December 11, 2025 • 49 mins
Whether it's Netflix or Paramount many believe a Warner/Discovery sale will mark the end of Hollywood, an interesting promotion at CBS News, Zig called it on MTG, Nuzzi is nutzy, Trump pardon blows up in his face, a man of peace and the bowl system is dead.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode two hundred and seventy one of the
Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
your host in today's show. The Warner Discovery sale finally
breaks through with great uncertainty and huge implications for our media.
CBS makes a great and telling choice for their new
evening news anchor. It appears I nailed it on the
(00:22):
Marjorie Taylor Green situation. Trump seems to be screwing up
on AI much as I had feared, and the college
football playoff system is now somehow probably an even bigger
cluster fark than I have been predicting. I have mentioned
several times over the last year or so that Warner
(00:45):
Brothers Discovery was probably gonna get sold, and I've been
talking about this subject from several different perspectives, including one
that was extremely personal to me. And I've been telling
you that this was going to become a major news
story at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, it finally.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Did over the last week because the bidding process ended,
at least it was supposed to have ended with Netflix
winning quote unquote, the ability to buy Warner Brothers Discovery,
which would be an absolutely huge deal in the media world.
(01:25):
On so many different levels. But the story got even
larger because, in the immediate aftermath of Netflix supposedly winning
this bidding, war Paramount announced that they were going to
attempt a hostile takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery. So this
situation is very much in the up in the air.
(01:46):
No one really knows how it's all going to end.
But I wanted to start today's episode of the podcast
with a little bit of analysis of where this situation
currently is and what implications it might have. I want
to begin from the business angle and just take a
moment to reflect on just how utterly insane, or incredible
(02:07):
or bizarre it is than in twenty twenty five, we
are living in a world where Netflix is buying Warner
Brothers Discovery. Now, Warner Brother's Discovery is a massive media company,
But for Netflix in twenty twenty five to purchase Warner
Brothers Discovery is extraordinary when you consider that what fifteen
(02:31):
years ago, maybe even a little less than fifteen years ago,
Netflix was basically a digital blockbuster. They were competing with Blockbuster.
Blockbuster didn't take them seriously. Blockbuster is no more, and
now Netflix has somehow gotten so large and so powerful
that they are able, at least on paper, to purchase
(02:54):
Warner Brother's Discovery. And what happened in the meantime, Well,
Netflix create a lot of content, most of it sucked.
I mean, that's maybe the most extraordinary part of this
whole equation. The Netflix went from nothing to being able
to be powerful and wealthy enough to purchase Warner Brothers Discovery,
(03:16):
and all they did in the meantime was make a
lot of really mediocre content. I mean, they made some
good stuff, nothing spectacular. Most of their movies are just terrible.
Their series are okay.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Some of them have been very popular.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I think their documentaries are really good from a production standpoint,
but from a content perspective, I find them to be lacking,
sometimes dramatically. So I'm not a huge fan of Netflix,
even though like most of the country, we are subscribers
to Netflix and watch a lot of their content. But
it's just a remarkable story from a corporate and business perspective,
(03:55):
the best analogy I can come up with on short
notice is and this is not perfect, but I think
this is a decent analogy. Netflix getting this big and
this large and being able to overtake and take over
Warner Brothers. Discovery is a bit like if Heinz catchup,
there'll be Blockbuster. In this analogy, had a competitor that
(04:16):
put Heinz out of business, and the catchup competitor became
so powerful that they were able to buy McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's not really perfect, but it's close.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
If you want to understand from a business perspective, it
is how insane this is and how remarkable it is.
And President Trump was going to have a major say
and how this all ends up. Has praised Netflix for
basically this miracle that they have pulled off. From a
business standpoint, Now, what would be the implications of Netflix
(04:49):
actually being able to have this deal come to fruition
Because there's a lot of people who believe this thing
is DOA.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I don't believe.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's DOA, but I do think there's a very good
chance never actually gets approved. Trump has been somewhat lukewarm
on the issue and difficult to discern exactly what he
might do. First of all, it shouldn't be his decision alone.
In fact, in previous presidential administrations, the president would have
very little of any say over it. It would have
to do with whether or not the Department of Justice
(05:19):
decided that it was an antitrust situation. But we're not
living in that world anymore. But if this deal were
to actually be approved, Hollywood believes it would destroy what
is left of the economy of Los Angeles, California or
the old school Hollywood, if you know, it depends on
(05:42):
what you think of Hollywood, or you thinking of Hollywood
as Los Angeles and the entertainment industry, or Hollywood is
the movie industry in its totality, Los Angeles is no
longer by you know, the most dominant force in that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like it used to be.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Most productions are not even taking place in Los Angeles
or California anymore. But anyway, just to use the term
Hollywood generically, Hollywood is freaking out because if this in
fact happens, then there'll be consolidation. They'll be essentially a monopoly.
There'll be one less major buyer of content, so the
(06:19):
you know, laws of supply and demand will shift even
further in the corporate direction and against the creators. So
Hollywood believes this is the end, and especially they believe
it's the end because Hollywood still loves HBO. HBO is
still considered to be the most prestigious outlet to work
(06:40):
for if you're a movie creator, And part of this
deal would mean that HBO would be owned by Netflix,
and I don't think, you know, well, Netflix has created
a lot of jobs in the last decade or so.
I don't think that they have a lot of respect
within the Hollywood elites for the actual content that they create.
(07:01):
And I think the presumption is going to be, oh
my gosh, so we're gonna have fewer jobs, less bargaining power,
and the content that's gonna be created is gonna be
crappier than it currently is. And that seems to be
the conventional wisdom in Hollywood, and that may end up
being the case, by the way, that might be part
of why this deal never gets approved by the federal government.
(07:26):
So I don't know which scenario would actually be better
or worse for quote unquote Hollywood, whether or not Netflix
owns Warner Brothers Discovery, or whether or not Paramount is
successful with their hostile takeover. I honestly don't know, because
in the Paramount situation, you're gonna have maybe even more consolidation,
(07:47):
more layoffs. Paramount is looked at as a legacy, which
obviously is a legacy studio, so it wouldn't create quite
as much upheaval in the Hollywood system as would Netflix
now be coming by far the dominant force in the
way that things are done in Hollywood. But I don't
(08:08):
know that there's a really good scenario in any direction
for Hollywood now. From a media perspective, in the news business,
the part of this equation that I don't think has
gotten nearly enough attention, mainly because from an economic perspective
it's small potatoes is CNN. CNN is owned by Warner
Brothers Discovery. CNN is not part of the Netflix deal,
(08:33):
which is very interesting on a number of levels. It
has been presumed, and I think there's logic to this,
that Paramount really wants CNN. Paramount's owner, the Ellison family,
has made it clear that they're more than.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Willing to do Trump's bidding.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They are seen as more conservative, you know, they just
you know, for instance, they just put in an on
liberal Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News. Paramount
owns CBS News. Yes, they've had their battles with Trump
over sixty minutes, but by and large, Paramount is seen,
at least in perception as.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Being far more pro Trump than.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Any other major media outlet would be in this realm,
and so they want CNN.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Netflix doesn't seem to want CNN.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
If Paramount bought somehow Warner Brothers Discovery in this hostile takeover,
the most obvious result of that would be CNN would
get folded into CBS News or vice versa, and that
would create an awful lot of consolidation and a lot
of lost jobs. Now would it create a news giant
(09:51):
that would not be nearly as liberal as it would
have been a few years ago. Yeah, I think that's
pretty clear, especially if Bari White is running the show,
which is also bizarre considering the fact that she got
essentially canned from The New York Times is not a
significant news figure just a couple of years ago. It
has now somehow turned herself into maybe one of the
(10:14):
most powerful people in all news, and if this Paramount
hostile takeover is successful, she may end up being the
most powerful person in the news business by far. And
I'm okay with that because while she's clearly a liberal,
she's not woke.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
In fact, that's her branding. She's an anti woke liberal.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
She got it more than any other liberal did on
the whole COVID panic.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I disagree with.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Her on some things very strongly, but by and large,
she's less liberal than the type of person that has
dominated the legacy news business for the last several decades. Now,
what I don't understand, and I have no inside information
on this, despite the fact that in the past I've
been told that I was being given inside information on
(10:58):
what was happening at One's Discovery. But I don't understand why.
