Chris Fega and James Smith critique government overreach and media collapse, contrasting 90s liberalism with current political confusion over January 6th versus BLM riots. They condemn CNN's declining credibility following Brian Stelter's departure and Anthony Fauci's resignation, citing past lies about HIV transmission and lockdown costs of $3 million per life saved. Ultimately, the hosts argue that corporate elites failed Trump's stress test, proving media accountability is a joke while inflation remains the ignored primary concern for Americans. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Anti-Trump Station Decline00:15:16
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
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.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Returning to the show today, my old friend, and many times has appeared on the show before, BK Chris, Chris Fega, coming to us, I have to assume, somewhere in the depths of Brooklyn.
How are you, brother?
Chilling, man.
I'm good.
How's everything been with you?
Very good.
Can't complain.
Everyone's good.
Been enjoying, you know, enjoying work and family and the clown show that is America.
Yes.
Things are things are getting interesting.
Yeah, they really are.
It's fucking bizarre, man, because me and you are both, and we've known each other for, you know, a long time, as people know.
We grew up together and we're like 90s kids, you know, born in the 80s, but like grew up in the 90s.
And it is really wild to just kind of see the country and like it's, it's, it's hard sometimes like take a step back and go, oh, yeah, wow, this thing is different.
This has really changed.
Not just, not just change like the normal way where it's like, oh, we're older now.
So like, I don't understand mumble rap or something like that.
You know what I mean?
Like the shit that's supposed to be kind of.
Oh, I can understand mumble rap way more than I can understand the way adults are acting.
Yeah, right.
Like it was just like, oh, it's just like they just made shittier music so that we don't like it so that they could be like, oh, you don't get it.
Like that's what kids do.
I get that.
But like the fact that bleeding heart liberals are treating January 6th the same way fucking Hillbillies were treating 9-11, I don't get.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's very, it's very bizarre also to see that like, because politically we grew up in a very liberal area.
Like that was the thing.
It's not like there weren't like, you know, conservative Republicans around.
I mean, you were either apolitical and didn't give a shit, as we kind of were as kids, or you were a bleeding heart liberal.
Those are like the options.
And to see what liberals have become today is really, I mean, with everything, this with January 6th, like you'd think one of them might mention, you could just so easily see the liberal position on this being like, well, protests are the, or riots are the voice of the unheard.
And hey, that cop didn't need to shoot Ashley Babbitt.
I mean, he, she posed no threat to him.
Why did he have to shoot her?
You know, like you could see.
And then they're just like, the way they're warhawks with Putin and just like everything about it is the whole thing is completely flipped.
It's very, it's, well, I mean, obviously it started with the puritanical stances on speech, right?
And then it's just like, it's like, like, how do you guys not, it's almost like you step outside of it and you go, particularly with the January 6th thing, it's like almost a one-to-one.
January 6th, 9-11, it's like white nationalism, Sharia law, like the way they're fucking pitching it.
And I'm just like, you guys are just othering white dudes in the Midwest instead of brown dudes in the Middle East.
Like, it's just, what are you, you're being retarded.
Like, it's like you were against the Patriot Act.
They're just trying to do that, but inward.
Yeah.
And at least on 9-11, like, there was a thing.
Yeah.
5,000 people.
Yeah.
Like it was, there was at least like, okay, that, yeah, I mean, planes took the Twin Towers out of existence.
We no longer have the Twin Towers.
Like, there's some guys on hoverounds were going around the Capitol.
Yeah.
Literally flat dudes on hover rounds were in the Capitol building.
Like it's not the same.
And everything with January 6th has to rely on like what could have happened, which is always like, and it's always very, like a very long stretch.
Like they're like, okay, they could have, you know, they could have killed the vice president who we all hate.
Right, right.
They could have killed that guy who believes in gay conversion therapy.
Like that guy.
Like, oh no.
Right, right.
All this, right?
That's the big concern.
And look, I could even see like they're like, well, we don't want to like fucking killed by a mob or something.
Okay, fine.
But it's many steps off from that.
And then what they, the, the real issue they have is they try to get to this like, you know, attempt to overthrow democracy or something.
This was a coup attempt.
But there's, there's no amount of steps, no matter how many hypotheticals you lay out that ever ends in, and therefore Donald Trump is reinstalled as president.
Like even they get their hands on Mike Pence.
They they have a gun.
They put a gun to Mike Pence's heads.
They say, you cannot certify the results of this election.
He goes, okay, okay.
They shoot Mike Pence, you know, like whatever thing you get to.
They do whatever they can.
Okay.
Eventually the National Guard and the DC police get in there, kill or arrest all of these people, and then the election result is certified.
Like there's, there's no scenario there that leads to, and then Donald Trump's still president.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dude, I have, you know what's the funniest thing?
I know you have like the people you talk to about politics.
If you be in a bar where somebody calls that an attempted coup, like in New York City, and then go, okay, let me break this down.
Yeah.
And then it's, I've been doing this for years at this point.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's like, no, no, no, no.
Please explain to me if they killed everyone in the Senate, every single person, is Donald Trump the president?
No.
Then how is it a coup attempt?
Insurrection is a proper word because that's just a violent assault on government.
It's vague enough that you could call it that.
And then the problem with the word insurrection is, yes, while you can in some ways defend that word, it's just like, I don't know, dude.
Was every, you know, like Black Lives Matter during the rioting of 2020, there were a bunch of different like fucking things where government property was damaged.
Are we going to call all of them an insurrection?
Like insurrection, just at least to me, should connotate kind of like some type of political force actually trying to like overtake the government.
Riot.
The term is riot.
Like it was a protest that escalated into a riot.
And compared to the Black Lives Matter riots, it was far more peaceful than that.
January 6th was like.
It was smaller for certain.
It was smaller.
There was a little bit of property that was damaged, but it wasn't like mass violence like some of the fucking riots across the country in 2020 turned into.
So it's all just ridiculous.
Well, I think I think here's the thing is that because of feedback loops, I think there's a lot of people who legitimately believe the rhetoric.
