Will Alec Baldwin Go To Jail Over "Rust" Shooting?

Thomas and Larry discuss the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by actor Alec Baldwin while on the set of the movie "Rust". Then they talk about the senate hearing over the apparent monopoly of Ticketmaster/ Live Nation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello once again. Entertainment Brother Thomas, Entertainment Brother Hackett. How are you.
I'm very well. We have afull docative things to discuss today.
We always oscars are coming up,the nominations have come out. There was
a hearing yesterday in court in Congressabout the great Taylor Swift ticketing embrolio priceless.
I just wanted to say the wordambrolio. You know what, and

(00:20):
you said it so well, butyou actually know how to say it.
But the big topic we really wantto discuss in all seriousness is the burgeoning
criminal case in the movie Rust againstAlec Baldwin and the armorer on that film.
We were going to dive right intoit, about what the prosecutor wants
to do, what the chances areof convicting him, what effect if any

(00:41):
Baldwin's high profile and multiple comments aboutthis case have caused him. And we're
gonna be doing this for a longtime. This is the Johnny Depp amber
Heard case of twenty twenty three.It is, It is and a lot
more serious because somebody died. Yesunfortunately, live from Times Square. We
are the Entertainment Brothers and now theEntertainment Brothers here's Larry Hackett and Thomas Valentino.

(01:21):
Okay, welcome back to the entertainmentBrothers. Rusts is a movie that
was filming in the fall of twentytwenty one in New Mexico. He starred
Alec Baldwin. He was also oneof the producers, which may be a
salient point here and on that movie. Said a young woman named Helena Hutchins,
she was an assistant director as well, or assuming a cinematographer died after
being shot by a gun that washeld by Baldwin. It turns out that

(01:45):
the gun, which should have hadprop bullets in it, had live ammunition,
and Baldwin, depending on who's talking, raised the gun because he was
acting or acting out a scene,and the gun went off and Hutchins is
dead. In the aftermath of thator investigations launched by authorities, it took
a very long time, over ayear of those investigations to be completed.

(02:05):
There was a raft of lawsuits betweenpeople involved in the movie, between representatives
of a cinematographer, director of Baldwin, of the producer. There are still
a lot of these civil suits thatare pending. There was one though that
was settled between Hutchins's family, herwidower husband, and Baldwin, and they
seemed to have ironed out their problems, and the controversies that were going on

(02:28):
for a year seemed to have beenironed out at least in that lawsuit.
Again, other ones were still pending, but the big one between Baldwin and
the family of the woman who diedseemed to be settled. Yes, I
think we all thought that. Actually, then headed into the announcement that was
pending last week from officials in NewMexico that they were going to say,
terrible accident, but nobody's criminally guiltier. They didn't say that. They instead

(02:50):
charged Baldwin and the armorer Hannah Gautiera'sread with two counts involuntary manslaughter. One
of those counts, if convicted,if you add on a firearms clause,
could come with a mandatory five yearprison sentence. Very very few people think
that's going to happen. A fewmore, but not many, think that
he might be in serious jeopardy withthe involuntary manslaughter case. So that's the

(03:14):
basics that are here. He's gonnago set up. He's going to go
on trial for involuntary manslaughter. Whichis you well know, attorney is the
lowest form of culpability criminally before youget to sort of civil charges. Just
about take it away, and that'ssomewha what's going on here from a legal
standpoint and what sort of vulnerability doesBaldwin have? Well, you know,

(03:35):
the interesting thing is that the lawis supposed to be objective, but as
Woody Allen once said, all objectivityis subjective, right, So we're seeing
something here where the legal aspects,well, there have been arguments made right
out of the gate. Okay,should this be a criminal prosecution? I'm

(04:00):
picking up right on where you leftoff, right should it be criminal or
should it be civil? For damages? So that was one of the surprising
things from the beginning, at leastfor me, was that I wasn't really
sure. No one really knew orseemed to know what the prosecutor was going
to do and where she was goingto wind up with this. So I

(04:23):
was a little surprised, I haveto admit, to see the involuntary manslaughter
which not only applies to him,which also applies to Hannah the armorer.
So it's going to be very veryinteresting to see not only what happens to
him, but what happens to her. So we've taken the case again from
being a civil case into a criminalcase. And now where does it go

(04:46):
from here? Is that the questionthat's being asked? Yes, okay,
where does it go from here?Well, they could settle before we go
to trial. Right, that's avery very very distinct possibility. So now,
well, knowing Baldwin, I don'tknow him like that, but knowing

(05:06):
him as a public figure, Ithink he might want to go to trial.
First thing is I wouldn't want tobe the attorney trying to pick an
impartial jury in New Mexico. Iwould not want to do that because I
don't it's going to be very,very tough to find people who don't have

(05:28):
an opinion one way or another onthis. That's okay, said, So
which attorney should be more? Baldwin'sattorney? Yeah, Baldwin's attorney because he's
anoter. Absolutely, he's not local. And you and I were talking last
night about how Tip O'Neill, whowas once the speaker I believe under Reagan,
right and and some other presidents,said all politics is local. And

(05:53):
the longer I see politics, themore I realize that's true, right,
and I now all law is local. That's how I see it. So
yeah, I think this is aboutreally a locality and the way they view
the handling of a firearm against rulesand regulations of a union, and in

(06:17):
particular the screen actors guilt. Sothat's the storyline, Like, that's the
you know from thirty thousand feet howit looks. I think what you said
about the local and the difference betweenpeople who live in Mexico and Hollywood,
I think is in escapable in thiscase. Let's remember from the get go,