If Paramount wants CNN and I guess the other cable properties,
obviously that's not the most valuable part of Warner Brothers Discovery,
but you would think that there would be a way
for Netflix to get what they want and Paramount to
(11:19):
take over CNN and the other cable news networks. Now,
maybe that other doesn't work financially for Paramount. Maybe Paramount
only wants CNN if they're part of the larger package
of Warner Brothers Discovery.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
But it would seem to me that that would be
the most logical conclusion of this whole thing. I mean,
if Netflix makes it clear they don't want CNN and
Paramount wants CNN, you know why.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
They wouldn't be able to figure this out. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Now as far as the Paramount Deal is concerned, there's
an element of this that has me agitated from the
perspective of consistency and how utterly consistent MAGA world is
and the Magamedia is when it comes to how they
react or don't react to certain outrages, because a large
(12:11):
part of this Paramount deal is being driven by Saudi money,
and the Saudi money is coming from Jared Kushner, Donald
Trump's son in law, effectively a son of his now,
Jared Kushner. I don't know how the hell he has
enough time to be even running his own businesses these days,
(12:31):
because you're trying to do beast deals with Russia and Ukraine,
seemingly on behalf of Russia.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
He supposedly did the deal between Israel and.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Rmas and now here he is raising lots and lots
of Saudi money so that a Trump ally can take
over Warner Brothers Discovery, including CNN.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now, I want you, if.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know, I want you to do this regardless of
your political persuasion, But for just a moment, I want
you to think about how the MAGA media industrial complex
would have responded if we flip all of this, Let's
say Joe Biden as president, and let's say that Hunter
Biden is raising tons and tons of Saudi money to
(13:23):
fund a hostile takeover of News Corp, which owns Fox
News Channel and the New York Post and a whole
lot of other media outlets that tend to be conservative,
and that that corporate entity that was trying to pull
a hostile takeover of news Corp was led by an
unabashed liberal who wanted the takeover Fox News Channel and
(13:48):
the New York Post and other media outlets and seemingly
turned them from conservative to liberal. What would be the
MAGA media world.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Reaction to that?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I would suggest to you that that would be a
ten alarm fire. Everyone's hair would be on fire. They'd
be running around screaming bloody murder. There'd be meltdowns, and
by the way, it would be at least somewhat justified,
because that would be outrageous. That would be outrageous. But
(14:19):
that's effectively what's happening here. And I'm not hearing one word,
not one word from the Magamedia industrial complex. Frankly, even
the liberal media I think has been.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I think they're just exhausted on this.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I think they're naves, don't understand it or what. I
actually tweeted about this, and I sent this to several
members of the liberal media or several liberals in the media.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That I know, and I got some reaction and some.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
People in agreement that yeah, can you imagine what would
happen if this was reversed. But there's not been the
hue and cry on the left that I would have anticipated,
because that's what's effectively happening here. To be clear, we
have the president's son in law raising Saudi money, not
a little bit, a ton of it's it's the essence
(15:09):
of why Paramount might be able to pull this off,
raising Saudi money to fund a hostile takeover so that
a Trump ally would get control of CNN, a liberal
news network. Now again, as a conservative, I'd be fine
with CNN being taken over with by a conservative, but
(15:32):
this is this is really troubling.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's conflicts of interest.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
All over the place here, and I've already referenced the
idea that it's absolutely absurd. This is the whole Trump
is a King thing which has been bothering me since
you know, basically the moment the assassination attempt against Trump
failed in twenty twenty four, I told you, you know,
my biggest reservation about Trump two point zero is that
(15:58):
he's going to be treated as a king, and that
unfortunately has come to fruition in many, many ways. And
this is a perfect example of this. And frankly, I
think the legacy media isn't pushing back.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Enough against this.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
This is this decision as to whether or not the
Netflix Warner Brothers deal gets approved should not be made
by the President of the United States, especially when the
President of the States has enormous conflicts of interest here,
and it certainly shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
In a situation where his son in law.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I mean, how the hell can Trump and his administration
and the people that are kissing his ass, because that's
what his administration is all about. How can they possibly
be objective in evaluating the Netflix Warner Brothers deal when
the president's son in law is helping to fund a
hostile takeover of the same company. It's ridiculous, it's absurd.
(16:54):
So I don't know what's gonna happen here. I just
know that whatever occurs, it is going to be very
very significant for both the entertainment business as well as
the news media business, specifically with regard to CNN. Now,
if you're an avid listener to the podcast, you're probably wondering, hey, Zig,
(17:14):
how does this play into the whole black Swan situation
that you referenced many many times over the last couple
of years, and into which you went very deeply several
months ago on this podcast. And for those of you
who may dismissed that or don't remember, for a larger
part of the last three and a half years, most
(17:35):
of the last three and a half years, up until
a few months ago, I had been being told that
there was going to be this black Swan event, as
I've been referencing it, describing it black Swan, meaning this
surprise event comes out of nowhere and changes everything that
John Malone, the largest shareholder of Warner Brothers and Discovery,
(17:58):
was trying to a situation where CNN would no longer
be a left wing network. And that is part of
that effort. And this again, this started almost four years ago,
almost four years ago. It was January I think of
twenty twenty two when I was first approached by a
person that I had worked with that I considered a friend,
(18:21):
had a good working relationship with. It was a credible person,
but a person with a very, very sketchy background, especially
very early on in their life many many years ago,
decades ago, when they actually went to prison for fraud,
which had me extremely on edge and unwilling to buy
anything that they were telling me, especially when it sounded
too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But for years an.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Incredibly excruciating detail with all sorts of fascinations, I was told,
I'm not going to go into all the details again
because I've done so previously, although I've probably left out
eighty percent of the craziness in the detail of the story.
But I have told you before that I was told,
in no uncertain terms that John Malone wanted to hire me,
(19:09):
who happens to be, as I had said, the largest
shareholder of Warner Brothers Discovery wanted to hire me at CNN,
and I thought that was impossible, except I was provided
a scenario where at least it seemed theoretically within the
realm of possibility. I never believed it was going to happen,
and I was also suspecting that a lot of what
(19:31):
I was being told may not be true, that it
was possible that maybe the whole thing was some sort
of bizarre, nonsensical, incredibly intricate farce or scam with no
end because there was no money to be made, there's
no motivation. It made no sense, but I had to
go along with it because what was theoretically being offered
(19:52):
was so clearly enticing and world changing. Plus I was
just curious as to how the hell this whole thing
was going to turn out that I allowed it to
basically ruin my life for three years. I tried extremely
hard to separate it, to compartmentalize, to just basically look
at it as entertainment, but I just couldn't do it,
(20:13):
mainly because, to be clear, this wasn't portrayed to me
as something that might happen. This was portrayed to me
as something that was a done deal. It's just a
matter of when and how, And it kept getting delayed
and delayed and delayed, and then earlier this year, basically
when it became clear that Warner Brothers Discovery was gonna
(20:34):
be sold, it was obvious to me that if this
was ever real at any level, it wasn't anymore. And
I was really just curious as to Okay, was any
of us ever real Was this a total, bizarre, nonsensical,
incredibly intricate, and at times convincing fraud because some of
(20:57):
what I was being told turned out to be true,
gluting elements of the Warner Brothers Discovery sale situation, and
even this past week, even this past week, I was
really brought back into this, not at one hundred percent,
but I was psychologically. I was like, oh no, here
(21:18):
we go again, because when the Netflix dea was announced,
it was made clear that CNN was not part of
that equation, and part of what I had been told
earlier this year. As this never ending machinations of this
alleged black swan event kept being communicated to me in
(21:40):
very bizarre ways. The really one of the last pieces
of the narrative was I was told that John Malone
was gonna purchase CNN himself. I don't think he could
do it by himself, but I mean he would take
effectively under this scenario, controlling interest of CNN. And so
when I heard, okay, Netflix is buying Warner Brothers Discovery,
(22:04):
but they're not buying CNN, does that mean that that's
still a possibility and by the way, just to be clear,
I didn't want that to be a possibility. I want
this to be done. I want this to have never
been a possible scenario. I would at this point I'd
rather have been somehow scammed out of three years of
my life and be done with it, rather than have
(22:24):
a situation where somehow, some way this actually occurs, but
I end up missing the boat in some way, shape
or forward somehow do I have no idea why that
would have occurred. I didn't do anything wrong. In fact,
I think I handled the situation better than anybody else
I know possibly could have under the circumstances. But I
would much rather this have just been something that was
(22:47):
never gonna happen, and I would most like to know
what the fuck actually did occur, if anything, But I'm
also convinced that that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I'm never gonna get closure on this.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, when the paramount hostile takeover story hit, my friend
who has only communicated with me very sporadically over the
last few months, claiming that he's near death, which is
another incredibly bizarre part of this whole inexplicable and excruciatingly
(23:19):
difficult situation. He didn't communicate with me directly, but he
tweeted that if Paramount does in fact purchase Warner Brothers
Communications and Discovery and gets CNN, that it would be
a crowning achievement for Trump. Now, when I saw that,
(23:40):
I'm like, ah, okay, that to me is as close
as I'm ever going to get to the realization or
the proof that my source was full of shit, because
that goes against a huge part of the narrative that
he had been selling to me even earlier than this year. Now,
(24:01):
I messaged him very very directly and quite harshly about
what he tweeted, and he didn't even respond, which would
have never happened six seven months ago. For whatever reasons.
I'll never know if it's if it's political, if it's cowardice,
if it's logistical with regard to health. I have no
(24:24):
fucking idea, And I'm starting to not care because I've
concluded I'm never gonna know.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I'm never gonna have closure on this.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I'm never gonna have an understanding as to what really transpired.
