9/29/25: Eric Adams Drops Out, Trump Calls For Portland Invasion, Shane Gillis Calls Out Riyadh Comedy Festival

Krystal and Saagar discuss Eric Adams drops out of NYC election, Trump calls for Portland invasion, Shane Gillis calls out Riyadh comedy festival.

 

Ken: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/ 

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Eric Adams dropping out of the mayor race in New
York City.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
He is the current mayor.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
As you know, he has been enmeshed in so many
corruption scandals I can no longer keep track. He was indicted,
then he was unindicted by the Trump administration and what
appeared to be a corrupt quid pro quo. His approval
rating was like the lowest in mayoral history in New
York City.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
He was polling incredibly poorly.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
He didn't even try to win the Democratic primary, just
decided he was going to run on these like a
separate party line, which is allowed for in New York City.
In any case, after much rumor and speculation, he is
officially dropping out. Let's take a listen to a little
bit of his announcement.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
Who would have thought that a kid from South Jamaica, Queens,
growing up with learning disabilities could one day become the
mayor of the greatest city in the world. Only in
America can his story like this be told. It's not

(01:32):
always easy to see the impact of good policy in
just three years. Also knows some remain unsure of me
after the unfortunate event surrounding my federal case. I was
wrongfully charged because I fought for this city, and if
I had to do it again, I would fight for

(01:54):
New York again. And yet, despite all we've achieved, I
cannot continue my re election campaign. The constant media speculation
about my future and the campaign finance boys decision to
withhole millions of dollars have undermined my ability to raise

(02:15):
the funds needed for a serious campaign.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
So he was polling in single digits. Here quite a
fall from grace from a man who was once hailed
as a potential future of the Democratic Party and now
he didn't even try to win the Democratic primary and
had to withdraw before election day. There had previously been
rumor saga that the Trump administration was trying to get
him out of the race. They want him and Sliwa
to drop out of the race. So it's a head

(02:40):
to head between Zoron and Cuomo, because Cuomo pulls the
strongest against the run even though even in the head
to head Zorone is still beating him. So that's what
they were trying to make happen. Apparently, the reporting suggests
I can't remember if I saw this in New York
Post or where I saw this, but that the Trump
administration was really only willing to offer Adams the Saudi

(03:01):
Arabia ambassador job if they were also getting Sleewa out
of the race. Since Slee was unwilling to get out,
then they were not willing to offer him that job.
Hence why you stayed in longer after there were all
these rumors that he was going to take that job.
But I guess it just became you know, it became
clear he was going to be absolutely humiliate and he
was pulling in the single digits.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Sleewah seems to be legit in terms of he's like, look,
I'm lifelong New York. I just want to run for
governor or. I want to run for mayor, and that's
what I do. I'm not really interested in anything else,
which I kind of like. I respect he doesn't have ambitions.
He's just like, this is who I am. This is
my thing, right, I like it. By the way, breaking
news literally just happened. Trump just tweeted about zoron Mumdani
I'll read it here. Self proclaimed New York communists or

(03:41):
on Mdannie who is running for mayor, will prove to
be one of the best things that ever happened to
our great Republican Party. He's going to have problems Washington
like no other mayor in the history of our once
great city. Remember, he needs money from me as president
in order to fulfill all of his fake communist promises.
He won't be getting any of that. So what's the
point of voting for him. The ideology has failed always
for thousands of years. It will fail again, that's guaranteed.
Don't know why he thinks that that is helpful in

(04:02):
any way, considering that if I mean, that's like a
campaign cut for Ron to be like Trump says, don't
vote for me, so you should what. Let me get
It's New York City, bro. The smartest thing you could
do is say the hell out of it, or be like, yeah,
actually Zorn is great or something like that.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
I read it.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Don't admission of defeat exactly.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I mean, because he's like, listen, the pretext of the
subtext of that tweet is like Doron's going to be mayor.
And then think about how extraordinary it is that. I know,
with Trump, we just like take these things for granted.
But for the President of the United States to be like,
I don't like who the voters chose for this city,
so I'm just going to cut them off all funds,
Like that's that is insane. Any other president we would

(04:41):
be talking like impeachment. I mean, we would be losing
our minds about it. And with Trump is just like, oh, yeah,
of course Trump doesn't like Zoron and voters picked Zoron,
so he's just going to like try to screw over
in American City. Crazy crazy stuff. But you know, I
think the writing is pretty clearly on the wall. Out Slee.
What doesn't look like he's getting on even if he did.
Zorn's bill has a commanding lead over Cuomo, roughly the

(05:02):
same lead that he had when he beat him in
the primary. And remember the primary polls underestimated Zorn's support
because he remade the electorate. He genuinely brought out a
different electorate than had previously been seen in democratic primaries
or in a general election. Way more young people came
out to vote, so it's actually possible that they're underestimating him.

(05:23):
Once again, we got a Cuomo reaction to Eric adams dropout.
We can put up on the screen as well to
see how he is responding. He says, the choice Eric
Adams made today was not an easy one. I believe
he's sincere and putting the well being of New York
City ahead of his personal ambition. We faced destructive extremist
forces that would devastate our city through incompetence. Our ignorance
is not too late to stop them.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Mayor.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Adams has much to be proud of in his accomplishments
only in New York and a child raise in a
tenement in Bushwick, who once worked as a squeegee boy
and a mailroom clerk rise to become mayor whatever differences
we may have. Eric adams story is undeniably one of resilience,
a testament to the spirit of the city.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
I'm sure Cuomo would like.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
To get a Adams endorsement on his way out the door,
not that it would make that much of a difference,
but he did was commanding, you know, some single digits
of support. He had some base, a small lingering base
of support that Cuomo would hope to be able to
inherit from him, and I think largely will largely will
inherit that basis support. Let's go ahead and take a

(06:19):
listen to Zorn's reaction.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
What do you think the impact of his dropping out
will have on your electoral prospects.

