Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect the Inspector General report, arguing it exposes FBI errors regarding the Steele dossier and Carter Page while mainstream media prematurely declared innocence. They mock the Trump impeachment charges as hypocritical, noting past administrations faced no consequences for war or torture, and dismiss Ukraine election interference claims as a stretch based on a Biden investigation. The hosts further critique intelligence reliability, question Democratic candidates, and condemn a reporter being assaulted live on air, highlighting societal double standards in gender interactions. Ultimately, the episode suggests current political narratives rely on selective outrage rather than consistent accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Heshy Socks Review00:01:41
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
Hey guys, today's show is brought to you by Heshy Socks, which make the perfect gift for stocking stuffers and secret Santas.
The brand new collection has been released and they're incredible.
New styles, new colors, same amazing feel.
For those of you who are new to the podcast, I've said it a million times.
I love Heshy Socks.
They're the best socks I've ever owned.
So comfortable.
If you're tired of your feet hurting in dress shoes after a long day of work, Heshy Socks will solve the problem and you can grab them over at Heshisocks.com.
Most fashion and dress socks are expensive.
They're poorly constructed and they provide zero protection.
Not Heshy socks.
Heshy socks are cushioned in the heel, foot, and toe.
They have arch support in the center so your feet don't slosh around in your shoes.
They're made with breathable Pima cotton and are antimicrobial so they kill the stink.
Best of all, they're designed to stay up.
No more pulling at your socks all day long.
So go to Heshisocks.com.
That's H-E-S-H-I socks.com.
Enter the promo code problem30 for 30% off your entire order of fashion, basic, or ankle socks.
Heshisox.com.
The best thing to ever happen to you.
Let's start the show.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
FBI Propaganda Exposed00:15:44
Hello, hello, and welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
If this is part of the problem, then I must be the most consistent motherfucker you know, Dave Smith.
And it's good to be joined by my partner in crime, the apple of my eye, the king of the caulks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
How are you, sir?
Good.
I've been less consistent, but I'm happy to be here today.
They kept me back.
I kept showing up with my briefcase ready to go.
And they're like, no, he's got a guest today.
He didn't tell you.
It's full of crackers like Cosmo Kramer, but he does have a briefcase.
The important stuff.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, how's everything going, buddy?
Pretty good.
You know, just out there doing my thing.
Yeah, that's what I always assume.
Out there doing my thing is a great answer because it's no matter what you're doing, that is technically the truth.
Well, we've got a lot to talk about today.
And I guess the thing to start with would be, because we've, you know, I've had some guests on and we've been doing a lot of different stuff and we've been a little behind on the news.
And there has been some pretty big news over the last few days.
And it is, I must say, at the outset.
And I got, you know, people, and I don't really think I've said this so much on the show, but people are people are perceptive.
And I got a couple comments during the impeachment stuff with Donald Trump where people were like, Dave just seems bored with this.
Like, not like I was with the whole like Mueller investigation.
I was like, fucking into it.
And then like with the impeachment, it is, and it's true.
I am just bored with this.
This is so stupid.
It's hard to not be bored with.
But then I almost got to slap myself into it.
Be like, oh no, well, this is a big fucking thing.
Like this is a big story that they're like impeaching the president.
So look, two things.
Go ahead.
It's boring for two reasons.
First is it's going to go to the Senate and just die.
So we know that this is nothing but it is noise.
It is meaningless.
The entire play of Congress going, hey, we're looking to impeach is just noise.
And it's exactly what we saw with the Mueller thing, which is as long as you can go, oh, he's being investigated.
You can keep being in the news and painting this picture like this guy's overwhelmingly more corrupt than anybody else.
And that's what makes it so boring.
Is we just had the conversation with the Mueller thing.
It couldn't have been more certifiably false.
And you're just doing more of it.
It's annoying.
Yeah.
And it relies on people not knowing anything about it in order to think, oh, there must be some smoke there, which I, you know, I get where, you know, if you're not really paying attention to it, you'd be like, well, he's investigated, then he's in pitch.
It's the same thing where they'd go, like, well, 12 people associated with this campaign have gone down in the Mueller investigation.
And you're like, right, but what were they charged with?
Oh, nothing relating to this whole thing.
It's sure propaganda that it just relies on volume and being loud enough that if you're not really following the details, you go, I'm hearing so much of this.
It must just be true.
Yeah.
Oh, and in the same way that the Republican establishment would post 9-11, I remember this.
I've talked about it lots on the show, but it would drive me crazy.
Where they would rely on the ignorance of their viewers.
So they would say these things like, like, they'd rely on you not knowing the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
So they'd go, Iran is the number one contributor to terrorism.
They'd be like, Hezbollah is another terrorist organization.
And that kind of makes you feel like, oh, like Al-Qaeda, you mean.
But then you're like, oh, no, that's actually the other side.
And they hate Al-Qaeda.
And they fucking, they were actually, Iran's actually involved in a war fighting those guys.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's like...
That gets confusing.
Yeah.
I just like to see him all as brown with towels.
Well, but that is one category.
Well, right.
And that is like what most of Americans see them as.
And by the way, I'm not even blaming most Americans for that.
I don't know.
Why should any American know the intricacies of the fucking Syrian civil war?
It's like expecting someone from Syria to know the intricacies of fucking like, you know, I don't know, Democrats and Republicans in Austin, Texas, or something like that.
They don't fucking know, and you shouldn't.
Why should you?
You know, it's like, it's, it's unimportant in your life.
I figured they only hate each other so that they could practice their hatred for us.
It's like mock hatred.
Americans are Jews.
No, no, no.
What?
No, everyone.
No, no, no.
Either one work.
The Sunni and the Shiites, they just pretend not to get along so they can practice how to hate so that they can then apply to us and be really ready.
Yeah.
I mean, you might be right.
That might be.
Even if they're not aware of it, that might be the overall strategy.
When it really goes down, they're going to get along and unite.
There's no question.
I don't know.
Those guys, they've been fighting each other for quite a while, those Sunnis and Shia.
Shia, Shiite, whatever you prefer, tomato, tomato.
They like to practice.
They sure do.
Practice.
We're talking about practice.
Well, the two big things, okay, that have happened are the IG report that got released about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
And this was, and actually, right now, as we're recording this, the inspector general is testifying before Congress.
I saw a little bit of it, but it was still going on when I left my apartment.
And it's, yeah, it's the report was, it's pretty interesting.
So if you just watched the cable news, like with the exception of Fox News, I guess.
So if you just watched CNN or MSNBC, or if you just read, you know, the headline at The Hill or at Huffington Post or something like that, the headline that everyone was running with was that this port exonerated the FBI.
So basically, the report said that they didn't find that the FBI was politically motivated in the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
But besides that, everything in the report might as it might have as well have just said, me and you were right about everything we've been saying for the last three years.
Like everything.
They're just like, yep, that was it.
And it was to borrow a word from the corporate press, it was kind of bombshell after bombshell if you've been going with the official narrative.
So, you know, They just basically took it as an exoneration of the FBI.
But anybody with any common sense, not even common sense, anybody who's just honest, if you read this thing and took a look at it, you'd be like, wow, this is outrageous.
Like, if you're not going to say it's politically motivated, which we can get to that in a second, but you would at least have to go, like, wow, this just documents the FBI fucking up left and right and all in one direction.
But they just, you know, it was, it was a damning indictment of what how the FBI prosecuted this entire investigation.
And, you know, starting with the fact that, and the other thing from the media's point of view is that if they were an honest press, they would go, oh, we've really been getting things wrong for quite a while because we basically were out there saying there's very good reason to believe that Carter Page is working on behalf of the Russians.
I don't know how many times I heard people in the corporate press say that it wasn't just the Steele dossier that got the FISA memo.
There was more information presented to the FISA courts.
There was more.
Believe me, there was really something that they were basing this whole investigation on.
And lo and behold, we have now found out exactly what we always suspected, which was no, there's nothing else.
There was nothing else.
It was this.
This is what they presented.
And this is what they got.
And also the fact that Carter Page has been, in essence, completely exonerated.
Guy wasn't a Russian spy at all.
He was a military man.
He was an American who just happened to be working as a low-level advisor on Trump's campaign.
That's all.
But all the stuff in the Steele dossier that said that he was promised 19% in this company if he were to persuade Donald Trump to drop the sanctions.
No, none of it was true.
It's all fucking bullshit.
And, you know, just like with the original claim that Russia investigated, I mean, excuse me, that Russia interfered in the election in 2016.
There's just, it's just so simple, man.
There's just one basic rule of thumb that you have to follow.
And it makes you like, you can see through so much of this shit.