There's still, in my mind a few different possibilities. Is
it possible that there was some reality to this and
then I got caught up in corporate machinations, and the
entire John Malone plan got jettison because they just decided,
fuck it, we can't make Warner Brothers work, and so
(24:54):
we're just gonna put the thing up forbid and see
what we get.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
I think that's actually a possibility.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Under that scenario, a lot of what I would have
been told would have been exaggerated, maybe some of it
would have been made up. There might have been a
kernel of truth to it, or I'm also very open
to the idea of the whole thing was just the
most bizarre, nonsensical fraud ever perpetrated on somebody. And I'm
even to the point where I'm now accepted that I'm never.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Gonna know, even though the last communication I had.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
With my quote unquote friend slash source was that I
will soon know that the full truth of the situation.
I presume he was implying when he dies, because he's
been telling me that when he dies, I'll be getting
all this proof of what he's been telling me, which I.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Don't believe for a second, because why would I.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I mean, again, I hesitate to even tell parts of
this incredibly crazy story that my friend Matt Lauer from
her NBC Today's Show host has said many times ought
to be a movie, and he's even suggested who should
play him in the movie, Stanley Tucci, guess because they're
both bald. But you know, because if I start down
this path, there's no going back. I mean, it's just
(26:02):
it is the absolutely most insane story I've ever been
involved with. And I've been involved with a lot of
crazy shit and it's been excruciating, and this whole Warner
Brothers sale has brought it back up. But I also
fully realize I'm never going to know what was real
what wasn't and I've known for a long time that
(26:25):
nothing good was going to come of this.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But you know, the last thing I want to hear,
the last thing I want to hear.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
In this whole situation, is the Netflix sale goes through
and John Malone has somehow figured out a way to take.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Controlling interest of c it ed, because that would be
salt into the wounds.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And that's really been you know, the fact that some
of what I was told has turned out either to
be true or partially true or plausibly true is one
of the more excruciating elements of this whole situation, because
every time I think, Okay, this was just all bullshit,
you know, there's there's all there's a pulse to the
(27:05):
idea that maybe there it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Wasn't all bullshit. So I don't know. That's the bottom
line on that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I don't know, you know, as far as what's going
to happen with the Paramount versus Netflix thing, it's really
hard for me to understand how it is that you're
going to have somebody in the Trump administration approve a
Netflix sale that has clear antitrust problems associated with it
(27:31):
when an ally of the president and the president's son
in law are working on a hostile takeover of the
same company. I mean that you cannot get a larger
conflict of interest than that, And and that's not you know,
that's not American in my view, that that is, that
is something that, regardless of your politics, should be extremely
(27:52):
concerning to you. But we don't live in that world
anymore where principles and conflicts of interests and and that
kind of thing have any significance whatsoever. So obviously we'll
continue to keep an eye on it. I don't think
we're going to see any kind of conclusion to this
for a very long time, although we should know in
a fairly short amount of time whether or not the
(28:14):
Paramount hostile takeover is even viable or even remotely successful,
So we may have some more news on that in
the next few episodes of the podcast. Now, speaking of
Paramount and CBS and their relationship with Donald Trump, there's
been a couple of developments on that front. So I
(28:36):
mentioned that Barry Weiss now effectively runs CBS News, which
is amazing, and I know amazing in the fact that
it's bizarre and a remarkable development, but I also think
it's it's good because I generally like Barry Weiss. But
Bari Weiss is now essentially hired a new evening news
(28:56):
host or anchor person for the CBS Evening News. This is,
you know, used to be the most prestigious position in
all of news. This is the old Walter Cronkite seat,
the old Dan Rather seat, and that position is now
going to be filled next year by Tony Ducapill.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Tony Dukapill is a guy I mentioned many times on
this podcast, partially because during the COVID panic, he went
out of his way to highlight a clip from my
daughter Grace she was just a little girl back in
twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, where my daughter submitted I
(29:33):
submitted it for her a video to CBS Evening News.
They had asked for kids reaction to what was going
on with schools either reopening or not reopening in the
midst of the COVID panic, and they used Grace rather
prominently in the actual feature that they did, but Tony
Ducapill actually used it in the teas, so Grace's clip
(29:57):
was played twice. So Tony used it in the teas
or the promo for the actual segment, and he didn't
just play Grace's clip, which was not surprising because you know,
she's a beautiful blonde girl with some charisma even back then.
But what was really interesting to me, and we played
(30:17):
this clip several times in the past on the program,
is that Tony mimicked Grace saying why why why? In
other words, Grace was asking why are we doing this?
Why aren't we doing this? And Tony said.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Why why why? And he wasn't mocking Grace.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I interpreted as Tony was amplifying Grace, and I took
it as a sign and you got to remember, the
atmosphere at the time was that the news media was
completely one thousand percent down with the narrative of the
COVID panic.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So any sign of any kind.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Of pushback was like, Oh my god, that's amazing. And
that was from a legacy media perspective, one of the
first times I saw anybody willing to push back at all.
And Tony was essentially using grace, in my opinion, to
give a wink.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And a nod to the audience that he believed that
this was a lot of bullshit. That was my interpretation.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Well, that interpretation, I think has been vindicated many many
times in the five years or whatever it's been four
or five years since, and we've documented that on this
podcast several times. I think Tony does a great job
on the CBS Morning News Show. In fact, he does
such a great job on the morning news show. I'm
kind of surprised as getting the evening news anchor position
(31:42):
because I think he's better suited as a morning show
host than as an evening news anchor. But it's a
more prestigious position, it's a more powerful position. It's possible
that Tony was in a toxic situation in the mornings
there because his co hosts are liberals, and you may
recall we talked about this on the podcast. I think
(32:04):
this was at the beginning of this year where he
got embroiled in a bullshit controversy because he asked some
very legitimate questions from a non liberal perspective and liberals
went bananas. By the way, liberals are going crazy over
the fact that Tony has gotten this position.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Internal discord apparently at CBS, according to one news article,
where CBS staffers are very upset that Tony has gotten
this position, which only furthers my belief that Tony is
at the very least a moderate, if not a closet conservative.
And the fact that Bari Weiss is the one making
(32:43):
this decision, I think is very telling. I mean, she's
a non liberal, or at least based upon the current
definition of liberals, she's non woke. Tony is clearly non woke.
By the way, Bari was, as I've already said, very
contrarian during COVID. I think she probably sees the same
thing with regard to Tony, and now Tony is getting
(33:04):
this very very plumb position. Now it's not nearly as
prestigious as it used to be. But I think it's
a positive development and it's a sign that Bory Weis
is serious about moving CBS away from the left as
much as they have been over the last several decades.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And it's also.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Maybe a sign who knows, everyone's looking at the tea
leaves here? Is it a sign that CBS is trying
to continue to kiss up to Donald Trump in the
wake of the whole sixty Minutes Kamala Harris Bill Whittaker
interview controversy where there was a settlement between CBS and
(33:43):
Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I mean, maybe Bori Weis just decided Tony was the
right person for the job and that was it. But
because we're living in this game of throne situation when
it comes to all the corporate machinations and we have
the parent company Paramount trying to make a bide which
would have to be approved by the Trump administration, you know,
(34:05):
everything in.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
This realm is a possibility.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
You know, it could be much more significant than it
appears to be on paper. Now when it comes to
CBS in sixty minutes, I think they've actually been doing
some really good shows recently. We've talked a lot about
sixty Minutes in the last few weeks, more so than
we normally do. They had another really good segment about
the dangers of AI and specifically on young people becoming
(34:32):
too involved and too invested in their quote unquote personal
relationships with AI, and some young people even committing suicide
partially because of.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The influence of AI.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
But I want to reference what sixty Minutes did in
an interview that Leslie Stall conducted with Marjorie Taylor Green,
because I think that not only is this interesting and significant,
but I also believe that what occurred here is close
to vindicating my analysis of what's really going on with
(35:07):
Marjorie Taylor Green. She is the soon to be former
Republican congress person from Georgia who was a huge Donald
Trump supporter, a massive cog in the in the MAGA
wheel until recently where she essentially got fired from MAGA
by Donald Trump, and then she all of a sudden
started to criticize Donald Trump, and she used the Epstein files,
(35:30):
I believe as an excuse to be able to say, see,
I stood up on principle. I got fired from MAGA
because Donald Trump is terrified of the Epstein files, and
therefore I am dying on a hill worthy of death.
I got killed because I stood up for principal, and
(35:52):
I don't really believe that. I believe that she got
fired from MAGA for a variety of reasons. And now
she's trying to rationalize, which is to natural, especially among
people in prominent positions. You never want to be able
to be forced to accept it you just got fired.