Speaker 6 (06:26):
I think it's very much the same race we have
seen over the course of this race, especially in the
final weeks and months of the primary, that Andrew Cuomo
wanted nothing more than a one on one fight with me,
and we gave him exactly that, and then we beat
him by thirteen points, and we continue to be just
as confident. And yet what separates us from these other
candidates is that we're not focused on them. We're focused
on New Yorkers. New Yorkers deserve leadership that is thinking

(06:49):
about how to benefit the people of the city. And
too often politicians, be it Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, the
meetings that they have or the phone calls with someone
like Donald Trump, they're only speaking about themselves. It's time
to actually think about New Yorkers.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
So he is relatively unconcerned. Interesting response to from Hakeem Jeffreys,
hid you didn't pull is an element, but I'll just
read to you.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
He says.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Eric Adams has served courageously and authentically for decades as
a member of the NYPD, the New York State Senate
in Brooklyn Borough Hall, and as our one hundred and
tenth mayor. During his time in office, violent crime is down,
the building of affordable housing units is up. New York
City has recovered from the COVID nineteen pandemic. As is
the case in any major city, there are challenges that remain,
particularly as it relates to lowering the high cost of living.
It is clear that meaningful progress has been made in

(07:31):
several important areas during the term of Mayor Adams. Thank
you for your service to our city. Over the next
few days, my entire focus will be on addressing the
Republican healthcare crisis and funding the government. I will publicly
weigh in with respect to the remaining candidates in the
mayor's race well before the start of early voting. This
is so insane to me on so many levels. First
of all, there is a Democratic nominee. You are the

(07:54):
Democratic leader in the House, and you still don't which
of the remaining candidates should I choose, Like, are you serious?
Second of all this stuff he said about Eric Adams
way nicer than anything he's ever said about Zorn. And again,
this man is so corrupt. Eric Adams, he was indict
so many of his officials were either under investigation or

(08:16):
themselves indicted or had to resign in disgrace. One of
his supporters was just caught handing over a bag of
cash and a potato chip bag to reporters and this
was apparently like common protocol. It is insane how corrupt
this man was. And not only that, he appears very much.
I mean, they basically came out in a minute to
have struck this corrupt deal with the Trump regime to

(08:38):
get out of his indictment. And you say nothing about that.
All just rainbows and puppies and flowers and sunshine about
what a great mayor he's been. If he's been such
a great mayor, why is he had single digits in polling?
Why was he unable to even run in the Democratic primary?
Why is he having to drop out in disgrace and
be one of the only New York City mayors in history,

(09:00):
the second in all of New York City history to
fail to win reelection. Why you have nothing to say
about that. I mean, it's just it's just actually insane.
It's actually insane, and I cannot it can't begin to
wrap my head around it.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I find it very funny. They just won't admit
what's right in front of their faces. Almost weirdly, never
thought I would say credit to Kamala. She was like, hey,
use a Democratic nominee. So whatever, you know, it's one
of those This is where you know, the partisan loyalty
only goes one way.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
It's obviously just because of Israel.

Speaker 7 (09:30):
I don't know. I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
What are these what do they have on these people?
I just I'll never understand it.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
How can you be so just like militantly attached to,
you know, sacrifice your own personal political ambition just about
the question of Israel. But listen, potentially this what we're
about to show you as part of it. Let's put
this up here on the screen from the ADL Jonathan
Greenblatt after Zoran quote, I'm absolutely blown away by the sheer,

(09:57):
brazen audacity of Zora Mamdani telling allow us in the
Jewish community who does and does not represent us. Because
Zorn said, the Adel does not speak for New York Jews.
We don't need anyone, a political candidate or any non
Jewish person to tell us.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Who should speak for the Jewish people.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Obviously, no marginalized group is monolith. But I am stunned
by his arrogance in telling a minority community who should
or should not speak to them. The vast majority of
American Jews consider themselves Zionists and have strong ties to
the state of Israel. Attending religious service at a synagogue
known for anti Zionist activities does not show that you
understand the overwhelming majority of the New York City Jewish community.
I love that part because what he's saying at the

(10:32):
end is actually that I could go to a synagogue
which is not pro Israel, then they're not real Jews.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Right, and that he's the real Jew.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, you see what we're you see the circular logic, Yeah,
that we're all doing here.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
No, that's right.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I mean, there is so much to say about this exchange,
about the ADL. So he says that attending the service
doesn't mean that you understand all Jews or that can
speak for Jews. Well, what does it say that he's
winning a majority of Jewish voters in New York. What
does that tell you about between the two of you,
who actually is responding ward in the needs Jewish voters in.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
New York City. I mean, that's what's insane here.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Like Zoran is just factually correct at this point that
the ADL does not speak for New York Jews. That
is abundantly clear. It's clear in the way they vote,
it's clear in what the poles say. Not to say
that there aren't any Jews that support the ADL position,
but the other piece, that is so I mean, it's
not even ironic, it's almost intentional. No one has done
more to actually stoke anti Semitism then the ADL and

(11:26):
other outfits like it that demand that all Jews be
associated with the genocidal state.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Of Israel.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yes, that is actually going to cause and is causing
genuine anti Semitism.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
I'm sure you've seen.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
We've been passing around some of these videos of him
talking about what they're going to do and these extraordinary
efforts they're going to take in order to make sure
that they stamp out anti Semitism, and it's on the
rise and spikings out on the control. It's like, then
shouldn't you resign? Like isn't that your whole job is
to fight and combat anti Semitism? Like if anti semitism
is up three thousand percent or whatever nonsense numbers you've

(12:00):
come up with, isn't that an indictment of your leadership
that happened on your watch? So hey, you know, the
proof is in the pudding here. And I don't think
it's like obviously not fair to way at all at
Jonathan Greenblat's feet, But when you insist a lot of
it is I'm tying every Jewish person to the horrific
acts of the war criminal Benjamin Netan Yahoo and the

(12:21):
genocidal state of Israel. Yes, you are going to be
stoking anti semitism because people are going to look at
that in horror and you're insisting, oh no, every Jew
is as, every Jew supports this, every Jew wants this done.
It's insane to me, completely insane.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Well, I mean some would say maybe the ADL's entire
point was to increase anti Semitismit certain, because it's like
they want it to go up so that they can
fight back against it.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I've always thought about that with.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
The AC or the Human Rights Campaign or any of
these other people, Like I remember thinking about them, and
you know, when gay marriage got legalized, they have this
huge building here in DC.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
It's like, oh shit, now what do we do?

