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Feb. 20, 2025 - Louder with Crowder
01:08:04
Trump Slams Dictator Zelensky: Why He NOW Has a Point
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Time Text
Like in Nodding.
La la la, she leaves, she leaves, she leaves.
Every week, Steven laid out the rules that he and I, well, the rules that he decided.
Gentlemen, welcome to Mug Club.
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Second rule of Mug Club, tell everyone about Mug Club.
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Hey, Stephen.
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You don't know where I've been, Josh.
You don't know where I've been.
No!
All right, we have a lot to get to.
Ooh, that is tepid.
A lot to get to.
Why are you going to CNN? This is a disaster.
It's because, look, I'm going to be rapid pace right now.
Not you, tool man.
Calm the nerves.
Be water, my friend.
Then get your ass kicked because you're Bruce Lee.
Now, is Zelensky a dictator?
Yes.
Now, there's some gray area.
We're going to talk about that because some new developments there.
My lawyer is here to actually give you some insight into the Blake Lively Baldoni case.
Donald Trump has fixed congestion pricing in New York.
Also some news about the Kennedy Center.
And Bernie Sanders just, he won't go away.
He's still alive.
And he wrote an op-ed in The Guardian that tells you everything you need to know about the left.
I've said this, and I, please.
Do keep this at the tip of your tongue.
Status quo and more money.
That is the left's solution to everything.
And I was losing my mind after the show yesterday.
Here's why.
It's not the big thing.
It's not the multi-trillion dollar deficit.
If we can't cut Twizzlers from Snap, you don't believe we can cut anything.
If we can't use food subs for ringdings...
You don't believe anything can be cut from government.
You think going through the 70,000 new IRS employees have a shot?
You won't cut out fuego talkies!
So if at some point today you see this, head on over.
To Rumble.
It's a live show weekday, including tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Eastern.
Fuego Takis?
They're delicious, and I make bad decisions when it's late at night.
What the hell is that?
And you're at a gas station.
I'll give you some.
It'll change your life.
They said that about fentanyl.
Look at me.
For a lot of people, it did.
Yes, it did.
Our father.
Let me ask you this.
What's the craziest thing Bernie Sanders has said?
Is the mask off now?
Do you guys all see when this guy complains about oligarchs?
That's what he supports.
People used to say at least Bernie Sanders was genuine.
Anyone still believe that?
And by the way, do you think Zelensky is a dictator?
I think Putin is bad.
I think he's a dictator.
I think that Zelensky, he plays one on TV really well.
There you go.
Captain Morgan, I hope you are well.
And this man, funniest man alive.
Go see him live if you can.
Thursday, this Thursday.
Tonight.
That's right, tonight.
Tulsa.
And then tomorrow at the Funny Bone in St. Louis, Nick DiPaolo.
How are you, fellas?
Doing well.
Hey, we have CNN's weird faces.
And just to be really clear, before we get into this, this morning I thought this was the weirdest face on CNN. That's pretty weird.
Like a Chinese-crested, hairless terrier?
Whatever it is.
John Bolton, isn't it?
Well, he was.
He's like, I used to be.
Now, that's not even close, which brings us to this week's Weird Faces.
I've seen it.
And it ties into news about the Kennedy Center and their new chief, President Trump.
But weirdest face?
This brings us to a Kennedy.
I want to bring in Stephen Kennedy Smith, the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.
He looks like he was supposed to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight, but stopped halfway.
Stephen, what led to the decision to close the library yesterday?
What changed to allow it to reopen today?
He looks like the kid's Halloween bucket.
Where do you see his teeth?
Check out his teeth.
He's huge.
Six employees were fired.
And those employees were the employees who handled the interface with ticketing.
That's what happens when we have a sister wife.
So we had no one...
What a vagina magnet.
That was done without any consultation whatsoever.
I do appreciate that he's leaned into the oddity that he is.
Yes.
I do appreciate he's like, what can I do with this?
Let me go with the alfalfa, shave my lips off.
Yeah, you know what?
I'm a freak show.
He leaned into it to help a few bullies.
I didn't hear a word he said.
Me either!
I know, it's like looking at a model.
Except in a trained wreck in human form.
He's the poster boy for why you shouldn't use Narcan.
Aww.
He was talking about the Kennedy Center, I believe.
So President Trump is now chairman of the Kennedy Center in D.C. And, of course, this is part of the Smithsonian Institute.
I don't know how much they receive.
I believe it was $30-something in federal funding.
I think it was $40-something million.
$40-something million in federal funding.
And see if you guys can understand this concept.
The left is really tipping their hand here.
They're not tipping their hand.
They don't have a play.
They're just showing you who they are.
They don't understand that no one cares.
If you want to do art.
When we're paying for the art, it's different.
You can eat whatever you want.
When we're paying for it, we have a say.
You can go and privately fund the human godforsaken centipede and no one will care.
Even a sequel!
As long as you are paying for it.
When it's taxpayer dollars, we have a say.
And they don't understand it.
Some people, like LeVar Burton, Obviously and understandably upset, but the good news is you don't have to take his word for it.
The arts are especially at risk right now, it seems like.
Arts have been in the headlines with what Trump has been doing with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
What's your take on that, and how important does it make this summit and the conversations you're going to have here this week?
I don't believe that arts should be a part of a political conversation.
Tell your friends.
At least they should be.
But I guess I believe...
Sure, there's politics in everything.
But art should be outside of that sphere of rhetoric because this is about humanity.
Take a look.
It's in a book.
I'm reading the rainbow.
Thanks, LeVar.
I understand that you believe so much in your credibility.
You asked me to take the vouching of a six-year-old as tribute.
I believe art should be separate from politics.
Great!
We won't fund NPR. No, no, no, no!
Wait!
No more money for PBS! No, no, no, no!
No more funding for, by the way, The Usual Suspects.
In case you were wondering how far we've gone, like, if you wanted the Founding Fathers and people said, this is what the Founding Fathers would have wanted it.
You think they were going, yeah, okay, right.
Hold on, I think we're talking about taxation without representation.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Taxpayer-funded drag shows at a museum.
When we restrict the arts, we restrict the ability of people to fight back within the culture.
In the last week, President Trump said he didn't like what they were showing, especially drag shows.
I don't like what's coming up.
He says specifically targeting youth.
We're going to get some great professionals.
I'm going to be chairman of it, and we're going to make sure that it's good and it's not going to be woke.
These attacks on drag are being revealed attacks on trans people, and they want to classify trans people living their authentic lives as them doing drag.
We really need to be here today, show up, and stand up for trans and drag rights.
Now, I know that you were distracted in the foreground by Abomination Gomez-Adams, but if you can actually grab a screen, that's not even the worst person in that frame.
I was getting hard.
It was, look, right behind is someone even worse where there's a special place in hell, a mime.
Oh.
There's a mime.
I would go...
It's Joel Grey in Blackface.
It's just a group of people who deserve to be hated.