And it'll make you not look like an idiot and have to, you know, be like on record as saying something that was, that's later demonstrably false.
Here's the rule of thumb that everybody should follow.
Okay.
Don't trust the CIA.
Don't trust them.
I mean, if they make a claim, fine, but you have to just be like, can I see some evidence for that?
Can I see one shred of evidence?
And it can't be as simple as, well, the intelligence community agrees that this happened.
All 17 agencies in the intelligence community agree.
It's like, who cares?
Who cares what they claim?
They're telling us.
It really is.
Like, I mean, look, it's not anything new or anything that we haven't known really for a very long time.
But it has come out.
It's more in the forefront now in the Trump years than ever before that the corporate press is just an extension of the shadow government.
I mean, you know, obviously, you know, like there's all the connections.
I mean, there's all the people who work who just go, you know, like Brennan just goes from being the head of the CIA to an MSNBC contributor.
And there's lots of lots of, you know, Hayden at CNN and all these guys who just like go right into it into the media.
But as soon as this report comes out that is so damning to the FBI, the response from the mainstream media is FBI exonerated.
Like they're just happy to, it's just like they're like, look, we are on the side of the intelligence communities.
That's our people.
We're sticking up for them no matter what.
I mean, this was at best case scenario, an outrageous abuse of power by the FBI.
They got it wrong at every single level.
And in getting it wrong, they ended up spying on a presidential candidate and, you know, putting this cloud over his administration for the first two years.
Yeah, simple issues they need to address internally.
No power problems here.
Right.
Good thing we looked at this and we found out we got some small adjustments we need to make, but we're still a great organization.
Well, this guy, Horowitz, is that his name?
Whoever the issue is trying to get him.
Yeah, I'm blanking on his name.
But he, I mean, look, it seemed pretty obvious to me that he was trying to exonerate.
Well, not exonerate even, because that's not what he's doing, but he was trying to not bury the FBI.
Because if he had come out and said what we all know to be true, which is that, yeah, not only did they fuck this whole thing up, but it was politically motivated.
Of course it was politically motivated.
That would be a death blow.
What's the deal, though, with Bill Barr basically saying, I don't agree with the conclusion of this document, and I guess that they're going to do further.
I thought, doesn't the IG guy work for Bill Barr?
He works at the Justice Department, but he has independence is the idea.
So you had independence to go draft the report, and then Bill Barr sees the report and he goes, okay, all the information in here is accurate, but I don't agree with the conclusions.
So we're going to do more investigations or well, I guess that's what Bill Barr said.
So we'll see what actually comes from that.
But yeah, more or less Bill Barr can instruct him to investigate things, but then he's supposed to go do his own independent investigation internally of the inner workings of the Justice Department.
So yeah, Bill Barr is the head of the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI.
He's the boss of all of it.
But it's, well, look, let me just say this about the idea of saying that there's no political motivation.
It makes you wonder, what would you need to see to determine that there was political motivation?
I mean, sure, you can always, you could look at anything and say, well, they did all of these things to, you know, spy on Donald Trump, investigate Donald Trump, but I don't know that they were doing it because they were anti-Donald Trump or they were just, you know, mistaken.
Well, okay.
I mean, I guess unless you're a mind reader, how would you determine that this was politically motivated?
Let's, I mean, you know, maybe you could say, well, I've got text messages from this guy saying, I hate Donald Trump.
I am politically motivated.
We want to bring down this presidency, which we have from Peter Strzok, who is one of the head guys in this investigation.
You have Andrew McCabe.
Just to understand what's going on here, the entire investigation, all the people involved were handpicked by Andrew McCabe.
Every one of them.
Okay?
And Andrew McCabe is the guy who told you, he's the number two at the Justice Department who told you that him and Rod Rosenstein sat down and discussed the 25th Amendment, discussed any way that they could get Trump removed.
I mean, like, what would it take for you to acknowledge that clearly this was politically motivated?
And I mean, when I say politically, I don't mean like in the partisan sense.
I don't mean like we like Democrats, not Republicans.
I mean anti-Trump.
They did not like this guy.
And the reasons for that are fairly obvious.
He wasn't one of the people who was allowed to be in.
How is that?
When someone writes an IG report, can that lead to indictments?
Is that the purpose or like is that the purpose of the report?
Is you going to?
I think theoretically, if the report uncovers criminal activity, then you could recommend indictments.
But that's not necessarily the purpose of the report.
It's an investigation to go over what happened here.
But yeah, I mean, I think that's the idea.
So more or less they're saying, well, there's no criminal activity.
Can you have an indictment for negligence when it comes to these kind of like, you know, for intelligent matter?
I think it's very hard to get to get an indictment for negligence in this type of situation.
Because if you could, I mean, Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine?
Like, I mean, look, if you say like if you were going to like the same way you could like sue someone for damages as a result of negligence, can you imagine if you're like, oh, well, you know, we didn't maliciously lie you into the war in Iraq, but we got the intelligence wrong about Saddam Hussein.
You'd be like, well, the damages to that were a country is destroyed.
So that was pretty negligent.
But, you know, you just don't see things like this.
I guess last question, because there's just still aspects of this I don't get.
Off of the IG report, can you see some of the Senate or congressional like hearing shenanigans like we saw with Benghazi on Hillary Clinton or like you saw with Trump with the Mueller thing?
There'd have to be a congressional investigation for that to happen.
So theoretically, if, I mean, the House ain't going to do it right now.
So maybe if the Senate wanted to investigate, but I don't think there's any political will there.
Comey's Political Investigation00:15:30
And that's the problem with all of this shit.
There's just no, there's no political will to really uncover the fucking deep state.
Because, you know, they have six ways to Sunday to screw you over if you go after them.
So no one wants to fucking do it.
And but it's really, you know, the Carter Page incident specifically, it's pretty incredible when you see that.
I mean, just at this point, it's just the facts.
Even this is everybody agrees on this now, I think.
I mean, it's what we've been telling you for two years, but that Carter Page was an American citizen who was spied on by his own government and then had rounds and rounds of people in huge major publications, huge platforms, just telling everybody that we know that he's a Russian spy, that we know this.
He's working at the behest of the Russian government.
And this guy's life was ruined over this shit.
He should be suing the shit out of so many fucking information.
I hope he does.
I hope he does.
And I hope he wins.
And Brennan, I mean, John Brennan said that they had very good information.
John Brennan also said that the Steele dossier was not involved in the CIA's investigation, that they had other evidence.
It's all bullshit.
All fucking bullshit.
These people just fucking lie to you.
They just lie about all this stuff.
And the other thing that just what seems so obvious about why you'd say this was politically motivated and how it's so clear.
And this is maybe what Barr is getting at when he says he disagrees with that part of the conclusion.
Is that what they're claiming was, right?
Even if every, even if they were right, let's say that even the, you know, that they were right to get that FISA warrant and that Carter and that they, let's say there was in fact a Russian agent on, let's say Carter Page was in fact a Russia, a Russian agent and he was trying to convince Trump to release sanctions.
And he was doing it because Vladimir Putin was paying him off to do it, right?
Like, let's say that was the case.
Well, what they did was they opened a counterintelligence investigation.
A counterintelligence investigation is not the same thing as a criminal investigation.
So a criminal investigation is like you're looking at Americans who potentially committed crimes and you want to find out if crimes were committed and you want to gather information and evidence in order to prosecute them or in order to recommend an indictment and then to prosecute them.
Okay, but a counterintelligence investigation is you basically you're concerned that foreign countries or foreign entities are interfering in America and you want to figure out what's what's happening with that.
So if that this was a counterintelligence investigation, what you would think if this wasn't politically motivated is, okay, let's say you're in the FBI or the Department of Justice and you've got a president and one of his advisors, not like a top advisor, but like one of his lower level advisors is trying to convince him to drop sanctions on Russia at the behest of Vladimir Putin.
Okay.
Well, what would you do?
I mean, the answer is just so fucking obvious.
You'd go tell the president.
You'd be like, hey, Mr. President, we've got evidence that this guy's actually a Russian.
And you know, by the way, the funniest thing about all of this is that with the first, the first meetings that all of these guys had with Trump and they've admitted it themselves.
That's what Trump said.
Trump didn't ask them to drop the Russia investigation.
Trump was like, no, tell me.
Is anyone on my team a Russian?
Is anybody here working for a hostile foreign power?
Let me know right now.
Like, I want to know.
But they never did.
They never did that.
They never let him know that they were concerned about this guy.
Why is that?
Well, if this isn't politically motivated, why wouldn't they tell him?
So you're saying you would rather, if you were actually concerned with this, now you're letting the president not know.
The whole point, by the way, let me remind you, the whole point of the intelligence community is to give the president intelligence.