(06:39):
Alec Baldwin broke what has ordinarily beenthe cardinal rule of being charged with
the crime. He talked, Hetalked, and he talked and he talked.
There's a fantastic piece in the Timestoday and the opinion piece by far
harsh manju about why you should neveryou should always take the fifth I agree,
never speak to the police. Right. He points out that I have

(07:00):
not seen this point and out beforethat in the first interview that Baldwin gave
U the cops putting aside, andwe'll get to the fact that he spoke
to the press. I'm trying thecops, the cops. He told the
cop that Hannah Gautier is read thearmorer who's charged gave him the gun.
In a second interview a couple ofdays later, he said, David Halls,
the first assistance director, who weshould note has pled out to lesser

(07:24):
charges and it's most likely cooperating withthe prosecutor. Correct, gave him the
gun. Yeah, So in twointerviews two days after the incident, he
contradicted himself. That's right. Theseare the kind of things that prosecutors dive
on. And he said nothing right. The first thing he does say,
should he testify is the only thingthat he said right. He's now said

(07:45):
two different things. I know.This is why people shouldn't talk to the
cops, even if they believe intheir heart, which Baldwin clearly does,
that he did nothing wrong right now. Add On to that his protestations in
various media, in particular the interviewthat he gave to George Stephanopolis in December
of twenty twenty one, three monthsafter this happened, correct, where he

(08:07):
talked in detail basically saying that hedidn't think he was responsible. Other people
are responsible. I'm not responsible.And then of course you cast just Alec
Baldwin's general personality on this, whetherit's been with The New York Post for
decades where his nickname is the Greatblow Viator, Yes, and the confrontations
that he's had with cops and pedestriansin New York. He's a hothead.
He's many many other things as well, but he can be a hothead and

(08:31):
he believes he knows best right andwhether it's politics or social issues. You
know, you can find him onyour Instagram talking from the front seat of
his car while his kids are playingsome game, you know, going on
about something. He loves to holdforth. Yes, and he's quite good
at it. Yeah, but thereare times when he shouldn't speak, and
Rice was clearly one of them.Correct. I think it's inescapable. When

(08:52):
you see the comments from the prosecutorMary Carmack Altwe's and they and the special
prosecutor that you hired, woman namedAndrew Read. They believe justice needs to
be done for Helena Hudgins. Correct. That to me is code for these
Hollywood people can't come in here andlive the way they want to. We
got to put this on somebody.You think so, and I know you

(09:13):
think so too. Oh, absolutely, I can't disagree with that. But
that's water runder the bridge. Yeah, it's happened. Yes, what does
he do going forward? From alegal standpoint, I'll get to what I
think he should do going forward froma pr standpoint. From a legal standpoint,
what are the next steps that heought to take? Well, if
he's gonna go to trial, okay, it becomes all about his defense.

(09:35):
So what's his defense going to be? His defense is going to be that
I'm not responsible because someone who isa professional, someone who knows more than
me, gave me the gun andtold me it was cold. So why
am I being held accountable for this? When all I know is that I

(09:56):
was acting, I was doing whatI was told. I was doing my
job, and all of a suddenthe bullet was live when I was told
that it wasn't. And furthermore,though this is the way it works in
Hollywood. You think you Mexico.I think he should say that. I
think that's the last thing. Ithink he's gonna say some degree of that.

(10:18):
What do you think he's gonna say. I think he's going to say
there's nothing explicit in New mexicobody sayhe I mean the attorneys. There's nothing
explicit in New Mexico law that saysthe person holding the gun on a movie
set should should have to check thegun. I mean, unless it's explicit,
why should he be held response?Oh, so you're saying that there's
not a statute that says if youpoint a gun at someone, you don't

(10:41):
have a response. Maybe to makemaybe a statute, maybe some kind of
explicit regulation, maybe something that needsto and there were rules about what movie
sets should be doing in certain places, right, correct, there's something called
a couple of things. This remindsme of an implied in fact contract,
where you can have a contract withouta written document. Okay, So you

(11:03):
and I I'm certainly not experienced enoughto know the exact laws that may be
on the books going back to theeighteen hundreds. There might be common law
meaning certain things that are not codifiedin statute, but we don't know.
There's always like especially in localities,right, there's always like a little law

(11:26):
somewhere that no one knows about thatthe prosecutor might know. Okay, because
I'm sure she's anticipating exactly what yousaid, right, which is this maybe
Hey, there's not a statute.What law did I break? Show me
the law that I broke. Okay, And if I'm a good prosecutor,
I have I may not have astatute that I can point to, but

(11:52):
I might have some other laws outthere on the books that if you start
to stretch them and pin them andmove them around, I find a boomerang
in your face. May I thinkthe presence of the armorer on the set,
the mere presence and existence if somebodycalled the armorer suggests that there are
protocols on how to handle weapons ona set, of course, and that's

(12:13):
that person's responsibility. If if alight tower fell over where they hold Alec
Baldwin guilty, Uh no, nothey would no. But this is a
gun. This is a gun,understand all right. I just think a
good attorney's going to say, thisis why we have armorers. And the
fact of the matter is, noactor on a movie set should be expected

(12:33):
to check the weapon after he's beentold it's been called. And now here's
the problem with his comments to thecops. If he hadn't said to the
cops two different things, correct aboutwho gave him the gun? Okay,
his story gets wobbling key piece ofevidence and evidence he may have a problem.
Okay, so a little bit there. So now he gets, you
know, kind of cross examined onthat, and that gets twisted a little