I say bring back bullying.
And mimes first.
Mimes and pumpkin heads.
This shit wouldn't red its ugly head if bullying stayed where it was.
There needs to be some.
There needs to be a natural order.
A little bit.
It's a natural...
That's exactly right.
Thank you.
It's like, you know, you're okay if you take out the krill, but not if you kill all the great whites, though I'm okay with it because I don't think we need any more.
The point is, the left is basically unhappy with any kind of change unless it's status quo and more money, but they have to deal with it.
Well...
I'm mad that it's Trump's turn to run the Kennedy.
I really hate Trumpers.
So much for stability.
Yeah, now that it's Trump's turn, I'm leaving because I've got no sack.
While the dog makes me a loser, he's taking the whole damn nation back.
That's a fun diddy.
I was.
By the way, we're going to continue today, of course.
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And Donald Trump, President Trump, is not done with owning the left.
This is a brilliant move.
Think about it.
He has made the left, Doge and Donald Trump have made the left defend congestion pricing in New York City and the IRS. And war.
Which brings us to Empire State of Crime.
New York.
Concrete shit, whole street crime tornado.
No one will protect you.
Now you're in New York.
So yesterday, Donald Trump killed the New York City congestion pricing program and Can we have a, Hochul, there was a tweet from her, a post from her.
Can you guys bring that to me?
She was defending it, saying, we will see you in court, Donald Trump.
There is nothing that New Yorkers want to fight for more than congestion pricing.
Oh my God!
That's what I'm saying.
It's not about logic and reason.
It's about their hatred of anything that comes from the right or Trump.
They are blinded by it, and what more proof do you need that defending this and the IRS... How is Hochul, how is the Democrat Party going to try and make...
Never been voted in.
No, never been voted in.
How are they going to try and make Republicans out to seem like country club wealthy elite when they are the ones defending the IRS and congestion pricing?
Could you be more out of touch?
It's just, they think that everyone's on board with them.
This is where even the most blue New Yorker who votes Democrat by default is going to wake up.
Right.
That's the hope.
Exactly right.
This transcends race and color and all that.
Everybody drives into Manhattan.
Yes.
You will turn.
Hamas-supporting terrorist cab drivers of New York City into Republican voters for life.
You want to know how the Joker comes to power?
Yes, exactly.
Bingo.
Bingo.
This is the origin story.
Maybe they can make another one, only a good one.
Actually, to give you an idea just how much New Yorkers hate congestion pricing, there are people who found workarounds, of course, as there was congestion pricing.
People don't know.
It's where they charge more at certain times.
$9!
Let's just say what it is.
It's $9 to drive past an intersection.
But New Yorkers found some creative workarounds like this one who posted a helpful tip video.
Yo, Mo, I'm not even going to hold you.
These n****s is bugging with these congestion tolls.
Get the f*** out of here.
I'm going to show y'all n****s how to do this s*** work.
See this bum a** toll right here?
You're going to make a left before you get under that s*** work.
You're going to go all the way down, no ditty.
There's going to be a parking lot right here where you're going to make a right in the parking lot.
You know what I mean?
Let me show you right here.
Boom.
Make the right in the parking lot right here.
You gonna go through the parking lot.
It's another opening on the other side, you heard?
Make sure y'all n**** get this shit before they delete this video.
You know they be d***ing on this shit.
No ditty again.
And this is where we are.
Sorry, buddy.
I hit the wrong button.
Billy, what is going on?
You look a little...
Are you okay?
Oh, goodness.
What's happening?
You know what?
I think I know.
I got some footage yesterday.
Oh, damn it. damn it.
Never.
Gonna win this jacked up challenge *crickets* *crickets* *crickets* *crickets* *crickets*
What's that?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Well, as for the jacked-up fitness office challenge, Billy's out. as for the jacked-up fitness office challenge, Billy's out.
Yeah.
That's fair.
Yeah.
We're going to continue with the growth there.
You know what?
Shortcuts aren't worth it.
They're not worth it, Billy the Kid.
I see that now.
Yeah, okay.
It's a little late.
Thank you.
I'm glad that you learned your lesson.
You and your flipper hands.
Wonderful sponsor of the show.
I've talked about this.
I knew them before they reached out.
Gerald had to curb my enthusiasm.
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Well, that's not jacked up.
That's not jacked up.
Fitness' fault.
As a matter of fact, jacked up, fitness, please don't drop us.
My face is kind of jacked up.
Yeah, the boil can bench 300 pounds on your forehead.
There you go.
Well, there probably would be some explosive energy, I would imagine.
Yummy.
Hey, let's go to this.
Before we get to Zelensky, which is obviously a big deal, the media is, of course, in an absolute tailspin over Donald Trump calling Zelensky a dictator.
We'll fact check some of what President Trump said.
It wasn't accurate, to be clear.
But before that, you know that I have disliked this person for a very long time.
Going back to whatever it is, 2014, 2015, when everyone was focusing on Hillary Clinton, I said, no, no, no, we're actually going to focus on Bernie Sanders on this show because he was the movement candidate.
People believed that for some reason he was my God authentic.
And he just wrote an op-ed.
It's the same tired old talking points, but there's new context.
It's really hard for Bernie Sanders to defend his policies.
On behalf of the people in the face of what is going on, comment below if the veil's been lifted a little bit that even the most populist progressive leftists like Bernie Sanders, you acknowledge they have no leg to stand on, and we'll go through it point by point.
But here you go.
Bernie Sanders does have a long-standing history of bitching about Trump.
We've got to appreciate what's going on in the country.
We're moving toward oligarchy.
It will not surprise you when I tell you that Trump is lying, as he so often does.
I mean, we will see whether Trump is going to keep any of the campaign promises he made to working people.
This country under Trump is moving rapidly toward authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism.
You may have noticed that Trump is intimidating the media.
A small number of...
Oh, media bias.
Your people, Bernie.
The president is operating at a very authoritarian, illegal, and unconstitutional.
Does he brush his hair with a plasma orb from Spencer's?
He just touches it on the way to the house.
It's like he comes to work with a motorcycle.
Exactly.
You know he has one pant leg tucked in.
Protected from the gears.
That's why his pan is tucked into his cell.
He's not in a gang.
So he wrote this op-ed in The Guardian, and it perfectly crystallizes what the left is doing on why it doesn't work.
So I'll be reading this and going through it claim by claim.
I think it's pretty important.
So right away he talks about, I will be doing town meetings in Omaha, Nebraska this Friday night, in Iowa City, Iowa on Saturday morning.
Further in the coming weeks and months, I and other progressives will be holding grassroots events.
From coast to coast.
Oh, grassroots.
You mean like the people who elected a president in spite of media interference, in spite of government interference, in spite of prosecutorial misconduct?
That kind of grassroots?
Is that what you mean?
Or do you mean like the grassroots, like the Tea Party that wasn't funded from the top down in opposition to Barack Obama and your party decided to audit those people?
Mothers and fathers?