That's why they exist.
That's why there is, supposedly, that's why there is a central intelligence agency.
That if you're gathering intelligence, well, you don't have it just so you have intelligence.
The idea is then you give it to the elected officials, you know, because it's a government of the people, right?
So then you give it to the elected officials and you let them know the intelligence that you've gathered so they can make decisions with the appropriate knowledge.
But no one did that.
No one did that.
They had this fucking, this, this fucked up sting operation against Flynn.
Come on, man.
The idea that this stuff wasn't politically motivated, it's just a fucking joke.
But either way, even if it wasn't, this is just a damning indictment of the FBI and the Justice Department.
Just absolutely damning.
I got one more question for you.
Go for it.
All right.
When it came to the whole Mueller thing, I took the approach of Mueller's a prosecutor and he's clearly coming forward and saying, I don't have enough evidence to look forward.
Move forward.
And then if I looked at the individual cases where he said, here are the instances by which I think Trump did something wrong, none of them were actual Russia collusion.
They were all in regards to possible obstruction of justice, which to me, to bring someone up on false charges and then get him for not complying with you trying to investigate him with false charges is like the ultimate and just kind of corruption banana, banana kooky government bullshit, right?
Right.
Okay, so that was my take on, here's why the Mueller thing is garbage.
When it comes to this one, though, if you're just being like intellectually consistent, can you come to the same conclusion that, well, apparently the investigator is saying, I don't have enough here to prosecute?
Or is it that you're looking at the itemized and saying, I think that this prosecutor here is not being honest and he's trying to bury what would be like a legitimate case?
Well, the question at hand, looking into the origins of an investigation like this on this magnitude, is what reason did you have to believe the most outlandish claims?
I mean, they've admitted, John McCabe admitted that they were investigating whether, at one point, whether Donald Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
And you're like, okay, well, then what did you have?
Like, what were you basing this on?
I mean, you can't just decide that and start investigating and spying on a president, which now they've admitted.
Do you remember when Donald Trump first suggested that the Obama administration spied on him?
And they went fucking nuts.
And now even, and now they're hanging on to this thing where it's like, it's like, are you telling me that you spied on the Trump administration?
And they're like, no, we conducted surveillance.
Sure.
And they're like, well, did you have like a fucking like a spy in his administration?
And they're like, we had an asset.
Like, I mean, this is where they are now.
So basically, I mean, which is in perfect Trumpian fashion, with the controversial things he says, the spirit of what he said was right on point.
And the whole media reacts like in this whole like, oh my God, can you believe he'd say this?
And then it turns out it's like, well, you guys are, I mean, if you had to say who's more right or wrong, he's obviously more right than you are.
But the question becomes, what was the basis for all of this, right?
Like, was there a legitimate reason to kick off this investigation?
And what we've, what we all knew, but what's now been confirmed is that it was the Steele dossier, this Christopher Steele guy.
And what the IG report conclusively determined was that, and they, again, they, this guy Horowitz puts it in this kind of like, you know, these bozos at the FBI, these clowns, what a bunch of jokers.
I can't believe they got this wrong, rather than acknowledging what this really was, which was a fucking how can we get Donald Trump politically motivated attempted coup.
But what they they what he details in in the report is that they all should have known that this Christopher Steele guy was full of shit.
They were like, there was more than enough reason to know that he was not trustworthy.
And there was more than enough evidence just within the Steele dossier to know this is completely unsubstantiated.
Like these are wild accusations with nothing to back them up.
It's like if I just wrote down on a piece of paper, oh, all these terrible things you did.
And you're like, okay, but what else do we have?
Oh, and you know that I'm a known liar also.
And it's like, there's nothing here.
So they detail it clearly that they never should have trusted this.
They also say that they made several errors in filing in the FISA court application and that they misled the FISA court, which is a whole nother can of worms of why we shouldn't have these fucking secret rubber stamp courts to begin with.
But so, no, I mean, to me, the main question here isn't like what these guys believed.
Or it's not that, oh, they believed something was happening and then investigated and found out there was nothing there.
It's like, what led you to even believe this?
And it's just so obvious.
There was nothing that would have made you jump to this conclusion.
And then I'll say one more time, which I know I've said before, but it is worth repeating because to me, it's maybe the most important part of this whole Mueller investigation is even if you grant them everything else, even if you grant, there is no reason why Robert Mueller couldn't have come out at some point in those two years and been like, yeah, guys, like there's no reason to think Donald Trump is working with a hostile foreign power.
Like we've got nothing in that direction.
So just so you know that, like, I'm going to finish my investigation.
But I, because he, first off, there's no statute that says he can't do that.
There's nothing to stop him from doing that.
And when those fucking, was it BuzzFeed guys came out and said that Donald Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, he did that.
He came out and said, no, this is not true.
This report is not, this is not backed up by the evidence we've gained.
He had no problem doing that a few weeks before he was wrapping up the investigation.
Had no problem coming out and being like, hey, this report in the media about what my investigation says is not true.
Yet for years, the media, lots of people in the media were saying Donald Trump is a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
The most serious damning allegation you could make against the president of the United States.
And he just bit his tongue.
Allowed the Democratic midterm elections to go on without him coming out and saying anything.
But then, of course, Joe Biden being investigated.
That would be interfering with an election.
That's election interference.
But just keeping your mouth shut while the entire, the number one story of the year is Trump colluding with Russia.
Keeping your mouth shut over that, that's somehow not interference in an election.
And by the way, this is not a small thing.
Like the Democrats won the House back in those midterm elections.
The reason Donald Trump's being impeached right now is because the Democrats won the House.
That's a fact.
Like nothing, no debate about that.
That's why this is all happening.
So it's really, it's, it's.
And Comey's taking a victory lap.
Yeah.
Oh, Comey is just, holy shit, the balls on that guy.
The balls on that guy to have this report come out.
And understand what's going on.
Come on, he's probably got a wiener for days.
Those sagging nuts of his.
Maybe, but it's got to be big, otherwise it'll look terrible.
Yeah.
You know, like an average-sized dick on a guy who's 6'8 isn't going to look good.
But, you know, look, Comey, the funny thing about it, right, is that if you really look at what's being said here, just, okay, so they're saying this wasn't politically motivated.
This epic failure wasn't politically motivated, but it's an epic failure.
So if you were saying it was politically motivated, which by the way, it obviously was.
But if you were to say it was politically motivated, well, then, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but how else could you look at it?
Just hypothetical here, if you were to say this was politically motivated, how else could you look at it other than to say, oh, so this was an attempted deep state coup, right?
Because if you're saying it was politically motivated, then you're saying that they didn't just get it wrong.
They, for politically motivated reasons, targeted somebody they knew wasn't guilty of this crime and investigated him and spied on his campaign and tried to bring down a presidency.
So that's what you would be saying there.
I mean, if that's the case, you're coming out and saying not only that, I mean, it's not just that they fucked up, it's that people should be in jail over this, that this is, holy shit, we don't live in a constitutional democracy anymore.
Like, you want to talk about a threat to democracy?
If you're going to say this is politically motivated, you'd be saying all of that.
You'd be opening a can of worms.
Like the obvious conclusion from that would be that the FBI should be, you know, perhaps abolished, but at least brought reined in drastically, that people should go to jail.
There should be mass firings at the very least, right?
I mean, if you were to say this is politically motivated.
So they said everything short of that.
And Comey's taking a victory lap off of that.
Comey's taking a victory lap off the fact that it's like, well, you're not, I'm not saying you should go to jail.
But then you also understand how difficult it is.
And this is one of the biggest problems with the existence of the state, which I'll get into a little bit more.
I talk about that sometimes on this podcast.
I think so.
It's come up.
With the state.
But this is one of the big problems, right?
And this is to me one of the big problems with even the idea of like the minarchist state or the, you know, I want the small, I want small government.
Like anybody who wants like the constitutional government or minarchist state or the smallest possible government you could imagine, anything like that.
The problem is that what you're leaving to the government is like, it's like, well, I just want government to do, you know, the courts and the police and the military or things like that, right?
Which, you know, of course, are you could easily argue the worst aspects of what the state does.
But the problem is that, so if you just say that you have this entity, the state, and they're going to run the courts, they're going to run the law enforcement, the police and the courts.
So, okay, I guess in theory, you go, well, if citizen A has a problem with citizen B, then the state, which runs the police and the courts, will be the arbiter of who was right in this dispute, which is like, okay, if you believe the state can be a neutral third party, then I suppose, you know, maybe that could work.
But the big problem is, what about when citizen A has a problem with the state?
Now, the state is the arbiter of the state.
Bad Apples in Institutions00:06:02
Okay, so there's an obvious conflict of interest there.