(12:56):
bit. But we've also you andI have spoken about something, right,
which is when this first came out, I think we're a lot, like
a lot of people surprised, right, what are they going to use?
And then in you know, asan argument, then in researching this,
Okay, at the end of theday, Okay, it could be the

(13:20):
argument could be something like to goagainst Baldwin's defense. It could be something
really simple that appeals to the jury, which is, hey, if you
have a gun and you point agun at someone before you, whether you're
pulling the trigger or whatever you're doing, even if you're just pointing it at

(13:46):
them, right, forget about didhe pull the trigger, did he pull
the you know whatever, back,whatever, whatever, whatever. Okay.
The idea is that let me askyou a question. Okay. The idea
is that you have the responsibility.So if someone gave you, brother Hackett
a gun on a set and theysaid to you, it's cold, and

(14:11):
you were pointing the gun, maybenot exactly in the direction, but close
to the direction, Would you yourselfexamine the gun? Probably not really,
there's no expectation that there's live ammunitionon the set, Okay, Why should
you assume that? Okay, ifyou were getting in a car on the
set that you were told had noengine, it was a prop Okay,

(14:33):
suddenly you put your foot on theguests and it took off, why would
you expect the car to take off? You were told there's no expectation the
car is going to take off.Good argument, right, there's no good
arrectation that there should be besides thefact that it is a weapon meant to
resemble a real weapon, there's whywould you expect any live ammunition there?
There's no reason it should be onthe set, Okay. So that's where

(14:56):
it's like, he has a expectation, a logical one, that there's not
a life bullet anywhere near him.So why should he have to check the
gun? Let me tell you whatI would do, okay, knowing what
I know, and this to meis wisdom, okay. And I'm speaking

(15:16):
as a lawyer, and I'm speakingfrom the street and from experience. Right,
And here's my deal. You handme a gun and you're telling me
even within five feet of someone elseto point that gun at someone. Right,
guess what me myself, I'm goingthrough that gun. I am personally

(15:43):
going through that gun. I don'tcare about rules because I don't want my
ass on the line. There's beenstudies like show by the time we are
fifteen years old. You know thisis back when people when we were our
age, how many times on televisionyou saw a gun fire. It's tens
of thousands of times, that's true. Do you think Jack Lord and every

(16:03):
cop on every TV show checked tosee if the gun was loaded? No,
exactly, I don't. And howmany people have done You can name
on your one hand, right,how many people have died in shooting?
Right, right, right, Brandy, right right? Okay, So why
should you expect that someone's going tochange. I'm not expecting. I'm talking
about what if it were me andI were by the way, just as

(16:26):
a personal plug, I am amember of the screen actors guilt. I
think I am, you know,right, So I'm not that I've done
anything that anything that's worthy. ButI'm just saying that for me, knowing
what I know about life at thisstage of my life, if you handed
me a gun for anything. Firstthing I would do is I would absolutely

(16:49):
confirm that the gun was not liveand I wouldn't even know even if there
were bullets in it. I wouldn'twant it. But there has to be
bullets in it. Okay, ButI'm not. I'm checking this myself because
I don't trust anybody, so okay, But from a legal standpoint, that's
different. So most of the storiesin the aftermath of this announcement, and
we haven't seen the charges yet.Let's be clear, there was impress There

(17:11):
was an announcement on social media thatshe was gonna charge him. We haven't
seen the paperwork, so we don'tknow how specific it is because we don't
know what David Halls, the assistantdirector's role is going to be in this
right because he has immunity. Mostlegal I think she has an uphill battle
that would be very tough to convicthim. Here's one of the things you
and I have discussed. I havecovered trials in localities that has to stay

(17:33):
outside of big cities. I coveredthe Mike Tyson trial in nineteen ninety two.
Yeah, and they're mind the audience. He was charged with raping a
young woman named Desiree Washington. Shewas Miss Black Rhode Island, and she
was at the Miss Buck America pageant, and he was in town for a
fight or something else perhaps I can'tremember. Anyway, they had an encounter.
She went to the police. Hewas charged with rape, and he

(17:55):
was ultimately convicted and sent to prisonfor three years. He brought in during
the trial a big, big,powerful attorney named Vince Fuller. He Vince
Fuller was the first attorney that EdwardBennett Williams hired at Williams and Connolly in
Washington, d C. He wasa legend. He represented Jimmy Hoffa.
He represented James actually John Hinckley,Yes, and got Hinkley off on an
insanity defense, and he got in. He managed to beat back a government

(18:17):
charge against Jimmy Hoffa decades earlier,big big noise. He did, in
fact hire a local attorney named JimBoyles, but Vince Fuller was the boss,
okay, And he was in hisbeautiful bespoke suit. He was probably
in his early sixties at the time, and he was in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor hired as aspecial prosecutor the former prosecutor, a
guy named Greg Garrison who was alocal boy, and Vince Fuller died a

(18:45):
slow death as he tried to runthis trial for Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson
was not a terrible witness. Iremembers testimony vividly because I got ahold of
it before he actually gave it.He made sense, but Garrison, Joe
and circles around Fuller and Fuller justdid not understand. He clearly didn't have
a feel for the jury. Yes, and the local attorney knew what he

(19:07):
was doing. I presumably knew thejudge and knew knew what Indian apples liked
and wanted. And Mike Tyson wasconvicted pretty handily and pretty quickly by the
periods I recall. My point beingthis, Alec Polan's attorney is a guy
nam Luke Nikas, who if youlook at his resume, it's pretty damn
impressive. Harvard Law School, lotsof different stuff. He's a young guy,