And look, I don't think that the Black Lives Matter protests weren't unnecessary.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't, I'm not like one of these people who like those were unnecessary.
They shouldn't have done that.
I don't disagree with the destruction of public, private property in particular, but like, and I thought that people deifying it was crazy.
But like, I think there's a lot of people on that side who just didn't see like the shop owners getting batted out.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I think there's a lot of people that believe that it was just a lot of broken windows and it wasn't people like, hey, don't break my windows and then getting rocked in the head with a brick.
Like if you see enough of those videos, which I happen to see, like there's not really a way around being able to say like, oh, this was like a 30-year-old man bricking an old lady in the face at a black life.
You guys need to own this and renounce it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, 100%.
And I think that even with just the property destruction, but especially with the violence, like that, you know, that was the number one thing.
But I always said, like, like, I was, I certainly think there's a lot of issues around policing that like are fucking out outrages.
The last time I was on this show, I believe we had a long conversation about if you properly educated most neocons on civil forfeiture and no-not warrants, they would be absolutely on the side of the Black Lives Matter people.
Well, I'd say, like, people who vote for neocons.
I don't know about the politics themselves, yeah, not money making Mitch.
Yes, yeah, yeah, no, those guys are gonna support it, but yeah, and I mean, look, I think I tell the story a lot just because I think it's kind of like a good, a decent gauge.
Um, but my father-in-law, who's like, you know, a Fox News watching, you know, Republican voted for Trump, you know, just like very much that.
You're Fox News watching father-in-law.
And he said, when the George Floyd thing first like popped up, he was like, uh, not only should that cop and every single one of the cops with him should be put in handcuffs on national television, they should all be tried for murder.
Like, he was just like, and this is like from even like a guy like that was just like, this is like appalling.
You can't just fucking like, yeah, like you can't just sit on some fucking dude's neck with your knee who's not like, why?
Because he was having a panic attack and he's already cuffed and down on the ground.
Like, you know, but then, of course, after all the fucking riots happened and all that, he, what do you think his take was?
Like, what everyone's was, but the cops need to clean this shit out.
You know what I mean?
Like, you get.
So it's like, what happened was they ended up driving in this moment when they could have really won the moment.
They ended up completely driving out anyone who might have been like willing to sign up with them.
Yeah.
Even people like me who are like pretty radically, you know, critical of the cops were like, well, fuck this whole movement, you know?
And, and, and that's why I said, like, once they turned violent, the people should have stopped protesting.
They should have been like, I'm not going to go be a part of this if there's going to just be, because you're kind of at that point, just like giving cover for the people who are hanging out in the crowd who are looking to fucking loot and destroy property and fucking and you know, assault people, kill people in many cases.
Um, okay, anyway, let's uh talk a little bit about.
Well, first off, I did want to mention, I know you have a uh a gig this Saturday.
You're co-headlining with uh Zach Amiko, who we all know and love, one of the funniest motherfuckers out there at comedy uh on the Carlson.
Yeah, Rochester, New York, where you got where you got protested up in Rochester.
Oh, yeah, well, hopefully, some you know what?
Let me hit up the protesters.
Hopefully, they come back.
Uh, here's the thing: as long as enough people buy tickets, that always counteracts protests.
It's crazy how the free market really works.
Yeah, it is true.
So, if everybody who came to your shows comes to this show, the protesters lose, and I think we get to beat the shit out of them.
I think that's the law.
I'm pretty sure I'd have to double-check the statutes on that.
It sounds lawyer the way you're saying it.
So, yeah, why not?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, that's a sorry, I was confusing with the difference, but yeah, that's a cool club.
So, definitely, everybody go come out this Saturday, go support Chris and Zach, both fucking really hilarious guys.
So, go enjoy that show.
So, we um, the news that's been really uh uh dominating the social media and the political world over the last few days has been uh two of the greats are leaving, two really of the people who have been cornerstones of this podcast.
So, it was announced uh that Fauci has chosen to resign uh from the NIA, the NIH, and also as whatever his position, like senior health advisor to the president.
Um, and Brian Stelter did not choose, uh, but he is also will be leaving.
Uh, and he had his final episode, he got plussed out of CNN, you can see.
Yes, that's right.
It's been um, it's been interesting.
So, so he just did his final episode.
I want to play a couple clips from it that I thought were like really revealing.
Brian Stelter just anyway, we could get into it as we're watching the clips, but basically what happened was Time Warner Discovery, I think is the name of the new company that bought CNN.
And the new guy, Jeff Zucker, left.
The new guy who's in there, I think came to the conclusion that almost anyone, not someone who like has our like politics or someone who sees things this way.
I think anyone with like a modicum of reason, if you were buying this product, you'd go, okay, CNN is bleeding.
They now don't have one show that gets over a million views on the entire goddamn on CNN, on the cable news network, the, you know, like James Earl Jones, the most trusted name in news, you know, CNN.
They don't have one show that cracks a million views.
They don't have one show that's as big as like a big podcast.
You know what I mean?
Like Jesus.
It's bananas.
And they're bleeding.
And they've become this kind of like joke ever since Donald Trump has been gone.
Their numbers, which were not good, have just completely tanked.
And he basically decided that, like, look, we can't just be an activist wing of the Democratic Party.
We got to like at least present ourselves as we're doing the news.
Well, people want, people want the basic facts.
You can spin them any way you want, but it's like, there's a reason why, like, people want at least a vague, consistent bias that they can decipher, right?
Like, if you're going to claim to be news, like I can still watch PBS because you know their consistent bias, right?
Yes.
But they're presenting you with the correct information.
And if you disagree with the way they're slanting it, you know the way it's going.
So you can kind of go, well, I just watched all the information you gave me.
I have this opinion on this.
Like that's what, but CNN does not even provide.
I mean, did you see the article that they put on their website a couple of weeks back?
It was, it said, a racially motivated North Carolina police department completely resigns after a black female becomes town manager.
I can say this.
Oh, dude, it was a great article.
That's the headline.
Five or five paragraphs down.
They go, well, some people don't think this is racially motivated because it turns out the last town manager was a black man.
So this is just completely not true.