Speaker 3 (13:00):
And so you know, they created all these new campaigns
or whatever you could say, the legitimate I think most
of them are bullshit. But my major point is without
the opposition, what do you do now? And actually saw
the collapse of this in twenty twenty two where a
lot of the pro life groups didn't come out to
vote Republican because like, hey, we got what we wanted.
You know, I've always thought about that with sometimes you
need the issue to be live, and in some cases

(13:23):
you want it to be worse in order to increase
your funding and keep it circular.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Well, and even when you consider the ADL being so
tied in with the State of Israel. Ryan was making
this point, you know, nothing benefits Netan Yahoo and his
political project and the State of Israel more broadly than
when there is this sense of rising anti Semitism around
the world, because this is why we need the safe
haven for juice. And that has been true from the beginning,
from before the founding of the State of Israel in

(13:49):
terms of you know, even some early Zionists, like they
did not want the US and the UK to take
in Jewish refugees because they thought that that would undermine
the case that they were trying to make for the
you know, Jewish national project. So even on a bigger
level outside of just like interest group politics, since he's
so tied in with the State of Israel and the
Zionist project, is you know, clearly an ideological like uh

(14:12):
touchstone for him, Like that's what drives all of his views.
The sense that anti Semitism is rising he and Netanyahu
feel benefits the State of Israel and creates more urgency
around the project that they believe in.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
That's right, all right, Hey, we've got Ken Clippenstein standing by,
so let's get to him.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
So President Trump has announced full force if necessary, to
the city of Portland, Oregon to break down that and
also a lot else that's going on in the national
security world. We are joined by Ken Klippenstein, fantastic independent
journalists over on substack, who gets all the scoobs. Great
to see you, my friends.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Goode again.

Speaker 7 (14:48):
Hey guys, all right.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
So let me first get you before we get to
your reporting. Let me get you to react to this
Trump truth about Portland. We can put this up on
the screen. Pretty wild that he puts this down. He
says that the requests Sectuary of Homeland Security Christy No,
I'm I'm directing Secretary of War Pete hag Set to
provide all necessary troops to protect war ravaged Portland and
any of our ice facilities under siege from attack by

(15:11):
Antifa and other domestic terrorists. I'm also authorizing full force
if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
So what did you make of this? What are we
likely to see?

Speaker 7 (15:20):
Ken?

Speaker 8 (15:21):
Well, it's striking how many times he's done this in
states in which the governors don't actually want the support.
The mayors of these major cities don't want the support,
and so what you really have here is federal government
pitted against states. But the president has the power to
federalize these guard forces.

Speaker 7 (15:39):
And do these kind of things.

Speaker 8 (15:41):
So seeing his account of what he sees is going
on in Portland and then the locals, it's it's sort
of surreal how different, how different what the two groups
see is.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, Ken, I know this fits into some of your reporting.
So why don't we just go ahead and get to it.
We'll put this up here on the screen. About the
National Security Memorandum here NSPM seven by administration insiders for
those who are not familiar, national security memorandums are often
a statement of administration policy previously used by the Obama administration,
Biden administration, etc. To kind of set the scope for

(16:12):
terrorism and or general policy of how all governments should flow.
So here you say it, quote NSPM seven labels common
beliefs as quote terrorism indicators. Can you just tell us
a little bit about what you found in that and
what the broader implications are of the memorandum?

Speaker 8 (16:28):
Yeah, So what n SPM seven does, and fortunately we
know because NSPM six is classified, as are many of
the national security presidential memoranda. This is completely separate from
the executive orders, of which we've seen over two hundred
and I think that might be part of why people
missed it. I think the major media got it mixed
up with the designation of the presidential executive Order designating

(16:51):
Anti Fuzzy Domestic Terrorists Organization. This is completely separate from that,
and these national security memoranda are kind.

Speaker 7 (16:58):
Of big picture strategic.

Speaker 8 (17:01):
Realignments around whatever it is that they articulate, so they're
in my view, they're much more significant than executive orders.
But what this does is it basically authorizes what are
called joint terrorism task forces. These were mostly established after
and in response to nine to eleven. That is, thousands

(17:23):
of troops or sorry, thousands of FBI agents and local
police who can be deputized into these joint terrorism task forces.

Speaker 7 (17:32):
It's kind of similar to the.

Speaker 8 (17:33):
Deployment of the National Guard in that you are kind
of federalizing what would be local and state troops and assets.
And what's interesting is this can be done even without
the knowledge and in some cases consent of the state,
the state legislature, and the state governor. So what this
does is it sets them on this target, which in

(17:55):
this case is domestic The phrase use repeatedly is radical
left extremism and terrorism. And you know throughout the document
that says, oh, we're just focused on, you know, instances
of violence. But what it does when you have a count,
when you adopt a counter terror approach, where you're essentially.

Speaker 7 (18:10):
Doing is you're you're getting into.

Speaker 8 (18:12):
Pre crime because what you're trying to do is you're
trying to preempt the next big attack. And if that
in the case of a biological weapons attack or a
you know, nuclear attack, that might make sense. But short
of that, what you're doing is you're trying to preempt
things that might not be necessary to do so. And
when you want to preempt something, you have to try
to predict that it's going to happen. The way you

(18:33):
do that is by looking at speech, and so it
has this list of different, you know, ideas that they
consider it in DCA is the word they use. It's
like Latin for indicators that are supposed to tell you
that one of these attacks might happen. And when you
look at them, these are huge groups of people, anti Christianity,
anti family, anti me.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Let me read the let me read the lists, because
I have it in front of me, so you don't
have to remember all like twelve things or whatever. Because
so this is their definition of when they say, oh,
this is radical left extremist terrorists, this is their definition
of what they're talking about, and appears basically to be
anyone who has been critical of Donald Trump period. So
they're looking at these indicators anti Americanism, anti capitalism, anti Christianity,

(19:17):
support for the overthrow of the US government, extremism on migration,
extremism on race, extremism, on gender, hostility towards those who
hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who
hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those
who hold traditional American views on morality. What's more, you
talk about the fact that the Trump administration, it's not

(19:37):
like they're only targeting organizations or groups. They're also targeting
individuals and quote unquote entities that can be identified with
any of those ideologies, which, as I just read off,
are extremely broad and vague.