(19:29):
he has a resume, a milelong stud kind of Yeah, he's
not a member of the New Mexicobar, which means he's gonna have to
hire a local attorney. And Ithink that is incredibly important here if they
go in with what you mentioned,which is kind of like, this is
not how we do things in Hollywood. They're toasts. Oh yeah, and
they're already doing that a little bitto stop. And there's a bid line

(19:51):
between what I think reasonable people believe, which is what I believe, which
is that you don't you wouldn't checkthe gun if you were told what happened.
But that's going to be a keypiece, right who told him?
Can you really remember who told him? Right? Obviously there's going to be
some division between he and Gautier isclearly Hannah Gautier, the armorer's defense and
Alec Bolham's defense are not gonna bein sync. No, they're not friends,

(20:14):
right, they're actually they're actually opponents. Yeah, because he's not.
He's gonna want to pin it onher and she's gonna want to probably mitigate
at somewhat with him of Cord.While there's the guy who's already played out,
David Halls. It's gonna be avery very interesting here's what's fascinating.
Also, right, she did notgive him the gun because of COVID protocols.
Okay, so David gave her thegun and So what's interesting is that

(20:40):
she's the armorer, right, sonormally she would be responsible. But now
we find out that she didn't givehim the gun as far as I'm understanding,
And again, we have not seenthe actual complaint yet, right,
which there might be evidence in therethat we don't know about. Well,
and the one salient piece, yes, team said that were kind of no

(21:00):
one seems to be really focusing onbecause obviously the charge of a movie star
in a criminal case like this ismore interesting. Who put the bullet in
the gun? Well, there's beena lot of speculation about that. Hannah
the armorer said that the distributor accidentallyput some live bullets in the box that

(21:22):
ultimately wound up on the set,and the distributor is saying, well,
no, part of her job asthe armorer is to do exactly that.
But then that is her job.But then she didn't mand them the gun.
So we, ladies and gentlemen,this case is gonna be unbelievable.
I mean, for our purposes.You know, I don't know if he's

(21:48):
gonna settle. If he settles,then it's over. I don't have nothing
to talk about. But if hedoesn't, we're gonna ride this. I
mean, I just don't see himsettling, right, Yeah, it seems
impossible. He believes they didn't doanything wrong. Now let me just add
something else too, And again,there's gonna be a lot of details and
specifics that this trial will get tobecause literally, who handed in the gun,
who loaded the gun? Right,even though Hannah Goodyear is read wasn't

(22:10):
on the set that she has somecontact, she definitely has a duty.
Okay, Okay, okay, butthat's time. I'm not talking about you're
talking about the law. I'm talkingabout what happened. Okay, Literally what
happened. Okay, okay, facts, facts, So that's gonna be that
still remains to be determined. Correct. He says he didn't pull the trigger.
The FBI report that came out inthe fall set, it's impossible that

(22:30):
the trigger wasn't pulled. They didn'tsay he pulled it. They said it's
impossible to trigger. So again,that's going to be discussing this. You
know, it's going to be araft of experts about when you cock it
back in the fourth position and youjust touch it. There's gonna be tests
in the courtroom. It's gonna bevery very interesting and very very dramatic.
Correct, no doubt over this.You know that this gun. They've also
been reports that generally safety on theset was very very lax. That's right,

(22:53):
and you know that's gonna be that'sgonna be a contributing factor here,
the idea this set and that thisfilm was in chaos. There have been
reports that people that staff wanted toquit the film, yes, and that
Baldwin and that things were kind ofout of control to some degree. Yeah,
none of that is going to helpthis case. I don't think it's
going to necessarily convict him, right, but it's going to contribute to a
feeling and a sensation that this thingwas sort of out of control. Okay.

(23:15):
Some things have been made to aboutthe fact that he was a producer
on this film. Hello, forthe third time, I'm going to say
it again. We have not seenthe complaints, so I don't know how
that has any bearing on this right. Some have argued watching what's going on
that the fact that he was aproducer may be in some ways even more
important when it comes to responsibility.I agree with that, By the way,
I think to your point that we'vebeen making along here about this is

(23:36):
not how Hollywood does things. Thefact that he was listed as a producer.
Yes, in Hollywood, can itoftentimes be meaningless. Not in this
We don't know that, right Ido. How do you figure because he's
a producer, he has a certainresponsibility. Let's say that he wasn't the
person who fired the gun. Thenas a producer, all of the producers

(23:57):
have a responsibility to maintain certain standardson the set and having a live bullet
says who says the law says thelaw. That's the law. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely, and even I'll betwith the Screen Actors Guild there could be

(24:17):
we don't know yet, but you'reyou're already saying that there's certain protocols that
were not followed because it was,in fact, a low budget movie that
should have been followed. So guesswhat, who's one of the producers him?
So he might even be libel ifhe wasn't an actor on the set

(24:37):
shooting someone as he did. Asa producer, you have a responsibility,
So this is a higher level ofresponsibility. So he's both the producer and
the actor, which means that thiswhole thing was kind of destined. One
could make an argument for something seriouslybad to happen from get I'm gonna make
the argument of that, and againit's a tricky one because you don't want

(25:00):
to sort of say we do thingsdifferently in Hollywood. But what I'm going
to say is that we've all watchedmillions of movies. Producer, when you
sit in the credit can mean amillion different things, and in many cases
it's something that's put on there sothat you can get more. If if
Alec bolwins the producer and then you'regoing to look for funding, you tell
a potential funder a like Bolins aproducer, right, it's a way to