That kind of grassroots?
Okay, I just want to make sure we're clear.
Why at this moment are we doing town meetings across the country, especially in conservative areas?
The answer is obvious.
Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the D.C. Beltway.
So not you.
It will only be defeated by millions of Americans.
All right, they already voted.
Let's go through the actual claims that this guy...
It's really hard to claim that you're a populist when people have rejected you.
Yes.
Yeah, hugely.
Not by a pair.
Huge.
Also, Vermont, your cheese sucks.
Wisconsin is better, and they're drunk.
Really drunk.
They're really drunk.
Was it 49 of the 50 drunkest counties for all of Wisconsin?
In the top 10, I believe.
But Vermont is so left, it's almost right.
Like, I get stopped pissing on the side of the road, and nobody said, a cop went by, just waved at me.
No.
Well, that's called the sex offender immunity.
So that's where the progressivism comes back.
It's like, Nick, he actually looked at you and was like...
Do you like what you see?
He said that on the PA system.
Sometimes I prefer a hooga.
He just should be paid like bowl players.
Yes, exactly.
Only the one that fucked their kids.
Yeah, that's Bernie Sanders because they're real heroes.
They're real heroes and they shouldn't be fired.
And then he turns, of course, into once he gets angry and he yells Gilbert Gott, for you all know the history here.
So, claim that he makes.
I'll just read this from the computer.
He says, Trumpism has significant control over large parts of the media from which millions of Americans get their information.
Fox and Musk's Platform X, among others, are not normal.
Media outlets.
Their basic function is not to cover the news, but to spread right-wing extremist ideology.
Okay, here's the truth.
References all publicly available.
First, let me ask a question.
Okay, Fox and X. Okay, how about ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Google, YouTube, Meta, and up until last year, X? How about all of them?
You have a problem with media bias now?
Alright, well don't let these facts hit you in the teeth.
The negative coverage of Donald Trump during the presidential races in 2024, it was 85% negative.
In 2020, he received 150 times more negative coverage than former Vice President Biden.
These are observable.
These are verifiable, quantifiable numbers.
Links in the description.
Not to mention, the big tech censorship of Trump and conservatives.
Zuck even acknowledged the coercion, and now he wants to apologize for it, while at the same time, of course, his constituents, or I guess his proxies, fund giant leftist organizations.
Of course, we have the Twitter files, revelations, we've been demonetized on YouTube, so pretty much everything except for Fox and X. And by the way, Fox isn't all that right-wing, especially when you know what's going on with it right now.
Okay, let's assume that it's true.
Again, ignoring ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, Google, YouTube, Meta, and recently XK. We'll ignore all of that.
What's the solution, Bernie Sanders?
You're talking about right-wing media?
Oh, wait.
Oh, that's right.
I know, if we look at Bernie's policy, it's more funding for NBR, PBS, more regulation.
Effectively, the same solution from the left as they have on everything right now, which is status quo, do the exact same thing, only more money, more money, more money.
Money, money, money, money.
Money.
It doesn't quite have the same...
The bass was good.
It was good.
Oh, that was a DEI. He's going to have a Jew on base.
It's automatically Seinfeld.
Not the crime intro.
Mike Huckabee on base.
He's actually not bad.
All right.
Next claim that he makes, and he starts getting more aggravated.
He says, Today, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
Millions are earning starvation wages.
85 million are uninsured or underinsured.
Young people are unable to afford the cost of college.
25% of seniors live on $15,000 a year or less.
We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth.
It's almost like this guy doesn't like America.
And we have a major shortage of low income and affordable housing.
Okay, here's the truth.
Not all of that is true.
Of course, you use different metrics.
It's kind of like the infant mortality rate.
But as far as the metrics he's using, you can irrefutably thank former Vice President Biden for that.
Under Joe Biden, we saw an increase in people living paycheck to paycheck.
We saw an increase in the number of uninsured and underinsured.
And we saw an increase in childhood poverty.
It actually more than doubled by the standards that Bernie is using here.
As far as affordable housing, I don't know if you know this Bernie Sanders.
I know you advocate on behalf of the people.
But tens of millions of illegals under Biden...
Crawled over here, flew, crawled, whatever, swam, if they could do that.
I don't know if you know that that has an effect on the market as far as supply and demand reduces the availability of affordable housing.
And let's be really clear, public housing, which I know we'll get to in a bit, actually sucks.
It concentrates poverty, crime, and it doesn't actually improve the lives of the people involved.
So hold on a second.
He bitches about, okay, he bitches about all these things, the housing crisis, poverty.
What's the solution from Bernie Sanders?
Oh, wait.
That's right.
He wants more Section 8 housing.
Oh, wait.
That's right.
He wants health care to be a human right.
Oh, wait.
That's right.
He wants to increase Medicare, Medicaid, make it for all people.
That's right.
Do exactly what we have done and more money.
Money, money, money, money.
Money.
And then he starts getting...
And how many houses does he have?
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Three.
That was one that was owned by the college from my wife.
Didn't it go bankrupt?
Shut up!
And he gets increasingly aggravated, like he has to fit this in.
It's like he wants to claim to be a populist, but then can't help but touch on the most elite talking point that couldn't be more out of touch with the average American public.
And that, of course, brings us to his claim on climate change, where he then says, oh, and by the way, we're losing our struggle against the climate crisis!
an existential threat to the future of the planet!
Son of a bitch!
Here's the truth!
Bernie!
Climate policy, energy policies, are the actual existential threat to the American way of life.
I don't know if you know this, but, for example, pausing leases on federal land and a lot of the climate agreements that we signed on to.
That's a big part of cost ballooning under former Vice President Biden.
You know, gas went up 48%.
That kind of affects those people in poverty, you prick.
Heating and oil, 44%.
Electricity, 29%.
Everything went up.
Most Americans aren't concerned about a 1.6 degree rise in temperature.
They wouldn't be able to detect it if it took place in this room over the course of the next two hours.
They care about not being able to drive to work or buy groceries.
You know, the stuff you minimize.
Hold on, let's go back to this.
What's the solution?
I had to live through this, and Nick knows, right, you're just a party of no, Republicans.
The solution here for Bernie Sanders, you can look at his policies, More Paris climate agreement.
That was the Kyoto Protocol.
I covered that in Cancun.
It was the Montreal Protocol before that.
More giant, multi-international agreements that half of these countries who sign on to don't even honor.
And of course, the countries who don't sign on to it, like China, they don't honor at all.
And what does that do?
Well, it affects climate basically nothing, as far as we know, something observable.
But we do know that it increases the price.
Of all goods and services for everyday Americans.
So what would he want to do?
That and along with, of course, subsidizing more green energy, which, of course, invariably ends up running itself into the ground, bankrupting itself.
I can give you examples like cylindra or solar or wind.
Effectively, the solution from Bernie Sanders is exactly the same thing.
Status quo, but more money.
Money, money, money, money!
Money!
I like that one.