This story is just not true.
No, no, no.
It's just a complete falsehood of the news.
Yeah.
So I can't believe somebody would want to clean that up.
Well, they have really, I mean, CNN has been bad for a long time.
And there's, you can go back and look this up.
I think some of the stuff is up on YouTube, but you can go look them up, like faking war correspondent coverage back in like the 90s and shit.
They've, they've done bad things and they've always, you know, they're part of the corporate press, but they really began in 2017, 2016, 2017, to really just like systematically humiliate themselves.
And it just got worse and worse and worse and worse.
And, you know, the Trump thing just kind of broke the entire network, as he did with a lot of different people in the corporate press.
And they, they just became kind of the anti-Trump station.
And then they really became the like, you know, the Fauci station for quite a while, where it was just everything.
And Brian Stelter ended up becoming the face of that, the face of this decline in CNN.
And so one of their first moves was to get rid of him.
It was a obvious, it was not like, oh, it was a smart move on their part.
It was just an obvious move.
It was just an obvious move.
Brian Stelter's Media Rise00:06:54
Like, if you want to turn this around at all, you can't have this guy who's a walking punchline.
Yeah, he's also like any alternative press.
It's what's like you said, he's been a stalwart of your show, right?
And I was like thinking about it.
You're like, Fauci's resigning.
I've been on the road with Rob a lot.
I don't know what he's gonna, he's gonna have to write a whole new act with stelter and fucking battery time.
Like, this is like, it's like, so it's like, but anybody who's like alternative press, like even if it's not, even if it's something a little more center, like even like breaking, but they hammer this guy.
Joe Rogan is shitting all over Brian Stelter on a regular basis.
Like, you can't have this guy here when he's like the laugh.
If you're trying to draw, you're basically trying to draw people who watch Rogan to your news network, right?
Like, basically, it's the biggest show in the world.
That's who you want watching your news.
And he's like an enemy.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, and it's, it's interesting because it's like, uh, you'll see.
Uh, so Rogan, I was watching the other day, uh, the rising.
Oh, it's not called rising anymore.
Breaking points.
Breaking points.
That's right.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Breaking points with Crystal Ball and Sagar.
They, I was watching their show and they're both great.
It's like their shows like one, one of them's on the left, one of them's on the right.
But you know what they can agree on is man, Brian Stelter sucks.
Tim Poole show.
Oh, you know what?
Everyone there can agree on?
Man, Brian Stelter is a clown.
Our show, like all these, it's like all ends of the political spectrum are like, well, just look at this guy.
He's like, he's, and, and, uh, anyway, let's, let's play this because it was kind of interesting to watch.
So this is his, uh, the opening to his final episode.
Our favorite little piggy is going to give us one last, one last go at this.
So let's, let's play that, Cliff, Brian.
Hey, I am Brian Stelter.
I am live in New York.
And this is still Reliable Sources.
All right, here we go.
One of the biggest media stories of the week is right here.
It's the end of this show.
CNN has canceled Reliable Sources.
Yes, the longest running program on the network.
NPR's David Folkenflick broke the news on Thursday.
Now, I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I'm going to save those for later this hour.
As most of you know, CNN has a new owner.
Warner Brothers Discovery is making big changes across the company.
And there's going to be more change all across the company, including here at CNN.
And I'm sad that I won't be here to cover it.
But since this is our final episode, we're going to do something a little bit differently today.
This entire hour, it's a special hour, and it's about change.
It's about change all across the media world.
What's changing?
What might change?
And what must never change about the accountability function of journalism?
You know, I love this show.
This small but mighty show punched above its weight for so many years.
Even a former president commented on the cancellation.
Reliable Sources has been a one-of-a-kind show and a popular show.
This is one of CNN's highest rated weekend shows.
So I want to say thank you to all of you watching this.
Okay, we'll just stop right there.
Literally, that's all I needed.
We can just get rid of the rest of the video.
He just goes into like thanking his wife and producers and stuff.
He didn't technically lie, but he does go.
He said it was one of the most popular CNN weekend shows.
By the way, translation, he gets a couple hundred thousand people to watch his show.
Like that's, it's like, yes, CNN has no ratings on the weekend.
They have nothing.
So it's just pathetic to spin this into being like, dude, like I'm not, no exaggeration.
If I was going, you know, if I, if someone invited me on a podcast and they had as many, you know, people watching as watch Brian Stelter's show, I'd be like, yeah, okay, I'll do that.
It's got a little bit of an audience.
But there wouldn't even be a part of me that's like, ooh, this is a big one.
It's just not that big.
It's just not that big of a fucking show.
Tim Poole is going to have three to four times as many people watching his show.
Rogan's going to have fucking 15 times as many people watching his show.
So it's just to sit there and go, and by the way, we're a popular show.
Number one is just it's borderline delusional.
And, you know, this kind of like, well, we're the little guy who punched above our weight.
That's what he said.
He goes, this show punched above its weight.
It'd be hard to punch above his weight.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know how they can move Porky Pig in there and you'd have a slimmer, more coherent host and less bias.
Yeah.
Um, Porky Pig tells it like it is.
Well, I mean, he's a little biased against the Muslims, but you know, yeah, yeah, you know, he's just, uh, but so he's um, there's maybe he should be cool with the Muslims, no, he should be anyway.
Uh, the Jews and the Muslims should be his favorite.
So, but then he's even like, look, it punched above his weight.
I mean, look, even a former president, uh, you know, weighed in on the show being canceled.
And it's like, it's it's funny.
This is an interesting thing people do when it's um like you'll see this a lot of times on Twitter.
This is the thing people will do where if they like these blue check marks will say some wild, just horrific take, and then they're just getting ratioed like crazy, you know.
And then they go, Oh, really triggered all the trolls with that one.
You know, you're like, Oh, so if you're wildly unpopular, then that means you won because you're triggering all the trolls, you know, activated the bots is another one, yeah, yeah.
It's like, oh, dude, this is all just an excuse for, and then those same people will call you fringe, you know what I mean?
But then when they have no popular support, they go, Oh, I really triggered all the fucking creatures with this one or whatever.