(25:22):
get a chance. It's a kindof like star on your d You could
just be a financier and be aproduct do nothing. But in this case,
he's a producer who's actively on theset every day. So you can't
say he's a passive producer. He'san active producer, right. He's there

(25:42):
every day as a producer. Thatto me is a producer producer. That's
not an executive producer, and that'snot someone who's just putting up money and
then saying, you know, I'mwalking off the set see you later.
By right. I think that's akey factor here. Let me talk a
little bit about what he's done whenit comes to the press and who he

(26:03):
is. And we mentioned already toGeorge Stephanopolis interview. We mentioned all the
other things he's done online. Youknow, he's a guy who is hounded
by the tabloid press and New YorkPost in particular, but the Daily Mail
and other people because he's so aptto respond. They've already been stories about
him smiling as he entered a building, He's being stalked by Papa Rozzie,
and they're trying to create a sensethat he's being callous. It's going to

(26:26):
be epically difficult for him to keephis mouth shut, but I think he
has to. I just I can'tnow see any positive particularly for reading that
piece in The Times this morning aboutwhy you should never speak to the cops.
These aren't excusing the cops, theseare the press. But anything he

(26:48):
can he says could be used inthe court. I think he's just going
to have to keep his head down. And I think, even more importantly,
and again it's instructive with what wesaw with Johnny Depp last year,
he is going to have to performthe role of his life on the stand.
Should he get this far. Wehave talked about that. In fact,
one of the things, one ofour kind of like the fundamental tenets
in creating this podcast was the notionthat these performances that celebrities give in a

(27:14):
court of law can be the mostimportant they ever give in their life.
Forget what they did on the screen. Yeah, his liberty is potentially at
stake, absolutely, and he needsto both defend himself with a degree of
logic and passion and generate a certaindegree of empathy and humility that is going

(27:37):
to be extraordinary. Do you thinkhe can do it? I'm talking about
the part not about can he doa depth performance on the stand. That's
a question. And then there's theother question, which is can he not
open his mouth and incriminate himself somehow, some way before he takes the stand

(28:00):
to potentially give a depth I doI think he can do the latter.
I mean, I think, youknow, dealing with paparatz he can be
maddening, and they can be tremendouslyunfair, and they can say cruel things,
and obviously, obviously when they kindof start criticizing his wife and get
her involved, which they do.They're going to try to bait him,
whether or not they bat him tothe degree that he does anything that has

(28:22):
a bearing on the trial. Imean, he might punch a photographer in
the face, but that's not goingto have any bearing on his testimony in
New Mexico, right, So thatremains to be seen. I do think
he has the capability to thread theneed of that we're talking about here on
the stand. I think he certainlybelieves in himself and his persuasive powers.

(28:44):
That's why he spoke to George Stephanopolis. He spoke to the media to some
degree to kind of like exonerate himself, but also because he believes in his
innocence, and he believes in thefundamental obviousness of what he the accident,
but that he's not guilty. Now, he made the wrong He made a
terrible mistake by talking to the copsabout that. But what he said to

(29:06):
the police is that's over and donewith, right, and then news that
against him. Yeah, when hetestifies before a jury, correct, that's
a different performance, yes, right, totally. Now he will have to
answer to the things he said tothe cops. Presumably right, but he
will be dealing with an audience thatI think he has the potential power to
persuade. Okay, he spoke tothe cops without an attorney's right when he

(29:29):
was on the set with George,do you think his attorney was there?
No? Okay, But now he'srest my case, now he's been charged,
there is a whole different ball game. There's no way, there's no
way that you go on the setto talk to George without your attorney.

(29:51):
In fact, most people when theydo those kinds of interviews will appear on
camera with their attorney. He wouldnever do that. Okay, So should
he have done that? Maybe hisattorney was off in the wing at all,
but it did I agree, Soright there, he should not have
spoke at all because even that canbe used against him. Right, So

(30:12):
you know, again, can henot do anything further to hurt himself before
he gets on the stand to potentiallygive a depth like performance, which is
going to be very difficult because Depthwas amazing? Right? Can he do
that? I don't think he can. He's already been on Instagram. There

(30:33):
was something on Instagram over the weekendthat was a little weird. It I
can't remember exactly what it was,but I know him looking at it.
I was like, why is hedoing this? One of the things that
I thought was telling about Johnny Depp? And it may be instructive talent Baldwin
is that, aside from some veryfew kind of rye sardonic, sarcastic responses

(30:57):
to one of amber Heard's attorneys,I think it was the man He never
lost his cool, right, hewas incredibly patient, great point, and
he was on the stand for days. He was and then he was crossed.
Yes, he never got upset,right, and that was impressive,
right that. I think it's gonnabe job one from Baldwin. So if

(31:19):
if find the prosecutor, I'm goingto try to keep him on the stand
as long as possible. Ask thesame questions over and over again, get
unbelievably granular, and just be franklya pain in the ass, right,
and to see what kind of responds. So if he is put under any
semblance of cross examination the way thatamber Heard was, will he be able

(31:47):
to keep his cool? And rememberthey're gonna you know, when you're on
the stand, they bounce things allaround. Okay, So no matter how
much you've been coached. If you'renot careful, you can make a mistake.
And is he capable of doing that? The longer he's on the stand,
the harder case. Maybe the sameThat may be the case. I
agree, it's an endurance contest.There's a lot to come here. I

