Episode Two Hundred Seventy Two: Week Of Horror

Zig's perspective on a week of horror in Australia, Brentwood, California and on the campus of Brown University. Erika Kirk and Candace Owens get together, the Michigan scandal and the Heisman and the state of the college football.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Death of Journalism podcast. My name is
John Zigler. I'm your host of today's show. It has
been a very busy and tragic week in the news,
and we'll try to get to all of it. Public
mass shootings, the brutal murder of Rob Reiner and his wife,
and Trump's reaction. Susy Wilds blames the Vanity Fair for
her own attacks on the Trump White House. The candae
owens Erica Kirkfield goes nuclear and Michigan's football coach gets

(00:24):
fired for cause and arrested on the same day, and
the story is somehow already largely faded away. It has
been a week of horror all over the world. We
have the story in Australia where Jews are slaughtered at
the beginning of Hanukkah. We have the shooting at the
University of Brown, Brown University, where we still do not

(00:45):
even know the identity of the shooter, where two people
are dead and many others are wounded. We have the
brutal slaying of Rob Reiner and his wife. All sorts
of terrible news going on in the world that is
really kind of difficult to comprehend. The Australian news is
really probably the most disturbing for a number of reasons.

(01:05):
Although there were some videos of heroism that came out
of that horrific situation. I just do not understand, I
really do not understand what seems to be a wave
of anti Semitism that has spread throughout the entire world,
in which we're seeing even here in the United States,
even within the conservative movement, which I do think plays

(01:27):
a role in the entire Candae Owens controversy, which we'll
get to shortly. As far as what's going on at Brown,
the cluelessness or the apparent cluelessness that is going on
with regard to that investigation, it's really very easy as
a conservative to look at that and go, well, gee,
this is what happens when Ivy League liberal academics are

(01:50):
in charge of trying to figure out what's going on here.
But this is just bizarre in this day and age
where we have this many cameras and this kind of
technology to try to track somebody down, and here we
are several days later, and as of this taping, we
have no idea who did this. It appears as if
the perpetrator is not close to being apprehended. The videos

(02:11):
that have been released are almost comical in how completely
useless they are, and unfortunately, two innocent people are dead,
many others are wounded, and we really have no idea
how or why this happened. Now there is some reporting
indicating that this may have been a situation where there

(02:32):
was an Islamic extremist that was perpetrating this. We don't
know this. There were apparently are our ear witness accounts
of al acbar being said during the attack, but we
don't have that confirmed. The authorities, of course, are terrified
of verifying that for obvious political reasons. But it appears
as if Brown has absolutely no idea what they're doing.

(02:54):
It seems as if the FBI doesn't what he would
you want to touch this because it seems like the
whole thing is a total disaster as of this moment.
This of course, could change by the time you hear
this podcast, because obviously, you know, in any moment, we
could find out that we finally do have the perpetrator.
But it appears at this moment as if it's possible
that this person got away with this, at least for

(03:16):
the time being, which is just absolutely mind blowing in
this day and age. And then there's the story of
Rob Reiner and his wife, which has gotten probably the
most news coverage, at least here in the United States
over the last several days. And I think there's important
context here with regard to who Rob Reiner is and
what your view of him is, especially in light of

(03:37):
how President Trump responded to Rob Reiner's brutal death, apparently
at the hands of his son, and obviously with his
wife also being killed alongside him in their Brentwood home.
I like Rob Reiner. I thought that Rob Reiner's career
was extraordinary. The diversity of work is almost unparalleled, doing dramas,

(03:59):
doing commones, every different kind of movie, obviously being an
actor as well. I thought he was a very talented guy.
I thought he was a very smart guy. I quote
this is Spinal Tap all the time. It's one of
my favorite movies. Yes, he was very very liberal, and
yes he criticized Donald Trump, sometimes inaccurately, specifically when it

(04:19):
came to Russia Gate. But I had no problem with
him as a person, not just because I have no
problem with liberals in general, especially if they're well intentioned
and good faith actors. And I think Rob Reiner was
generally a good faith actor. I think he was generally
well intentioned, even in his often wrongheaded political beliefs, And