Speaker 7 (19:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 8 (19:52):
And it's important when you talk about individuals because ordinarily,
when you approach catera terrorism, the idea, at least post
nine eleven, is you're supposed to map out these organization
like Al Kaita or Isis, which really do have resources
and really do have funding to be able to do
operational things. But the fact that they say individuals and
entities I thought was a little bit chilling, because again,
the whole point of the counter terrorism approach is you're

(20:13):
supposed to be responding to something that poses a profound
threat to the stability of the state. If it's just
an individual and if it's this whole list of different ideologies,
is that really something that can carry something out like
nine to eleven? I don't think so. And so, you know,
I think the response is wildly out of proportion.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Is what is an entities piece? What does that bring
to mind for you? Why is that a particular or
run flyve for you?

Speaker 8 (20:36):
Well, if you look at the Domestic Terrorist Organization Executive
Order last week targeting Antifa, that rightly concern. That really
caused a lot of concern because you know, you're supposed
to foreign terrorist organizations are supposed to be what's designated,
because it's understood that when you treat something as terrorism,
that is a direct threat to the First Amendment. Because

(20:56):
again you're getting into this business of how can we
use IDIOLG and belief systems to try to anticipate and
monitor and attack that might happen. So it's supposed to
be treated with a lot of caution. So now they're
completely throwing out the idea of the organization that's not
even necessary anymore. In the case of anti Feather, was
this whole debate about well does it even exist as

(21:17):
a coherent organized entity. Now they're just done with that,
and they're like, well, now there's individuals, and it's like
how much threat does one individual post? Like do they
have the operational capacity of al Qaeda to be able?
I mean, we just saw, you know, on nine to
eleven some more records got released and we were looking
at the amount of coordination that had to happen between
the different cells. It's not trivial to carry out something
big enough that that can create a mass casualty event

(21:40):
like that. And now it's like that even that standard
start not the window.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
Well let's push a little bit here, ken we I
think we all agree you're Antiva is not an organized force,
and I'm not some you know, left wing organizations or
whatever are the ones behind this. I largely think it's
kind of bottom up very relative to the let's say,
the terrorism craze of the late twenty tens, so called
lone wolf terrorist people like the San Bernardino Pulse shooter. Right,

(22:05):
these are people who were living normal lives, started getting
into al Qaeda propaganda, went mentally ill and killed a
lot of people. And so I think most people would say, yeah,
I mean there should be some sort of federal government
type response to it. I think you're basically saying it
should be a local matter. I'm not sure I'm entirely there,
although I am very uncomfortable with the way that a
lot of the nine to eleven post terrorism state was used,

(22:28):
because for all of the Pulse and San Bernardino stuff
that they could point to, there were myriad cases, many
of which we covered here on the show, which were
basically entrapment, like not legally entrapment, but basically entrapman. Although
at that time they had a material support for terrorism
charge very easily at their disposal, I don't see how
practically they could go down that road.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
So I know, I threw a lot out you, but
threw a lot at you. But what do you how
do you grapple with that?

Speaker 8 (22:53):
Yeah, I would say that if you wanted to respond
to it using the counter terrorism apparatus, a more effective
way it would be to have more focused indisia or
indicators than like anti capitalism.

Speaker 7 (23:05):
That's huge. It's got to be millions of millions of people.

Speaker 8 (23:08):
So even just from the perspective of efficacy, you know
that that's going to lead you down some paths that
are probably not going to turn up much in terms
of you know, actionable Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
I mean, some thirty plus percent of America that I
just saw a whole identify as democratic socialists at this point,
so they all you know, anti cap and you know,
they use an example in the Antifa Executive Order of
anybody who quote unquote celebrated the killing of the healthcare
CEO by Luigi Manngioni. So I think that's the other

(23:40):
important piece to get is what is material support for terrorism?
Because this administration is really pushed to make it so
that even just speech, even just you know, rhetorical support
for things that they find to be terroristic, could constitute
material support for terror.

Speaker 8 (23:58):
Right, And on this point, I guess I should acknowledge, like,
you know, you're right. My general view is that it's
preferable to accept some amount of like tragedies happening in
exchange for the First Amendment. And that's not a very
popular position, but I guess I should be honest and
transparent about that, is my position, because in this case, I.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Largely share that about the second a moment, I think
it's important to say stuff like that.

Speaker 7 (24:22):
Yeah, and in this case, you know, I've already spoke.

Speaker 8 (24:25):
I'm going to have a story shortly based on lawyers
and legal experts who are now working with nonprofit organizations
and they're already hearing that they're going to start curtailing
stuff they're saying out of fear of the implementation of
this order. So the chilling effect on speech is already happening,
and to me, that is something that should be of
paramount concern to people. But if you look at the

(24:48):
media coverage, on some level, I understand it because you know,
in the case of Charlie Kirk and these shootings, it's horrifying,
and I understand that people want some sort of response
to happen so that those things don't have And again,
but I guess my view is that we should just
proceed with caution about how you go about doing that,
because this memorandum in particular, it just feels like this

(25:08):
sledgehammer approach to the problem when you look at the language.
I mean, it is so broad it's crazy to me.
But that's my Yeah, that's essentially my position.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I mean, it's also just very much aimed at whoever
is their political opponents, you know.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
I mean it's you know, using.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
This moment of heightened public anxiety concern about left wing
violence to you know, further try to crush their political
opponents and pay the mole as terrorists. And you had
Steven Miller can put this sweet up on the screen
saying we're witnessing domestic terrorists sedition against the federal government.
The JTTF Joint Terrorism Task Force has been dispatched by

(25:47):
the Attorney General pursuant too, and he name checks this
memorandum NSPM seven. All necessary resources will be utilized. And
so when I first saw this, I was like, what
the fuck is n SPM seven? And then I saw
your reporting. Thank you, Ken, Now I understand, but you know,
just can you sort of sketch this out like they're
already putting this into effect. They're already he says, all

(26:07):
necessary resources will be utilized, like, what does this actually
look like and mean in society or do we know
actually at this point how it'll be really used.