It's going to happen.
You know, he gets a little riled up.
And then he goes into his favorite talking point.
The oligarchs.
The oligarchs.
Okay.
All right.
Anything 1% I hate.
1% milk.
That's right.
I won't have it.
I won't have it.
I'll do 2%.
My son graduated 1% of his class.
I fucking don't talk to the kid no more.
I got a mortgage 1% rate.
I said 2%.
I said, wait, no.
I tip.
1% below the industry average.
I tip 17%.
You ever see that?
He calculates the tip to the penny of 18%.
He's the least generous member of our public servants you can picture.
So here's the next claim that he makes.
Again, you can go and read all of it at The Guardian.
I just think he's a perfect whipping post and he puts himself out there and people on the left still actually, my God, believe in Bernie Sanders.
He said, Today the three major oligarchs, Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg are worth $905 billion!
That is more wealth than the bottom half of American society!
170 million people!
And incredibly, since Trump's election, their wealth has grown by $217 billion!
All right.
Okay, okay, all right.
First off, guess how these people lean.
Also, this is a small point.
The problem, I don't have a problem with the wealth gap inequality.
I have a problem with poverty, right?
And sometimes you'll have a wider gap, but you'll have less poverty.
So if you have a wider gap, but there are far more people in middle class or upper middle class income scenarios, that's better than having a smaller gap and everyone is relatively poor.
So I don't even agree with the premise, but let's go through this.
Here's the truth, Mr. Sanders.
The biggest wealth transfer that has ever occurred in modern American history was during COVID, and it was engineered by the left.
You complain about billionaires?
Billionaires increased their wealth by $1.8 trillion.
Wow.
During the pandemic, lockdowns, main beneficiaries were the people you named.
Well, eventually named, right?
You're rich.
But also BlackRock, Vanguard, you know, these giant companies who you deem too big to fail, you and Elizabeth Warren, your socialist brethren, sister in Papa, and whatever it is that she calls herself today is one 100th Cherokee, less than me.
Let's also remember $700,000, while there was a $1.8 billion, sorry, trillion, trillion, $1.8 trillion wealth transfer.
700,000 small businesses closed during the pandemic.
Again, this is something that you supported, of course, because it was a big government program.
We had to keep people safe, right?
Too big to fail because you want control over BlackRock and Vanguard and, of course, the big banks.
And, of course, too big to fail with auto manufacturers or the airline industry.
Insert whichever organization or group is too big to fill here.
You've supported it, even though you claim that you don't because you've never met government overreach that you don't like.
What is the solution?
The solution, of course, is more of the same from Bernie Sanders and maybe some higher taxes, which, of course, favors these giant corporations who can absorb them, not the 700,000 small businesses that close.
Effectively, the solution from the left is the status quo.
Same, same, same, same, same.
only more money money money money money money money he then goes on to say this is where he starts getting really pious his claim *Sigh* It is absurd, unjust, and inhumane!
That's right, I said it!
That virtually all of the new wealth being created goes to the people who need it the least!
Alright.
Here's the truth.
Because Bernie Sanders, when he's talking about people who need money or wealth, he's really talking about what government redistributes because he doesn't believe in wealth created by private businesses.
The truth is that the exact opposite is true.
If you look at entitlements, which tell a very clear story, just in 2024, over $4 trillion, or 60% of the federal budget, was spent on entitlement programs.
So again, what is the solution here when he is saying that new wealth is being created goes to people who need it?
I understand.
I don't believe that we should have government-engineered transfers of wealth to the giant companies too big to fail, to the Bezos' to the Zuckerbergs, you know, the people who you preferred for a very long period of time.
I agree with that.
But again, the solution from Bernie Sanders to fix the wealth disparity in this country is $4 trillion isn't enough.
More, more, status quo, Department of Education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, entitlement program, Section 8 housing, exactly what we've done, status quo, nothing different, only more money.
Money, money, money, money!
Money!
Here's the next claim.
You can check all these references and I encourage you to do so that Bernie makes.
I'll go back because my throat hurts.
In the richest country in the history of the world, we must establish that this is his manifesto.
Yes.
Healthcare is a human right.
Must be available to all regardless of income.
Before we move on, tell me the difference between a right and a commodity.
Oh, wait.
Every worker in America is entitled to earn a decent income.
We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage and make it easier for workers to join unions.
You know what's funny about that?
I was around when you were fighting for 15, bitch.
That's average now.
Most people can get that within two weeks of work.
Is it 25?
Is it 30?
Is it 35?
Seems like those think tank institutes.
Like the economists who said, you know, when you raise the cost of minimum wage, you just arbitrarily inflate wages.
You will inflate costs.
What's the number?
Bernie, we must have the best educational system in the world from childcare to vocational training to graduate school available to all.
Okay, great.
Over $2 trillion in the Federal Department of Education.
Test scores are worse.
What do we do?
We must address the housing crisis and build millions of units of low-income and affordable housing that we desperately need.
We must create millions of good-paying jobs as we lead the world in combating the existential threat of climate change.
And the last one, we must abolish all forms of bigotry!
What a list of horseshit.
I don't even agree with the last one.
Me either.
That's freedom of speech, jerk off.
All forms.
So, the truth.
Okay, alright.
And by the way, you just look at the school issue there.
Two trillion federal department of education.
Since we have included things like Pell Grants and subsidizing college degrees, guess what?
The costs have gone up dramatically.
It hasn't worked.
Oh, the solution would be more money.
More money, even though several trillion isn't enough with school, more money, and eventually test scores will go up.
Housing crisis?
Okay, just build millions of low-income.
Any of you ever been to Section 8 housing?
That's a real question.
Any of you ever spent time there?
Not great.
Create millions of good-paying jobs.
What they really mean by that is just use your taxpayer dollars.
Just use your dollars, your tax dollars to just create.
Shovel-ready jobs.
Like 70,000 new IRS employees.
Foreign-born workers or American workers?
I'm confused because Biden did more foreign-born workers.
It was entirely foreign.
Yeah, so he leaned all the way that way?
All of his solutions.
And I've just added it up and I've gone through it point by point.
But let me be really clear about this.
I'm not making it up.
It's a matter of record.
Bernie's 2020 plan would have increased spending by $53 trillion over 10 years.
What?
That would double the size of government.
It would still add $25 trillion to the deficit, assuming that Bernie's math to pay it off was correct, which it isn't.
It couldn't possibly be.
Holy crap.
And think about this for a second.
If you can't cut out...
Coca-Cola and Twizzlers and Chips Ahoy.
I'm a Chunks Ahoy man, but some people still eat chips.
It's disgusting.
Why take the less chocolate?
It's their lost leader.
You're basically stealing from them.
The point is, if we can't get rid of that from Snap, you can't cut anything.
If we can't look at a two-plus trillion dollar, not adjusted for inflation, cost with the Department of Education, worse test scores in both math and reading, then you can't declare anything to be a failure of government.