(04:39):
so I liked him as an entertainer, and I didn't
hate him as a liberal because he wasn't completely loony tunes.
He said some things that were wrong and inaccurate, but
as far as liberals go, I didn't think he was
all that bad. Frankly, if all liberals were like him,
I think we would be in a much better place
than we currently are. So I didn't consider him to

(05:02):
be the worst that the left has to offer. And
so I think that's important context with regard to how
some on the right, especially Donald Trump, ended up reacting
to his brutal death. Now, as far as what actually transpired,
it appears as if after an incident at Conan O'Brien's
Christmas party where their son Nick got agitated for some

(05:25):
reason and it caused a massive incident. It appears as
if later that night Nick Reiner killed his parents with
a knife, then went to a hotel, then tried to
get on a train, it appears, and was apprehended. Now,
it's kind of amazing, in this day and age that
we didn't know about this until basically almost twenty four

(05:48):
hours later. As far as a news story was concerned,
it wasn't even confirmed that Nick Reiner had been arrested
until even longer than that, like thirty six hours apparently
after the actual murder. And when I saw the initial
news reports here in Los Angeles, I have to say,
it was so soft towards Nick Reiner that it almost

(06:11):
felt like we were reporting on Rob Reiner and his
wife having died of natural causes. And that's not an exaggeration.
That's basically what happened as far as the way the
news media was portraying this. And I'm keep thinking, wait,
a hold on a second. I mean, yes, he had
not been officially arrested at this point, but it was
obvious that Nick Reiner the Sun had been the perpetrator

(06:34):
of this horrible double murder. And I think the news
media is so reticent whenever there's a situation where somebody
has a quote unquote illness, which Nick Reiner apparently did
or seemingly very obviously did, having gone to rehab over
a dozen times, that somehow, even subconsciously, we've gotten to

(06:57):
the point where they don't get Blaine, that it's not
totally their fault that they committed this horrific, horrendous act.
You can't even imagine something as terrible as this, right,
I mean, taking a knife to your parents as an
adult and killing them in their own home and then
leaving their dead bodies there. That's what all the evidence

(07:21):
indicates Nick Reiner did. And yet there's been very little
outrage towards Nick Reiner. In fact, I've probably received more
outrage on my social media posts about this, which I
think were actually well attentioned and very respectful to Rob
Reiner then i've seen publicly with regard to outrage and anger,

(07:44):
whether it's in the media or on social media, towards
the perpetrator of the double murder. And what I'm referring
to is that I posted on x two different videos.
One was of Rob Reiner on The Today Show back
in twenty sixteen. I believe this was while he was
promoting a movie that he did with his son, Nick Reiner,

(08:07):
which was basically a fictional account of Nick Reiner's battle
with addiction. That seems to be what the movie was
really all about. I've not seen the movie, but that's
clearly from all the promotions about it that I've seen
in light of the brutal murders, that's clearly what the
intention of the movie was. Rob Reiner and his son

(08:30):
worked on this movie together. It was somehow cathartic for them,
and they got to understand each other better. And I
posted this remarkable video of Rob Reiner talking on the
Today Show back in twenty sixteen about the making of
the movie and what he learned and what he believes
should be the philosophy of dealing with problems like that

(08:56):
that occurred in his life with regard to his son
Nick Reiner having this drug addiction. And I was struck
by this interview because it is dripping with liberal speak,
that this was where the liberal and Rob Reiner really
comes out, where the where the liberal philosophy is that
we have to be understanding, we have to be gentle,

(09:18):
We can't punish anybody, we have to understand their perspective.
And it's all very, very soft, and it's not you
at all keeping with a conservative view or a traditional
view of how you deal with problem kids or problems
in general, problem behavior in general. And and so this

(09:42):
was the clip that I posted on X with a
very I would say, snarky but simple question, which was basically, Hey,
I wonder whether or not we should have a conversation
about whether or not Rob Reiner's clearly very liberal educational
and parental strategy actually worked here, whether or not we

(10:04):
can learn from this tragedy. Now you might argue, oh,
it's too soon, Ji, Well, this whole idea that's too
soon always is very strange to me because the news
cycle is now about fifteen minutes long. Our attention spans
are incredibly short. So what exactly are you supposed to
have this conversation? And I wasn't blaming Rob Reiner for
his own death, obviously that would be incredibly stupid. I