Speaker 8 (26:16):
Well in regards to the intelligence collection and the monitoring
of those indicators that we were describing, a lot of
that will happen on the intelligence side, and so we
won't see that. What we will see is the tapping
of these jttfs, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which I
think is going to be a kind of more extreme
example of the deployment of the National Guard because in
the case of the National Guard, and I said in

(26:36):
the story, I really don't want to sound like I'm being,
you know, hyperbolic or overstating things, but this really is
what some of the more you know, exaggerated reporting on
the National Guard has been because the National Guard, the
military can't engage in law enforcement.

Speaker 7 (26:51):
They don't actually have the authority to do that.

Speaker 8 (26:53):
When you talk to the troops, as I have in
both LA and DC, they're under strict rules of engagement orders.
That's not to say that I think it's good that
we're deploying it. I don't think it's healthy for society
to have troops stomping around, even if they're limited in
what they can do.

Speaker 7 (27:08):
That being said, they're quite restricted to what they can do.

Speaker 8 (27:10):
A lot of the National Guard are just regular guys,
locals that are integrated in the community, and so I
think some of the reporting around the idea that they're
just going to open fire on people, I don't think
that's really you know, I don't think that's the concern.
I think the concern should be more what is the
effect on the democratic culture. But in the case of
the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, they can engage in law
enforcement directly, and they can be federalized by the president

(27:33):
without the support of the state legislature and the governor.
So I really think that this should be something that
a lot of the critique that has been leveled at
the National Guard should be should be focused on.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
To cope a little bit.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Maybe here ken material support for terrorism was a real
thing because ISIS was a foreign terrorist organization. Even this
whole anti Trump said he was going to designate Antifa
in the first term. It didn't happen because you actually
can't designate a quote domestic terrorist organization. You can't you
support ording the Open Society's foundation is just like not
open is not material support for Tara. Now, I mean,
you could use tax rad or you could say, you know,

(28:07):
some sort of other weaponization of government, for sure, but
that does that lay any of your concern More just
about how much of this is just for show? How
much of this is just to placate a lot of
right wing influencers on Twitter who are calling.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
For blood when in reality.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Like US jurisprudence is like pretty clear about what actual
terrorism means. Now, you can employ a lot of other
types of job laws to make their life hell, I'm
not disputing that whatsoever, But how much of this is
for theater?

Speaker 8 (28:36):
I would say that, you know, I'm on record saying
that a lot of the National Guard deployments were theater,
creating these images of guys stumming around, and then you
actually watch the videos and they're picking up trash and things.
You know, because of that, because of that roe that
I was just talking about, they really are limited in
what they can actually do in this case. You know,
charges that they levy are going to have to stand
up in court, and so that's an important form of

(28:58):
oversight that has not changed by the executive order. That said,
I'm more concerned about the subtle effects on speech that
I was just describing, which is not NGOs and organizations
and groups saying, you know, maybe we wanted to say
this thing, but all with all this heat in the
form of the memorandum, and not just the Joined Terrors
and task forces, but the IRS auditing these organizations and

(29:20):
trying to find things to say that they're you know,
supporting whatever. Maybe we're not going to go ahead with
this project or say this controversial thing. So that's kind
of a more nuanced concern, I guess than like the
black helicopters sort of thing. But it's a real one
that we're already seeing. In the case of how the
jttfs are going to be deployed to make cases against
people that has yet to be seen and I don't

(29:41):
know the answer to that yet. But Steven Miller's comment,
I was amazed by how quickly he said, we are
activating them, and that says to me that they're taking
that part of the memorandum.

Speaker 7 (29:52):
More seriously than one might expect.

Speaker 8 (29:53):
And lastly, just in reporting all this, I was curious myself,
do they really believe this stuff? Not just this specific thing,
but like the kind of general approach to stuff is
tearysm thing, and I've been struck by how much and
to some extent I feel some empathy. I think something
traumatic a friend of theirs got killed and they're responding
to it. And what I found is like, in large part,

(30:14):
they really do think that there's some network orchestrating these things,
and that we're going to find the network. So it
struck me as pretty sincere a lot of it where
I expected it to be more along the lines of
political signaling in theater.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, I mean last thing from me, just in terms
of its implementation and reading the tellers and whatever.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
You have this back and forth with Gavin Newsom and
Steven Miller where Newsome calls Steven Miller a fascist, and
then you have people who were saying this is incitement
to violence, right effectively, like this speech is out of
bounds and it's incitement and it should be criminalized. You
had Pam Bondi saying this thing about like there's a
difference between free speech and hate speech. She sort of

(30:55):
backed that up, like walked that back because there was
a backlash, and then try comes out and says basically
the same thing. So this is their view, is that
this sort of speech should be out of balance, It
should be criminal. You should be viewed as a terrorist
if you say these sorts of things. And we know
the way that the you know, this government has worked
to make that reality. We saw it first and foremost

(31:18):
with student visa holders in particular, and the crushing descent
of them, for crushing of their descent for things like
writing op eds, et cetera. But you know, it seems
like this is an attempt to expand that to also
direct those powers at American citizens. And the last thing
to get from you, Ken is this is something you've said.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
To me before.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
It is like, you know, part of why we're in
a more dangerous era than post two thousand and one
is because the technology is much more effective. Pallenteer is
a thing now, like the ability to you don't have
to have individual FBI agents like searching up people's social
media history. You can have AI roll through everything all

(32:01):
of us are saying anywhere online and flag who's saying
something anti Capita, who celebrated Luigi, who said something untoured
about Charlie Kirk. And that can be done automatically in
a way that requires almost no human beings to be involved.
So I think that's part of how people need to
process this dystopian moment, is that the technology has progressed

(32:25):
much further, so it's much easier for the federal government
to act in authoritarian ways.