You want to be able to spin it in the
most positive way possible. And I also theorized that Marjorie
(36:15):
Taylor Green was leaving Congress, which she'll be doing in
early January, at least in part because she wants to
have a full year while Republicans still control Congress, and
she clearly doesn't believe that that's going to maintain itself
after the midterms of next year.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And I'm right there with her. I don't think there's
very much chance.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I mean a chance, but it certainly a strong likelihood
the Democrats are going to win the House of Representatives
in the next midterm. And if you're going to do
what I think Marjorie Taylor Green is going to do
and become a media commentator for a major network.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Your value goes down.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Significantly as a former Republican if Republicans no longer control
the house, because now you're irrelevant. And so I've said
recently that I think Marjorie Taylor Green is going to
make a play to be a media commentator, probably on CNN. Well,
there's no better way to cleanse yourself of MAGA and
(37:17):
make yourself clean enough to be able to be hired
by a CNN then for sixty minutes, which is still
considered to be extremely prestigious within the legacy media world.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
To do a softball feature on you.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And that's exactly what Marjorie Taylor Green had done this
past weekend. She was cleansed of her maganess, and I
think she did so for very cynical reasons and probably
very effectively, because, as it turned out, I had to
laugh about this. Not only did she get the sixty
(37:57):
minutes treatment, but then she immediately right after the she
immediately did a major interview on CNN where she said
basically the same kind of stuff. So now now that
she's been cleansed of the MAGA, it's been washed off
of her. The stench is gone. In the minds of
the legacy media.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Now I think.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
We'll probably I'm almost positive we're going to hear that
she gets hired, probably by CNN as a commentator, as
soon as her days as an official congress person are
up in early January. As far as what she said
to Leslie Stall, there was one clip in particular that
I found to be very, very very interesting. Now I
(38:41):
acknowledge my bias here as any human being, as a
bias towards Hey, I was right about this, especially when
you take a contrarian and you know, seemingly unpopular position.
But my position on Donald Trump's opposition to the release
of the Epstein files, I understand very few people, especially
(39:04):
people that don't like Donald Trump, have agreed with me
on this. My position has been that Trump understands two
things very very well in this story. He understands the
media and media firestorms, and how incompetent the media is
and how big a story this has become, to the
point where whatever is in the Epstein files is going
(39:27):
to be completely taken out of context, and that people
are going to get destroyed, whether they deserve to be
destroyed or not. He understands that he also knew Epstein
and he knew Glenne Maxwell, so and he knows that
Epstein wasn't murdered in a federal prison. So it's my
(39:47):
belief that Trump probably has enough information or knowledge about
this case to understand the basic reality that there's nothing
earth shattering in these quote unquote files, that the story
has been completely blown out of proportion. And when Trump
calls it a quote unquote hoax, that's what he means.
(40:08):
In my opinion, he's referring to the Epstein narrative, the larger,
massive conspiracy, huge child sex trafficking ring narrative, that's the hoax.
And so I have theorized that Trump, even though it
doesn't sound like Trump, because he's not a guy that
(40:30):
really cares about others or stands on principle very much,
has been against the opening of the quote unquote Epstein
files because he knows that innocent people are gonna get harmed.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Now, maybe he thinks he's one of those.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Innocent people that's going to get harmed, or maybe people
close to him, buddies of his, are innocent people that
are gonna get harmed, which would give him enough of
a motivation to say, hey, look, we really don't need
to be making this bullshit information public because the media
is going to run hogwild with it. But then, finally,
especially once he realized he was going to lose the
(41:08):
vote to quote unquote open the Epstein files, Trump flipped
and said, no, let's go ahead and do it. Basically,
in my opinion, he said, Okay, fuck it, I don't
care about it. This is people getting harmed. And he
immediately shifted to, all right, let's take a look at
all the Democrats that are named in the Epstein files,
(41:28):
because you know, he's trying to shift the narrative. Okay,
we're going to destroy innocent people. Let's make sure it's
my enemies, or at least people that I perceive as
my enemies today. So I was of that belief even
before the Marjorie Taylor Green interview with sixty Minutes in
Leslie Stall. But then Leslie Stall asked her about this
(41:51):
very issue, and at first, Marjorie Taylor Green is playing
up the whole idea that she fought against Trump on
releasing the Epstein files, and you know, creating that whole
narrative of that she got canned from MAGA for standing
up for principle, standing up for the victims so that
(42:13):
they could have a voice. And then at the very end,
at the very end, Leslie Stahl asks a very simple
but profound question. She asks Marjorie Taylor Green to tell
her what Trump's explanation for why he didn't want to
release the files was. And that's when I think we
(42:34):
may have actually gotten to the truth of the matter,
which is one consistent with what I have been saying
all along and what I just told you a few
moments ago. And here's what that sounded like on CBS
and sixty minutes.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
We did talk about the Epstein files, and he was
extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge
petition to release the files. Fully believe that those women
deserve everything they're asking. They're asking for all of it
to come out. They deserve it. And he was furious
with me. What did he say? He said that it
(43:12):
was going to hurt people.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Now the way Marjorie Taylor Green said that it was
almost like a concession, Like the tone of her voice
changed when she said, well, yeah, he doesn't want people
to get hurt, which I think is the most likely
and the most logical scenario here, even though that doesn't
(43:35):
sound very much like the Donald Trump that we know now. Look,
I have said time and time again that the media
is gonna find what they want in these Epstein files
when they're finally released.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
The narrative is too big to fail.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
There are gonna be innocent people destroyed, whether they deserve
to be or not. Obviously, innocent people inherently don't deserve
to be destroyed, but that's gonna happen in this situation
because the story is too large. The masses were promised
a public execution of elites, and the media has effectively
promised to give it to them, and so that's gonna happen.
(44:13):
So there's no way that we're gonna get a conclusive,
clear cut narrative of there was nothing in the Epstein files.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
That's not gonna happen. I believe that that.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Will be the essence of the reality, but I'm a
thousand percent positive that that reality is not going to
be properly portrayed because the media has zero incentive for
that to be the way that the narrative is portrayed.
The audience doesn't want that, the media doesn't want that.
(44:44):
They're deeply invested in this concocted, massive conspiracy narrative that
they have created, so they're gonna find evidence to support
that narrative. They have a conclusion, they're gonna find something
to support it. And when you we have that much
information and that much bullshit, and that's what grand jury
(45:06):
findings or or documents are really all about. It's just
throwing everything you have up against the wall. I Mean,
one of the dumbest things in our entire judicial system
is the idea that people take grand jury to be
credible or serious.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I mean, that's a huge.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Part of what happened in the Penn State Joe Paterno
Jerry Sandusky case.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
People have a misunderstanding of what.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
A grand jury is. It sounds very significant, powerful, credible.
It's total bullshit. I mean it's literally bullshit. And that's
what we're going to fight out of these Epstein files
for lack of a better term, and I am very
confident that there's no one is going to be found
(45:50):
to have committed, you know, significant crimes that they were
never prosecuted for.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
That's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
But I'm also real enough to know the media is
going to give us the narrative that we want, meaning
we the masses and which fits their agenda. No one's
going to admit that they were wrong on this. No
one ever admits they're wrong on anything, but they're definitely
got not going to admit they were wrong on something
this big. But I believe that Marjorie Taylor Green, in
(46:18):
all likelihood, essentially revealed the truth of this situation. And
by the way, I've said this before, but it bears repeating.
If she really believed that she was going to be
totally vindicated on the Epstein files, why would she have
already announced the exact date when she was leaving Congress.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Why would she do that?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
To me, that's completely inconsistent with the entire theory of
this situation. I mean, if she was going to be
totally vindicated, then the whole world would have changed. She
would at least have a chance of holding on to
her congressional seed. I mean, she'd be able to take
this massive victory lap.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I guess there's a scenario where they come out in
mid December, she takes her victory lap, and she leaves
to go into a media gig. I guess that's possible.
But to me, if I really, if I put all
my chips down on Trump being destroyed by these Epstein files,
and because that's the premise, you have to believe, right
(47:28):
to believe, that's the whole argument that the left and
people like Marjorie Taylor Green, now whatever you want to
describe her as left, right, center, MAGA, whatever, former MAGA,
the whole premise is Trump doesn't want the Epstein files
released because he has something to hide personally, which makes
no goddamn sense because he's never.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Been sued in this case.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
The accusers have only praised him, and most importantly, we
had a goddamn Biden administration for four years that was
willing to indict him over everything. They never elked anything
from the Epstein files. It just makes no goddamn sense.
And I really believe that at some level Marjorie Taylor
Green understands this, and that she's grand standing on the
(48:12):
Epstein file situation to come up with an explanation for
why she got fired from MAGA and to set herself
up for a media career actress. She leaves Congress in
early January. So that's my prediction on that particular situation,
and so far, I think I've nailed it on the
whole Marjorie Taylor Green Situation. Thanks for listening to today's
(48:34):
free drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested in
listening to the entire show, you must become a patron.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Please go to Patreon. That's p A T R e
O N dot com. Patreon dot com slash the Death
of Journalism with John Ziggler. My name is jhn z
I E G L e R. That's patreon dot com.
Slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziegler. Good luck
(49:06):
to you on that. But that's how you can subscribe.
Welcome to episode two hundred and seventy one of the
Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
your host in today's show. The Warner Discovery sale finally
breaks through with great uncertainty and huge implications for our media.
CBS makes a great and telling choice for their new
evening news anchor. It appears I nailed it on the
(00:22):
Marjorie Taylor Green situation. Trump seems to be screwing up
on AI much as I had feared, and the college
football playoff system is now somehow probably an even bigger
cluster fark than I have been predicting. I have mentioned
several times over the last year or so that Warner
(00:45):
Brothers Discovery was probably gonna get sold, and I've been
talking about this subject from several different perspectives, including one
that was extremely personal to me. And I've been telling
you that this was going to become a major news
story at some point.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, it finally.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Did over the last week because the bidding process ended,
at least it was supposed to have ended with Netflix
winning quote unquote, the ability to buy Warner Brothers Discovery,
which would be an absolutely huge deal in the media world.
(01:25):
On so many different levels. But the story got even
larger because, in the immediate aftermath of Netflix supposedly winning
this bidding, war Paramount announced that they were going to
attempt a hostile takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery. So this
situation is very much in the up in the air.
(01:46):
No one really knows how it's all going to end.
But I wanted to start today's episode of the podcast
with a little bit of analysis of where this situation
currently is and what implications it might have. I want
to begin from the business angle and just take a
moment to reflect on just how utterly insane, or incredible
(02:07):
or bizarre it is than in twenty twenty five, we
are living in a world where Netflix is buying Warner
Brothers Discovery. Now, Warner Brother's Discovery is a massive media company,
But for Netflix in twenty twenty five to purchase Warner
Brothers Discovery is extraordinary when you consider that what fifteen
(02:31):
years ago, maybe even a little less than fifteen years ago,
Netflix was basically a digital blockbuster. They were competing with Blockbuster.
Blockbuster didn't take them seriously. Blockbuster is no more, and
now Netflix has somehow gotten so large and so powerful
that they are able, at least on paper, to purchase
(02:54):
Warner Brother's Discovery. And what happened in the meantime, Well,
Netflix create a lot of content, most of it sucked.
I mean, that's maybe the most extraordinary part of this
whole equation. The Netflix went from nothing to being able
to be powerful and wealthy enough to purchase Warner Brothers Discovery,
(03:16):
and all they did in the meantime was make a
lot of really mediocre content. I mean, they made some
good stuff, nothing spectacular. Most of their movies are just terrible.
Their series are okay.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Some of them have been very popular.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I think their documentaries are really good from a production standpoint,
but from a content perspective, I find them to be lacking,
sometimes dramatically. So I'm not a huge fan of Netflix,
even though like most of the country, we are subscribers
to Netflix and watch a lot of their content. But
it's just a remarkable story from a corporate and business perspective,
(03:55):
the best analogy I can come up with on short
notice is and this is not perfect, but I think
this is a decent analogy. Netflix getting this big and
this large and being able to overtake and take over
Warner Brothers. Discovery is a bit like if Heinz catchup,
there'll be Blockbuster. In this analogy, had a competitor that
(04:16):
put Heinz out of business, and the catchup competitor became
so powerful that they were able to buy McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
It's not really perfect, but it's close.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
If you want to understand from a business perspective, it
is how insane this is and how remarkable it is.
And President Trump was going to have a major say
and how this all ends up. Has praised Netflix for
basically this miracle that they have pulled off. From a
business standpoint, Now, what would be the implications of Netflix
(04:49):
actually being able to have this deal come to fruition
Because there's a lot of people who believe this thing
is DOA.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
I don't believe.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's DOA, but I do think there's a very good
chance never actually gets approved. Trump has been somewhat lukewarm
on the issue and difficult to discern exactly what he
might do. First of all, it shouldn't be his decision alone.
In fact, in previous presidential administrations, the president would have
very little of any say over it. It would have
to do with whether or not the Department of Justice
(05:19):
decided that it was an antitrust situation. But we're not
living in that world anymore. But if this deal were
to actually be approved, Hollywood believes it would destroy what
is left of the economy of Los Angeles, California or
the old school Hollywood, if you know, it depends on
(05:42):
what you think of Hollywood, or you thinking of Hollywood
as Los Angeles and the entertainment industry, or Hollywood is
the movie industry in its totality, Los Angeles is no
longer by you know, the most dominant force in that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like it used to be.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Most productions are not even taking place in Los Angeles
or California anymore. But anyway, just to use the term
Hollywood generically, Hollywood is freaking out because if this in
fact happens, then there'll be consolidation. They'll be essentially a monopoly.
There'll be one less major buyer of content, so the
(06:19):
you know, laws of supply and demand will shift even
further in the corporate direction and against the creators. So
Hollywood believes this is the end, and especially they believe
it's the end because Hollywood still loves HBO. HBO is
still considered to be the most prestigious outlet to work
(06:40):
for if you're a movie creator, And part of this
deal would mean that HBO would be owned by Netflix,
and I don't think, you know, well, Netflix has created
a lot of jobs in the last decade or so.
I don't think that they have a lot of respect
within the Hollywood elites for the actual content that they create.
(07:01):
And I think the presumption is going to be, oh
my gosh, so we're gonna have fewer jobs, less bargaining power,
and the content that's gonna be created is gonna be
crappier than it currently is. And that seems to be
the conventional wisdom in Hollywood, and that may end up
being the case, by the way, that might be part
of why this deal never gets approved by the federal government.
(07:26):
So I don't know which scenario would actually be better
or worse for quote unquote Hollywood, whether or not Netflix
owns Warner Brothers Discovery, or whether or not Paramount is
successful with their hostile takeover. I honestly don't know, because
in the Paramount situation, you're gonna have maybe even more consolidation,
(07:47):
more layoffs. Paramount is looked at as a legacy, which
obviously is a legacy studio, so it wouldn't create quite
as much upheaval in the Hollywood system as would Netflix
now be coming by far the dominant force in the
way that things are done in Hollywood. But I don't
(08:08):
know that there's a really good scenario in any direction
for Hollywood now. From a media perspective, in the news business,
the part of this equation that I don't think has
gotten nearly enough attention, mainly because from an economic perspective
it's small potatoes is CNN. CNN is owned by Warner
Brothers Discovery. CNN is not part of the Netflix deal,
(08:33):
which is very interesting on a number of levels. It
has been presumed, and I think there's logic to this,
that Paramount really wants CNN. Paramount's owner, the Ellison family,
has made it clear that they're more than.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Willing to do Trump's bidding.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They are seen as more conservative, you know, they just
you know, for instance, they just put in an on
liberal Bari Weiss as the head of CBS News. Paramount
owns CBS News. Yes, they've had their battles with Trump
over sixty minutes, but by and large, Paramount is seen,
at least in perception as.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Being far more pro Trump than.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Any other major media outlet would be in this realm,
and so they want CNN.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Netflix doesn't seem to want CNN.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
If Paramount bought somehow Warner Brothers Discovery in this hostile takeover,
the most obvious result of that would be CNN would
get folded into CBS News or vice versa, and that
would create an awful lot of consolidation and a lot
of lost jobs. Now would it create a news giant
(09:51):
that would not be nearly as liberal as it would
have been a few years ago. Yeah, I think that's
pretty clear, especially if Bari White is running the show,
which is also bizarre considering the fact that she got
essentially canned from The New York Times is not a
significant news figure just a couple of years ago. It
has now somehow turned herself into maybe one of the
(10:14):
most powerful people in all news, and if this Paramount
hostile takeover is successful, she may end up being the
most powerful person in the news business by far. And
I'm okay with that because while she's clearly a liberal,
she's not woke.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
In fact, that's her branding. She's an anti woke liberal.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
She got it more than any other liberal did on
the whole COVID panic.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I disagree with.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Her on some things very strongly, but by and large,
she's less liberal than the type of person that has
dominated the legacy news business for the last several decades. Now,
what I don't understand, and I have no inside information
on this, despite the fact that in the past I've
been told that I was being given inside information on
(10:58):
what was happening at One's Discovery. But I don't understand why.