(10:27):
was simply asking and suggesting that maybe we ought to
look at how we deal with problems like a Nick
Reiner and whether or not constant forgiveness, constant coddling, sending
them to a very expensive rehab over a dozen times,
doing a movie with them. See the movie part of this,

(10:49):
I think is really incredibly interesting and very primary to
this whole issue. So, I mean, what lesson did Nick
Reiner learn from getting to make a movie he wrote
the movie? Nick Reiner did make a movie with his
dad because of his addiction to drugs. Did that give
him the signal that this was a really bad thing

(11:11):
or did this actually work out well for him? Because
for a lot of people in Hollywood, that's a dream
you have, you screenwrite a movie that gets made because
Rob Reiner is your collaborator on this happens to be
your dad. I would suggest, whether intentioned or not, this
sent Nick Reiner a message that not only was his

(11:32):
behavior okay, it was actually something that was rewarded. Human
beings respond obviously to rewards and punishments. I talk about
incentive structures all the time, and it certainly appears to
me based upon the fact pattern, the timeline and this
clip on the Today Show, that Rob Reiner, while he
was clearly well intentioned, I want to make that clear,

(11:55):
but you know, the road to hell is paid with
good intentions. Maybe the rote double murder is paid with
good intentions. Having your child kill you in your own
home with a knife is paid with good intentions. Rob
Reiner had good intentions, but he was paving the way
for this problem to never be fixed, whether he realized

(12:16):
it or not. And so here was the clip that
I posted on x An interview with Rob Reiner on
the Today Show promoting this movie that he did about
his son with his son back in twenty sixteen, it.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Was very personal. I mean, it's not a secret, but
my son, Nick, who was one of the writers of
the screenplay, had his problems with substance abuse and he
went through a number of rehab programs from the time
he was fifteen to nineteen. He's doing very good now,
but what I didn't understand is the depth of what

(12:48):
he was going through, and the process of making this
film not only forced me to see what he was experiencing,
but I think it forced him to see what I
went through and what his mother went through. And hopefully
the film is a reflection of that.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think it's going to be tremendously helpful for so
many people to understand.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Hopefully, hopefully we have to not punish people who have problems.
We have to help them, and I think we're going
in that direction. Now. People are starting to recognize it
because it's been given a national spotlight on the campaign
trip Now.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
The key moment in that interview to me is towards
the end when Rob Reiner says, we can't punish people
who have problems. We can't punish people who have problems. Okay,
that's an interesting philosophy, that's an interesting strategy, But I'm
not convinced that that's something that is viable, and I'm

(13:46):
certainly not convinced that it's worked in this particular case.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Now.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Obviously, twenty twenty hindsight, I can't stand twenty twenty hindsight.
If this had all worked out well, we never would
have been talking about this, obviously, so that's built in.
I get that this is twenty twenty hindsight, but I
still think there's something that Cannon should be learned by this,
because isn't it at least possible. Isn't it at least

(14:10):
possible that maybe when we say you can't punish people
with problems, that maybe those problems are persistent because they're
not being punished. I mean, isn't that at least worthy
of consideration. Isn't that at least worthy of some semblance
of discussion and debate in light of this horrific tragedy.

(14:34):
I think it is. But of course we don't live
in that world anymore. Because I posted that video along
with another audio clip from a podcast interview that Nick
Reiner did, and I believe this is two years later,
So this is after the movie has been made and released,
after essentially he's been rewarded for his addiction and constant

(15:00):
attempts to go to rehab that were unsuccessful. He's doing
this podcast interview and listen to him talk about his
addiction and a situation where he trashed his parents home.
But listen most carefully to his tone and attitude and
whether or not he had any regret, whether or not

(15:22):
he thinks he did anything wrong. He's actually laughing, joking,
chuckling about this, and to me, this is again twenty
twenty hindsight, but it's very very telling about what's really
going on here, what may have really happened with regard
to how his bad behavior was enabled at every step

(15:43):
of the way and could have obviously resulted in this
horrific double murdered tragedy. And so here was Nick Reiner
on a podcast telling this story of having trashed his
parents home, and this this interview was done, I believe
in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
I got totally spun out on uppers. I think it
was coke and something else, and I was up for
days on end and I started punching out different things
in my guest house.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Like a frame, like like what like a stuff that
I think.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
I think I started with the TV, and then I
went over to the lamp, and then progressively I just
everything in the guest house got wrecked.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Did you punch the TV?