Speaker 8 (32:31):
Yeah, totally. I mean, we're in a position where, because
of large language models and things like that, the state
is able to process things on a scale that we
couldn't even imagine fifteen years ago. And so this historical
protection that we had against government encouragion and interference into

(32:52):
you know, like Fourth Amendment rights, you know on unreasonable
a search and seizure, which is that the NSA can
collect everything, but good luck going through all of it.
That is increasingly melting away. They will be able and
increasingly are able to go through all these things. And
what we need to have is an attendant response by
the Congress, by the legislature to try to enshrine those

(33:16):
rights in a way that they're protected from these breakthroughs
in technology. And I've seen nothing of the sort in
the last couple of years, So that's really going to
be the challenge of the next decade or so.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
I think I totally agree the AI question powered with
government is really scary. It also is one where is
anybody in the future going to give it up? No,
like these contracts are all going to stay for the power.
So I really appreciate your answer earlier about chilling. I
think that is I think that is very poignant and
one that is the cleanest and easiest hit is that

(33:46):
government action which does chill speech even for people. It's
like with the FCC thing. You know, they were arguing, Oh,
we didn't directly get involved. It's like, yeah, but at
the end of the day, like you know, everybody's going
to think about it.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Networks.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
I think that's very well said, and I think that
you know, I'm sitting with that, I really am.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Can can you tell people to where to support your work?
You've been doing an incredible job lately and not just lately.

Speaker 8 (34:10):
Yeah, I run a newsletter at Kenclippinsen dot com.

Speaker 7 (34:14):
You can find me there. Nice.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Next time we're gonna fight about your trans piece.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
But we didn't have time today, Okay, all right, all right,
we'll get to rereencheck.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
All right, thanks Ken, all right, bye, guys.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
All right, let's get to Reod.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
There was a great confact currently taking place the Reod
comedy festival made famous too much of the Internet by
Tim Dillon, who which we'll get to here in a
little bit. But nonetheless, many of America's best and brightest
flew to Reod accepted large checks for their comedy festival.
And we have a little bit of a preview of
what we can show everybody. Let's go ahead and put
it up here on the screen. What do we have exactly?

(34:49):
We've got probably the best stand up comedian in the world,
Dave Chappelle, who joined the Red Comedy Festival, christ de Stefano.
Much of the biggest you know, comedy influencers, I guess
you could say who joined over there. Not a particularly
big audience, but ye had Kevin Hart rocking his whoop
strap just like I am, so shout out to shout

(35:10):
out to Kevin, who also, by the way, appears in
a lot of DraftKings commercials.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
I've certainly noticed that.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
But the point being broadly that many of the biggest
you know, comedy stars of the US decided to go
over there. And why I think it's interesting from a
broad from a broad like question of culture is how
much can money buy in terms of your ability to

(35:36):
say what you want? Because The thing is is I
think if you would put some of these people together,
many are would be I think quite critical of the
Saudi government. Now Saudi government realizes that, which is why,
you know, a literal kingdom monarchy is holding a quote
comedy festival to try and whitewash their image, just like
they do with live golf and all that. Some people
in America are like, hey, who cares. I'm like, well,
you know, nine to eleven. But whatever, I guess we're

(35:58):
going to move past that. But the point of their
snowflakery remains very important. Let's put this up here on
the screen. You'll recall Tim Dylan famously was like, hey,
I took the bag. I made three hundred thousand dollars
for Saudi Arabia from Saudi Arabia to go and speak
at this comedy festival. And then he told jokes where
he said, quote they heard you said about them having slaves.
Dylan recalled his manager telling him in a previous conversation

(36:19):
they didn't like that quote. I addressed it in a
funny way, and they fired me. I certainly was going
to show up in your country and insult the people
that are paying me the money. But I mean, he
was doing it certainly on his podcast. But it does
kind of make you think here about, well, what is
the price of all this Saudi money and what is
the purpose that they're doing it? And should we want

(36:42):
you know, our best and brightest in comedy or whatever
to be involved. Shout out to Shane Gillis, who you know,
he's a history guy. So here's what he had to say.
Let's put it up here on the screen. He said, quote,
I took a principal stand. You don't nine to eleven
your friends after he turned down quote a significant bag
for an appearance.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
You know, nice that chain.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Actually has read a book here and obviously knows what
he's talking about. But yeah, I just I don't know.
For me, it's like the live golf thing. By the way,
I had friends, you know, at the at the comedy festival.
I guess I don't begrudge people taking money, but what
it is for me is you got to look at
the purpose of like why they're doing this, and they want,
you know, they want to basically use their billions to

(37:24):
make the entire country forget about nine to eleven. And
by the way, it's working because there's only one or
two people who basically decided not to do it on
those purposes. You can go back to the days after
nine to eleven where the Bush administration stepped in to
try and protect the government of Saudi Arabia from pushback.
There's all these articles from the New York Times and
others ning courage people to go and read about the
amount of money that the Saudi spent on a pr

(37:46):
campaign to make Americans forget about nine to eleven, fifteen
of the nineteen hijackers nine eleven and we invaded who
right Iraq? And so it's one of those where at
the end of the day, one from live Golf to Uber,
I mean, their money is so it's so ever present
in venture capital in Silicon Valley, you'd be hard you know,
people talk about silent speech on Israel people.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
I mean, you'd be hard pressed to.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
Find one or two venture capitalists who run big funds
who would say something about Saudi Arabia. Uber Ceo right,
for example, huge amounts of Saudi money involved Twitter previously Facebook.
I mean, many of these companies have huge amounts of
Saudi money influence that they it's like a convenient cash
cow not to mention. Politically, people think about Jared Kushner,