So it's like, yeah, yes, it is true in a sense that you punched above your weight, but it's it's kind of what we were just saying.
It's like, yes, you're right.
You managed to make yourself the face of what everyone can come together in agreeing that they hate.
Yeah.
So in that sense, yes, it is true.
Like, why is this the guy who fucking my show and Rogan's show and Tim Poole's show and Breaking Points and fucking all the shows you were just mentioning?
Like, why is he the one?
Well, it is kind of punching above his weight in a way because it's not like he was, you know, he wasn't Chris Cuomo's show.
He wasn't like the number one show on the network.
And yet we were all picking him for a reason.
And so he can kind of brag about this, but really what it is is that you were just that douchey, that kind of like hateable and that wrong about everything that we all liked to use you as the example.
Well, he always came off as the guy who was let in and then closed the door behind him for whatever that, you know, whatever that world is, the corporate press government world of like, we're right and you guys are peons.
It's like, you were the last guy they let in.
Backbone Gaming Partnership00:02:37
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, like the bouncer closed, it always felt like the bouncer closed the rope right behind him.
And he only got in because he was buying a table for a bunch of hot chicks.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly what you mean.
Like, it's like, that's how he always felt like, man, man, you guys are right.
It's like, no, you're right here.
I can reach out and hit you still.
Like, you're barely in VIP, kiddo.
Like, it's, there was something.
He's also, he's like an incredibly strange person.
Like his look, his laugh, like, everything's very unappealing about him, just as a person.
He looks like an orc from fucking Lord of the Rings.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
He really does have like this.
Like, he looks like what, right?
Like, would be some type of creature that in one of these type of like novels or something.
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Covering The Corporate Press00:07:53
For me, the thing about him that really made it interesting was that, or made him more hateable or something, was that he was the host of reliable sources.
You know, it wasn't just like he was doing the news, he was doing the news about the news.
Like he was doing the show that was about the media.
And even as he said there, you know, he's like, oh, well, in today's final show, we're going to talk about, you know, how the landscape is changing and what the future is.
And all the, and it's, you're talking about this thing where there's like it's a really interesting topic to be talking about if you wanted to have a real conversation.
You don't need to be a fucking genius.
You just need to be someone who's like opening their eyes and looking around.
Like, oh, okay.
So like you're, it's kind of like your job is to talk about the Roman Empire during the fall of the Roman Empire.
Like, okay, well, that's kind of interesting.
Like you're, you're covering the media while literally, like, we, I started by saying, CNN doesn't have a show that cracks a million viewers.
Trust, they have all this polling data.
Trust in the corporate press has completely evaporated.
It's the lowest it's ever been in our lifetimes.
You know, like literally, and if you go a little before our lifetimes to like our parents, you know, day, it's like Walter Cronkite was like America basically just all, you know, not all, but like the vast majority of people were just like, yeah, well, this is the honest person who just tells us what's going on.
Like everyone would look to the news.
It's like you can go back 20 years and see that.
People believed Brian Williams in the early 2000s.
Like when that guy was on TV, you were like, I'm Ted Coppel is another one.
Like there's all these guys.
People believed in 60 Minutes when I was a kid.
I remember people believing in these things.
And it's just kind of gradually been like, I mean, I actually just interviewed a guy named Martin Rook who works at Harvard.
And he does this thing where he's like, the reason why, first of all, shows like this get to exist, but then like, the reason why shit gets even more fringe is because you'll literally be watching the news and being like, if I can catch 17 lies about a candidate I don't like, the person who likes Trump is going to find 85 lies.
If I can find 17 things that you're being disingenuous about and I don't, and I'm not a supporter of that guy, this next guy's going to find.
And so now they're going to find somebody who's acknowledging that that happened because like there was a show, like I just mentioned PBS.
I made fun of it on Notes of a Goon a few weeks back.
They had a thing about the drag, the drag queen story hour, right?
And they go, they show this clip of the proud boys and they were yelling slurs at this at drag queens and they go, and they go.
They go to the pundit and they go.
Why do you think this is happening?
He goes to some gay guy and he goes hatred, they hate them like.
No, there's an actual debate to be had here.
Yeah, like I don't care about drag queen story hour, but there is absolutely a debate on whether it should happen in public libraries, like it exists, and with kids.
You know yeah, and because a million people watched that, probably 10 000 of them went.
Well, this is horseshit.
If I could see it, 10 000 other people could see it and they went and found somebody that agreed with that.
Yep yep no, that's right, and you just had so many like yeah and so right, and there's, and and there's just been a whole bunch of that's happened basically in the last 20 years, in in the 21st century, where it was like, you know, major American policies were sold off lives.
You know the war in Iraq, Obamacare.
You know the big things that like really made a difference to people um, banker bailouts and all this type of, and the media was all there covering for it the whole time.
You know, Brian Stelter said in this piece.
He said um, something about I forget the exact words that he just said but something about the media accountability process, that.
So he's basically saying like that's, that's the the pitch of his show.
Right, is that?
This is where we hold the media accountable?
And you're doing this in a time when, kind of, as you were pointing out, real people are holding the media accountable by not watching anymore, by being like you've lost me as a consumer of your product.
Yeah, but you know he talks about like, holding the media accountable again a really interesting topic.
But I mean, how isn't it just so obvious to everyone?
It's like all right, so you lied us into the war in Iraq.
Who is held accountable for that who?
What media person was I?
I know these people.
They're the.
I've met some of them.
They all still have jobs.
They're all making high six low, seven figures, like all these people who sold the war in Iraq.
They're all.
I mean.
Okay some, like Bill O'reilly, went down for sexual harassment or some like that, but none of them went down for their role in promoting that war.
And a bunch of them are still at the NEW YORK Times.
They're still Msnbc.
You know reporters, and I mean that, look even just like the, the Covid the, the Trump Russia, you know, like you guys get stories completely wrong.
What, what world is this?
What are we like pretending we're it?
It's not that, like the American people are like so overwhelmingly smart and informed, but they're not idiots, like they're not third graders here like you're.