Now, in almost any other situation in life, in business, and anything like that, if there's that blatant of a conflict of interest, you would have to step aside and let somebody else, you know, handle this.
But if it's all the state, it's very hard to do that.
Now, you can say the inspector general is different than the FBI deputy director.
And like, okay, but like, they're really kind of all on the same team.
And for this guy, Harwitz, to come out and say, if he said anything other than this wasn't politically motivated, what he's saying, he would be doing damage to the FBI and the Justice Department, unlike anything that's ever been done.
I mean, it would just be saying, no, this is a shadow government that tried to overthrow, that tried to undo the will of the American people.
Like, they just went, I know the frameworks had this whole, you know, democratic process in Electoral College.
Fuck that.
We don't like this guy.
We're going after him.
Now, when you think about the way that the corporate press and your, you know, your Fox News watching Uncle and all these people have always talked about the FBI and stuff like that.
And, you know, we talk about it all the time, like the religious kind of, you know, admiration of these fine men and women.
I mean, even when like, even, even when Sean Hannity was like, you know, talking about how terrible this, you know, this, this attempted deep state coup against the president was, he'd always go out of his way to be like, no, I'm not insulting the rank and file, the good men and women who worked at the FBI.
Now, by the way, I'm not even saying that there aren't some good men and women who work at the FBI.
I don't know.
Like, a lot of people are just like doing their job.
The people who aren't like high-level people.
Yeah, they're just some guy who works there.
Like, they got secretaries and shit, too.
You know what I mean?
I feel like the FBI is just always taking the good cases away from the local detectives.
They're always like, you're out of your jurisdiction.
This is ours now.
That is true in the movies.
They always show up and they, and the locals guys always know better than them.
They're like, this is my town.
Yeah.
You don't know that work.
And then they got to solve it behind the FBI's back.
They're just getting in the way of everything.
Well, that is true.
No, but I'm just making the point that if you, even when you start getting into like the rank and file, the good men and women, this was the essence of what I got in that argument with Christine Ford.
Not Christine Ford.
Holy shit.
That's hilarious that I just mixed up that name.
No, Christine, fuck, what was her name?
The one who ran for mayor, who I got in the thing with on SE Cup show.
Anyway, but when I got in the thing with her, Quinn, Christine Quinn.
Oh, with the following orders.
Yes.
Well, what I first said that really pissed her off is that she was, so there was this scandal that came out about the NYPD and how fucking, you know, they were, what they were doing at the time was they were involved in selling illegal guns.
And I was, you know, talking about how outrageous this was because while they're selling illegal guns to people, and it was to people with criminal records who couldn't get the guns.
So they were selling guns.
And I said, they'll go around and throw people in jail for decades over possessing an illegal gun.
And then they're selling illegal guns back into the street.
Like, what a fucking, you know, like, what evil pieces of shit.
I mean, I didn't say that.
We were on television, but that was the gist of it.
And she said, no, this is nothing against the great men and women who protect New York City every day and blah, All the religious, you know, father of son, blah, blah, blah.
I should know that better.
And I said, when it comes to the NYPD, I think there's a few good apples.
And this is what fucking triggered her and set her off because, you know, the saying is always there's a few bad apples.
And that's what you're supposed to believe.
If you find five people being criminals in the cops, well, there were a few bad apples, but the rest of them are all really, really great people.
But like, so I just flipped that and I was like, oh, I think there's a few, a few good apples.
Like, I'm sure there's a few good ones, but the whole organization is fucking rotten.
And it's like this, right?
This is the religiosity of the state.
Would you ever talk about a private organization in that manner?
Like, if Enron, you know what I mean?
You figure out that Enron is fucking defrauding all of its stockholders and it's this whole fucking like sham company that's about to come crashing down.
Would anyone ever, would anyone's response ever be, well, I just don't want this to reflect poorly on the good men and women, on the rank and file people who work at Enron.
These were just a few bad apples who happen to be running the whole thing, but this was just a few bad apples.
Like, what?
But even just saying it like that makes you go, what the fuck are you talking about?
We just found out that this is a criminal company.
Why would we be defending the people?
Now, if you want to be technical about it, there probably were some good people who worked at Enron.
Like, I don't know.
Somebody was like fucking, you know, somebody was mopping the floors.
Somebody was just like taking fucking, you know, like taking memos.
You know what I mean?
Like, there were, but why are you even going to this place where it's like, well, first off, first off, we cannot disparage the institution, even though these are the people who are running it.
Well, how about the fucking, like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are some good people, but if we're going to talk about this broad strokes, it's a criminal organization and you're working for a criminal organization.
So my first instinct isn't to defend you.
It's actually like, no, this is, this is pretty fucked up.
This is pretty fucked up.
But anyway, back to the point I was making.
For a guy like this guy, Horwitz, this is why you can't expect the state to police the state.
And this is part of the reason why the government always grows bigger and bigger and bigger.
Because when, I mean, it might happen in one-off cases here or there, but in general, if the state is ruling on whether the state is out of line, they're going to tend to go, you know, mistakes were made, but overall, the institution itself.
Because to say this was politically motivated would have been, make no mistakes about it, to condemn the entire institution.
And if you look at the institution through the religious lens that all of these people do, like they just convince themselves that, you know, the FBI and the CIA and all of these, this is what stands between us and whatever, communism, or we'd all be speaking German or whatever the, you know, the fucking thing is.
Stamps.com Savings Guide00:02:00
These are the people who have, you know, held this great country together.
If you look at things that way, it's pretty hard to write down on paper that you're destroying the entire institution, which of course is what should happen.
They should fucking all be abolished.
All of them.
But anyway, so that's the IG report.
Maybe there'll be some good clips from the Senate hearing that they had today.
I don't know.
It was still going on when I left.
So I don't know.
We'll look into it.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is stamps.com.
Stamps.com is an unbelievable service.
It brings all the services of the U.S. Postal Service right to your computer.
Whether you're a small office sending invoices, an online seller shipping out products, or even a warehouse sending thousands of packages a day, stamps.com can handle it all with ease.
Simply use your computer to print official U.S. postage 24-7 for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it.
Once your mail is ready, you just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox.
It's that simple.
With stamps.com, you get five cents off every first-class stamp and up to 40% off-priority mail.
Not to mention, it's a fraction of the cost of those expensive postage meters.
Stamps.com is a no-brainer.
It saves you time, saves you money.
It's no wonder over 700,000 small businesses already use stamps.com.
Don't spend a minute of your holiday season at the post office this year.
Sign up for stamps.com instead.
There's no risk.
If you use my promo code problem, you'll get a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus postage and a digital scale with no long-term commitment or contract.
Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in problem.
That's stamps.com and the code is problem.
Stamps.com, never go to the post office again.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Anywho, switching gears.
Abuse of Power Defined00:16:02
The other big story that's going on is that it's now, I guess, a little bit more official than it was, but the Democrats have, the House Democrats have drafted articles of impeachment against the president.
Yeah, and it must be for quid pro crow and bribery, right?
I mean, I watched weeks of investigations that started for quid pro crow and then it shifted to bribery.
And so they must have gathered the evidence for these charges that they were having hearings about.
Well, Rob, I hate to shatter your world.
Not exactly.
Not exactly.
It's getting hard to follow.
I don't get it.
So they did a week of hearings trying to prove quid pro crow.
They shifted during the hearings to bribery and they ended up with something else, Dave?
Well, because quid pro quo isn't actually an impeachable offense.
It's actually something that just means nothing.
It's a lot like the term collusion.
It's funny where they go with these terms that don't actually mean anything.
And then you have people, and I still have fucking people who will say things like this to me, like where I'll be like, you know, they're like, well, Dave, Dave doesn't believe in the Russia collusion, you know, whatever.
I'll be like, did you even know that there's 125 contacts between the Trump administration and Russia?
And you're like, right, but what?
Something illegal about contacting foreign governments.
There was also lots of contacts between him and like Turkey or him in Paris or him.
It's like, yeah, that's what presidents do.
It's like, you think Obama wasn't contacting foreign leaders?
And by the way, as much as I hate the state, you want them talking to other countries.
Like, you don't want them to just be like, Russia?
Who the fuck's Russia?
I don't know.
I'm just getting in here to be president.
Russia?
They have nukes now?
Not according to Benjamin, but I'm operating under the belief that they do, in fact, have nukes.
That is, that's my guess.
But they're, you know, this is like, there's nothing to that.
Of course, they, but so collusion.
It's like, what does this even fucking mean?
The question is, like, were they involved in a conspiracy?
And that is complete bullshit.
So anyway, the two articles of impeachment that have been drafted up, and it's really just it's it's hard to not laugh when you hear them.