(32:07):
think we've kind of unpacked it aswell as we can, but there's lots
to come. Like, yeah,we haven't even seen the complaint yet.
Yeah, we haven't really delved intothe various players here. We didn't.
We got a little bit about hisattorney, Lucas Nicas. You don't know
much about the prosecutor out in NewMexico, right, You know. One
of the things that I loved aboutbeing a reporter here is that these cases
were involved individuals, yes, andwho are they? What do they bring

(32:30):
to this? What's the ambition ofthe New Mexico prosecutor? What's the ambition
frankly about like Baldwin right now thathe's you know, sixty odd years old,
as he want to work again,what's he concerned about here? What's
at stake? Great? Um?So, anyway, that's all and one
other thing. The other thing isthe locality being New Mexico. We don't
really hear a lot about no rightand and so you know, it's not

(32:52):
let's say, it's not a statethat's in the public profile a lot.
It's very under the radar. Okay, this now exposes the state itself and
protocols and procedures a lot. Well, not only that, let's remember the
movie that they were filming was aWestern run, correct, and Westerns have
these kind of primal crew plots tothem, involving revenge and nobility and so

(33:19):
all of that. Ye lazy newspaperfeature writers are gonna go talking about the
film exactly. It's Shakespearean exactly.There'll be a lot of that. Prepare
yourselves for bad Western and here we'regoing to do that. No, no,
no, we're gonna steer clear ofany kind of Western metaphors and similes.
Hopefully we might slip. If wedo, we'll give us we're waiving

(33:44):
liability. If we slip, we'lldo our best. Yeah. The other
big issue this week is the hearingthat was in Congress yesterday, I headed
up by Senator Amy Klobuchar over thegreat monster that is Ticketmaster and a live
Nation. This is absolutely up yourstreet. You know a lot about this.
Let me set the table a littlebit. This whole thing was prompted.

(34:05):
Well, there's been discussions for yearsabout Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The
company's merged in two and ten,and people have been complaining about this.
Last summer, we talked about BruceSpringstein and the ticket fiasco that was involved
with his tickets. We did andhow the working class, Bruce, you
know, the working class here atBruce Springstein was having tickets that were selling
for thousands of thousands of dollars.Bruce, when you finally respond was like,
listen, most of the tickets arecheap. Sorry about that. He

(34:28):
was unapologetic. Contrast that with theunbelievable fiasco that occurred during Taylor Swift's ticket
sales in the fall, when fourteenmillion people tried to get on the Ticketmaster
website for one point five million tickets. It was a mess. We don't
need to get in with till themess, but it was people didn't get
them. People had them in theirbaskets, and then they were taken away
from their baskets. You know,the sun melted. It was just a

(34:50):
horrible, horrible day, and Taylorwas upset on behalf of her fans.
She said, quote, I'm pissedoff about this anyway, this triggered finally
this congressional hearing held it this week. You and I have thoughts about this.
Perhaps most salient is the separation betweenthe tailor swift issue and the broader
issues in Belvick Ticketmester, take itaway, Okay. Well, the first

(35:10):
thing is that I've said this before. I said it with Bruce, and
I'm going to say it again atthe end of the day, whether anyone
wants to admit it or not.Okay. This is about the artists,
all right. And the way itworks is the artist says, here's what

(35:32):
I want. I want a lotof money, okay, and I want
an advance. I want to guaranteeso that if let's just say, people
don't show up to the show forwhatever reason, I still get paid.
Okay. So you have a situationwhere the artists say they want what they

(35:52):
want, and then they say toeverybody else, do what you have to
do. Okay, do what youhave to do to get your piece.
I understand the way the system works, So do what you have to do,
and that's it. And the artistpays people okay, managers, lawyers,

(36:14):
agents, communications experts to basically say, the artist is a really good
person, they care about their fans, all right, But if you really
want to and you really care aboutyour fans, do some shows for free,
or do some shows in a clubwhereas just one set price or whatever.

(36:34):
So in most cases, I'm notsaying it's always the case, but
in most cases, the final call, the final decision on this is with
the artists. So let's start there. Okay, you're conveniently leaving out some
facts. Ticketmaster and Live Nation area virtual monopoly in the United States.

(36:54):
No, they're not a virtual Okay, there are a total monopoly. Yes,
okay, there's no place else togo. Here are some statistics.
In the third quarter of twenty twentytwo, the combined businesses of Ticketmaster and
Live Nation reported a profit of fourpoint three billion dollars. This is coming
out of COVID. When we acknowledgetheir profits tank, I think by eighty

(37:16):
four percent, it's a good timeto buy the stock. The company hosted
forty four million fans across eleven thousandevents just in the third quarter of last
year. They own hundreds of venuesaround the world, it is a worldwide
organization. Yeah, the argument beingthat there's no place else to go,

(37:37):
and these hidden fees and exorbitant feesand the strong arming it is alleged by
venues who might want to use adifferent ticketing agency all amount to basically a
monopoly that, in the history ofUnited States needs to be broken up.
That's when we do with monopolies,whether there are railroads or utilities or ticket

(37:58):
companies. Right, there's no placeelse to go, right, And what
you're saying about the artists may betrue, but itlides over the responsibility that
ticketmaster has. It also alies overa fundamental reality. People like artists.
They don't like event venues, andthey don't like ticket hawkers. I mean,

(38:19):
that's the deal, right, youknow. So the ticketmaster may say,
well, it's the artist fault,but I mean ticketmasters they're they're never
gonna get the They're not saying nowbecause they don't want to said. You
are saying that, right, butokay, let's talk about that. They're
not saying it explicitly, no,but they kind of know that. That's
when it happened because they can't matter. You know, it was twenty eight