The idea that anyone in media is held accountable.
Your entire network sat there and proclaimed for three years that the biggest story was that the sitting president was involved in a conspiracy to steal the presidency with a hostile foreign foreign power.
They're still doing it yeah, and it turned out to be completely false and there was never one like even apology.
I mean, they stopped talking about it as much.
That was kind of like what they did.
They go, we'll just kind of move away from it a little bit and then just still invoke it when convenient.
You know what I mean?
Uh no, I don't think so.
She said something to the effect of, i'm Paraphrasing, but she said something to the effect of, uh, well, it still happened.
Just because the steel dossier didn't turn up, this still was a thing that happened, even though this was a false part of this.
It's like, well, no, you're still supposed to tell me the part that does prove the thing.
Yeah, like at some point, we're supposed to get the proof.
Well, and all you ever have to do is like, if you, you just have to like ask like one or two follow-up questions, and you always realize that the entire thing is a circle of nothingness that doesn't go beyond the steel dossier.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's, it's like, um, they'll be like, well, I mean, we know that Vladimir Putin interfered in the election.
And you'll go, okay, how do we know that?
And it'll be like, like, we'd be like, well, because the intelligence agencies all agreed.
You'd be like, okay.
Yeah, but that.
And what was their evidence?
And then like the more you peel that, you're like, oh, well, there's one little thing where like there was like $27,000 put into Facebook bots or something like that.
And you're like, oh, wait.
So that's what we're talking about.
That's what this whole thing like boils down to, like nothing.
Wasn't it just a repercussion for the State Department distributing flyers about his opposition party?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like we were 10 years ago.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We were all involved in a bunch of Russian elections.
We've been involved in every Russian election since the Soviet Union collapsed.
Like it's not, it's, so it's like, yeah, oh, they did kind of a weaker version of what we always do to them.
And then when you get down to like the Trump stuff, it's like you ask a few follow-up questions and there's like one thing where one guy shared some polling data with one Russian guy.
It's like, that's it.
That's the entire thing.
And everything other than that is just all of these grandiose assertions made by people in the Hillary Clinton campaign, FBI and CIA spooks.
That's it.
That's that's all they have.
And it's like, okay, I just anyway.
So this idea of like media accountability, it's like, what a joke.
And so this is, this is kind of the essence of why Brian Stelter like became punched above his weight, as he would say.
It's because you're sitting there covering while the media, the corporate press is collapsing and Truston is collapsing and you're covering the corporate press.
He basically did what you just gave the example of with the that piece on the drag queen story hours.
Drag Queen Story Hour Critique00:13:06
He basically said the whole time, it's because they hate us.
Yeah.
The whole time, every single week, he came back with his report and his report was because of misinformation by everyone else.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Never looking at, never looking at his own, the misinformation CNN has put out, never having like, and like he was incapable of like one ounce of self-reflection, like one ounce.
I mean, it's, it's almost like would be in our job.
I don't know.
I mean, if you're just regularly bombing on stage, just bombing every time.
And every time it's because the crowd sucks.
Every time.
Every time it's because the crowd sucks.
You know what the problem was just another bad crowd.
Another, it's like, dude, you don't ever start to go like, fuck man.
All right.
I got to maybe like figure out this punchline.
This isn't getting any laughs.
Or just like in the podcast, if my audience just started shrinking drastically, way less people want to listen to the show.
And I just go, oh, this is because of all of the government propaganda.
This is because of all of this or something.
It's like, I don't know, at a certain point, you go, no, man, like at least take a look, have some ability to go, mate, what are we doing here?
That's not connecting with people.
I mean, how could you not think that you spent by every opinion poll, every opinion poll out there, the number one issue that Americans care about right now is every single one of them all comes back the same.
It's inflation.
Inflation is the big thing that Americans care about right now.
And you guys.
No, no, no.
It's abortion, Dave.
I saw it on the news.
Well, right.
And you guys spend probably 10 times as much time talking about January 6th as you do inflation.
Maybe that has something to do.
Is that something?
Maybe it's like, oh, yeah, you're not really talking.
Like, look, no matter how people feel about January 6th, when they're fucking, if you're making like, you know, even like you have, like, I don't know, where you consider, like, oh, I have a pretty good job.
I make like 70, 80K a year, something like that.
I got two kids.
You know what I mean?
And, you know, your cost of living is like, all of a sudden, it went from being like your monthly bills were like $2,500 a month to their $3,500 a month.
And now all of a sudden, your grocery bill has doubled.
There's no way January.
Yeah.
There's no way January 6th is more important to you than that.
There's just like no chance, no matter what side of it you're on.
Even if you, even if you like, kind of are really against it and you virtue signal of like, oh, it's so horrible.
It was a threat to our democracy or whatever.
When it comes down to it, you really care much more about like your health care.
Yeah, like, right.
I mean, feeding your children.
Yeah.
You care significantly more about getting your kids to school and feeding them.
And they have no interest in even addressing any of that shit.
No.
Like, I mean, when they do, they pay just the most basic lip service to it.
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Was it Obama when the real cult of personality around fucking politics changed?
Right?
Because, like, I mean, a little bit Clinton when he went on like Arsenio and played the fucking Sax, but like, really, it was Obama where it's like kind of became like political journalists kind of became people that wanted to hang out with politicians.
Like, when they really started all talking about the correspondence dinner and calling it like nerd prom and like just cringy shit like that, it's like that's kind of where it all like backfired on them.
Where it's like, oh, like, this is pageantry.
Like, you guys are like, it's like you said, the fall of Rome.
You guys are the fucking aristocracy.
And we're all like, hey, assholes, we got things going on.
Yeah.
Like, it's, it's fucking crazy.
It's like you said, inflation is fucking, and they can't talk about it because it's the government's fault.
And they're like, if you break out for even a second that government spending is the reason for inflation, and then don't worry, we're going to spend $70 billion more dollars.
And that's going to fix inflation.
It's going to reduce inflation because that's how that has always worked.
You can't spend more than five minutes on it because everybody will go, wait, you guys are fucking blatantly lying.
