking about the tax plan.
When government loosens its grip, there is no summit we cannot reach.
Our tax cuts will break down, and they'll break it down fast.
All forms of government and all forms of government barriers and breathe new life into the American economy.
It's this too, a big deal and a big deal for the economy.
Almost everyone is saying now, is admitting now that the cuts, especially to the corporate rate, will jump-start the economy even more than it's already been jump-started.
And Brett Stevens, who hates Trump with all his heart, he basically voted for Clinton, left the Wall Street Journal to go to the New York Times, a former newspaper.
He wrote a piece today saying Democrats are walking into a Trumpian trap.
That is, they keep telling themselves they're going to destroy the Republican Party.
And look, maybe they will.
Midterms are usually bad for the party in power.
But listen to this.
Here's Larry Sabato from the UVA political, you know, whatever it is, think tank.
Listen to the way he's talking.
People get a sense of a president, and I don't think Donald Trump has a clue how most people look at him.
And it's now a large majority who look askance at him and are very critical.
He stirs the pot three or four times and makes another million enemies.
So he thinks that he doesn't know, that Trump doesn't know.
And I'm going to get back to that in a minute.
The guy I wanted was the strategist Steve Schmidt talking about number two.
This party has demonstrated a complete incapacity to govern, period.
And I think that there will be a tsunami come 2018 that wipes it away.
All he's talking about is the fact that he doesn't like Donald Trump.
If this tax bill passes, that's an awful big bill to get in your first year.
Again, all the other things, the ISIS, the regulations, the judges.
Where is the failure to govern?
The failure to govern is that he didn't predict what was going to happen.
He doesn't like this guy.
And this is number two, okay?
People underestimate, they underestimate and dismiss what they don't like.
They underestimate.
I mean, ask yourself for a minute, people on the right, the never-Trump right, or what now they call themselves Trump skeptic right, they were celebrating, they were celebrating that we had lost a vote in the Senate.
This was a good thing.
This was a good thing.
Why?
Why is it a good thing?
I mean, as I said, I think we were being played, but I'll get back to that in a minute.
But people don't like Trump.
And you have to ask yourself, look, like I've said, I don't always like Trump.
Sometimes Trump does stuff that makes me my gorge rise.
It truly does.
Ask yourself this.
What difference does it make whether you like him or not?
Omaha Steaks Savings00:03:16
That is pure emotionalism.
And one of the things Adams talks about, and Adams, like he's a trained persuader.
He's taken hypnotism classes and things like this.
And he's taken a lot of, he read a lot of books about how to persuade people.
And he's worked in business.
And he says Trump is using classic persuasive techniques.
They don't see it because he doesn't sound like a typical politician, because he says things that they don't like.
People are misjudging him, underjudging him, because they don't like him.
But you have to ask yourself, what difference does it make if you don't like somebody?
It really makes no difference whatsoever.
I'm going to stay on.
Let's stay on today.
We have Christian Toto coming on to talk about Hollywood.
So we'll stay on Facebook and YouTube so you can hear Christian come on and talk about that stuff.
But please subscribe.
You got to subscribe.
You know, you get the for 100 lousy bucks, you get the leftist.
This is the actual mug that Santa Claus uses.
If you were watching, you could see Santa Claus using the leftist tears mug, which will fill up with leftist tears when leftists go to their stockings and find that they got coal.
So come on on and subscribe, but I will stay on.
And before I get on to way number three, that people don't foresee the future, let's talk about Omaha Steaks.
You know, this is actually one of the best things.
This has been a great year.
I was talking about a great year for conservatives.
It's been a great year for the Daily Wire.
I've had a wonderful time this year, not just working here, but also with Another Kingdom coming on and doing so well.
And it's got over 1,400 five-star reviews now.
So it's just, it keeps rising up.
It has been a lovely, lovely year.
And one of the lovely parts of this year have been some of the sponsors I've had relationships with, and one of them is Omaha Steaks.