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, I literally punched it.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Did you like lasserate your hands? I mean that sounds
Did you hurt yourself?

Speaker 4 (16:35):
I don't even remember at this point.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Again, to be clear, I acknowledge all of this is
twenty twenty hindsight, and we don't know a lot. There's
a lot of things we don't know. Hopefully we're going
to get more information. Who knows what we're going to
learn from Nick Reiner. You know, what the nature of
his trial is going to be, Whether he's going to
plead guilty. We don't know any of that. Of course,
there's part of me that thinks, you know, big upon

(17:00):
the Menendez brothers precedent, you know, twenty thirty years for now,
we're going to be you know, somebody's going to be
sticking up for Nick Reiner, who's going to come up
with some sort of abuse excuse that his parents did
a lousy job with him because of his drug drug addiction,
and they abused him into doing this or some sort
of bullshit that the way we are going, the way
we're heading, and with the Menendez brothers president. Now, they

(17:23):
haven't gotten out of prison yet, but they've they've had
a lot of people support them after they blew the
heads off of both of their parents and lied about
why they did it. And I don't believe the abuse
excuse in any way, shape or form there. But here
we are in you know, twenty twenty four to twenty
twenty five, and people were buying into that. You could certainly,
at least theoretically see a scenario that you know, ten

(17:46):
twenty thirty years to now this somehow gets revisited. But
I'm the more important point in the short run is
that we don't know the facts. And I'm always very
hesitant to get ahead of the facts, but I do
believe that we have enough of a fact pattern to
at least consider this, at least consider this issue about

(18:08):
how it is that this happened and how it is
that spoiled kids end up the way that they do.
And this is an issue that I'm pretty passionate about
because I'm very concerned about my own kids being spoiled. Obviously,
I don't have anywhere near the resources that Rob Reiner did,
either publicly or financially. It's a completely different world, and

(18:29):
I'm actually happy about that. I'm actually happy that my
kids don't have that kind of problem, because it can
often be a problem. It seems like a dream to
have a parent that was Rob Reiner, but there comes
with it an awful lot of temptation and an awful
lot of challenges. I've seen it in other people's lives.

(18:51):
My father's dealt with a lot of high net worth individuals.
We talked about this when my father I did on
the phone just yesterday about he is I've seen incredibly
similar situations where especially the sons of very rich and
successful men have a very very difficult time, often with
drug addiction. It is my philosophy, it's been my father's philosophy,

(19:15):
that as a father, you want to create a safety net,
but you don't want to create a catapult when it
comes to influencing someone's life and making their path so
easy that they never have any challenges, they never see
any sort of punishment. They get away with all sorts
of very bad behavior and when you get away with

(19:35):
bad behavior, and you even rewarded for your bad behavior,
you get a movie made about your bad behavior. Guess
what happens. Your bad behavior doesn't dissipate, it escalates. And
so again I want to make clear, Rob Ryan, I'm
sure had all sorts of good intentions. He seemed like
a decent guy to me. I really do think he

(19:56):
was a good guy, an extremely talented director and actor.
And it's a huge loss. You cannot write the history
of Hollywood without Rob Reiner. I mean a few good men.
When Harriett Sally this is spinal tab meathead from all
in the family, I mean, it is a remarkable, remarkable career.

(20:18):
And let's not forget about his wife either, the mom
who got slaughtered by her son. And I've seen just
a remarkable lack of anger towards the guy who perpetrated
the double murder. In fact, when I posted those two
clips and simply asked the question whether or not we should
have a debate about whether or not Rob Reiner's parental

(20:39):
and educational philosophy was vindicated here, or whether or not
it should be criticized, those weren't the words I used.
I was even softerter than that. I literally got more
anger directed towards me that I have seen online directed
towards Nick Reiner. Now I don't care about that, except
for the fact, from a societal perspective, that's very, very troubling,