If Paramount wants CNN and I guess the other cable properties,
obviously that's not the most valuable part of Warner Brothers Discovery,
but you would think that there would be a way
for Netflix to get what they want and Paramount to
(11:19):
take over CNN and the other cable news networks. Now,
maybe that other doesn't work financially for Paramount. Maybe Paramount
only wants CNN if they're part of the larger package
of Warner Brothers Discovery.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
But it would seem to me that that would be
the most logical conclusion of this whole thing. I mean,
if Netflix makes it clear they don't want CNN and
Paramount wants CNN, you know why.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
They wouldn't be able to figure this out. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Now as far as the Paramount Deal is concerned, there's
an element of this that has me agitated from the
perspective of consistency and how utterly consistent MAGA world is
and the Magamedia is when it comes to how they
react or don't react to certain outrages, because a large
(12:11):
part of this Paramount deal is being driven by Saudi money,
and the Saudi money is coming from Jared Kushner, Donald
Trump's son in law, effectively a son of his now,
Jared Kushner. I don't know how the hell he has
enough time to be even running his own businesses these days,
(12:31):
because you're trying to do beast deals with Russia and Ukraine,
seemingly on behalf of Russia.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
He supposedly did the deal between Israel and.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Rmas and now here he is raising lots and lots
of Saudi money so that a Trump ally can take
over Warner Brothers Discovery, including CNN.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now, I want you, if.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
You know, I want you to do this regardless of
your political persuasion, But for just a moment, I want
you to think about how the MAGA media industrial complex
would have responded if we flip all of this, Let's
say Joe Biden as president, and let's say that Hunter
Biden is raising tons and tons of Saudi money to
(13:23):
fund a hostile takeover of News Corp, which owns Fox
News Channel and the New York Post and a whole
lot of other media outlets that tend to be conservative,
and that that corporate entity that was trying to pull
a hostile takeover of news Corp was led by an
unabashed liberal who wanted the takeover Fox News Channel and
(13:48):
the New York Post and other media outlets and seemingly
turned them from conservative to liberal. What would be the
MAGA media world.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Reaction to that?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I would suggest to you that that would be a
ten alarm fire. Everyone's hair would be on fire. They'd
be running around screaming bloody murder. There'd be meltdowns, and
by the way, it would be at least somewhat justified,
because that would be outrageous. That would be outrageous. But
(14:19):
that's effectively what's happening here. And I'm not hearing one word,
not one word from the Magamedia industrial complex. Frankly, even
the liberal media I think has been.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I think they're just exhausted on this.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I think they're naves, don't understand it or what. I
actually tweeted about this, and I sent this to several
members of the liberal media or several liberals in the media.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
That I know, and I got some reaction and some.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
People in agreement that yeah, can you imagine what would
happen if this was reversed. But there's not been the
hue and cry on the left that I would have anticipated,
because that's what's effectively happening here. To be clear, we
have the president's son in law raising Saudi money, not
a little bit, a ton of it's it's the essence
(15:09):
of why Paramount might be able to pull this off,
raising Saudi money to fund a hostile takeover so that
a Trump ally would get control of CNN, a liberal
news network. Now again, as a conservative, I'd be fine
with CNN being taken over with by a conservative, but
(15:32):
this is this is really troubling.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
There's conflicts of interest.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
All over the place here, and I've already referenced the
idea that it's absolutely absurd. This is the whole Trump
is a King thing which has been bothering me since
you know, basically the moment the assassination attempt against Trump
failed in twenty twenty four, I told you, you know,
my biggest reservation about Trump two point zero is that
(15:58):
he's going to be treated as a king, and that
unfortunately has come to fruition in many, many ways. And
this is a perfect example of this. And frankly, I
think the legacy media isn't pushing back.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Enough against this.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
This is this decision as to whether or not the
Netflix Warner Brothers deal gets approved should not be made
by the President of the United States, especially when the
President of the States has enormous conflicts of interest here,
and it certainly shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
In a situation where his son in law.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I mean, how the hell can Trump and his administration
and the people that are kissing his ass, because that's
what his administration is all about. How can they possibly
be objective in evaluating the Netflix Warner Brothers deal when
the president's son in law is helping to fund a
hostile takeover of the same company. It's ridiculous, it's absurd.
(16:54):
So I don't know what's gonna happen here. I just
know that whatever occurs, it is going to be very
very significant for both the entertainment business as well as
the news media business, specifically with regard to CNN. Now,
if you're an avid listener to the podcast, you're probably wondering, hey, Zig,
(17:14):
how does this play into the whole black Swan situation
that you referenced many many times over the last couple
of years, and into which you went very deeply several
months ago on this podcast. And for those of you
who may dismissed that or don't remember, for a larger
part of the last three and a half years, most
(17:35):
of the last three and a half years, up until
a few months ago, I had been being told that
there was going to be this black Swan event, as
I've been referencing it, describing it black Swan, meaning this
surprise event comes out of nowhere and changes everything that
John Malone, the largest shareholder of Warner Brothers and Discovery,
(17:58):
was trying to a situation where CNN would no longer
be a left wing network. And that is part of
that effort. And this again, this started almost four years ago,
almost four years ago. It was January I think of
twenty twenty two when I was first approached by a
person that I had worked with that I considered a friend,
(18:21):
had a good working relationship with. It was a credible person,
but a person with a very, very sketchy background, especially
very early on in their life many many years ago,
decades ago, when they actually went to prison for fraud,
which had me extremely on edge and unwilling to buy
anything that they were telling me, especially when it sounded
too good to be true.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
But for years an.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Incredibly excruciating detail with all sorts of fascinations, I was told,
I'm not going to go into all the details again
because I've done so previously, although I've probably left out
eighty percent of the craziness in the detail of the story.
But I have told you before that I was told,
in no uncertain terms that John Malone wanted to hire me,
(19:09):
who happens to be, as I had said, the largest
shareholder of Warner Brothers Discovery wanted to hire me at CNN,
and I thought that was impossible, except I was provided
a scenario where at least it seemed theoretically within the
realm of possibility. I never believed it was going to happen,
and I was also suspecting that a lot of what
(19:31):
I was being told may not be true, that it
was possible that maybe the whole thing was some sort
of bizarre, nonsensical, incredibly intricate farce or scam with no
end because there was no money to be made, there's
no motivation. It made no sense, but I had to
go along with it because what was theoretically being offered
(19:52):
was so clearly enticing and world changing. Plus I was
just curious as to how the hell this whole thing
was going to turn out that I allowed it to
basically ruin my life for three years. I tried extremely
hard to separate it, to compartmentalize, to just basically look
at it as entertainment, but I just couldn't do it,
(20:13):
mainly because, to be clear, this wasn't portrayed to me
as something that might happen. This was portrayed to me
as something that was a done deal. It's just a
matter of when and how, And it kept getting delayed
and delayed and delayed, and then earlier this year, basically
when it became clear that Warner Brothers Discovery was gonna
(20:34):
be sold, it was obvious to me that if this
was ever real at any level, it wasn't anymore. And
I was really just curious as to Okay, was any
of us ever real Was this a total, bizarre, nonsensical,
incredibly intricate, and at times convincing fraud because some of
(20:57):
what I was being told turned out to be true,
gluting elements of the Warner Brothers Discovery sale situation, and
even this past week, even this past week, I was
really brought back into this, not at one hundred percent,
but I was psychologically. I was like, oh no, here
(21:18):
we go again, because when the Netflix dea was announced,
it was made clear that CNN was not part of
that equation, and part of what I had been told
earlier this year. As this never ending machinations of this
alleged black swan event kept being communicated to me in
(21:40):
very bizarre ways. The really one of the last pieces
of the narrative was I was told that John Malone
was gonna purchase CNN himself. I don't think he could
do it by himself, but I mean he would take
effectively under this scenario, controlling interest of CNN. And so
when I heard, okay, Netflix is buying Warner Brothers Discovery,
(22:04):
but they're not buying CNN, does that mean that that's
still a possibility and by the way, just to be clear,
I didn't want that to be a possibility. I want
this to be done. I want this to have never
been a possible scenario. I would at this point I'd
rather have been somehow scammed out of three years of
my life and be done with it, rather than have
(22:24):
a situation where somehow, some way this actually occurs, but
I end up missing the boat in some way, shape
or forward somehow do I have no idea why that
would have occurred. I didn't do anything wrong. In fact,
I think I handled the situation better than anybody else
I know possibly could have under the circumstances. But I
would much rather this have just been something that was
(22:47):
never gonna happen, and I would most like to know
what the fuck actually did occur, if anything, But I'm
also convinced that that's never gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I'm never gonna get closure on this.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, when the paramount hostile takeover story hit, my friend
who has only communicated with me very sporadically over the
last few months, claiming that he's near death, which is
another incredibly bizarre part of this whole inexplicable and excruciatingly
(23:19):
difficult situation. He didn't communicate with me directly, but he
tweeted that if Paramount does in fact purchase Warner Brothers
Communications and Discovery and gets CNN, that it would be
a crowning achievement for Trump. Now, when I saw that,
(23:40):
I'm like, ah, okay, that to me is as close
as I'm ever going to get to the realization or
the proof that my source was full of shit, because
that goes against a huge part of the narrative that
he had been selling to me even earlier than this year. Now,
(24:01):
I messaged him very very directly and quite harshly about
what he tweeted, and he didn't even respond, which would
have never happened six seven months ago. For whatever reasons.
I'll never know if it's if it's political, if it's cowardice,
if it's logistical with regard to health. I have no
(24:24):
fucking idea, And I'm starting to not care because I've
concluded I'm never gonna know.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
I'm never gonna have closure on this.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I'm never gonna have an understanding as to what really transpired.