And this is not personal.
I'm not saying I like these people personally.
I don't really know them personally.
I'm sure they're lovely people.
It's the meat.
It is the meat because the sponsors keep sending me food and their food is so good.
The steaks and the burgers and the kilbasas, they are unbelievably good.
And in California, you can grill almost all year long.
So I get to grill them and they're just absolutely terrific.
And let me tell you what I will do for you, Omaha Steaks, for just $49.99.
You can get my family gift pack when you go to omahasteaks.com and enter my code Andrew in the search bar.
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Listen to everything that you'll get.
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These guys pay our salaries.
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They pay for some of these people who I don't even know what these people do.
And Omaha Steaks is paying them just to be here.
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All right.
Misinformation Clouds Power Struggle00:14:40
Number three way that people are mistaking the future is they do not account for unintended consequences.
And this has been a year of unintended consequences, unlooked for consequences.
Who among you, not me, but who among you would have said if Donald Trump is elected, we are going to clear out some of these sex offenders in the media.
We are going to clear out these guys who abuse women.
Who would have said that?
And they're running all these articles about how it's because women felt helpless and traumatized when Trump was elected.
It's not.
It's because Hillary lost.
It is because Hillary lost.
We didn't take into account what would happen if Hillary lost.
You know, there's an article in the Daily Caller, a woman named Harmee Dillon, writes, If President Hillary Clinton ran the country and Bill Clinton were the first gentleman, would we be experiencing this cultural moment recognizing the problem of sexual harassment?
And would the 2017 Person of the Year Time magazine be those who spoke out about being harassed?
Certainly not.
More likely, Harvey Weinstein would be sipping Chardonnay in the Rose Garden and eating canopies while oggling his next victim while Bill Clinton did the exact same thing.
President Hillary Clinton would be smugly presiding over a brittle edifice of equality beneath which lurked decades of enabling, shaming, attacking, suppressing, and silencing the victims.
It's so true.
I mean, we did not think about this.
We did not think about the fact that if Trump was elected, this backlash against people who abuse women, you know, because even though I have said that we should not let ourselves be ginned up and overexcited by this, and it's certainly unfair.
I mean, Tavis Smiley, one of the worst hosts on television, is now being attacked.
He's now been suspended from PBS for sexual harassment.
I was reading that story, and of course, with these sexual harassment things, you never read past the headline.
You see, oh, Tavis Smiley now, sexual harassment, multiple victims, multiple victims.
And then when you read it, not so much, not so much.
You know, people don't like him.
Maybe he said some untoward things.
I don't think he should lose his job.
I think he should lose his job because he's lousy.
And because PBS hasn't got a single right-wing spokesman on, not one, not even guests, right-wing guests come on their shows.
I mean, and this is a public station.
There's only one side relentlessly being pushed toward us.
The other, so number four, and I'll stop at number four, even though I could go on.
Number four way that people are getting the future wrong is simply misinformation.
And this is another bone I have to pick with these Trump skeptic right.
They keep saying, hey, the media is on the left.
You just have to accept it.
That is not right.
The media is producing a cloud of misinformation.
A recent poll said that 52% of Americans are now saying that the tax bill will raise their taxes.
Even the left admits that almost everybody will get a tax cut.
Almost everybody will get a tax cut.
They even now have cut taxes for higher earners in this final deal.
That's what sources say.
But just about everybody will get a tax cut, and people don't know it.
And why?
Because the left isn't going out of their way.
It's not that the left is spreading misinformation except through commentators.
It's that they're not going out of their way to correct the impression.
Believe me, believe me, if this were Barack Obama's bill, that's all you would be hearing.
No, no, no, you silly fellow.
You're wrong.
It will cut your taxes.
Consider, let's take a look at this thing that's happening with the FBI.
I don't know how many of you have been following this.
You know, it is a, they just released the text messages from 2016 from Peter Strzzok.
He's this guy who was the zealot of these investigations.