(21:01):
that makes very that makes no sense to me, that
it's very concerning that somehow the guy that wants to
ask a legitimate question about what might be able to
be learned from this from a societal perspective, gets more
anger directed at him than the person that slaughtered their
parents in their home. Where was the anger? Where's the outrage,

(21:25):
whether it's in the media or social media. And I
think it's all because of our view of addiction. There
are so many people, and I think it's probably most
prominent among people who think they have some sort of
addiction or have dealt with people that do that. Somehow,
the addiction not just mitigates the blame that someone should

(21:47):
get for committing a horrendous act, it almost totally dissipates it,
almost like it's a total excuse, like a complete blanket excuse. Oh, well,
we can't blame they had a disease, like it was
cancer or something like something you could not possibly control.
I'm not pretending that there aren't challenges of addiction. I'm

(22:10):
sure addiction is real. By the way, starting down that
road is the biggest problem. And how did that happen,
I don't know, but it's certainly consistent with the liberal
thinking that you know, drugs are are okay, you know
pot's cool, and you know that's generally the way these
things start when you're a kid. I have no idea
how Nick Reiner got into his drug use, but that's

(22:34):
certainly far more consistent with a liberal philosophy when it
comes to parenting than a conservative one. But once you
start down this path, it's Katie bar the door, especially
when you're coddled and spoiled and enabled and even rewarded
for your drug addiction and you go to rehab over
a dozen times and it doesn't work and you still

(22:55):
keep getting coddled. At least that appears to have been
the case. Well, folks, we've gone way too far. I
talk about the swinging pendulum all the time. We have
gone way way too far when it comes to feeling
like an addiction is a disease, and therefore we can't
blame anybody for almost anything that they do. It's really

(23:19):
very troubling. It might be the most Obviously, the most
troubling part of this is two innocent people were slaughtered
by their son and their home. But from a societal perspective,
I'm rather concerned that we're now living in a world
where all of a sudden, if you know, if you
have an addiction, you don't get full blame. Now I'm
not suggesting he's not gonna get full punishment under the law,

(23:42):
at least I hope that's not gonna be a situation
we have to worry about. But from the perspective of
the public and the media, I'm just not seeing any
of the anger and outrage directed towards the guy who
perpetrated the murder nearly as much as, Like I said,
even I got on a stupid social media a post
and by the way, this isn't aside, but in my

(24:03):
mind it's a similar situation. Also happening this week, there
was a murder suicide in Alabama involving a former television
sports reporter by the name of Christina Chambers that I
found to be quite amazing, not just because it was
a terrible tragedy where a husband and wife were left

(24:24):
dead with a toddler in the house. But when I
went to investigate what happened here, because I was very curious,
Oh my gosh, this this former television sports reporter. It
seemed to be very popular, very well connected within the
female television sports reporter community. You know, I was presuming

(24:47):
then when I saw murder suicide, that she must have
been the victim, obviously, right, I mean, everyone just presumes
the guy has to be the one that committed the murder,
that killed himself and left their child alone in a
ho with two dead parents. But here's how her former
TV station WBrC Channel six in Birmingham, Alabama. This is

(25:09):
how they a news organization, tweeted or posted about on
x regarding her death a murder suicide. They wrote, we
are absolutely heartbroken to share this news. We have confirmed
former WBrC sports supporter Christina Chambers is one of the

(25:29):
two people found dead in a Hoover home Tuesday morning.
Please keep their family and your wb RC family in
your thoughts as we navigate this loss. Now, this is
a news organization found dead in their home. What what

(25:54):
this was? By all accounts of murder suicide? Yet I
spent several minutes trying to find a news organization that
actually reported on who did the killing, and I'm again
I'm still presuming it has to be the man for
a number of reasons. I don't know his name, I
didn't see a picture of him. Obviously, zero outraged dards

(26:17):
what he did, and I think part of it is
now part of it is we don't have all the facts,
but I think we have enough of the facts. Part
of it is he killed himself. And much like the
drug addiction situation, and I've talked about as many times
on the podcast previously, somehow suicide has gone from being
like the worst thing you could do to being a

(26:37):
lot like addiction and being a mitigating factor when people
evaluate your crimes. This is as bad as a catch.
You're killed the mother of your child and left you're dead,
left the toddler alone in the house, apparently with two
dead parents. It doesn't get any worse to this. I
can't even find the guy's David picture. Forget about outrage