There's still, in my mind a few different possibilities. Is
it possible that there was some reality to this and
then I got caught up in corporate machinations, and the
entire John Malone plan got jettison because they just decided,
fuck it, we can't make Warner Brothers work, and so
(24:54):
we're just gonna put the thing up forbid and see
what we get.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
I think that's actually a possibility.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Under that scenario, a lot of what I would have
been told would have been exaggerated, maybe some of it
would have been made up. There might have been a
kernel of truth to it, or I'm also very open
to the idea of the whole thing was just the
most bizarre, nonsensical fraud ever perpetrated on somebody. And I'm
even to the point where I'm now accepted that I'm never.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Gonna know, even though the last communication I had.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
With my quote unquote friend slash source was that I
will soon know that the full truth of the situation.
I presume he was implying when he dies, because he's
been telling me that when he dies, I'll be getting
all this proof of what he's been telling me, which I.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Don't believe for a second, because why would I.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I mean, again, I hesitate to even tell parts of
this incredibly crazy story that my friend Matt Lauer from
her NBC Today's Show host has said many times ought
to be a movie, and he's even suggested who should
play him in the movie, Stanley Tucci, guess because they're
both bald. But you know, because if I start down
this path, there's no going back. I mean, it's just
(26:02):
it is the absolutely most insane story I've ever been
involved with. And I've been involved with a lot of
crazy shit and it's been excruciating, and this whole Warner
Brothers sale has brought it back up. But I also
fully realize I'm never going to know what was real
what wasn't and I've known for a long time that
(26:25):
nothing good was going to come of this.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
But you know, the last thing I want to hear,
the last thing I want to hear.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
In this whole situation, is the Netflix sale goes through
and John Malone has somehow figured out a way to take.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Controlling interest of c it ed, because that would be
salt into the wounds.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And that's really been you know, the fact that some
of what I was told has turned out either to
be true or partially true or plausibly true is one
of the more excruciating elements of this whole situation, because
every time I think, Okay, this was just all bullshit,
you know, there's there's all there's a pulse to the
(27:05):
idea that maybe there it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Wasn't all bullshit. So I don't know. That's the bottom
line on that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I don't know, you know, as far as what's going
to happen with the Paramount versus Netflix thing, it's really
hard for me to understand how it is that you're
going to have somebody in the Trump administration approve a
Netflix sale that has clear antitrust problems associated with it
(27:31):
when an ally of the president and the president's son
in law are working on a hostile takeover of the
same company. I mean that you cannot get a larger
conflict of interest than that, And and that's not you know,
that's not American in my view, that that is, that
is something that, regardless of your politics, should be extremely
(27:52):
concerning to you. But we don't live in that world
anymore where principles and conflicts of interests and and that
kind of thing have any significance whatsoever. So obviously we'll
continue to keep an eye on it. I don't think
we're going to see any kind of conclusion to this
for a very long time, although we should know in
a fairly short amount of time whether or not the
(28:14):
Paramount hostile takeover is even viable or even remotely successful,
So we may have some more news on that in
the next few episodes of the podcast. Now, speaking of
Paramount and CBS and their relationship with Donald Trump, there's
been a couple of developments on that front. So I
(28:36):
mentioned that Barry Weiss now effectively runs CBS News, which
is amazing, and I know amazing in the fact that
it's bizarre and a remarkable development, but I also think
it's it's good because I generally like Barry Weiss. But
Bari Weiss is now essentially hired a new evening news
(28:56):
host or anchor person for the CBS Evening News. This is,
you know, used to be the most prestigious position in
all of news. This is the old Walter Cronkite seat,
the old Dan Rather seat, and that position is now
going to be filled next year by Tony Ducapill.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Now.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Tony Dukapill is a guy I mentioned many times on
this podcast, partially because during the COVID panic, he went
out of his way to highlight a clip from my
daughter Grace she was just a little girl back in
twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, where my daughter submitted I
(29:33):
submitted it for her a video to CBS Evening News.
They had asked for kids reaction to what was going
on with schools either reopening or not reopening in the
midst of the COVID panic, and they used Grace rather
prominently in the actual feature that they did, but Tony
Ducapill actually used it in the teas, so Grace's clip
(29:57):
was played twice. So Tony used it in the teas
or the promo for the actual segment, and he didn't
just play Grace's clip, which was not surprising because you know,
she's a beautiful blonde girl with some charisma even back then.
But what was really interesting to me, and we played
(30:17):
this clip several times in the past on the program,
is that Tony mimicked Grace saying why why why? In
other words, Grace was asking why are we doing this?
Why aren't we doing this? And Tony said.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Why why why? And he wasn't mocking Grace.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I interpreted as Tony was amplifying Grace, and I took
it as a sign and you got to remember, the
atmosphere at the time was that the news media was
completely one thousand percent down with the narrative of the
COVID panic.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So any sign of any kind.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Of pushback was like, Oh my god, that's amazing. And
that was from a legacy media perspective, one of the
first times I saw anybody willing to push back at all.
And Tony was essentially using grace, in my opinion, to
give a wink.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
And a nod to the audience that he believed that
this was a lot of bullshit. That was my interpretation.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Well, that interpretation, I think has been vindicated many many
times in the five years or whatever it's been four
or five years since, and we've documented that on this
podcast several times. I think Tony does a great job
on the CBS Morning News Show. In fact, he does
such a great job on the morning news show. I'm
kind of surprised as getting the evening news anchor position
(31:42):
because I think he's better suited as a morning show
host than as an evening news anchor. But it's a
more prestigious position, it's a more powerful position. It's possible
that Tony was in a toxic situation in the mornings
there because his co hosts are liberals, and you may
recall we talked about this on the podcast. I think
(32:04):
this was at the beginning of this year where he
got embroiled in a bullshit controversy because he asked some
very legitimate questions from a non liberal perspective and liberals
went bananas. By the way, liberals are going crazy over
the fact that Tony has gotten this position.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Internal discord apparently at CBS, according to one news article,
where CBS staffers are very upset that Tony has gotten
this position, which only furthers my belief that Tony is
at the very least a moderate, if not a closet conservative.
And the fact that Bari Weiss is the one making
(32:43):
this decision, I think is very telling. I mean, she's
a non liberal, or at least based upon the current
definition of liberals, she's non woke. Tony is clearly non woke.
By the way, Bari was, as I've already said, very
contrarian during COVID. I think she probably sees the same
thing with regard to Tony, and now Tony is getting
(33:04):
this very very plumb position. Now it's not nearly as
prestigious as it used to be. But I think it's
a positive development and it's a sign that Bory Weis
is serious about moving CBS away from the left as
much as they have been over the last several decades.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And it's also.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Maybe a sign who knows, everyone's looking at the tea
leaves here? Is it a sign that CBS is trying
to continue to kiss up to Donald Trump in the
wake of the whole sixty Minutes Kamala Harris Bill Whittaker
interview controversy where there was a settlement between CBS and
(33:43):
Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I mean, maybe Bori Weis just decided Tony was the
right person for the job and that was it. But
because we're living in this game of throne situation when
it comes to all the corporate machinations and we have
the parent company Paramount trying to make a bide which
would have to be approved by the Trump administration, you know,
(34:05):
everything in.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
This realm is a possibility.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
You know, it could be much more significant than it
appears to be on paper. Now when it comes to
CBS in sixty minutes, I think they've actually been doing
some really good shows recently. We've talked a lot about
sixty Minutes in the last few weeks, more so than
we normally do. They had another really good segment about
the dangers of AI and specifically on young people becoming
(34:32):
too involved and too invested in their quote unquote personal
relationships with AI, and some young people even committing suicide
partially because of.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
The influence of AI.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
But I want to reference what sixty Minutes did in
an interview that Leslie Stall conducted with Marjorie Taylor Green,
because I think that not only is this interesting and significant,
but I also believe that what occurred here is close
to vindicating my analysis of what's really going on with
(35:07):
Marjorie Taylor Green. She is the soon to be former
Republican congress person from Georgia who was a huge Donald
Trump supporter, a massive cog in the in the MAGA
wheel until recently where she essentially got fired from MAGA
by Donald Trump, and then she all of a sudden
started to criticize Donald Trump, and she used the Epstein files,
(35:30):
I believe as an excuse to be able to say, see,
I stood up on principle. I got fired from MAGA
because Donald Trump is terrified of the Epstein files, and
therefore I am dying on a hill worthy of death.
I got killed because I stood up for principal, and
(35:52):
I don't really believe that. I believe that she got
fired from MAGA for a variety of reasons. And now
she's trying to rationalize, which is to natural, especially among
people in prominent positions. You never want to be able
to be forced to accept it you just got fired.