He was in the Clinton email investigation.
He was demoted from Mueller's team or Mueller's team or whatever it is for the look into Trump's Russia connections, which are non-existent.
So these are text messages between Peter Strzok and the FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, that he was having an affair with.
And that's the first thing I would like to know.
Like, why did these guys have so much time to commit adultery?
Aren't they supposed to be investigating things?
Doesn't investigating things take up your time?
Like, when were they doing?
When were they adulterating?
You know, when were they doing this stuff?
All right.
So these emails are funny, by the way, if you read them, read them from my perspective.
And what it really looks like is that Strzzok was kind of a moderate to liberal Republican, and Lisa Page was an ardent Democrat.
And to please her, he keeps going further and further to the left, and he keeps saying terrible, terrible things about Donald Trump.
And he's saying, F Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is an idiot.
I can't believe anybody would vote for Donald Trump.
So the media, and this is talking about misinformation, the media is promoting those emails.
It's talking about those emails.
When I say the media, I mean CNN, I mean the networks, they're promoting those emails.
And then they're saying, what is quite true is that everybody has political opinions.
Everybody can get a little rowdy and express their political opinions with dirty words.
Never mind.
It doesn't mean he can't investigate properly.
They're not reporting on the network evening news.
They have completely blacked out the following emails.
Okay, these are texts.
I'm sorry, not emails.
These are texts where Strzok says to Lisa Page, he says, I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office.
Okay, and this is what's his name, Andrew McCabe, Andrew McCabe, whose wife, remember, received all those, was a Democrat candidate for state senate in, I think, Virginia, and she received all these donations from the Clintons.
So he had that conflict of interest.
He says, I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office, that there's no way Trump gets elected.
But I'm afraid we can't take that risk.
It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before 40.
Now, what is like that?
What is like?
What's the insurance?
He's saying that in this meeting at Andrew McCabe's office, right, he was the deputy FBI director, Lisa Page put forward a scenario that Trump could never get elected.
And he said, I want to believe that.
I want to believe in that, but I can't.
We can't take that risk.
We need an insurance policy.
What was that?
This is the guy who rewrote the line in the investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Instead of saying that she had committed a crime by being grossly negligent, he said that she'd been extremely careless, which is not a crime.
He's the guy who made that rewrite.
In another exchange the same month, Page forwarded a Trump-related article, and she wrote, Maybe you, Strzzok, are meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace.
And he says, with kind of bravado, of course, I'll try and approach it that way.
You know, he says, of course, I'll try and approach it that way.
So, what's he doing?
So, here, listen to Jim Jordan.
They had Rod Rosenstein from the Justice Department, right?
And he's the guy, because Jeff Sessions recused himself, he's the guy who's in charge of the Russian investigation.
And Jim Jordan goes after Rod Rosenstein, as he's been doing.
You're the guy in charge.
You're the guy who picked Mueller.
You're the guy who wrote the memo saying why he needed to fire Comey.
You're the guy in charge.
You could disband the Mueller special prosecutor, and you can do what we've all called for: appoint a second special counsel to look into this, to look into Peter Strzzok, Bruce Orr, everything else we've learned in the last several weeks.
I don't have Toto's facts.
Yes, Congressman, and I can assure you that I consider it very important to make sure that a thorough review is done.
And our Inspector General is doing a thorough review.
That's how we found those text messages as part of that review.
Let me ask you, you've given that answer like 15 times.
Let me ask you this: Are you concerned?
I mean, this is what a lot of Americans are believing right now, and I certainly do: that the Comey FBI and the Obama Justice Department worked with one campaign to go after the other campaign.
That's what everything points to.
Think about what we've learned in the last several weeks.
We first learned they paid for the dossier, then we learned about Peter Strzzok, and last week we learned about Bruce Orr and his wife Nell.
I mean, this is unbelievable.
So, what's it going to take to get a second special counsel to answer these questions and find out was Peter Strzzok really up to what I think he was?