Well, the thing that's crazy about the inflation thing, too, is that I was talking about this when I had Jeremy Kaufman on the show.
He was making this point.
It's a very good point.
Is that there are a lot of things that are like somewhat counterintuitive that are correct?
So like you could understand where you could, you could understand where it's kind of intuitive to think that like central planning would be better than like spontaneous order.
Like you could see where someone would be like, well, no, but I mean, if you want to really get something, you should get all the smartest guys in a room together and have them plan it out.
Like that kind of could make sense in theory.
And then it takes someone kind of explaining to you that it's like, well, no, but like those, even the most brilliant guys don't have the knowledge that like 100 million people have all specializing in their own fields and all like cooperatively working together or something.
But inflation is so obvious.
It's like, yeah, if you print trillions more dollars and spend them into existence, the dollars that are there are going to be worth less.
Like this, it's so obvious.
Like it's it's so and so like to not to be able to like find every other explanation except the obvious one for it is is truly bizarre.
And so I think that that fucking hurts them a lot.
I think probably to your thing about like when did this happen?
I don't know.
I don't know that it happened under Obama.
I think that there were, I mean, certainly, look, I remember Donahue one time before he got fired on MSNBC calling out Chris Matthews for this very thing.
And Chris Matthews got so butthurt about it.
And he called him out and he was like, you know, your problem is, Chris, you know, that goofy Donahue way of talking.
He goes, your problem is you hang out with the politicians too much.
You go to their cocktail parties.
You want to be friends with them.
And then you have to turn around and report on them.
And what are you going to do now?
And I think probably this probably goes back to the last 70 years.
But what really changed under Obama was they dropped the pretense that it wasn't happening.
You know what I'm saying?
Like that's to me what like what you were talking about with them like referring to the you know the the White House correspondence dinner is like, oh, look at this.
This is our nerd prom or whatever.
And all of this.
It's like they stopped even trying to pretend.
I remember when Anderson Cooper, he started hosting some daytime show.
It was kind of like a trashy like celebrity interview.
Oh, I do kind of remember that.
And it was like some socialite, you know, like, you know, whatever dumb daytime show.
And I remember being like, I can't believe CNN is letting him do this because don't you have to keep up the illusion that he's your Brian Williams?
Yeah.
Right.
Like he's supposed to be your serious newsman.
And now they're just getting hammered.
Yeah.
Like it's Don Lemon's drunk and shit.
And it's, it's like, it's also like he, it's not just like he's drunk.
Like I personally, by the way, I will say, I think a drunk newsman is fine.
Like I, my vision of a newsman.
A stoic drunk newsman.
Like a stoic old Irish Catholic fucking has three whiskers before his broadcast, smoking a cigarette, telling you about like, you know, what there was a bombing in Panama or like something.
You know what I mean?
Like I'm fine with that.
But watching Don Lemon be like a lightweight, like he, he's like talking like a high school chick who can't handle her booze.
And like you're looking at this, you're just like, how can anyone take you seriously now?
I'm a 45-year-old man.
Can you imagine the level of respect that would go down for the two of us if we got that drunk at Stankfest this year?
Oh, yeah.
And we saw us that drunk at Stankfest and you were acting like an idiot, like couldn't handle your booze.
Oh my God, it'd be horrible.
Yeah.
I'd be mortified at the thought of it.
It's just like, you know what I mean?
Like it's yeah.
And so for you, and you're supposed to be, so it's almost like that entire pretense and all of these things.
And I do think a big part of it was the rise of the internet.
You know, like there was just no way.
It's amazing how quickly people can fucking research shit now.
And if you fucking, if you get caught in a lie, they're going to find that other video.
I mean, like, you know, we use the example of Brian Williams and like, look what happened to him.
And it revealed something that that was, that was a really, I think actually probably one of the biggest, like if you had to plant a flag in like 15 different moments where like media trust, you know, collapsed, I think that was a big one because it wasn't just him getting caught in a lie.
It was the fact that he got caught as a liar.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not just like, okay, here's one story that he made up.
It's like, okay, he made it up.
He made it up strictly to self-aggrandize, you know, his own story and make himself look better.
His position.
Yes.
And he looked you right in your eyes the same way he had with every other story he ever told you and felt no shame at all, had no problem just looking at you and lying to your face.
And when you see that, that's something that you can never unsee.
You know what I mean?
Like that's something that like you, you know, like, oh, this guy can lie to me and not have a problem and lie for a really petty reason.
Not lie because, oh my God, there was, you know, some like thing.
You know, it's not, it's a little bit different when it's Bill Clinton saying, I didn't have sex with that woman.
Yeah, that's embarrassing to him.
Yes.
This is like, it's not to, it's not to big himself up.
It's to save his, him and his wife some level of embarrassment.
You can wrap your mind around not wanting to talk about gifts.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yes.
Like this is, first off, this is humiliating for me if you find this out.
It's, I have a family.
I have a young daughter at the time.
You just, you can kind of get past that lie, but a lie where you're just telling a story to boast, to talk about what a badass I am for no reason.
You offered it.
No one even like grilled you on it.
You just decided to tell that was so, and then it made, I think, people realize in many ways that that old like view of who Walter Cronkite was was never real, that that was always just an illusion.
There was never one guy who was the truth teller.
No one, no one would ever be allowed to that position of power if they weren't going to fucking lie when powerful people wanted them to lie.
Fair enough.
I think that's also the thing.
I think when we were talking about like Trump broke so many people, it's like, I think that's what it really was.
I do think there was still probably, you know, a couple of hundred million people in this country hanging on to the veneer that America was real and that politicians were trying their best and that the news was telling you the truth.
Like, I do think that, you know, if it was 30% of the adult population in this country that was like fucking liars, that might even be a high number until Trump came through and really just, because even if people that were saying that the government's corrupt or whatever, talking about all the same shit we've always been talking about, they kind of just went and voted for those guys.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of like it, in a way, he was a stress test.
So he triggered the whole system and that revealed where the system was at in a way.