But so here are the two articles of impeachment, and I'm sure you've you've read about this already.
So number one is abuse of power, which is just, I don't know, to an anarchist libertarian hearing this whole thing, it's abuse of power.
So this is a term.
There's a couple terms that you're going to hear a lot if you pay attention to the news.
So one is abuse of power.
That's what Donald Trump is being accused of using.
Of course, if you just read that IG report and you look at what the FBI and the CIA and all these guys have done to Trump so far, the idea that this was an abuse of power.
We have to come down on an abuse of power because we just don't, we don't stand for things like that, an abuse of power.
That's just un-American.
I mean, you know, Obama literally started wars without congressional approval.
But I don't know.
I guess that wasn't considered an abuse of power.
I guess going to war with Libya, going to war in Syria, going to war in Yemen, these weren't abusive.
These don't, what?
They don't quite make it to abuse of power.
No, let's really read the Constitution.
The Constitution that says that Congress is the only body of the government that can declare war.
And yeah, the president just goes into, declares a war himself, fights a war that we've been in now for years and years.
That's not an abuse of power.
You see those Afghanistan papers that just came out where the country's the government's lying to the country about what's going on in the longest war in American history.
That doesn't quite make the cut off of abuse of power.
Barack Obama killing American citizens without charges.
Still not an abuse of power.
That doesn't quite make the cut.
George W. Bush torturing people, lying us into war, not quite an abuse of power, but saying that the Bidens, in their obviously corrupt setup in Ukraine, saying that that should be investigated.
Well, that's got to impeach.
Got to impeach over that.
And I also love that they say that he wasn't acting in our country's interest, where if there is an underlying crime by the Bidens that can be unraveled that is extremely corrupt, or if Ukraine was actually involved in trying to unseat our president, working with the Democrats, if that were to happen, that actually is very important information to the country as a whole.
So like they're trying to detach the two things and going that this served no interest for the country and only to him is certifiably false.
Yes.
Now, it could be that he was after it for political reasons, but at the end of the day to pretend like it has no value to the country, it's just not true.
But like you said, the funniest part is just the idea of abuse of power.
It's such a gray line.
Yes.
Like it's, and especially when you started with, hey, you wanted to make the claim of bribery and you couldn't, but then I'll just set you up on this.
The more ridiculous is the second charge.
Oh, yeah, the second charge.
Well, actually, let me just finish the first one, but then we'll get to the second charge, which is just, you know, so silly.
It's hard to even spend time talking about.
So the idea, right, that even, right, like you, you made an excellent point that I completely agree with.
If you thought this deal with the Bidens was shady, which it obviously was, even if you, like, I mean, there's a pretty solid argument to make that if you're asking for an investigation of Joe Biden, well, if an investigation were to uncover any criminal activity, you could certainly argue that that was in the interest of the country.
You know, he was the sitting vice president at the time.
Okay, so there's certainly at least an argument there.
But on top of that, this phrase, you know, it's like abuse of power is so vague.
And then the one that's so vague that it's infuriating.
And I know we've discussed this a lot, but this is their go-to phrase now, is interfering in an election.
So the idea now is that Trump invited Ukraine to interfere in the election.
This is what it actually says in the resolution to impeach Donald Trump in the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, that he abused his power by pressuring the Ukrainians to interfere in the 2020 election.
So now that's how they describe Ukraine investigating a Ukrainian energy company.
is interfering in the election.
Now, come on, man.
Look, I thought this was a stretch and an outrageous and intentionally misleading one when they would say that Russian, you know, Russian social media farming was interfering in the 2016 election.
Because doesn't the term interfering in an election evoke like hacking into voter machines or like signing up, you know, like voter fraud of some sense?
Doesn't the term interfere in an election make you think that like they messed with the vote count?
This is why when they actually polled Democrats about this, I think this was like a year and a half ago that I read this poll, but they polled Democrats about who believed that Russia had messed with the voting counts.
And it was a majority.
They got a majority of Democrats to say, yeah, yeah, I mean, we've been hearing about they interfere.
Because if you're not really paying attention, which again, like we said at the beginning, is what they count on.
This is what they count on from their fucking audience, is that you're not really paying attention.
And you just hear on CNN, on the cable news network, they're saying Russia interfered with the election.
Well, what does that mean?
It means they changed the vote tallies around, right?
But that's not what they were even saying.
Nobody was accusing them of doing that.
Even the crazy CIA kooks, they weren't fucking accusing Russia of fucking with a voter machine or actually changing the tally of votes.
It was like tweeting.
That's interfering in an election now.
But this is even a step further, saying that a government holding an investigation is interfering in an election.
I mean, like, come on.
Also, it's the same thing Hillary did with the WikiLeaks where she said, you can't look at that because that's going to interfere in our election, but it might be true information.
How do you separate that they're introducing what's true information that you did something wrong?
It's still true information.
It might change your ability to get elected because you fucked up, but it's still true.
Right.
And if you were to take, if you were to follow this to its logical conclusion, as I said earlier before, well, then Robert Mueller really interfered in a midterm election.
But then you would also say, what, you can't investigate anybody?
If there's an election coming up, you go, no, no, no, I can't.
I can't be investigated because that would interfere.
You'd be interfering in an election, right?
I mean, it's all just so ridiculous.
But so this is, you know, the abuse of power thing, it's just, I don't know what to say.
It's, you know, Congress, this fucking government that's, you know, we're in the longest wars in American history.
We're spending what it's going to fucking approach $5 trillion a year in the next few years.
The federal government is spending.
There's like, we incarcerate more of our people than any other country in the world, the largest 5% of the world's population and like 24% of the world's prison population.
We have 50,000 SWAT raids a year.
But look out.
Someone in the government is abusing their power because they had a phone call to the Ukrainian president where they were like, hey, you know, I think you should look into this Biden thing.
They seem pretty corrupt.
That's the abuse of power.
I mean, come on.
This is just, this is a fucking joke.
This whole thing is a joke.
By the way, the fucking V, like all that stuff that you were talking about, it all fucking fell apart.
Like everything about the impeachment inquiry.
They just, at this point, the Democrats have put all their chips in, so they have to move forward with this, no matter how ridiculous it is.
The guy, the Ukrainian official who Sandlin testified about meeting with the Quid Pro quo and all that stuff, right?
The guy whose name I'm blanking on now, he said that he goes, We never got the impression that the military aid being held up had to do with investigating the Bidens.
He was like, We found out at a certain point that the military aid was being held up and we were like, What's going on here?
And they were like, I don't know, we'll look into it.
And then it got fucking released.
And they were like, We never, like, none of this happened.
Here's why I'd really like to see the Republicans somehow figure out how to go on the offensive on this: is that they're going to go into the next election, and their talking point is going to be Trump is so corrupt that Congress voted to impeach.
That's how corrupt this guy is.
We got him on obstruction of justice against Congress, and we got him on, what was the title of the other charge that you were saying?
Obstructive.
Oh, that's that's the question.
That's the second one.
What was the first one?
Oh, interfering in the election.
No, it was abuse of power.
Okay, this guy's so corrupt that we, Congress, were able to label him for it.
And if it wasn't for those fucking spook Republicans, do-nothings, corrupt Republicans getting his back, this guy wouldn't even be in office.
That's why you, as the American people, we need you to understand how terrible this guy is and finally unseat him.
That's why the Republicans have to somehow figure out how to go on the offensive and go, no, the fact that they made up charges does not mean that they're legitimate or true in any way.
It's just the appeal to authority, the same way they did it.
They like to go, well, as so many in the intelligence community have said, like, well, the fact that someone's under investigation doesn't make them guilty.
The fact that the intelligence communities are looking into something doesn't mean they're right.
And the fact Congress usually is blatant.
But it's not to most people.
So I think it was you might be getting this wrong, but I think it was Aaron Matte, who's a really great journalist at the nation, a left-wing guy, but he's been about as good as anybody.
I think he's one of the best journalists in the country right now.
And he was basically from the beginning of the Russia Trump investigation was like, this is all bullshit.
And he did excellent, excellent reporting on it the whole way through.
And he wrote this piece fairly recently that was like basically talking about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
And he was like, hey, just so you guys know, there's still been no evidence provided that Russia interfered in any meaningful way in the 2016 election.
Like we haven't seen any evidence.
And the Hill, I believe it was The Hill, did a response piece to this.
And they were like, discredited this, like Aaron Matte is making these crazy claims that there was no Russian interference in the election.
And you're almost waiting for it.
Like you're like, oh, okay, so you're going to lay out.
Well, he's saying there's no evidence, but here is the evidence.
And then they just go.
But all 17 intelligence agencies agree that there was.
It's like, that's their response.