I think it's important to understand, Congressman, we have an Inspector General who has 500 employees and a $100 million budget, and this is what he does.
He investigates allegations of misconduct involving department employees.
That review that he is conducting is what turned up those text messages.
It will also involve interviews of those persons and of other witnesses.
See, this is nonsense.
FBI answers to Congress.
The Inspector General, it's great that the Inspector General is doing an investigation, but that's no reason for him to stonewall a congressman.
Congress are your elected officials sent there to go after these guys, like Rosenberg, people who are not elected, to do oversight on them.
There's no excuse for saying the Inspector General is investigating this, so I can't speak to Congress.
That's absurd.
So, all this misinformation and all this stonewalling also affects our view of the future.
And these are the ways in which when you're listening to people, listen, I don't know what's going to happen in the midterms.
Typically in a midterm, there's a backlash against the party in power.
All I'm saying is this, because people got Trump wrong, they can't see how much Trump has gotten right.
They cannot see that this year from January to now, especially if this tax plan passes, has been the best year in government for conservatives.
Everything else you hear, everything else you hear, women being molested, you know, so don't vote for this guy, Trump colluding with Russia, everything else is about that.
It's about power.
We are watching a battle for power.
That's it.
Right now, for this year, Trump has had the power and it has benefited us.
And that's where the morality of this lies.
That is where the moral question lies because the conservative ethos is, in fact, a moral ethos that says that people should be free.
I keep saying this again and again.
Freedom is the most moral, the most important moral question because you can't behave morally unless you're free to make choices.
And if the government smothers you in every possible way, even including you have to bake a cake against your religious convictions, then you're not free and you can't make those moral choices.
So don't be distracted by any of this stuff.
It's not about whether Trump's a nice guy.
It's not about whether Trump maybe chased a girl around the room at one of his beauty pageants.
It's all about power and who has it.
And for the last year, we've had it and it has worked out really, really well.
All right, let's bring on Christian Toto, my friend, who from his blog is called Hollywood and Toto.
And I so recommend it.
If you're interested in movies, if you're interested in Hollywood, you're reading all this stuff that is almost all of it coming from the left.
And unfortunately, this is something I complain about all the time.
I complain to my friends at the magazines and my friends at the think tanks that when they cover culture, they send out somebody who writes about politics.
They send somebody to a movie who writes about crime or writes about legislation who doesn't have the deep knowledge of movies or Hollywood or publishing, whatever they're writing about, to write the kind of stuff we need.
Christian Toto has that knowledge.
Hollywood and Toto is a terrific site.
It's really well written.
It's really exciting.
And it's from the right point of view.
Christian, there you are.
I can see you.
How are you doing?
Hey there.
It's good.
Happy holidays.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas, as we say now.
That's right.
Excellent pair of headsets, a pair of excellent headsets, by the way.
Anyway.
I wanted the biggest possible because I like to call them cans.
First of all, let's talk.
We've got to talk about the sex scandal because it's just getting bigger and bigger.
There was a piece.
Did you see this piece in the New York Times about Selma Hayek and Harvey Weinstein?
You know, I thought I heard everything I could about this scandal.
I thought I was as outraged as possible and as just chilled to the bone.
And then I read that and it all came back again and even worse.
And I think what's so amazing about that particular story about this particular actress is how it actually interrupted her art.
In addition to all the horrible things that he did to her, that he tried to do to her, how he made her feel terrible.
At every step of the way, he tried to screw over her artistic dream.
And that, in a sense, flies in the face of this whole Harvey Weinstein's a patron of the arts.
He's a wonderful entertainer.
He wants to bring the independent sensibility to film.
No, he's just a monster.
And he's a monster through every possible level of Hollywood.
And what he did to Selma Hayek and how she persevered is amazing.
In fact, I think it could be a movie itself.
I think you could do a movie about this entire situation with heroes and villains and drama and everything there.
It is unbelievable.