If you can't look at COVID policy and say $1.8 trillion in wealth transfer to the top billionaires, you can't examine government policy and ever deem it to be a failure.
For crying out loud, 70,000 new employees were added to the IRS under Biden.
Donald Trump, from what I understand, just cut 6,000.
That's not even a compromise!
Plus 70, minus 6. Go screw yourself.
How about that?
How about none of this?
How about all of them walk?
People right now on the left, including Bernie, they're complaining, tax season is going to be chaos this year.
You know what I think it'll be?
This is my guess.
It'll be approximately exactly what tax season was before Biden arbitrarily added 70,000 new employees.
You know, every single year ever before that.
And maybe a little bit better because, you know, we only took out six.
All Bernie Sanders, and he is emblematic of the progressive left, just some of them are better at lying to you.
They point out problems, ignore that they created it, blame the right, try and scare you, demand bigger government, status quo on every single thing.
Every single thing is status quo, change nothing, and more money.
No wonder they have to actually defend the IRS. Money, money, money, money!
Money!
$52 trillion in additional spending.
Trump cut 6,000 IRS guns, right?
That's 6,000 guns off the streets they should be having.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
It's not even close to a compromise.
This is totalitarian.
It's not even a starter.
You added 70,000.
We cut six.
I thought it was 80. Wasn't it 80?
I think it was 78, and they fact-checked us because originally it was reported as agents, and they said, no, no, no, they're employees.
Fine.
Auditors.
There we go.
I mean, could there be anything more unpopular than defending the IRS? You'd be better off defending the SS! Half of his stuff would be better if the immigration policy was better in this country.
And by the way, some of the stuff that he mentioned, I thought Obamacare was supposed to fix.
Remember that?
Remember how Obamacare was supposed to fix?
What do we have, like 30 or 40 million people?
Now he's saying we've got 85 million or whatever it is, uninsured or underinsured.
I'm like, hold on!
Your program isn't working, obviously.
Can we go to a new one?
No, we have to give you more money.
What the left, they occupy as far as voters, are the extreme ends of the bell curve.
You get to a certain point where the super billionaires, with one exception, Elon Musk, you go through it, you go Bill Gates, you go Zuckerberg, you go Bezos, and I get that these people are out for their own self-preservation right now, but historically they have been rabidly left.
And then you go to the poor, and I mean the poor who don't contribute anything, 47%, you know, Americans, I think now it's 43%, pay nothing in federal income taxes.
They need those voters.
The middle class Americans, and by the way, that includes everyone making anywhere from $50,000 a year to To 500,000 a year.
They are overwhelmingly concerned.
You know, the people who pay taxes.
You know, the people who have to balance a checkbook.
They don't care about you.
When they say they care, they mean they care about a voting base.
That's why the voting base is poor.
What they mean is people who simply take and don't contribute.
I am sorry.
This idea that, oh, it's shameful enough to be poor.
You're shaming me more by telling me what I can and can't buy as far as food.
No, no, no.
You're not ashamed of being poor.
If you are living on welfare for a decade, you're not.
You have no pride.
We are going to treat you as a prideless human being who is perfectly content with taking from Americans who do have self-respect and work and go out and support their families.
I'm sorry.
People are down on their luck.
We're not talking about cutting out eggs, milk, bread, necessities.
That's the SNAP program.
I think we should look at cutting it, but that's not where we are right now.
Anyone out there who is embarrassed, you know who?
Me.
I was couch surfing, sleeping out of my car.
I never ate healthier.
Oats.
Got an air popper at a Goodwill.
Popcorn.
Eggs.
At that point, obviously that one's not.
Canned tuna.
Milk.
Baby food.
Fruit on sale.
Every now and then I get a buck double or go to Baja Fresh because if I filled out a receipt for one of the fajita burritos, I'd get $2.50 off the next one.
That would be once every couple of weeks.
It was my treat.
I'm sorry.
People who need a leg up.
Not a handout.
Who need a leg up.
No one in this country has a problem with them.
We're not talking about changing anything that would affect those people.
The Jimmy Braddocks of the world who hand their money back into the public works office, guess what?
They're not around anymore.
Very, very few of them.
And they're not the ones opposing the idea that Snap shouldn't be used to purchase Twizzlers and soda.
You have no shame.
You're not embarrassed.
You know what?
I think we should live in a society Where you should be.
If you are a grown, able-bodied adult, and you have not supported yourself or your family for several years, let alone half a decade or a decade, we have lifetime welfare recipients, you should be ashamed.
I'll go one step further.
Especially if you're a man, you're not.
You're not a man.
You're failing to fulfill the basic role that we have been Expected to fulfill since the beginning of time.
You should be ashamed.
And yeah, that's one where I'll challenge your masculinity.
We don't need that as a voting base.
We need to change the culture of this country.
Speaking of changing the culture, I guess right now you can get any two shirts for $50 at CrowderShop.com.
Yeah!
Is it the change my mind stuff or just any two?
Any two?
Nice!
Yeah.
There you go.
Alright.
Go ahead and work for it and then buy two shirts.
Yeah.
Don't you?
Do we accept Snap?
We don't accept Snap.
Oh, okay.
EBT? Eh.
Okay.
That's too complicated.
We'll find a way.
You know what?
We'll just list it as an energy drink, then Uncle Sam's none the wiser.
Speaking of none the wiser, let's go to the media, their reaction.
It's time for Insane in the Ukraine.
Insane of the Ukraine.
And President.
That's real.
We didn't even alter that.
That's real.
You're kidding.
That's Zelensky.
Not kidding.
Zelensky from Tommy Boy?
I forgot that.
The muffler guy?
Yes.
Well, he is.
He's been expanding.
He's definitely a fat guy in a little coat.
That's right.
Yesterday, President Trump, we covered this, called Zelensky a dictator.
And, of course, we'll get to the media being really upset by some of the claims that Trump made on his true social.
A lot of them are inaccurate.
We talked about that yesterday.
Yeah.
But I do think this is notable.
This just happened this morning, Nick.
Zelensky responded, obviously offended over being referred to as a dictator.
He responded by blocking truth social.
Yeah.
That's what happened.
VPN. There we go.
We're using a VPN there with Ukraine, but blocking it, I believe, for the entire people of Ukraine, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, ironic, huh?
Just like, by the way, Russia banned Rumble.
Which is funny because other countries wanted to ban Rumble because they allow Russia Today to still have a channel on Rumble, but they clearly pissed Russia off enough where Russia banned Rumble, so that's what free speech does.
But he banned True Social.
First thing he did when he got into power was ban all his political rivals on TV. Yeah, effectively.
I mean, because, you know, and there's some truth to it, but he just labeled pretty much everyone Russian disinformation assets.
And as proof of that, just see that that's what he said, Vladimir Zelensky, yesterday about Donald Trump.
If someone wants to change me right now, then it will not come out right now.
I would like to say that.
The second one is that we already have 4%.
We saw this disinformation.
We understand that it goes from Russia.