It's almost like, like, I've used these like analogies before, but it's almost like, you know, like if you were like in a fight with someone and, you know, like, you know how sometimes like people, this will happen very often in fights, in both professional fights and just in like street fights, where people start fighting and they'll try to get the other person to throw a punch first because you kind of want them to open up and you kind of want to see how they would come at you.
You know what I mean?
And if someone's sitting there and they got their hands up and they're like coming right at you and then you kind of like juke if you get a reaction out of them and then they throw the just biggest bitch pussy like punch you've ever seen and you go, oh, you can't fight.
We just figure we just you might have had a good bluff in there when you were like moving around, but now I just saw how you throw a punch.
You can't fight.
You're not at all.
And he triggered this response out of them that almost kind of revealed how incompetent they all were.
So if you were just sitting there watching it, you might have sat there and thought, oh, look, Trump's a clown, you know, like that's, I think, what most Americans thought upon first looking at him.
But then they went, oh, but these guys can't fight.
Like they're not real.
This isn't really corporate media.
Like they're spending all their time, like literally just trying to get this guy.
Well, that's not your job.
You're not supposed to be doing that.
Even if he was trying to get you, you're not allowed to try to get him back.
You're supposed to just sit there and report on the fact that he's trying to get you because you're supposed to be the like above all of this people.
It's like seeing Brock Lesnar standing next to Hulk Hogan.
Fauci AIDS Response Blunder00:03:07
Yeah.
You're trying to go, oh, okay.
That's the real guy.
Yeah.
Right.
You're like, oh, it's so weird because when you're standing next to like the bushwhackers, you looked great.
But now I'm like, okay.
All right.
Let's see what's happening here.
All right.
So the other thing that's the other big one that we mentioned before is that Fauci has resigned.
Speaking of people being held accountable, I won't, don't hold your breath anytime soon on that one.
Dude, that AIDS vaccine is going to be ready any day now.
Yeah, that's right.
That's because don't you guys, well, oh my God, if you go pull up some of his old clips on I went through.
He's the dude, I said this.
I said it on high society where I was just like, I was like, AIDS escalated homophobia in this country to violent attacks.
Fucking Fauci was the one who was basically like, if you hug a gay guy, you get AIDS.
If you eat off the scene, played as a gay guy, you get AIDS.
Fauci was the guy who said that.
He's like, did you watch Magic Johnson play basketball?
I'd get a test if I were you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Have you been to a Lakers game ever?
Unless you were rooting for Larry Bird, you have AIDS.
Yeah, I mean, it was like wild shit like that.
And of course, in government, you know, people fail up.
So he now goes from this humiliating, awful failure to being, you know, the most important guy in the world of state virologists.
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Lockdowns And Rigid Approaches00:11:56
Another guy, much like Brian Williams, not Brian Williams, excuse me, much like Stelter.
One of the things that's like really just blows you away when you look at them.
It's like they're hubris and they're just like, they're this tremendous, like unfathomable narcissism and inability to like genuinely question themselves.
So he was just on with, what's that dude's name?
Rachel Maddow.
And she, this, this fella.
I thought Rachel Maddow was you in drag for years.
I'm not going to lie.
It's not, it's not far off.
I could do a great, I could do a great Rachel Maddow.
Okay, let's play this.
It was really, really something.
A visible and singular leader on infectious disease issues over all these years.
There is a weird, obsessive, violent, sort of ongoing demonization of you by the right that is hinged on COVID.
I just have to ask from your perspective, if that kind of attention, that criticism feels qualitatively different to you than previous criticism, if it is coming from a different place, if it is indeed more dangerous than the kind of criticism you've had in the past.
Right.
Rachel, it's phenomenally 100% different.
It's apples and elephants difference.
It really, really is.
Back in the day of HIV, and you showed some of those clips, which were quite accurate.
What we were doing in the federal government, well, we were being too rigid and restrictive in a disease that needed a great deal of flexibility and input from the community, the AIDS activists that you saw on the clips that you showed.
When you examined what they were saying and what they were asking for, they were entirely correct.
So they opened our eyes, my eyes particularly, which made me actually turn into one of them and an AIDS activist because we learned from them and we learned that we were being too rigid from a clinical trial standpoint and from a regulatory standpoint.
And the FDA modernized their approach based on that too.
What we're dealing with now is just a distortion of reality, Rachel.
I mean, conspiracy theories, which don't make any sense at all, pushing back on sound public health measures, you know, making it look like trying to save lives is encroaching on people's freedom.
That's a big difference from the AIDS activists who really pause it there.
So that's it basically for that clip.
I mean, I know it's like example 300, you know, 972 of like this type of shit.
But could you like, imagine if you were in any real way.
And this is what Rachel Meadow really just fucking became such a useless hack.
But imagine you were just like asking, you were like, you know, you've kind of been this like, you know, the top virologist in the government for a long time.
And you've dealt with criticism before, but it just feels qualitatively different.
It's the same thing you just said.
It's the, it's because they hate us.
Right.
It's right.
It's because they're haters.
Like, wouldn't the first thing I mean, just anyone.
It's just because you lied and locked us all in our houses.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, that's why I hate you.
You lied to me and locked me in my fucking house and took away, collapsed my stock portfolio.
Like, you know, fuck you.
Yeah, like, what, I don't know, like, what's different?
Why is there so much more?
You know, why are people so much more like even interested in virology now than ever before?
Hmm.
I wonder why.
Maybe because it's like the entire country was upended over the last two and a half years.
What do you mean?
Yeah, like, what do you mean?
Like, yes, you literally, these unprecedented actions and like that ruin tens of millions of people's lives, like fucking that, some of whom will never recover.
Let's also like we can examine some of the lies he just told in that too.
Sure.
The FDA is still a much stricter, harder to get passed through regulatory organization than most of the ones in Europe when it comes to medical innovation.
Like, so he's like, yeah, well, we broke, we're less rigid in the FDA.
Now, what the fuck are you doing?
Because you just had to loosen FDA restrictions to get all these fucking vaccines that you said worked 100% through.
It's like, you still can't get things like TCDS, like certain things that you can't get that you can get in Europe.
You can get treated easier.