(38:31):
who went to the Saudi royal family for their sovereign
Wealth Fund whenever he was raising money, and internal documents
later came out that MBS personally greenlit the investment even
though the Saudi managers were like, hey, this is he's
not going to give us a good return. He's like,
h it's not about that. He's like, this is about politics, right,
this is what we're paying for. So I look at

(38:52):
within that and it's scary because you watch how easy
the money's able to penetrate now from Live Golf UFC
right with all the emirates and all these golf monarchies.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
They have endless amounts of cash.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
And I think they've read us very carefully, which is
if you throw money at these people, eventually they will
forget and we'll all just move on. And yeah, it's
been twenty four years and they won.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
So for the Saudi side, I mean nine to eleven
is one thing. You also have, obviously, the murder and
chopping up with a bon saw of Jamal Kashogo. Kushogi,
who was a journalist, wrote for the Washing Post columns
that the crownference didn't like, and so that was the
fate that he was met with widespread human rights and
labor abuses, mass crackdown on free speech. And that may

(39:36):
be then, and of course the enforced famine and what
many call it genocide in Yemen. So but the free
speech one is worth pausing and sitting with here for
a moment.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
Comedians should be and have been, at.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
The vanguard a standing up for freedom of expression and
free speech. This regime is the polar opposite, and that
even bleeds into what the comedians had to agree to
as a condition of their employment. Here we can put
F five up on the screen. So this is from
a comedian who was offered, you know, given an offer

(40:14):
to attend this read comedy festival. Some significant amount of
money was ultimately offered and they they published some of
the restrictions that artists were required to adhere to. So
it says content restrictions. Artists shall not prepare or perform
any material that may be considered to degrade to fame
or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule.

(40:38):
A The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture,
or people be the Saudi royal family, legal system or government,
and see any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice.
So they all, every one of them, including the you
know ones who code more left wing like a Bill Burr,
they all accepted this set of criteria and curtailed their

(41:01):
own freedom of speech in exchange for money. And you're right, Zager,
like this is these comedians are not the only one.
They're Mariah Carey's performed there, Justin Bieber's performed there, and
in every there's. They put their money into golf, they
put their money into tennis, they put their money into
race car driving, into e car driving, like electric sports racing,

(41:22):
on and on and on. Hosted these major entertainment festivals,
major artist fairs to bring in the top artists from
around the world, et cetera. And the hope is that
people will forget about all of that other stuff. And
that's actually Tim Dillon I did a monologue on this.
You guys can go back and watch when he originally
accepted the cash and did his bit that ends up

(41:43):
getting him fired his hole. The whole shtick was you're
paying me enough to look the other way, and that's it.
That's and that is the deal that these comedians have accepted.
That is the deal that's being offered by Saudi Arabia's basically,
we're going to pay you more than anyone else will
pay you. I mean, these are big paydays, especially for
certain of these comedians.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
We will pay you.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
More than you're actually worth. And in exchange, you're not
going you are going to look the other way, You're
not going to say any of the things we don't
want you to say, and you are going to help
us launder our reputation. And sad, this is actually the
biggest backlash that I've seen to one of these things.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
I hope.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
The sad truth is that in every instance, as artists
have weighed this deal like is it worth it? Will
the backlash to my reputation? Will I be staying with
this in a way that is more consequential than the
payday I'm getting on the other side, In every case,
the answer has been no. The answer has been in
favor of taking the blood money and doing the performance.

(42:40):
And Tim Dillon's words, looking the other way.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, I know, well, you know, a very least at
least said what he thought, and they fired him for it.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
I mean he ends up because I apparently he got
to keep some of the money and then we have
to perform. So and I want to say too, I
think it was so Rogan also said no. And I
think it was Tim Dillon that he had that.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
He was ready talked about it.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
It was before Dylan had been canceled from it, and
he was giving him a hard time about like taking
this money.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Oh right, yeah, I hadn't listened to the full thing.
I look, my problem was, I don't know why, but
somehow in this country we all just started giving people
a pass. I remember, I remember the live golf thing.
Our position was so unpopular in the golf I don't
watch golf.

Speaker 7 (43:21):
I'm not a golf guy.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I'm more just saying, though, from what I understand in
the golf fandom community, hey brothers, get your bag. And
I was like, oh, really, like what you're making hundreds
of millions of dollars and it's like now you have to.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Make five hundred million dollars or whatever, and.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
We all just get to look the other way because
you're accepting this for open, like naked interference in American culture,
and we're not supposed to have a take because we're
all just supposed to sit and worship at the at
the altar of golf so that you can make as
much money as possible. I'm like, no, that's not the
deal I signed up for. But I think this is
a broad kind of problem is we don't hold Look

(43:57):
if we hold American comedy, Hollywood and all of that
to a high standard, which I think we should, especially
in terms of the effects of globalization. It's kind of
analogous to what's going on right now with the NFL.
But the NFL right now this year is playing a
number of international games, and that's because for them, they've
hit the ceiling.

Speaker 7 (44:17):
In America.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Football is the most American sport of the top one
hundred broadcasts out of ninety three out of the hundred
are NFL games. Like it's ridiculously dominant.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
So do you know what they do.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
They're like, well, we can't make more money. This thing
needs to grow, grow, grow, So let's play in Brazil,
Let's play in Dublin like they just did.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Let's play in London, in Spain.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
And because they want to grow the fan base and
make it more international so they can make more money.
But part of that is that what they're trying to
do is use like globalization kind of in the same
way that the Saudas are to make American culture not
beholden to American standards. And I think that's one of
those where we really should hold these higher echelons of
culture to the same standard that I think some people

(44:59):
held the Real Comedy Festival. And it's important, it's important
to say no, like that's not happening.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
You don't just get to, you know, use the.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Country as springboard, as a cash cower an atm. Same
with the Saudi's. You don't just get unlimited access to
our capital markets. And yeah, I just think broadly like
we've lost everything is degenerate, and it's just all about
the bottom line and at a certain point, like people
need to stand up and be like, no, we're not
doing this anymore.