(26:59):
about what he did, and then think about it this way.
If if he had just killed his wife and left
your dead there with the child in the house, and
then escaped, right, can you imagine the man hunted Alabama.
I mean, normal everyday citizens would be out there with
their shotguns. His picture would be everywhere. He'd be shot

(27:20):
on site, no questions asked. Plus we would just look
at it completely differently. Oh he killed himself. Oh, mental
illness is terrible. We have a mental illness problem in
this country, which we clearly do. We clearly have a
massive mental illness problem in this country. But I think
part of the problem is how we're evaluating these horrendous acts.

(27:43):
And I just I'm stunned when they're going back to
the Rhiner situation. I'm totally stunned by the reaction to
this on numerous levels. But I had to say, the
reaction that's most shocking, even though I guess it shouldn't
be given the history here, came from President Trump himself.
President Trump, you know, reacted in this to this situation

(28:08):
as badly as he has ever reacted to any circumstance
in either of his presidencies. You know, I almost hesitate
to even read what he posted on social media. But
since this is the Death of Journalism podcast, and I'm
an ardently anti Trump conservative who tries to be as
fair as I possibly can to Trump, and Trump is

(28:30):
obviously a huge part of this podcast. I feel somewhat
obligated to for the record, read what Trump posted in
the aftermath of the Reiner double murder, and it's just
it's just horrendous, even by Trump's standards. But this is
what the President of the United States wrote and decided

(28:52):
to send publicly apparently, you know, I don't know whether
anyone else saw this. I'm almost hoping no one else
did see this to say, mister president, that looks good.
Go ahead, and it's senn. But this is what the
President of the United States decided to publicly pronounce in
the aftermath of the death of an American icon. Regardless
of whether you agree or disagree with him on his politics.

(29:14):
Rob Reiner was an American icon, a huge part of
the entertainment history of this country, someone who was beloved
by millions of people, and rightfully so. And here's what
the President of the States wrote. A very sad thing
happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and
struggling but once very talented movie director and comedy star,

(29:36):
has passed away together with his wife Michelle. By the way,
passed away. What the hell is that? Reportedly due to
the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and
incurable affliction with a mind rippling disease known as Trump
Derangement syndrome all in capital letters, sometimes referred to as

(30:00):
as TDS. He was known to have driven people crazy
capital letters by his raging obsession of of not with
I mean, at least get your word usage proper. It's
just unbelievable President of States, his raging obsession of President

(30:20):
Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia, reaching new heights
as the Trump administration surpassed all goals and expectations of
greatness and with the golden Age of America upon us,
perhaps like never before. May Robin Michelle rest in peace.
I mean, when I sent that to my wife, who

(30:41):
is a Trump supporter, all I did was texted to her.
She was at school when it happened, and she called
me during her lunch break and asked me whether or
not that was real. That's what she said to me.
I said, yeah, that's actually real, and she was like,

(31:02):
what the fuck? What the fuck? And I think that
that was the general reaction to most Americans, What the fuck?
By the way, there's another aspect of this whole thing
that's so weird, And we don't even know whether not
Trump even remembers or realizes this. But you know, Michelle
Reiner and Trump actually had a pretty strong connection back

(31:24):
in the day. I didn't know this, but apparently Michelle
Reiner was a photographer and she took the photograph of
Trump that was used on the original cover of his
book The Art of the Deal. Now it's possible Trump
doesn't remember that. I don't know, he didn't mention it.
Kind of weird since it's about him, and obviously everything

(31:45):
is about him. I mean, this is as narcissistic as
it gets. This is completely inappropriate. This would be inappropriate
if Donald Trump was purely a private citizen, and that's
the way a lot of his fans still evaluate everything
he does in this realm. Well, you know, he's a
private citizen. Minor was very mean to him, said a

(32:07):
lot of nasty things, some of them were inaccurate, especially
with regard to Russia Gate. He was a critic and
an activist against the president. So of course you're not
going to say nice things about him when he dies. Eh,
I'm sorry. You can say nothing. That's an option. That's
an option. But more importantly, he's not a fucking private citizen.