Like England has like an easier way to get drugs to market than the United States.
And then they wonder, how come they have to advertise drugs in the United States?
Because it costs so much more money to get them fucking passed through the FDA.
That's why, because it's a fucking croniest bullshit thing.
That's just a blatant lie right there in his retirement speech.
Well, and even just the like the I, you know, saying his reflection on the stuff we were just talking about about what he got wrong with AIDS is like, we, we were too rigid when we needed a more flexible approach.
And it's like, well, no, I mean, what really happened was that we needed, yeah, well, you got on television and told the American people objectively false information about how the virus spread.
Like, that's what happened.
Okay.
You basically got on TV and said, gay people are killing your children.
Yes.
Like, like blatantly false.
Like, you can get this from close contact.
You can get this from hugging.
Like, you get like, there's video clips of it.
You can go find it.
And for his only reflection to be like, well, we were a little too rigid, you know, and that, but then we listened and learned from them and all that.
And it's like, well, what was the drug that they were fucking pushing that was just killing people?
Yeah.
EZT?
Yeah.
So it was something.
I can't remember if that was it, but maybe, yeah, there was one that he was big into pushing that was completely, they completely killed people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It turns out it made their HIV way worse.
So, but then to like talk about the COVID thing, it's like, why are people so angry?
And well, it's just because it's a, it's a distortion of reality.
And it's, you know, it's, well, it's just conspiracy theories.
And you know, like, look, man, like, what are, okay, Johns Hopkins had a major study that showed that the lockdowns did no, nothing good.
There's, that there was like no discernible difference in mitigating the virus and obviously had tons of devastating effects on the other side.
I mean, people economics studies.
Like in France, there was a college in France that said that every live, it was a year in.
It was after the first set of lockdowns.
And they said that all the lockdowns, I think it was for the states, was like, it would cost $3 million per life to for every life saved, it costs $3 million worth of economic damage.
I remember I said on my podcast, I said, if you told me you would give my girlfriend and my brother $3 million, you could put a fucking bullet in my head right now.
Like a life is worth more than $3 million.
Like a life is not worth more than $3 million.
90% of lives, there's a good chance I won't make $3 million in my lifetime.
You know what I mean?
Like it's like, God, boom, take care of my family with that $3 million.
Like, if that's what we're doing, can we just give that money out?
Let's do that.
You'd have a lot of people taking it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And like, I mean, and it's just like, you know, talk about conspiracy theories and lies.
I mean, we could go through the list of the things that he's just blatantly lied about or completely gotten wrong from fucking gain of function, masks, the vaccine.
I mean, gain of, didn't he change the definition of gain of function right before he gave that fucking testimony?
Yeah.
Or then he started saying gain of function of concern.
We never funded gain of function of concern.
So he's throw this kind of like little like asterisk into it, where it's like I could still technically say we regardless.
I mean, it's like to just, and then finally, and this one really just makes my blood boil.
And obviously, like, I'm a radical libertarian, but even just when anyone talks about freedom, where he goes, and to put this out there that trying to save lives is somehow encroaching on freedom.
Like what you're, you don't see where the policy of lockdowns is encroaching on freedom.
Now, you can make an argument that the benefits, like it's a freedom that we have to take away because otherwise there will be all of these negative externalities.
Okay.
Now, that argument is incorrect.
And as we've said, has been demonstrated to be incorrect, but don't pretend it's not an encroachment of freedom.
Like, is there not freedom lost when you're deemed a non-essential worker by your government?
And now it's a crime for you to go to work to open your business to go.
You can't go to your father's funeral.
And that's not what that's just, we can't even, we're not even allowed to have a discussion about whether or not that is in fact a violation of your freedom.
Like, what is, what do these words even mean at this point?
Is it just talk about like, it's funny because one of the things, as you know, we were talking about before, like the collapse of the Roman Empire and the aristocrats just like falling apart.
It's like, if they're incapable of even giving like a plausible response that could maybe win one of their critics back over.
You know what I'm saying?
Like they just simply won't address it.
They just simply won't address your grievance.
They have to pretend there is no legitimate grievance on the other side.
Much like you said with the example of the like, of the, you know, what's drag queen story hour type shit.
Like that you would say, okay, even if you're like supporting that, wouldn't you go, okay, I could see what someone's problem with this is.
I could see where someone would go, look, we have rules about what kids can do, things that are appropriate.
There's a place for the conversation.
You know what I mean?
Like there's always, that's the thing is like, there was no with the COVID stuff, there was no place for the conversation when it came to lockdowns.
There was no place for the conversation when it came to masking.
And then all of a sudden, everybody kind of went like, dude, I remember having this conversation early on about contact tracing.
And somebody go when they did the second lockdowns in New York, right?
And somebody, I go, I go, well, the contact tracing says that none of this has to do with outdoor dining.
Why would we shut that down?
And I remember my buddy going, well, we all know contact tracing was bullshit.
And I go, have you looked into how much money it costs?
Because it's an insane in New York City alone, it was millions of dollars a day.
They were paying like tens of thousands of people $20 an hour to do this contact tracing log that was, we all know was bullshit because I never once put my real name on a contact tracing log.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like it's like, or my real phone number.
I don't want you calling me.
Yeah, no, no, oh yeah.
Same with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, but right.
So just all this stuff is just like, I mean, come on, man.
Like you, we can't, we can't have a real.
And so anyway, this is how this guy's going to go out on this note that I was right about everything and everyone against me is just, it's just because they're so misinformed and so evil.
Meanwhile, never taking on any of these arguments, like with real things that he said, things that he got wrong very blatantly.
And anyway, so the talk now is that if the Republicans take back Congress, there's going to be hearings.
And I made this prediction.
I tweeted it the other day, early prediction.
There will be hearings.
Nothing will come from them because that's what Republicans do.
Republicans get in, they put on a little show, they move along, then they lose power after being ineffective.
So that's it.
That's what we have to look forward to.
All right, my brother, Chris, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
Always a great time.
Go check out Chris and Zach Amiko up in Rochester, New York this Saturday night, Comedy on the Carlson.