Speaker 9 (45:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
I mean that was Dylan's things like the world is ending,
so gets your bag. Yeah, And I feel like that
is a disgusting view, but I also feel like that
is a very prevalent view.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
People feel like the.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Collective project is kind of failing, so you just got
to get yours.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
I mean, at the national federal level.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Naomi Klin talks about like she she calls them sort
of like like I can't remember end times end times preppers.
But at the national level she has a great lemon
blanking on, like the phrase she uses, but basically like
we're going to suck up all the resources, whether it's
the energy, whether it's the water. Are like, it's it's
a free for all, a smash and grab. And that's

(46:04):
that's at the national level, and then individually with each
of these creators, influencers, comedians, people in their daily lives,
like that's the message that's being sent. It's just you
got like forget about the collective, you got to get
yours and this is an expression of that, you know,
with the live golf thing, I will say there's one
slight silver lining. Kyle could update on whether this is
still holding true. But because the level of golf for

(46:28):
the guys that took the bag and went to live golf,
the level of golf is not quite the same as
the PGA Tour and the length of the tournaments is shorter.
So they have been struggling at like the major events
because they're not used to the level company and they're
not used to the length of play, So there's been
some backsliding for some of them, at least in terms

(46:49):
of the level of their play, which is a little
bit of like a nice like little bit of card.
Good for the guys who so now took the bag.
Like I said, I had to check with Kyle whether
that's still the case. But there's also a whole separate
storyline and we could talk about too about the Ryder
Cup over the weekend, the Americans of the Europeans and
how that all went down a yeah, okay, yeah, and
Trump went and made a visit. The American fans were
absolutely outrageous assholes, like in a way that was actually unacceptable.

(47:13):
So a lot of Americans you can't be you can't
be screw screaming and yelling on the backswing like some
leveling or whatever.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Iris Irish famously the most famously a fan base which
would never troll or yell at anybody.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Listen over yourselves.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Everyone including Americans, were acknowledging this was like of a
different level than what has been seen before. So even
a lot of Americans were like cheering for the Europeans
because the American fan base were such incredible assholes, and
you had Trump make a visit as well, which made
it like instantly partisans. In any case, I do want
to get to Mark Marron circling back to Riod and
what he had to say about all of this. I mean,

(47:51):
he's funny and self deprecating because he's like, look, I
didn't get invited to very easy for me to be
moral on this issue. But let's go ahead and take
a listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 7 (47:59):
Comedy fists. I don't know if you'd heard about that.

Speaker 9 (48:02):
This is true, there's a Riad Saudi Arabia comedy festival.
I mean, how do you even promote that? You know,
like from the folks that brought you nine to eleven
two weeks of laughter in the desert, don't miss it.
I mean, the same guy that's gonna pay them is

(48:23):
the same guy that paid that guy to bones Jamal
Kashogi and put him in a fucking suitcase.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
But don't let that stop the yucks.

Speaker 7 (48:31):
It's gonna be a good time.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
Oh there you go him weihg.

Speaker 3 (48:35):
And So in any case, I do wonder because Mark,
for people who don't follow all this, Mark.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Has famous beef.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
I think with many comedians, Mark is look, I mean
I think Mark, I don't think he would just be this.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
He's woke. He's like a woke comic.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think he would probably accept you would,
all right, So Mark Marins woke and he hates the
quote anti woke comedians, and so look, I don't know.
I think a lot of it was personal for him.
He's also famously a personal prick, so how much of
that is motivated? But at the very least he wasn't
wrong in his set, So that's what we can say.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
I will say to Mark Marin.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
He was the OG, or at least one of the
OG's on podcasting, and apparently he is retiring, which is
kind of sad. I remember listening to his interview with
Luis c k where they made up. I mean, this
has got to be more than ten years ago, and
that's when I really got turned into the podcast medium.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
So I do want to give him his due.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
He did a lot of the bang man. He's been throwing.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
He's been throwing bombs, he's been getting attention, like gaining.
I feel like he's having a late career resurgence in
terms of his relevance.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
It's just a shit live and he's just like voicing
the same shit lib stuff that he always has.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Its just that willing.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I mean, so much of comedy has become more right
coded that for him to a lot a lot of it.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
It's only right coded to you because you don't agree
with it. I mean, it's just one of those where.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Like I mean, they all supported Trumps, the trues, that's
what I'm talking about, Okay, but.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
I would consider that to be right wing.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
But that's my point is that it's more about countercultural
and the culture for the last fifteen years has been
explicitly left wight.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
So let me let me let me finish my thought here. So,
I mean, you had a bunch of comedians support Trump,
right endorse him and go to an augery all that crap, right,
and then so Maren now coming out and being very
vocal against them like one of the few, has of
course gotten him a lot of you know, a lot
of attention and a lot more than you know he
had been in recent years.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
So it's almost like.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
The culture now has shifted, the vibe shifted the right,
and now he's the one who's sort of like more
counterplage being a.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Critical Oh I agree with That's what one hundred. I agree,
I would. I would.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
That's my take with Maren is that he's basically the
exact same kind of extremist shit lib that he's always been. Look,
it's not denigrating. I appreciate some of the guy's podcasts.
He gets some good interviews and all of that. But
it's now that what's happened is that because the country
is explicitly run by the Republicans and there's been effectively
like a total or at least twenty twenty four post

(51:01):
Vibes was like total decimation culture of total cultural victory
in every way. Now it is like vaguely countercultural. I
saw a funny tweet that the most countercultural thing someone
in Silicon Valley could do would be just be anti
Trump and put pronouns in their bio, And you're like, wow,
you know, five years ago that was literally the dominant culture.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
So yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
It is actually interesting from like a you know, kind
of counter culture point of view, And I do think
he's got some clean hits in some ways where he's like,
you guys won, so why are you still telling the
jokes about the counter culture as if things have not
changed a little bit? And I think he is correct
in that way, and so I am curious to see
where think, you know, kind of where the wind blows

(51:44):
and who gets elevated with some of the new comedy.
But anyway, that's just me. I don't know anything, all right.
So that's my take broadly on the whole we odd situation.
We will see you guys tomorrow for a Tuesday show,
and we're about to do our am so there you go.