It's like, he's telling you, no, you have nothing else except the CIA told me.
And they're like, well, I don't know, that's ridiculous.
Because the CIA told us.
It's like the most blatant appeal to authority you could ever see.
It's just like, well, what do you mean this is an appeal to authority?
I was told it wasn't by this authority.
So checkmate.
That's it.
And that's as far as they're willing to go.
But there is something about it where like I've never, look, all these organizations have been this corrupt always, but they've never been so blatant about just going, yeah, but we said so.
And it's fascinating.
It's fucking fascinating.
All right, now you got to talk about obstruction.
Okay, so the second, the second article of impeachment is about the second article.
The first one is abuse of power.
The second one is obstructing Congress.
And more or less what this means is that what they're saying is that Donald Trump was not complying with congressional subpoenas.
Hey, we're trying to fire you.
You got to show up and help us out while we try and fire you.
Oh my God, this is like grasping at straws to the nth degree.
But it's also this.
Idea that this is, that this is um impeachable, is just like.
Come on man, by the way um, it's not even like something it's, it's not even unprecedented at all.
Uh, Clinton regularly um, when he was being impeached, uh didn't comply with congressional subpoenas and like i'm i'm sure you don't remember that, but it was a thing no one even said like oh, he should be impeached for this too.
Now, because he's not, it's just like.
I don't know, this is like a legal battle of their it's.
This is like on the level of, if they go like abuse of power and jaywalking, like this is just so, it's so not a high crime or misdemeanor, or is like treason, bribery.
High crimes and misdemeanors is what the constitution says.
This obviously doesn't fall into any of them, any of them.
They have nothing.
And it's funny because there is this feeling that even I must admit i've um, like not that i've ever believed it, but it's like a little thing that maybe gnaws in the back of my mind sometimes where you and this is the appeal to authority and how much it can work on all of us is that you go.
And I remember, at the very beginning of the Mueller investigation, thinking to myself, I mean maybe they've got something that that we don't know about, like maybe they've got something more and that's.
And then you have so many of them blatantly telling you, no no no, we've got something more.
It's not just the steel dossier.
Like we've got something more, we wouldn't be doing all this with just the steel dossier.
You know we've got something more.
But then, as it all comes out, more and more it's like no, they didn't have anything more.
And when the impeachment thing first starts coming out, you start going like well, maybe they, because Trump puts the transcript out.
And they're like yeah no, this is it.
And you're like well, maybe they've got like a little something more.
I mean, they wouldn't be putting their neck out on the line like this.
And more and more, as it starts moving along, you're like no no, they don't, they don't have anything more.
Chomsky Pushes Back00:05:39
There's nothing more to it.
It's just this.
And I, I don't know, I just I think this is fucking pathetic.
I really enjoyed um, I didn't watch the whole thing because I I kind of was just fuck this whole process.
But uh, did you watch a little bit of when the three professors got up to give testimony?
Yes, so what I loved about that was uh, I think it was uh, in Murray Rothbard's Um Man Enemy Of The State, whatever the little Plan For One that you gave me years ago Anatomy Of The State, Anatomy Of The State yes, so one of the things I loved in there was he talked about how uh basically, government promotes the academics that are in line with its way of thinking.
And it's a bit of a he didn't use this language, but it's a feedback loop that, because these are the high praised um intellectual thinkers, everyone thinks oh, these guys are right, these are the, these are the true academics.
And it's because it's being promoted by government, because what they're promoting is in line with what government's trying to do.
Yeah, I thought that this was one of the purest examples of that, where they clearly hand-selected scholars who were going to interpret the way that they wanted.
But it wasn't just that.
If you're there as a legal scholar, you're not supposed to be there.
I don't know like, giving the halo and links the guy speech.
That's not.
You shouldn't.
You shouldn't be visibly angry or rattled.
Yeah exactly, that's not.
You're here to be my legal scholar and tell me what the legal definition is.
You're not supposed to be the guy standing, You know, making the chart like that's.
Dude, there was this great Noam Chomsky interview one time.
And I'm probably going to butcher this off memory, but it was Noam Chomsky was getting interviewed by some member of the corporate press.
It might have been ABC News or something like that.
And he was kind of giving them pushback.
Like, he's like, you're so hostile and critical of the corporate press.
And, you know, he's like, you've said that the American media is that any dictator would be envious.
Anyone who actually had state-run media would be envious of how compliant to the state the American press is.
And he was like, well, what's that supposed to mean?
Like, I'm not a state-run, you know, like, you know, like, he's kind of personally taking offense of it.
And, you know, Noam Chomsky in his calm Noam Chomsky way.
He's like, well, you do the bidding of the state and blah, blah, blah.
I'm like saying all these things.
And there was this really great moment at one point where he goes, so are you saying that I don't sincerely believe what I'm saying?
Like you're basically calling me a liar and saying like, I sincerely believe everything that I'm saying.
And he goes, oh, no, no, no, no.
I'm quite sure.
I'm sure you're quite sincere.
My point is that if you weren't, you wouldn't be here.
Yeah.
And it was just like, like, he said it better than I'm saying it now remembering it.
But he was like, no, no, no, I'm not saying you're not sincere.
I'm sure you're quite sincere.
You wouldn't have to be ain't that.
But if you didn't have these views, you wouldn't have this job.
Like that, it's that, right?
So it's not like as if there's not, it's not that you can't find any fucking academic who doesn't believe in big government, doesn't believe in this shit.
It's just that if you find that academic, he doesn't get to fucking testify there.
That's it.
So yeah, it's they leave you with this impression that like, oh, well, this is what the academics believe.
But of course that's not, you know, accurate at all.
And the other thing is that academics in general, and I think I told this story on the podcast before, but it really, there was this one, there was this guy who's a professor who told me once and he kind of whispered to me.
And we were at my sister's house and he was like a professor.
And he like kind of leaned into me and he was like, he's like, truth be told, I actually agree with a lot of your politics.
And I didn't say anything.
I was just like, oh, cool, man, you know, or whatever.
But I was like thinking in my head, I was like, dude, what the fuck are you whispering for?
Like, we're in my sister's living room.
What are you scared of?
And how like, you know, there's like, you see those fucking like, like, how lacking in bravery are you?
Like, you know, you see those pictures of the people like who like stand up in front of tanks or stand up, you know, the people like protesting in Hong Kong right now.
Like all these people who are like willing to stand up for what they believe in in the face of like certain death.
Like you're going to be killed or tortured or something really bad is going to happen to you.
And they still stand up for what they fucking believe in.
You don't have to risk anything.
Like you're a tenured professor.
Just fucking say it.
But there's something about academics.
It's a very interesting, peculiar type of person.
And I don't mean to dismiss all of them because there's some great academics out there.
But there's something about the person who kind of like, so you're in school your whole life, you know?
Like from age four or five, you're like in school.
And that's all life is, is really revolves around school for a lot of people.
And you go through school and you're in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, eighth grade.
You go all the way up to 12th grade.
Then you graduate and then you go to college.
And this is kind of like another artificial world.
And then the vast majority of people, if they go to college or if not, at a certain point, they leave and they go into what is dubbed the real world.
Now, you know, I guess everything is the real world, but then you leave and you go actually exist in the world of adults.
And then there's some people who leave 12th grade, go to 13th grade in college, and they go, this is it for me.
And they go to college.
Then after college, they go into a master's program.
Then they go into a PhD program and then they teach.
And that's life.
It's like they never leave this school thing.
And like, okay, fine.
Like, I mean, you know, maybe a lot of good work has to be done in universities.
But there is something about the personality type that ends up staying there.
And this guy who I was talking to is a very smart guy.
His problem wasn't that he wasn't smart.
I think he's like, but they're like a certain personality type.
And I don't know enough about psychology to break it, but I think it's like very high trait agreeableness, very high intelligence, but not very high in...
Morning Video Analysis00:15:41
Fuck you.
Well, in conscientiousness or whatever the trait would be.
It's not, it's not.
They are very smart, but they don't have balls.
Like they don't have the balls to just be like, hey, this whole system is full of shit.
And like, here's why.
They don't have that thing.
And so they're just kind of like, look, I'm not going to rock the boat.
I'll be here and I'll work on my one little area.
But they just don't, for whatever reason.
So, no, that, that, uh, impeachment hearing, it was, yeah, it was a spectacle.
But the thing with the woman, particularly in that one where she's like getting emotional and flustered.
And it's like, this is like, you're discrediting yourself.
I mean, how do you not even see it that way?
I didn't even watch her.
It was more that, was it the Yale guy or the Harvard guy, whatever he was, motor mouthing and all upset.
Yeah, they were all like emotional, which is like what you would expect the opposite if this is just an academic.