And good for Salma Hayek for phrasing it in such an magical, powerful way.
It's a compelling read.
It really is a good read.
And Selma Hayek, I mean, you know, she's a really talented actress and obviously an incredibly beautiful woman.
She's also a far, I mean, she was talking mostly about this picture of Frida, which is about the socialist artist, and she's praised Shea Guevara.
I mean, it's very hard, but you cannot help feeling sympathy for her.
Frida is actually a good movie.
It really is.
And there's one scene in this article where Harvey Weinstein basically says, I'll cut off this movie unless you do a nude lesbian sex scene in the movie.
I mean, it really made my throat close.
What a, you know, that is what that's what women or any artist is dealing with in Hollywood.
It's pretty shocking.
Now, you wrote a piece recently, and you decorated.
I happened to notice it because you decorated it with one of my videos, which I appreciated.
But you wrote a piece about Lena Dunham in these sex scandals.
I'm going to let you tell it.
I mean, how she has basically debased herself during these scandals.
Yeah, you know, there's a lot of things to say about Lena Dunham, and almost none of them are good.
But this particular story was revealed by the New York Times when they were investigating how Weinstein was able to get away with everything he got away with.
And it mentions how Lena Dunham reached out to the Hillary campaign in 2016, not once, but twice, and said, Hey, guys and gals, you've got to get away from this guy.
He's a rapist.
He's a horrible human being.
And if the campaign is connected to him and he falls or it's revealed, then it's going to really stain the effort to make Hillary the first female president.
She did it twice.
Lena Dunham's Silence00:07:54
She knew, like many, many people in Hollywood.
And guess who she didn't tell?
Anybody else?
She told no one.
She left Harvey Weinstein to do all the things that he was doing and didn't blow the whistle.
Now, it's a little complicated because women like Selma Hayek, who are directly influenced by Weinstein, who were assaulted, who were attacked, who were seduced in the grossest way possible, or it's a bad word way of saying it.
But I understand when they're quiet because they've been psychologically wounded.
They've been attacked.
They worry about their careers.
You know, Lena Dunham wasn't that person.
She wasn't attacked.
She just knew.
So she could have rallied people on her side.
She could have called the press and said, Hey, I've got the dirt in this guy.
Can you start investigating this?
So he will never hurt another young starlit who comes to Hollywood with dreams of being a superstar.
She didn't do it.
All she cared about was Hillary Clinton.
She really has seemed to be circling the drain, Lena Dunham.
And I sometimes wonder if she got sucked in.
You know, they kept calling her a star while no one was watching her show.
And I wonder if when the show went off and she suddenly was back in reality where nobody cared who she was and she had no influence.
I wonder if it's kind of making her a little crazy.
Now, is this a sea change?
Is this going to change anything out here?
I mean, I know I laugh because my agents and other agents that I know are scrambling around their reaction to the sex scandal is to scoop up the talent that is now free because agents are getting fired for pinching butts, you know.
But is this, do you think things will change in Hollywood?
It's been like this forever.
Well, you know, I think it's going to be unclear.
There's two factors going on.
One, you do have to get more women behind the scenes in powerful positions because that will make this happen less and less.
Now, I don't want quotas.
I don't want to say, hey, we have 50-50% of people who are women and men.
I think that's the wrong approach.
But there has to be a genuine ability to say, we need to hire the best person, whether it's a male or a female, whether he or she is untested or has a long resume.
You have to get those new voices in there.
But more specifically, it's the culture.
Now, look at Selma Hayek.
Here's this beautiful, talented actress who had a long resume when she made that movie, Frida.
She didn't feel that she had any warriors on her side who would stand up for her, who would defend her, who would fight for her.
Nobody.
That's why she suffered in silence.
And until she gets those warriors, I don't know how much changes in the industry.
I do think that people will be more and more leery of doing the bad behavior because they know they may get caught where someone will sped the word about it.
But overall, until these different things happen, I don't see significant change.