We understand this and we have evidence that these numbers are about to be dealt with between America and Russia.
Unfortunately, President Trump with great power to him as a leader of the nation, which we very much consider American nation, which we always support, unfortunately, lives in this disinformation.
I think the United States helped Putin to leave from the isolation.
Okay, so I guess it's Donald Trump's fault.
Whatever.
In response, Donald Trump issued this very strongly worded truth.
Now, to be clear, Can you please understand?
Obviously, I've been a huge fan of what President Trump has been doing in this administration.
We do call balls and strikes.
Some of this was wildly inaccurate.
I still think it's funny.
But again, that's what Donald Trump does.
He'll say 50 million.
The next time, he'll say 100 million.
The next time, he'll say countless millions.
And he was a hugely successful comic.
Yes, yeah.
Well, you could argue that the most successful now.
Exactly.
That's true, yeah.
So Donald Trump posted on Truth.
He said, think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Vladimir Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war.
I don't know where he's getting that.
Yeah, he is making that number up.
That couldn't be won, never had to start, but a war that he without the U.S. and Trump will never be able to settle.
The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe.
That's not true.
And Europe's money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.
He went through.
He refuses to have elections, is very low in Ukrainian polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle.
A dictator without elections.
Zelensky better move faster.
He is not going to have a country left.
And what the media got really upset about is the dictator comments.
Especially when you're juxtaposing that with Putin, who's obviously a dictator who's killed people, who's had quote-unquote elections.
It just makes it seem like, well, what do you mean?
It's like, well, no, I'm not saying that guy's good.
I'm just saying that this guy is also not good.
Right, exactly.
There's no saint here to back.
I think they're both pretty damn close to dictators.
Okay, let's go through it.
Putin's massively one.
Period.
Putin absolutely is.
I like the way he handles the press, Putin.
And by that, I mean 12-story window.
And punk rock bands.
Yeah.
You can't put pussy in the name.
Riot.
Ugh.
Jail.
Now, gulag.
This is a government that was effectively installed.
Okay.
All right.
Then you have a government that, of course, does censor the press.
All right.
Got it.
Of course, they suspend elections.
That happens when a country is invaded during times of war.
All right.
We get it.
But then you also have a man who banned the entire platform and the primary platform of the current sitting president because he criticized him.
And people take the truth social to criticize Zelensky.
I can say Russia banning Rumble, that's bad.
It's ridiculous.
It's what a dictator would do.
Can you also say?
Zelensky banning truth is almost exactly similar.
Yes.
Also, it's a really stupid move because Trump devil posts on X, or someone does for him.
So it's not, like, he didn't ban X, so he didn't ban the ability for Trump to communicate.
All he did was piss him off.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, I just, I don't know.
Maybe he's so insulated he doesn't realize that it's not going to be effective.
Now, the take on him being a dictator had some supporters.
J.D. Vance said the idea that Zelensky is going to change the president's mind by bad-mouthing him in public media.
Everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.
Go home to mommy!
You know, I understand President Trump is giving them ammo because it seems like he's too cozy with Putin.
But remember, this is a guy who they...
Just today on CNN, I heard them saying, of course we know that Donald Trump is in bed with Putin.
I mean, they helped him get elected in the Mueller report.
He literally cited it today like it's still a thing on CNN this morning.
He was...
Someone who would talk with Putin, but if you actually look at the sanctions, there's a reason that Russia didn't act up.
And so, you have people right now who agree that Zelensky acts at least dictator-like, and then, of course, there are the detractors who think that Donald Trump is worse than Putin himself.
Well, we are deep.
Into uncharted waters now, aren't we?
We've got a U.S. president basically spouting Russian propaganda.
Could have been written by Putin.
Let's admit it.
This relationship has not been good from the very beginning when Zelensky refused to play ball on the Biden investigation.
And so, you know, Donald Trump is somewhat on a revenge tour.
Let's just all admit that.
It's shocking.
It's appalling.
As an American, I'm embarrassed.
What we are witnessing is not America.
First, we are witnessing America in retreat.
Yesterday, we witnessed an extremely sad moment in American history.
We saw the President of the United States aligning himself with the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to undermine the independence of Ukraine and its democracy.
You honeymooned in the USSR!
You said bread lines were a good thing!
*laughs* You weren't even the shitty husband who's like, let's save money, let's go camping.
Instead of going to a resort, you honeymooned in the USSR! Was a Treblinka tour not available?
They have resorts at Treblinka.
So what?
That's what I meant.
Sorry.
Bernie only likes Russia when it's the era from Rocky IV? Exactly.
When they're worse and more powerful and trying to rule the world?
Come on.
I don't understand these people now.
The world has flipped on top of its head.
Look, here's the thing.
I think something else may be going on.
I think Donald Trump understands that Vladimir Putin can't be backed into a corner to make him surrender.
It won't happen.
He'll be killed the next day.
Strength is all that these people know is a line that people have said forever about Russian leaders.
So, essentially, Donald Trump could be giving him public wins.
Talking behind the scenes a lot differently and making it easy for him to save face and come to a conclusion of this war.
What we have been doing right now is propping up a dead body.
I'm sorry, Ukraine.
If you could have finished your borders, you would have done it by now.
You've also not been able to take back any of the land of the Donbass.
I understand that that sucks, and I understand that it's wrong.
It's completely wrong what's happened.
The stories coming out of Ukraine are atrocious of what's going on with the Russian military, but this is where we are.
Do you want another generation of men to die and nothing to change?
This is like World War I where the battle lines, nothing changed.
So unless you're willing to send troops, which everybody has basically said no to, you should get the war to be done as quickly as possible.
Yeah.
That's it.
Period.
He's giving Putin a chance.
The best deal he's ever going to get.
It's basically a reverse Henry Kissinger at this point.
I get an idea.
We get all the Palestinians that nobody wants.
Split them up between Russia and Ukraine.
Go at it.
It's a great uniter.
Everyone despises the Palestinians.
That's right.
By the way, I don't know if there's a memo that went out or something.
Right now on CNN, they've got Zelensky with one Y, and then in MSNBC, they had it with two Ys.
Is Vladimir out there trying to correct the record on his last name or something?
Yeah.
It's two Ys, it's one Y. Can we just have one Y, please?
We're Americans.
Remember when people tried to say that Donald Trump was in bed with Putin because he said Putin was pretty smart?
Let me ask you this.
Comment below.
Genuine question.
Who do you think is smarter?
Not more righteous, not more evil.
Who do you think is smarter?
Zelensky or Vladimir Putin?
You had to pick.
One guess.
You think that means that I'm in bed with Putin?
Are you?
Can you objectively look at it and say, like, ah, all right.
Zelensky doesn't seem to be handling this quite well, and it's also a really dumb move to go out in media and bitch about Donald Trump.
That's the worst way to deal with him.
If you were to create a blueprint on the worst way to deal with Donald Trump, it would be exactly what he's doing, and it's the nation whose money you need the most.