(32:30):
He's the president of the United States. It's not the
difficult concept to understand. Something every American used to understand
that the president is held to a much higher standard
than the president's job in times of trouble and crisis
is to unite us. Where the United States of America

(32:50):
were incredibly divided, maybe more divided than we've been since
the Civil War. And one of the many, many problems
with the Trump presidency is Trump is uniquely ill suited
for this position. One because he's not a unitor. He's
a divider. He literally divides. In fact, the only time
he ever unites us is when he divides us so badly,

(33:11):
like he did in this situation that most of the
country was united in saying that's ridiculous, what the fuck
is that in regard to his post about the Rhiner
double murders. So in a weird way, he did unite
the country against him because everyone understands how just are
almost everyone understands just how completely stupid this was. There

(33:32):
were so many problems with that statement. I mean, it
was inappropriate, it was narcissistic. By the way, The only
way it even makes a little bit of sense is
if he somehow believed that Nick Reiner was killing his
parents on behalf of Trump, or because of his parents'
criticism of Trump, which of course makes no goddamn sense.

(33:54):
There's no evidence for that whatsoever. But that's the only
way you make Trump's statement make any sense at all.
But the narcissism of it, the referencing of passing away,
the claiming that it was due to the anger he
caused others through his massive un yielding an incurable affliction
with the mind crippling decease known as Trump derangement syndrome.

(34:16):
I mean, this is this is crazy stuff even if
he wasn't president of the United States. But he is president,
and I have said since twenty fifteen that he is
uniquely psychologically ill suited, unqualified psychologically. He's unqualified psychologically to

(34:37):
hold this position because he is completely incapable, incapable of
doing the basic things that are in a president's job description,
and this is one of them. An American icon dies.
If you're going to make a public statement, it cannot
be like that. And I think this broke through now

(35:00):
how much this impacted Trump's overall support. I have no idea,
but I guarantee that if you did a poll just
on the public's reaction to that statement, it would be
overwhelmingly negative, at least seventy to seventy five, maybe eighty
percent negative towards what Trump said. There at a moment

(35:21):
that is going to be remembered, because this is a
huge event in American entertainment history, and it obviously happened
in a very dramatic fashion. My gosh, I mean, I
don't think it's going to turn into OJ two point
zero for a lot of different reasons. But it happened
right in the same neighborhood as OJ and in Brentwood, California.

(35:42):
And there's still going to be news regarding this because
they still have to deal with the legal proceedings surrounding
Nick Reiner. So this story is not going to go away.
And Trump. What Trump did there was absolutely incredibly dumb, inappropriate,
But you know what, not all that surprising. What was
surprising in the realm of Trump and his perception and

(36:04):
who he is was an interview that Susie Wiles, is
Chief of Staff, a series of interviews that she apparently
gave to Vanity Fair. Now, this is politically one of
the craziest stories, and that the bar for that is
very high in the Trump era, one of the craziest
stories of the last decade of the Trump era, because

(36:27):
you have the chief of Staff of the President United States,
Susie Wiles, who we've talked about many times before on
the podcast. Trump himself has referred to her as the
most powerful woman in the world. And here she gives
apparently eleven interviews to a liberal legacy media outlet, Vanity Fair,

(36:50):
to a reporter that's basically unknown or very little known,
and she says several things that are extremely exploded, of controversial, provocative,
and seemingly very critical not just of Trump but of
those in his administration. Now, the essence of the report

(37:12):
from Vanity Fair after these eleven interviews was summed up
basically in one paragraph, and that's what this said. It
said this, Over the course of eleven interviews, missus Wiles
or ms Wiles, offered pungent assessments of the President and
his team. Mister Trump quote has an alcoholics personality. Vice

(37:36):
President d jd Vance has quote been a conspiracy theorist
for a decade unquote, and his conversion from Trump critic
to ally was based not on principle, but was quote
an avowed Kennamine user and quote an odd odd duck
unquote whose actions were not always quote unquote rational and

(37:57):
left her quote unquote aghast Russell T. Vaught, the budget Director,
is a right wing absolute zealot and Attorney General Pam
BONDI completely whiffed in the handling of the Epstein files. Now,
I agree with a lot, if not almost all, of
what Wiles is quoted as saying there. Now, I also