I'd love to see the casting process when they're in front of shift and they're like, all right, bring in the next one.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what exactly that would be like.
All right.
So we'll, you know, we'll keep following these things as they develop.
Here's another story that I wanted to go to real quick.
And then maybe we'll play that video, which was fun.
Excuse me.
So I'll just say this quickly, all right?
I'm thinking more and more that Hillary Clinton is going to run for president.
Just seeming more and more likely to make it.
Well, lucky for her, the whole thing imploded.
It's not like she's got to beat anybody.
Well, it's like no one's there.
It's like everyone decided, you know what?
We're just so here's a few things that happened, right?
Several of Hillary Clinton's people, like high-level people, were working on Kamala Harris's campaign.
Oh, now they're available.
Kamala Harris just fucking campaign imploded.
She's out of the race.
They're all available again.
What's Wiener's wife up to?
I don't know.
She's probably fucking hanging out with Hillary Clinton motion boxes, if I do imagine.
I don't know for sure.
I'm just speculating.
But so you have, you know, in the race right now, it really is like, you know, they can write all the articles they want to about Buddhajedge surging and all that stuff, but he's really like around 10% nationally.
And he's just, he's the mayor of a small town.
And he's fucking, you know, short and gay.
And, you know, he acts the part, but doesn't really look the part.
And really, what you have is these top three.
Elizabeth Warren had her little moment and is now kind of coming down.
And I think more and more people are realizing that Elizabeth Warren can't really do it.
Her whole thing is like, look, I don't have charisma.
I'm not a good public speaker, but I've got a plan.
And then people look into her plans and her plans are fucking stupid.
Just terrible.
Bernie Sanders is.
You're not putting enough Bernie on it.
That's his issue.
Well, maybe, but Bernie Sanders has a few issues.
One, like I've been saying from the beginning, it's not very clear that he actually wants to win.
And maybe he does want to win, but he just doesn't have that killer instinct.
Number two, the DNC absolutely will not let him win.
They are not going to let him win this thing.
And number three, he's 80 and just had a heart attack.
And that's like a legitimate thing.
Like, that's a real problem for wanting to be in the most high-stress, high-power position.
And that leaves you with Biden.
But there's a problem with Biden is that he is trying to say this nicely.
He has gotten one foot in the grave.
He's not even filling in the bald spot anymore.
He gave up.
Do we have that Biden video of the most recent one?
Here's Joe Biden.
Oh, push-ups with you.
Just out on the campaign trail.
Yeah.
Just having, you know, having a nice little town home.
I'm here trying to say no more malarkey in this town, and you're up here lying at me.
You're giving me malarkey, son.
All right, here's a here's Joe Biden.
I've been a long time and I know more than most people know.
And I can get things done.
That's why I'm running.
And you want to check my shape on?
Let's do push-ups together, man.
Let's run.
Let's do whatever you want to do.
Number two.
Number two.
No one has said my son has done anything wrong, and I did not on any occasion.
And no one has ever said it.
Not one day you are doing anything wrong.
You said I set up my son to work on an oil company.
Isn't that what you said?
Get your work straight, Jack.
But here on the NFL, you don't hear that in MSNBC.
You did not hear that.
Roger Hurt.
Look, okay, I'm not going to get an argument with you, man.
Well, I don't want to leave.
Well, yeah, you do.
But look, look, here's the deal.
Called him fat.
Here's the deal.
How's that for presidential?
Look fat.
They miss it.
At the beginning of this, he calls him a rotten lawyer.
Hold on, keep playing.
You're too old to go for me.
All right, let's go.
Yeah, so he says at one point, yeah.
So basically, the guy asked a question, which was like, look, it's an older guy who's a voter.
And he asked him a question.
He was like, look, you set your son up with this job at this oil company.
And, you know, was there anything corrupt there?
It was a completely fair question.
It was, you know, now he could have said, hey, I didn't set him up with a job.
You know, he could have responded, but he literally challenged him to an IQ test, called him a liar, challenged him to a push-up contest, called him fat, told him, like, oh, they said, you're too old.
He called him old and fat.
And it was just like, so weird.
It's so the level of narcissism and dumb that Joe Biden is carrying around with him every day.
And I know Hillary Clinton's looking at this, and it's not, don't think for a second when you see Hillary Clinton doing big interviews going on Howard Stern.
By the way, how pathetic was Howard Stern on that?
How do you even, how do you not lose respect for that guy after you see the way he interviews Hillary Clinton?
And you go like, Howard Stern, this guy who made, who made his bones being the guy who's like anti-establishment and the government tried to shut me down and I'll say whatever I want to.
Just fucking dick sucky interview of the establishment candidate.
Like it was just, oh my God, it was so cringe-inducing.
Just the worst thing ever.
Broke my heart.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not like a big Stern fan, so I don't really give a shit.
But like, I thought it was just pathetic, man.
We used to listen to him every morning.
I went to his last show.
I used to listen to him every last terrestrial radio show.
Oh, really?
Five in the morning.
Yeah.
And we used to listen to him like almost every morning.
I used to love that guy.
Oh, it's just, it was just pathetic, just really sad to see.
But anyway, you see Hillary doing these interviews, and there was one poll recently that came out just this last week that said Hillary Clinton was the top pick, that she was out-polling all the other Democrats running.
And you are out of your mind if you think Hillary Clinton isn't seeing that and isn't going, you know what?
I can swoop back in.
I can say this thing was unfairly taken from me.
We're going to take this back.
And I think there's a really good shot.
I'm putting it right now, 60-40 Hillary runs.
I really think she's going to because whoever's going to, who I think more and more, whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be was not on that last debate stage.
Every single one of them, you look at them, every one of them, there's a reason why they can't possibly be the person.
And by the way, I'm still rooting for Joe Biden.
I'm rooting for him just because I want so badly to watch the entire mainstream media pretend that you're crazy to think that there's anything wrong with Joe Biden.
It's going to be amazing if that's the case.
You know, I bet Hillary in her head, I can't remember the band name, but Steven Tyler, what's his band?
Arrow Smith.
Yeah, she's just listening to that on back in the game again in her head just on repeat.
That's like all that's playing in her head.
All right.
Listen, to close out today's episode, I know you got to jump on a sales call in a little bit.
So let's play the video Rob sent us, the local news story that you sent me that I did play this play.
I thought this was pretty funny.
So let's...
Wait, you didn't want to play any Hillary on Howard?
Because it's kind of...
Yeah, it's okay.
We don't have time for all of it.
I gave my take on it already.
I can't sit there.
All right, ask him to act in public.
You can't do better than that.
All right.
Only on CBS this morning, a reporter is sharing her story after she says she was assaulted during her live TV report.
The video has been viewed more than 10 million times.
People also dress up in costumes for this bridge run.
So it's very exciting.
It's very exciting.
People.
Alex Bozargian was covering a fun run for her Savannah, Georgia station that's WSAV on Saturday.
And you can see one of the runners, a man in a blue long-sleeve t-shirt as he moves.
Pause it right there.
Just for everybody listening on the audio, because way more people listen to this than watch it.
So I should tell you.
So this is a woman.
She's covering a race of some sort.
And she's standing right next to him.
And as people are running by her, a lot of them are kind of like, you know, kind of making goofy hand gestures behind her.
And then this one guy, this older guy, just runs by and slaps her on the ass.
And the way it looks like it's a skit that's almost filmed.
Like, I don't know.
It just doesn't really look real.
But she looks very shocked and then tries her best to continue her news coverage.
So she says she was assaulted live on national television.
And we should say, it's not cool.
You're not supposed to do that to a lady.
We all know.
Listen, more than not cool.
And I do say, like, these are the type of things that, you know, if I'm having a serious conversation about this, which we are now, I do have a wife and daughter now.
And I will say unequivocally, you cannot do that.
You cannot do that.
You can't slap some chick on the ass.
And what the fuck is wrong with you that you think you can just run up to a chick with a camera there?
Like, are you unaware of the current year that we live in?
That you think you're just going to run up and slap a chick on the ass.
But absolutely, it would be completely appropriate in my mind for that dude to get punched in the fucking face right after that.
I also think appropriate for if I was that guy's employer and saw him do that, I would absolutely fire the guy after doing that.
Like, what are you doing?
This is also a chick who's like substantially younger than him.
If I'm ballparking, I'd say this guy's in his 50s and this chick's in her late 20s, 30s, maybe something like that.
I don't know.
It's just very inappropriate, not cool at all.
Can't do it.
Runner's high is a hell of a high.
I get it.
Well, by the way, it does seem like that's what's going on.
Like he was just on this runner's high.
Like, woo!
Yeah.
Also, she's standing in a dumb place.