You want to be able to spin it in the
most positive way possible. And I also theorized that Marjorie
(36:15):
Taylor Green was leaving Congress, which she'll be doing in
early January, at least in part because she wants to
have a full year while Republicans still control Congress, and
she clearly doesn't believe that that's going to maintain itself
after the midterms of next year.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And I'm right there with her. I don't think there's
very much chance.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I mean a chance, but it certainly a strong likelihood
the Democrats are going to win the House of Representatives
in the next midterm. And if you're going to do
what I think Marjorie Taylor Green is going to do
and become a media commentator for a major network.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Your value goes down.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Significantly as a former Republican if Republicans no longer control
the house, because now you're irrelevant. And so I've said
recently that I think Marjorie Taylor Green is going to
make a play to be a media commentator, probably on CNN. Well,
there's no better way to cleanse yourself of MAGA and
(37:17):
make yourself clean enough to be able to be hired
by a CNN then for sixty minutes, which is still
considered to be extremely prestigious within the legacy media world.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
To do a softball feature on you.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
And that's exactly what Marjorie Taylor Green had done this
past weekend. She was cleansed of her maganess, and I
think she did so for very cynical reasons and probably
very effectively, because, as it turned out, I had to
laugh about this. Not only did she get the sixty
(37:57):
minutes treatment, but then she immediately right after the she
immediately did a major interview on CNN where she said
basically the same kind of stuff. So now now that
she's been cleansed of the MAGA, it's been washed off
of her. The stench is gone. In the minds of
the legacy media.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Now I think.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
We'll probably I'm almost positive we're going to hear that
she gets hired, probably by CNN as a commentator, as
soon as her days as an official congress person are
up in early January. As far as what she said
to Leslie Stall, there was one clip in particular that
I found to be very, very very interesting. Now I
(38:41):
acknowledge my bias here as any human being, as a
bias towards Hey, I was right about this, especially when
you take a contrarian and you know, seemingly unpopular position.
But my position on Donald Trump's opposition to the release
of the Epstein files, I understand very few people, especially
(39:04):
people that don't like Donald Trump, have agreed with me
on this. My position has been that Trump understands two
things very very well in this story. He understands the
media and media firestorms, and how incompetent the media is
and how big a story this has become, to the
point where whatever is in the Epstein files is going
(39:27):
to be completely taken out of context, and that people
are going to get destroyed, whether they deserve to be
destroyed or not. He understands that he also knew Epstein
and he knew Glenne Maxwell, so and he knows that
Epstein wasn't murdered in a federal prison. So it's my
(39:47):
belief that Trump probably has enough information or knowledge about
this case to understand the basic reality that there's nothing
earth shattering in these quote unquote files, that the story
has been completely blown out of proportion. And when Trump
calls it a quote unquote hoax, that's what he means.
(40:08):
In my opinion, he's referring to the Epstein narrative, the larger,
massive conspiracy, huge child sex trafficking ring narrative, that's the hoax.
And so I have theorized that Trump, even though it
doesn't sound like Trump, because he's not a guy that
(40:30):
really cares about others or stands on principle very much,
has been against the opening of the quote unquote Epstein
files because he knows that innocent people are gonna get harmed.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Now, maybe he thinks he's one of those.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Innocent people that's going to get harmed, or maybe people
close to him, buddies of his, are innocent people that
are gonna get harmed, which would give him enough of
a motivation to say, hey, look, we really don't need
to be making this bullshit information public because the media
is going to run hogwild with it. But then, finally,
especially once he realized he was going to lose the
(41:08):
vote to quote unquote open the Epstein files, Trump flipped
and said, no, let's go ahead and do it. Basically,
in my opinion, he said, Okay, fuck it, I don't
care about it. This is people getting harmed. And he
immediately shifted to, all right, let's take a look at
all the Democrats that are named in the Epstein files,
(41:28):
because you know, he's trying to shift the narrative. Okay,
we're going to destroy innocent people. Let's make sure it's
my enemies, or at least people that I perceive as
my enemies today. So I was of that belief even
before the Marjorie Taylor Green interview with sixty Minutes in
Leslie Stall. But then Leslie Stall asked her about this
(41:51):
very issue, and at first, Marjorie Taylor Green is playing
up the whole idea that she fought against Trump on
releasing the Epstein files, and you know, creating that whole
narrative of that she got canned from MAGA for standing
up for principle, standing up for the victims so that
(42:13):
they could have a voice. And then at the very end,
at the very end, Leslie Stahl asks a very simple
but profound question. She asks Marjorie Taylor Green to tell
her what Trump's explanation for why he didn't want to
release the files was. And that's when I think we
(42:34):
may have actually gotten to the truth of the matter,
which is one consistent with what I have been saying
all along and what I just told you a few
moments ago. And here's what that sounded like on CBS
and sixty minutes.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
We did talk about the Epstein files, and he was
extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharge
petition to release the files. Fully believe that those women
deserve everything they're asking. They're asking for all of it
to come out. They deserve it. And he was furious
with me. What did he say? He said that it
(43:12):
was going to hurt people.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Now the way Marjorie Taylor Green said that it was
almost like a concession, Like the tone of her voice
changed when she said, well, yeah, he doesn't want people
to get hurt, which I think is the most likely
and the most logical scenario here, even though that doesn't
(43:35):
sound very much like the Donald Trump that we know now. Look,
I have said time and time again that the media
is gonna find what they want in these Epstein files
when they're finally released.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
The narrative is too big to fail.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
There are gonna be innocent people destroyed, whether they deserve
to be or not. Obviously, innocent people inherently don't deserve
to be destroyed, but that's gonna happen in this situation
because the story is too large. The masses were promised
a public execution of elites, and the media has effectively
promised to give it to them, and so that's gonna happen.
(44:13):
So there's no way that we're gonna get a conclusive,
clear cut narrative of there was nothing in the Epstein files.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
That's not gonna happen. I believe that that.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Will be the essence of the reality, but I'm a
thousand percent positive that that reality is not going to
be properly portrayed because the media has zero incentive for
that to be the way that the narrative is portrayed.
The audience doesn't want that, the media doesn't want that.
(44:44):
They're deeply invested in this concocted, massive conspiracy narrative that
they have created, so they're gonna find evidence to support
that narrative. They have a conclusion, they're gonna find something
to support it. And when you we have that much
information and that much bullshit, and that's what grand jury
(45:06):
findings or or documents are really all about. It's just
throwing everything you have up against the wall. I Mean,
one of the dumbest things in our entire judicial system
is the idea that people take grand jury to be
credible or serious.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
I mean, that's a huge.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Part of what happened in the Penn State Joe Paterno
Jerry Sandusky case.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
People have a misunderstanding of what.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
A grand jury is. It sounds very significant, powerful, credible.
It's total bullshit. I mean it's literally bullshit. And that's
what we're going to fight out of these Epstein files
for lack of a better term, and I am very
confident that there's no one is going to be found
(45:50):
to have committed, you know, significant crimes that they were
never prosecuted for.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
That's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
But I'm also real enough to know the media is
going to give us the narrative that we want, meaning
we the masses and which fits their agenda. No one's
going to admit that they were wrong on this. No
one ever admits they're wrong on anything, but they're definitely
got not going to admit they were wrong on something
this big. But I believe that Marjorie Taylor Green, in
(46:18):
all likelihood, essentially revealed the truth of this situation. And
by the way, I've said this before, but it bears repeating.
If she really believed that she was going to be
totally vindicated on the Epstein files, why would she have
already announced the exact date when she was leaving Congress.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Why would she do that?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
To me, that's completely inconsistent with the entire theory of
this situation. I mean, if she was going to be
totally vindicated, then the whole world would have changed. She
would at least have a chance of holding on to
her congressional seed. I mean, she'd be able to take
this massive victory lap.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
I guess there's a scenario where they come out in
mid December, she takes her victory lap, and she leaves
to go into a media gig. I guess that's possible.
But to me, if I really, if I put all
my chips down on Trump being destroyed by these Epstein files,
and because that's the premise, you have to believe, right
(47:28):
to believe, that's the whole argument that the left and
people like Marjorie Taylor Green, now whatever you want to
describe her as left, right, center, MAGA, whatever, former MAGA,
the whole premise is Trump doesn't want the Epstein files
released because he has something to hide personally, which makes
no goddamn sense because he's never.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Been sued in this case.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
The accusers have only praised him, and most importantly, we
had a goddamn Biden administration for four years that was
willing to indict him over everything. They never elked anything
from the Epstein files. It just makes no goddamn sense.
And I really believe that at some level Marjorie Taylor
Green understands this, and that she's grand standing on the
(48:12):
Epstein file situation to come up with an explanation for
why she got fired from MAGA and to set herself
up for a media career actress. She leaves Congress in
early January. So that's my prediction on that particular situation,
and so far, I think I've nailed it on the
whole Marjorie Taylor Green Situation. Thanks for listening to today's
(48:34):
free drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested in
listening to the entire show, you must become a patron.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Please go to Patreon. That's p A T R e
O N dot com. Patreon dot com slash the Death
of Journalism with John Ziggler. My name is jhn z
I E G L e R. That's patreon dot com.
Slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziegler. Good luck
(49:06):
to you on that. But that's how you can subscribe.
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