It could be a blip.
And I hope that this causes that change.
But a lot more has to happen beyond the fact that names are being named.
Yeah, it is interesting.
And as these people go out and new people come in, I think the memory of all this will disappear.
I think it does speak to the bubble effect of just being around people who agree with you.
Lena Dunham could keep silent because Hillary Clinton was so important.
And everybody thought that.
Everybody in Hollywood thought that Hillary Clinton was more important than exposing Harvey Weinstein.
And Harvey Weinstein was a big donor.
Let's talk about the year in movies.
The Golden Globes have come out.
First, my first question is, when you look at back, I mean, you see more movies than I do, but when you look back at the year in pictures, do you see any sign whatsoever that Hollywood has taken on board the fact that there are at least 60 million people in the country who disagree with them?
Are they servicing Trump voters at all?
Or is it just resistance, resistance, resistance?
Well, I think it's too soon to know from a content point of view because it takes so long for these movies to get made, get approved, get shot, get marketed, get released.
I think that's going to be kind of a wait and see.
I think the real fascinating question, and I want to tune in just to see it, because often the Oscar telecast is absolutely boring and dreadful.
Will they go the full resistance on Astronaut at a time when their industry has suffered black eye after black eye after black eye, where we all know that they all knew about Weinstein and his compatrons and compatriots and did nothing?
Can they have the hubris to go out there and make stump speeches for the DNC while all of that is still in our memory?
That's the million dollar question.
Now, you got Jimmy Kimmel will be the host.
He's an ardent leftist.
He's kind of come on very, very dramatically in recent weeks, holding up a baby or a puppy or something.
Unbelievable, yeah.
You know, if there were true comedians out there, they would mock him into the, into oblivion.
No offense to his young child, but bringing a child up and holding him into the camera to make your point, it just seems like the hooriest of clichés.
But that will be the real thing.
So now it's still a couple of months away.
We still have time for the culture to evolve and change and shape and grow.
But will they make this another event where it's all about their political point of views and less and less about the movies?
God, I hope not.
That will be really interesting.
I can say, I don't want to say who it was because it was a personal conversation, but I had my Christmas party recently and there was a very successful actor there and he had been at an award show.
And before they went on, he said to me that they told him, no politics, let's not talk politics.
So maybe it would be interesting if we see some more of that because people turn it off.
So what did you make of the Golden Globe?
Well, let me put it to you this way.
What did you make of the Golden Globes?
And what do you think are the pictures of the year?
Well, years ago, and I don't even mean many years ago, we just kind of shrugged at the Golden Globe nominations.
It was a bit of a tainted organization.
Some weird films were nominated.
Remember, was it the tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp?
It was a Johnny Depp Angelina Jolmy movie that no one saw, no one cared, no one liked, but it got some nominations because they wanted to get those stars in the theater that night.
So I don't think much about the event.
And I think we keep trying to give more importance to certain things that don't deserve it.
Much like there's about 16 different awards leading up to the Oscars.
They're not all super important, guys and gals.
It doesn't matter.
More specifically, my movie of the year wasn't even nominated by anything.
It's getting no buzz.
It's called Thank You for Your Service.
It's a great film about soldiers coming home from Iraq and all the things that they're going through.
Miles Teller is a star.
He is sensational.
The movie is sensational.
And it's from the writer who gave us American Sniper.
Jordan directed the film, and it is mesmerizing.
And it's also rather excoriating when it comes to the VA and the government bureaucracy when it comes to healthcare.
So, but it's not very political.
It's more about their lives and about their heroism and about what they face here.
A beautiful, powerful film.
It made no money.
It got no significant critical buzz.
And it's my best movie of the year.
You know, that's funny because as you mentioned it, I thought, oh, yeah, you know, it's funny now that you've mentioned it, I heard some good things about it, and I realized as you were talking, I read it on your blog on Hollywood and Toto.
So that explains it.
But that is really interesting.