Like, once you get that commotion going of everyone trying to get behind the news camera and she's blocking traffic like the way she is, like people have to kind of inch over to continue the race.
It's a law of large numbers.
Someone's going to do something shitty and stupid.
All right.
Let's.
No, you can't do it.
Can't do that.
All right.
Can't do that.
Anyway, let's play the rest of the news clip.
Runners, a man in a blue long-sleeve t-shirt as he moves behind her and appears to slap her on her backside.
Bazarjian tweeted this following that incident to the man who smacked my butt on live TV.
You violated, objectified, and embarrassed me.
She's also filed a police report yesterday, and the man has been banned from future races.
And Alex joins us now.
Alex, good morning.
Good morning.
So the video tells almost the whole story.
You can see your reaction, but what were you thinking?
That reaction is so pricey.
It says so much.
What was going through your head that moment it happened?
All right, just pause it right here.
First off, I love just the dumb fucking morning show energy where he goes, even just like the things they say.
Like, it's like people aren't thinking yet at this time in the morning.
So he goes, the video tells almost the whole story, but it doesn't tell what you're thinking.
It's like, are you familiar with video cameras and how they work?
Yes, you're right.
The video camera did not capture her internal monologue.
What was she saying?
But I will say, there's something so weird.
And listen, guys are, here's the thing about dudes.
They are what they are.
And never believe that they can rise above and transcend above being a dude.
And there's something about a guy like who goes, here's this guy slapping this chick on the ass.
Let's replay that one more time.
Now let me ask you, so how were you feeling when this guy slapped you on the ass?
Like, what was going through your head?
I mean, it was in front of everybody.
And you're like, there's something kind of perverse and sick about this whole fucking thing.
Like having a woman there to interview her about this.
It's also like, look, I don't blame this chick for going to the cops about it.
I think that's completely reasonable.
You can't do that.
Listen, you can't slap a chick on the ass.
And she has every right to like go to the cops.
It's a little bit weird to say, I was assaulted and sit down for an interview about what happened to you.
And how they took your power.
And well, let's not give it away.
But yes, it's just, so already it's just a little bit strange.
Like it's like, okay, I don't know if are we really making this out like some traumatic thing happened to you?
But in case you were confused, yes, we are.
Here's the interview.
The moment it happened, you know, you're in disbelief.
You feel like, did that really just happen?
So it took some time to process, but it was extremely vulnerable.
You know, and I think I would say that the reason why, you know, maybe it caught so much fire is because the emotion is extremely important.
Just pause it for one second.
You're not if you're not watching and you're just listening.
They are now, as she speaks, this is the most degrading thing you could possibly do to this woman.
As she speaks, they're in the background playing on loop her getting slapped in the ass.
Like as if we didn't all see it and know what happened.
By the way, you don't even have to play the video.
There's no, if this is so humiliating and so awful, there was no need.
You could very quickly describe what happened in this video.
There is no need to unloop.
Play this chick getting her ass slapped and her facial response to it.
And then once you play it, you certainly don't need to play it over and over again.
Anyway, let's keep it.
For women all over the world.
Not only for journalists working on TV, but for women in general.
And this is a workplace issue.
Right, right.
And you say that slap actually stung.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a heavy impact.
Dude, are you telling me there isn't like the guy isn't getting off on this a little bit?
And you're telling me that actually stung.
Did your nipples get ever so hard?
So tell me, Toots, was there a red mark the next day?
You know, just to do my due diligence as a journalist, I'm going to need to see the affected area.
Have you been putting aloe vera on the location?
All right, let's keep playing.
Ching it right.
It's very deliberate.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, it was, I mean, if you, I've, of course, watched the video multiple times because you look at it and it feels like it's not you.
It's like you're watching somebody else.
But he separates himself from the runners and he kind of winds up and, you know, he hit me hard.
Female Guilt and Feminism00:06:07
I mentioned that it's deliberate because isn't he saying it was an accident, that he didn't do it on purpose?
Because the tape certainly tells a very different story.
Right, yeah.
He did try to, you know, make contact with our station, with the station that I work with, and, you know, kind of, you know, was saying that his intentions were not, you know, to hurt me.
He didn't intend to do it, which, you know, not going to really debate that because he hurt me.
But now that you've had time to think about it, because at first you are stung, clearly startled, are you angry, frustrated, saddened by it?
What are you thinking?
I think immediately after you kind of sort through the vulnerability of the situation, you are inundated with some female guilt.
Guilt?
That's interesting.
Guilt, Alex.
Why?
I guess maybe because of all of the social media attention.
Of course, there's been an outpouring of support from so many people, men, women, you know, people of all ages.
You've also had people that say, accept the apology, move on, you said.
Right, yeah.
Accept the apology.
It's your fault.
You put yourself in the line of fire.
Line of fire.
Yeah, essentially, just, I mean, maybe that comes from a misunderstanding of what library is.
Doing your job.
Right.
And then you have a statement from.
Yeah, we need to read this lawyer's runner's lawyer sent a statement saying they regret the situation, but he, quote, did not act with any criminal intentions, that he's a loving husband and father, and they don't expect any criminal charges.
Are you open to hearing what he has to say?
I think what is most important here is that he took my power and I'm trying to take that back.
Keep pause for a second.
I just want it to disappear so like I can have my moment and talk about how I was harassed and I can have more of the attention.
Well, I will say that the fact that the guy is a husband and father does make it substantially worse in my mind.
I mean, like, what the fuck are you doing, dude?
Like, again, I don't want it to be confused at all what my take on this is.
You cannot do that.
And it's fucked up.
And like, I let you say, if, again, as someone who has a wife and a daughter and whatever, I also have a mother and a sister and everybody's got, I would lose my shit if somebody did this to some woman that I love.
Like, you absolutely can't do this.
And you're a husband and a father.
What the fuck are you doing?
What's wrong with you?
That being said, to try to capitalize off this and have your moment.
And he took my power.
And let me tell you about the emotions I was feeling.
Here's the thing.
And this is maybe one of the problems in general with feminism, the kind of Me Too movement attitude, all of this.
It's like you can't, listen, man.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
You can't complain about double standards while asking for a double standard.
All right.
Now, when you say, I had this female guilt or I had this feeling of this, this uniquely female moment where people are telling me to get over it and move on.
And I'm like, oh my God, I feel like it's so funny.
These women who talk that way have no idea what it's like to be a man.
Do you know, if this happened to a man and you made a deal out of it, they would immediately be like, what are you talking about, you fucking weirdo?
Get over it.
I don't know.
I mean, you would so, like, it reminds me of, do you remember when, shit, was it, it wasn't Corey Lewandowski, was it?
Do you remember the thing where he grabbed that female reporter by the arm and moved her out of the way?
And everybody was like, oh my God, this was terrible.
She worked at Breitbart at the time and then she resigned.
Remember, um, but I mean, if it was a male reporter who they did that to, you'd right away be like, I don't know, whatever, dude, deal with it.
But if a female reporter, if it's done to her, it's like, oh my god, this is a fragile woman, so you can't do that to her.
Now, I'm just saying that is fair.
It is fair to have different standards for men and women.
However, if you want to actually get into it, it might uncork a whole can of worms that you don't really want to.
Like, if you're saying that women are so delicate that if they're touched on the ass, then they will fall to pieces and they, as she said, lose their power.
Well, then maybe you'd be like, oh, maybe they shouldn't be there to begin with.
You know?
I mean, maybe like you shouldn't have these female reporters in the quote line of fire.
I mean, I don't know.
I just think it's like you can't sit there and say, oh my God, I've fallen to pieces by this little thing.
And this is the position females are put in.
Meanwhile, if a man was put in that same position, it'd be like, I don't know, toughen up.
So this is, this is the thing that like, um, that feminists or whatever, I use the term loosely, but this whole like mindset, what they don't like account for at all is the fact that like men are told constantly from like age four to like get over it, grow the fuck up.
I don't know what to tell you.
Suck it up.
Suck it up and move on.
Quit being a bitch, you bitch.
Quit being a bitch is something that is hammered into men from a very early age.
And you know what?
It's not the worst message.
It's not the worst message.
Because if we were all a fucking, like, if everybody was a bitch, like a building would never get built.
I don't know what to tell you.
Like, that's just the way it fucking is.
That's the way it's been for a long time.
And it's, it's just, so this guy is absolutely wrong, but there is something pretty disgusting about this chick trying to use this for her moment in the sun.
And something really weird about these guys interviewing her about getting slapped on the ass and asking her detailed questions about it.
So what were you feeling?
What was it like?
That seemed like a loud impact.
Like in your private life, do you like getting slapped on the ass?
I mean, it's not the first time, all right, sister?