When I think of the head of the KGB, I don't think of a comedian.
Right, yeah.
Or a piano playing genius.
Let's just be honest, I can't play the piano with my penis.
That's true.
He can.
Yep.
Who cares?
I said I can't!
Zielinski, have you ever seen the video?
That was his bit, playing the piano with his penis.
It's that kind of, you know, it's like French Schumer.
Did you steal that from Liberace?
Yeah, I think so.
Well, that was in the green room.
It's like that weird French Schumer, you know, where it's like they put a papier-mâché hat and a cane.
Puppetry of the penis.
Yeah, I think it was Australian.
Oh, was that Australian?
I don't know.
I mix up my losers.
It's just, it's...
Again, what's the solution from the left?
Status quo, more money.
Status quo, more money.
That's how they think you solve Ukraine-Russia.
Status quo, more money.
Department of Education, status quo, more money.
It's been like that forever.
That has been their motto forever.
That's how they exist.
Yeah.
That's why you get a businessman going in there making cuts, because that's what you do.
You go in and cut, and you cut, and you cut, and you cut, and you cut, and you go, okay.
Now we have to add back just a little bit.
There's the baseline that we need to get to.
But you never know that if you don't make cuts.
Wait until they get to defending the military-industrial complex, because I believe it was Secretary of Defense Hegseth with 8% cuts.
$68 billion in cuts proposed this year.
Yeah.
$68 billion, I think, 8% of the budget.
Yeah.
Think about that.
He's going into the military saying, all right, we don't need this.
And I don't know if you know this, but what is it called?
Is it called?
The Mount Rushmore Syndrome.
I'm trying to remember this word.
When budget cuts happen, what happens is the people in these departments, they cut the forward-facing services first so that you feel bad for them.
In other words, the cuts don't end up going to the officers with these quarters or people who are out there who are advisors or no-bid contracts.
They end up taking away rations from troops, like the last place that you actually should cut.
That's why you have people having to pay for their own body armor or bed sheets.
We're making cuts, and that's where they go first.
They go, see?
Cuts?
Cuts?
Wait until you see the left defend military spending in the face of Hegseth, who's basically a military Disney villain.
That's the world that we're in, according to the left.
Yeah, what is it?
It is Mount Rushmore syndrome, also known as Washington Monument syndrome.
Yeah, that's what the left does.
They go, look!
Oh, a government freeze?
Look at the single mom freezing in the cold.
Like, well, why don't you just take like a 4% pay cut?
All of you right now for like a month.
Yes, they did that with USAID. Oh, this person died because they had no oxygen anymore.
Literally, they had to take somebody off oxygen.
You look into the store, and it's like, oh, wait.
That's not exactly what happened.
Yeah, this whole USA revelation just cuts the legs out of any of their arguments.
Oh, and I guarantee you it's not the biggest number.
We're going to see what the IRS is going to be absurd.
We haven't touched.
I think Elon put up some type of graph last week on X. Here's 0%, here's 100% of how much more they have to go as far as cutting goes.
They're only at like 1.8% done yet.
I know.
I know.
There's so much to rifle through it.
Anything to add here on Zelensky?
The only thing, just one final point on Zelensky.
This is an interesting point.
And I don't remember who I saw make this, but the Donbass region, the region that the Russians occupy right now, has historically always voted for the most pro-Russia candidate in the elections in Ukraine.
That's always been a thorn in the Ukrainian side because it ends up with elections that actually put people in power that are pro-Russia, pro-unification or at least working with Russia.
Why wouldn't Zelensky, to preserve Ukraine, why wouldn't he at this point go...
Okay, maybe I am willing to entertain talks that get rid of that voting bloc from our country so we won't have any more pro-Russian, or at least not nearly as many as they do right now.
Something interesting is happening right now.
Is he really just saying Ukraine is this line in the sand?
Or is he saying Ukraine as a people, as a language, as a culture, which Russia has spent the last hundred plus years trying to stamp out, literally, we can preserve it better if we have a little bit less territory in the Donbass region?
Pro-Russian and now part of Russia?
Fine.
I don't understand some of the games that are going on right now, because it doesn't look like Zelensky is willing to take a good deal, stop the war, and have a legitimate Ukraine where you don't really have to worry about pro-Russia sentiment.
Well, here's exactly what he wants to.
Because let me ask you this, if you have pro-Russians, in other words, if they're given the choice, they vote for pro-Russian representation, right, in that area, what does Zelensky do if he has that Donbass region?
He gets to control them.
He gets to silence them.
What if they vote him out?
No, no, no.
Come on.
You think they're going to be free and fair elections?
Well, that's...
That's the point.
He's so confident in the elections.
He's not concerned about it.
And then he gets to exert power and control.
Like a dictator.
Yeah.
Well, and it's not 100%.
It's kind of like New York.
I know it's not 100%.
But still, it's gigantic support, typically, for Russia in those regions.
Yep.
So it would make sense to end this war, save a generation, stop spending money on this stuff, and have a Ukraine that you can build.
Yeah.
Go back to playing piano with your dictator.
Well, that's a weird game.
Ah, it's not a game.
It's really just a way to pass the time.
And Nick, you're going to be tonight?
Tonight at Bricktown Comedy Club in Tulsa.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and tomorrow in St. Louis.
The Funny Boom.
All right, right now we're actually going to bring on this as the first of new installments.
Many of you have been asking for the half-Asian lawyer.
Not very many.
He hasn't been here in a while.
And this is a cultural story that has taken the world by storm.
By that, I mean...
Some people care.
Everyone kind of knows what game is being played with Blake Lively.
Sorry, I have the hiccups here.
Blake Lively.
Are you drunk?
No, this is Topo Chico in there.
I don't know if I'm allowed to name it.
Topo Chico?
It stays fizzy like two days later if you leave it in the fridge.
So this is kind of a latest iteration of Me Too and elites in Hollywood and crummy lawyers getting involved, but it does have ramifications.
So let's take a look, for those who have missed it, a brief montage before we bring on a half-patient lawyer.
For its star, Blake Lively, it should have been a dream come true.
The mainstream success that she'd been chasing for years that would finally elevate her into the ranks of the Hollywood A-lists.
Unfortunately, that dream soon turned into a nightmare of multi-million dollar lawsuits and bitter PR warfare that would destroy careers and pull in some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
Actor-director Justin Baldoni is now suing his former co-star Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, seeking more than $400 million in damages.
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds filed an amended version of their complaint.
Eva Pilgrim has the details, including claims that other women on set raised concerns about Justin Baldoni.
Are you Team Blake or Team Justin?
That's uncomfortable.
Yeah, a little bit.
So here to discuss this is my half-Asian lawyer, Bill Richman.
Put on the speaker.
Billy, put on the speaker.
Sorry, you just heard me.
Put on the speaker, please.
Half Asian, Bill.
And by the way, he does have his own show podcast, Hardly Legal, on YouTube.