I will watch it.
I haven't, and I'm embarrassed.
I'm running out of time, but what are you looking forward to in the next year?
Anything?
You know, just more great television, frankly.
I don't know what to really look forward to in the movies.
I think the whole sequel and remake and reboot, that process goes unchanged.
I don't think it's going to really change at all until enough blockbusters are absolute duds.
Having said that, you know, the Black Panther film looks engaging.
I feel like Marvel superhero films are smart and funny and interesting and perfectly cast.
And I don't think that's going to be anything different.
The one movie I'm really excited about is 1517 to Paris.
It's the Clint Eastwood movie about the three heroes who thwarted the terrorist attack.
It's coming out February 9th.
The trailer just dropped this week.
It looks excellent.
And he cast the real heroes in those roles.
Wow.
And that's a really daring move.
And I don't know if it's going to pay off, but if anyone can do it, it's the 80-something Clint Eastwood.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas00:04:40
All right, Kristen Toto.
The blog is called Hollywood in Toto, right?
T-O-T-O.
And also, you're on Twitter.
What's your Twitter handle?
At Hollywood in Toto.
That sounds good.
I can remember that.
You got to keep the brain concerned.
Well, Kristen, it's good to see you.
If I don't see you before Christmas, have a Merry Christmas, and I'll talk to you next year.
All right, I'm running out of time, but I want to do stuff I like.
So, CNN ran a piece that really belongs in the onion.
26-year-olds face challenges as they fall off parents' health insurance.
26-year-olds falling off mommy and daddy's health insurance are facing troubles.
Let me just read you the opening of this piece.
All right.
Marguerite Manio felt frustrated and flummoxed.
Despite the many hours she had spent in front of the computer this year reading consumer reviews of health insurance plans offered on the individual market in Virginia.
She still did not know what plan was right for her.
Now, if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
Maniot was preparing to buy an insurance policy of her own, knowing she would age out of her parents' plan when she turned 26 in October.
She asked her parents for help and advice, but they too ran into trouble trying to decipher which policy would work best for their daughter.
The family had relied on her father's employer-sponsored plan through his work as an architect for years, so no one had spent much time sifting through policies.
Honestly, my parents were just as confused as I was, said Manio, a restaurant server in Roanoke.
I want to end today with my favorite non-religious Christmas song, which is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Sam Smith has a wonderful new rendition of it, but I want to play the original one, which is by Judy Garland because no one has ever done it better.
And it's from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, which came out in 1944.
When they originally handed in the lyrics to this, the stars and the director looked at it and they thought it was just too dark.
And there was actually a line, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
It may be our last.
Next year we may all be living in the past.
Why was it such a dark song and why was it such a big hit?
And it's because it was 1944.
In 1944, 26-year-olds were not trying to find a new policy because they fell off mom and dad's policies.
They were fighting their way.
People's brothers, their sons, and their husbands were fighting their way through Europe at the Battle of the Bulge in Christmas of 1944.
And so, if you are a 26-year-old and you're complaining because you fell off mom and dad's insurance, here's what you do: this will help you a lot.
Go in the bathroom, look in the mirror, and slap yourself in the face so hard that your eyeballs roll in two different directions because you're a punk.
Okay, so as you listen to this absolutely, I mean, Julie Garhin, one of the great voices of all time, as you listen to this rendition, picture yourself in this situation where you or your husband or your brother or your son is off fighting the Battle of the Bulge, one of the toughest, Hitler's last attempt to take over the world.
And this is the song for that Christmas.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is the Andrew Show.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart beat alight.
Next year, all of yourself a merry little Christmas.
Make the young gay.
Next year, all troubles will be miles away once again, as in olden days.
Happy golden days of your faithful friends who were dear to us will be near to us once more.
Supervising Producer Mathis Glover00:00:24
The Andrew Klavan Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
Technical producer Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.
Hair and makeup is by Jessua Alvera.
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The Andrew Clavin Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing Production.