(38:40):
years ago that Pearl Jam took onTicketmaster, correct, since then, yeah,
crickets. Well, not only thatthey were unsuccessful, they claimed that
they withdrew and you know, we'regonna not tour anymore, but they had
no choice. And Ticketmaster's profits innineteen ninety three, when Stone got Ustard

(39:00):
and Jeff Emmett testified before our Congress, right, Ticketmaster's profits that quarter,
Yeah, seven point five million dollars. Hello, that's four billion right right
right in the interim they bought orthey merged with the biggest event venue owner
in the world, Live Nation.Okay, this thing got billion times bigger,

(39:20):
right, and still nothing happened.Right, But if you know,
if you know about the music business, this sounds a lot like the Hollywood
argument that you made before with AlecBolden, like this is how we do
things. Yeah, well, buthow did you know that? That's not
the argument. But wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute.
So if you're in the music business, when I saw this happening back

(39:45):
in this quote unquote merger, Okay, so the same way Congress today doesn't
really know about technology. Like youjust see them there questioning Mark Zuckerber,
and you're like Okay, this thingwas over ten years ago, and now
they're wheeling them in. Right,they allowed the same people that allowed this

(40:10):
merger to happen are now questioning italmost to a person. Okay, so
not literally everyone, but a lotof the same people. And now they're
saying, well, we have questionsabout this, Well, you're the one
who allowed it to happen. Right, And people in the music business knew,

(40:30):
they feared it. They were saying, whoa this is We know what
this is gonna be. Right,this is gonna be like you either use
us or you're out of the gamecompletely. And people now know that,
and it's a given, okay,and anyone who comes along. And you
can't prove extortion unless you have liketape recorders or whatever, or you can't

(40:54):
prove certain kind of behavior. Okay, but it is implicit. Like if
I have an act right now andthey call me up in their Pearl jam
and they say we're gonna do atour without Live Nation and ticket Master,
I'll say, no, you're not, you know not if I'm getting a
percentage of what you're making. Well, look, we've all watched The Godfather,

(41:15):
which is instructive in both ways,okay, My point being that you
can get people who potentially will testifythat they felt that they were strong armed
and that happened yesterday, right,yeah, right, could it could happen.
There's no proof that, but thisis an accord of hearing, right,
okay, okay, but there's nothing. The senators are sort of saying,

(41:37):
okay, well, are you strongarmy? Do you have an example
of that? Yes? And thenyou get the Live Nation CFO and he's
saying that's not true, and wedon't control as many vengeance. But nothing,
nothing can stop the sentator saying,well, we don't believe you.
Right. One of the things that'svery interesting yesterday, and it was pointed
at in some of the news accounts, Richard Blumenthal, the sentator from Connecticut,
actually congratulated the Live Nation affect.He did, I saw that for

(41:58):
bringing Republicans and Democrats together. Yes, yes, and that's very very true.
I know it, Okay, SoI mean, I guess there's a
lot to be said for that.Like there this which is like united on
others because they're whatever, because theywant to be on Taylor Swift side of
let's talk about that. Of course, one of the things that's fascinating about
this and maddening is that you havethis whole thing being precipitated by the fiasco

(42:23):
or the Taylor Swift tickets. Yes, Live Nation did a terrible job.
Fourteen million people went on the website. Right, there were a maximum one
point five million tickets. Right,you do the math. There was going
to be twelve million odd people whoare going to be pissed off whether the
tickets ticket system crashed or not.That's correct, and that's one of the

(42:44):
things that I think gets mixed intothis mess here. That's confusing and ultimately
could lead to what you're talking about. There's nothing to be done about the
Taylor Swift ticket problem, not anymore. The concert's going on. She's stadiums
for ever. But it is yea, So maybe you know that that's good

(43:06):
for her. You don't know.There might have been a setup by her
management, like let's overburden the system. So this looks really really good for
us in a way supply and demand. Oh wow, Okay, that was
Taylor Swift. She's the biggest artistin the world. Dismantling Ticketmaster can do
to make the other twelve million peoplehappy, that's right now, that's what

(43:27):
I do believe that Ticketmaster, withtheir secondary markets and all that reselling,
make it that much worse. AndI are not putting a target on their
back because they have to make money, right, they have to make money.
They have to do what they haveto do. There's four billion dollars.
Music business is founded like a lotof other businesses. Okay, I'm
not singling the music business out.Everybody has to have their hand in the

(43:52):
pot to make the wheel turn.And that's what you're seeing happening here,
right. And so the the ideathat let's just say this, okay,
let's say they break them up.Okay, they separate Live Nation from ticket
Master. Let's just hypothetical this out. Okay, does that make things better

(44:15):
or worse for the public? Okay, So if you're gonna go through all
the asshole or breaking them up,okay, I actually think, as much
as I might be on the sideof okay, it's a monopoly and it
should be broken up. Okay.That might be one point of view.

(44:37):
The other point of view is Icould see where if they did break them
up, that it might actually makethings worse. Believe it or not,
it might make things worse for them, for the ticket holders, for the
fans. It might make things worsefor the fans. It might because now

(44:58):
you're not it's the idea of scale, okay. And if you go back
to the local promoters system, theymight actually have to charge more to make
money for their fees because the system, the infrastructure is not built in and
it's not centralized the way it isnever Okay, you and I have.