He is Kim Jong Bill on Instagram, which always instills confidence.
That's where it's not even being Korean, right?
It throws people off.
Throws their scent off.
I know.
Once I was calling you about some cases, and you're like, ah, I gotta go do a set.
I'm like, what, you're doing stand-up?
Shouldn't you be prepping case files?
Yes.
You could do both.
Sometimes they're funny.
And what do you do?
What is your show on?
Is it where you actually have people call in?
Real Americans with Real Legal Issues call in anonymously.
Myself and my co-host, Walter Attorneys, and do stand-up, and then we have comedians and third chair, and we have other guests as well, but we're really helping people who wouldn't have access to the legal system to talk through their issues.
We'll help them find attorneys, so we're not actually representing them, but we're going through their legal issues and laughing along the way.
Oh, good.
That's kind of like Loveline, but with...
Definitely the inspiration.
So let's get to this.
Blake Lively and Baldoni.
Kind of walk us through the timelines.
It ends with us film.
To set the stage, she claimed she was made uncomfortable.
It's a sexual harassment lawsuit.
She's obviously the wife of Ryan Reynolds.
And then it turns out that what we were told was not exactly accurate.
That's a fair summation of it.
So the book itself is about domestic violence, right?
And so the original Baldoni idea was to take this to support folks who are actually dealing with these issues, right?
The true victims who have been in these situations.
Make this book, make this movie, bring on a star of incredible quality.
They felt so lucky to be able to get a star of Blake Lively's height and fame and voice to be able to be a part of it.
I don't know.
I saw The Shallows.
I know she unzipped that wetsuit.
That was one of those things.
The wetsuit just like, this is how I wear my wetsuit.
I don't have time to zip it up to the top.
I mean, I feel like there was times where they were essentially when she was taking control of this movie.
all these things, eventually did her own edit where she just pushed Baldoni out entirely.
But the craziest part about this is now coming back afterwards and alleging sexual harassment, retaliation.
It's a superstar.
Her and her husband together worth over a half billion dollars and getting every single thing that she wants the entire time.
And then when there's a backlash over how she promotes the movie, the fact that she was flippant about domestic violence, and that public backlash is what drove her to go file a complaint, file a lawsuit.
And now we've got multiple lawsuits, hundreds of millions of dollars on both sides are being asked for.
It's a mess.
And a lot of video.
I think she got a little too confident after she outswam a great white shark.
That's what happened in the show.
That can happen to anybody.
She beat the shark by swimming faster than it and deking it into a rebar.
Spoiler alert!
It sucks!
I mean, who wouldn't feel confident after that, right?
But it's a false confidence.
She literally grabs a chain that pulls her to the bottom of the ocean where Great White can't catch her and then last minute she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Great White, I got you, bitch.
Boom!
And she moves and the shark swims into rebar.
Like this?
Really?
It was more realistic when they lit the shark on fire in Jaws, whatever.
That's why I haven't seen a movie.
Three and twenty years, but go ahead.
I'd say 57 meters down was good, but don't go see The Shallows.
Wetsuit's nice.
Now...
What's it called?
The Shallows.
It's not worth it.
It's definitely not worth it, Nick.
You would hate it.
Do they show her ass or anything?
Well, she's in a wetsuit.
That's not enough.
We're not going.
So here's the thing.
Blake Lively, too, and something that is important.
This is something we've seen time and time again with these lawsuits.
Not everyone has video evidence.
Not everyone gets to go through the receipts.
An accusation made is enough to destroy someone's career.
I think that she wasn't so much thinking through all of the legal challenges, the proceedings.
She knew that the PR battle was just as big as the legal battle.
I mean, you have plenty of people who don't realize.
You just have plenty of cases out there where women have gone out publicly and claimed domestic abuse.
And then under oath said, well, no, that never happened.
You can say one thing publicly and say one thing in court.
Well, sometimes it's direct, sometimes it's insinuated, but either way, it's not the story that actually comes out in the legal pleadings, much less with the evidence.
And here, after the very first lawsuit that was filed, that Blake Lively filed, the response by Baldoni's counterclaim, or really it was a separate lawsuit and now they're combined, was, let's show the receipts.
Half of it is just text message, text message, text message, sewing where the evidence that Lively was referring to was selectively edited in order to change the meaning of the communications to make Baldoni look bad.
And it's like, look, if you've got to selectively edit the evidence in the beginning, it's generally not going to get better.
That's a really bad sign, I hear.
It's a really bad sign.
And you can have things that are presented to the public that go, well, yeah, this isn't admissible.
This is tampered with.
But you still have people out there who believe that Amber Heard was, my God, the victim.
Do you I know.
There's an entire contingency of people who think that Johnny Depp tricked folks.
Or that Trevor Bauer actually beat some girl.
And raped her.
Well, yeah, that's what 70 Years of Feminism has done.
Yep.
There's also the first mover issue, right?
The recency bias people or primacy bias, they're going to go, well, this is what I heard.
And then they never want to get into the weeds of it.
I mean, these pleadings, some of them are 179 pages long.
Not even the evidence, just the actual lawsuit itself.
And then the counter lawsuit's another almost 200 pages, right?
In order to get out the facts and evidence.
And most folks are not even...
I saw a show the other day.
They were like, we read 40 pages and then we're just going to rely on the rest of you to read it.
And it's like, no, no, you've got to actually dig into it.
If you want to know the truth, but her actions have demonstrated, I'm going to get out there first, I'm going to destroy this guy, and then let's just see if he falls over.
Like he did, actually, during the course of the movie.
Well, yeah, I have some of her demands right here.
Well, I mean, she demanded, okay, to do her own wardrobe.
She had Ryan Reynolds rewrite scenes.
She commissioned her own cut of the film from the editor of Deadpool.
She demanded and received an executive producer and PGA credit.
And keep in mind, Baldoni is, like, he actually got the rights to this movie in 2019, and Blake Lively didn't sign on until 2023. He was, I know he was a director as well, too, right?
He had at least two movies before that, yeah.
Who's paying for this film?
Well, this guy, Baldoni, was a guy largely involved with it.
Their budget was only $25 million.
Yeah, it was $25 million and it made $3 something million.
And she filed a sexual harassment suit against Baldoni.
We'll get into the text and everything because you always wonder, where's the turnover point where you love this guy and it's, oh, buddy, buddy, you're friends too, he's a monster.
Well, the problem is then some video came out, Baldoni, from a specific instance where she talked about, I was made uncomfortable.
He was kissing me.
He was talking to me when it wasn't necessary to do so, specifically of a scene where this couple are supposed to play a couple in love.
They're dancing, and it's B-roll, so they're talking, right?
So they're talking about what they want to do.
And keep in mind, once this came out, people said, oh, wait a second, Blake Lively is bossing him around and trying to be the director.
So she labeled this, what you're about to watch, as specifically one of those instances of sexual harassment.
I feel so nosy.
I know.
And my nose is so big.
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