(45:19):
The whole reason why this happened,right was because look, look, if
you have if you have a monopoly, yes you can charge what you want.
Absolutely, there's nobody to stop you. That's what's happening. And so
it was so wild. Somebody said, let's say they changed this and there
was a new ticket agency and theircomputer interface wasn't as good. There's no
way if there's three people selling ticketsin town that they're the tickets are not

(45:45):
going to be cheaper. Maybe maybenot. I mean, honestly, I
don't know the economists one oh one, I don't know. It's not no,
it's not because wait a minute,if you're a local promoter, how
did this all come to be?Because the local promoters, Okay, I
believe it was Robert Sillerman who wentout and basically bought all of these little

(46:07):
local promoters, right and said,well, you could make more money,
or you could sell me your businessand you'll cash out and you'll make a
lot of money, and then we'regonna own the whole thing. So that
if you here's what's gonna happen.Because I'm positive of this, okay,
And again I'm not advocating for amonopoly. I don't like what's happened,

(46:31):
and I don't like when anyone hastoo much power, Okay, whoever it
is. But if you go backand you break it all up and you
have little pieces again, right,so now you have you nice little go
back to the days of Ron Delznerhere in New York John Sheer. So
you got John Sheer controlled Jersey.It's like the Five Families, right,

(46:57):
It's like the five families. Everybody'sthey're territories. Right. I didn't say
they were right, and it's allegedor whatever, disclaimer, all right,
but everybody's got a little territory,all right. And so if you go
back to that, what will happen. Now you're the local promoter, you're

(47:17):
the Delzner who was one of thegreats of all times. You're the John
Sharers, one of the greats ofall time. After six seven years,
I come to you with a bucketof money, okay, and I say
I want to buy your business.And you're a service business essentially, at
the end of the day, Okay, what are you going to do If

(47:38):
you can make ten times earnings?You're gonna sell Bannon to him, right
back into the monopoly. I getit. Yeah, I get it.
I know you get it. I'mjust saying that I'm saying you for the
people who are out there listening,but I'm saying that all ten million of
them. I'm saying that it's thegovernment's role then to decide whether and that's

(47:59):
what happened what you're pointing out iswhat happened with the railroads. But then
over time they become too powerful inthe government chooses. Right now, whether
it's the railroads or whether it's Google, we are in an era right now
of potentially optically monopolistic behavior, whetherit's the tech companies, whether it's Live

(48:19):
Nation correct. The issue is whetheror not there's the stomach or the intent
or the desire to get rid ofthem in a real way. The fact
of the matter is, and Iknow you've seen the same articles I've seen,
if you want to get a ticket, and you're willing to pay the
price, you can get a ticket, correct, Which is why I think
that all of this enthusiasm for doingsomething will eventually peter out. It always
does, because it's the first ofall, it's not life and death.

(48:42):
It always does, right, Gettinga c. Taylor Swift is not life
or death. And if you wantto go that badly and she's playing in
a stadium, you can turn upon the day and get a ticket for
thirty bucks. You're going to beable to do that. If there's eighty
thousand seats in the place. Theseats in the back row are not going
to go for a thousand bucks.They're just not. I'll tell you an
interesting story when all of this reallyhit home to me, okay, because

(49:07):
I was in the business for mostof my life, right, and I
had a job at BMI, andI'll never forget Broadcast Music Incorporated, and
I'll never forget Barbara streisand went ontour and this was back in the nineties,
okay, and the tickets were athousand dollars okay, that was like

(49:27):
the going rate. And I hadthree people in the office come up to
me for tickets, okay, becauseI was able to get tickets or whatever.
And these were people that did notmake a lot of money, and
it blew my mind. Like Iwas almost saying to them, you know,
this is a thousand dollars and theylooked at me like, I don't

(49:49):
care. I don't care. I'vewaited all my life to see her.
And that's when I first realized,like, wow, she could probably charge
five grand if she wanted to.Right, there's that alt amit desiring connection,
which is just I learned something thatday. I really did, and
that is exactly what you're saying.Okay, at the end of the day,

(50:10):
hold hearings and he'll do whatever.Guess what, three years from now,
if Taylor Swift tours, do youthink everything will still be the same
as it is today? Right?Yes, and me too. Yes,
But it's good to talk about.It is for the entertainment, brothers,
it is. It's a very interestingtopic. And you know, I think

(50:30):
at the end of the day,it's what all senator hearings are about.
Heroes and villains, right, yes, exactly hero, their villains exactly the
villain. She's smart. She's avery very very smart um lady. Very
well, she is smart. Andyou know, I can see another ticket
agency or another venue company like umEG still around, I believe so.

(50:53):
And seat Keek is out there therethe number two. Yeah, appealing to
her and say let's do something together. Right, you know that you're um
opposed to Ticketmaster. But you know, as as we learned in the history,
was you know Pearl Jam, right, it's an exhausting if you want
to take on one of these companies, it's exhausting. And Pearl Jam was

(51:13):
a rock and roll bands and theytook them on. And there are accounts
that suggest that the actual disintegration ofthe band to some degree there and contributed
rear was ruined after that and bysome guys didn't agree with what that's right?
Right, they were they were thebiggest act in the world at that
time, right, and they fellapart. Yeah, so, um,
you know, fighting is exhausting.There you go, right, We hope

(51:36):
that we have illuminated various corners ofthe entertainment world for you. It's good
to be back. It is BurlThomas. It was an exciting thing.
Yes, and we be back againsoon with a more Absolutely, there's always
more from Times Square with the ArtagmanBrothers, See you later,