(38:20):
acknowledge it's possible that some of this could be taken
out of context. But it's clear that these were not misquotes.
And we know that because after Wiles responded to this,
because this exploded in controversy as you might expect, she
basically said she was taken out of context. She never

(38:40):
claimed that she was misquoted, and in fact, it became
clear that there are audio tapes of Wiles saying these things,
although to my knowledge as of this taping, they've not
been made public, but The New York Times has said
that they have heard the actual words that were used
in many of not all, of the key quote in

(39:00):
this Vanity Fair article, So this was not a case
of misquoting. I get that you can say something in
jest or as a joke, like for instance, I think
the JD. Vance thing is probably most likely a joke
because JD Vance, I thought, gave a tremendous response when
asked about it. He was very straightforward. He says that,

(39:23):
you know, he and Cusey Wiles joke about conspiracies all
the time, and then he went on, I thought brilliantly
to say, yeah, I believed in a few conspiracies, like
I believe that the conspiracy that we masked kids in school,
which was obviously false, and then he are based on
a falsehood, and then he referenced a couple of other

(39:46):
things that the news media got completely wrong. And so
he turned it around on the news media who asked
him the question, which I thought was really well done
on his part, and he acknowledged that he and and
Wiles talk about and joke conspiracies all the time. So
I don't think that that was all that damaging. And
it's obvious anybody who's looked at the history of JD.

(40:08):
Evans that he he did change his position on Trump
because he's running for Senate. I mean, I've referred to JD.
Vans as a shape shifter. He is a really almost
magical shape shifter, incredibly good at it, and has been
able to navigate the Trump issue, you know, better and
more dramatically than anybody else I know. Obviously, he's the

(40:30):
vice president United States when he at first was an
ardent Trump critic and basically compared him to Hitler. So
this is not new information. But to me, the most
interesting thing that she's quoted as saying here is that
Trump has an alcoholics personality. And why is that interesting? Well,
first of all, if the chief of staff of the

(40:52):
president is claiming that the president has an alcoholics personality,
that's problematic. But it's particularly problematic and difficult to just
discard as an issue of an out of context quote
when the person's saying that is Susie Wiles. Why Well,
because if we as we've mentioned before in the podcast

(41:14):
several times in a bizarre quirk of fade and history,
Susie Wiles is the daughter of Pat Summerle, former legendary
NFL and golf announcer Pat Summerl who very famously was
an alcoholic that caused all sorts of problems for his family,
including his daughter Susie Wiles. So for Susie Wiles to

(41:38):
say that Trump has an alcoholics personality that carries an
awful lot of weight and has an extreme negative connotation,
even though famously Trump doesn't drink any alcohol at all.
And I think that this is, you know, because the
Trump fans are always going to take the side of

(41:59):
Trump no matter what this is, how this gets discredited
in their minds. Oh my gosh, what a ridiculous thing
to be publishing that Trump has an alcoholics personality when
everyone knows he doesn't drink alcohol, partially because I believe
it was because of his brother having a problem with
alcoholism and he wanted to avoid that, by the way,

(42:22):
which I applaud. I mean, that's very smart on Trump's part,
and I actually think that's one of his more positive
personality traits. But for Susie Wiles to essentially be comparing
Trump to an alcoholic based upon her own experience with
her father, Pat summerw that's very troubling. And I have

(42:44):
to say that in a normal world, in a pre
Trump world, if the chief of staff of the president
gave eleven interviews, apparently most of not all on tape,
and said these kind of things about the president and
his administration to a liberal legacy media outlet. They would

(43:05):
be instantly fired. They would be instantly fired. I mean,
I don't even understand what Wiles was doing. Why in
the world would you engage in eleven interviews with a
liberal legacy media outlet that clearly does not have Donald
Trump's best interest at heart. It doesn't make any sense
in this day and age. But we now live in
such an upside down world that the exact opposite thing

(43:30):
happened then her getting fired in an unprecedented show of support,
and I mean unprecedented, Virtually everybody in the Trump administration
immediately immediately made glowing posts on social media, usually on
x about how great Susie Wiles is, how important she is,

(43:51):
what an amazing job she's doing, and one hundred percent support. Now,
how why did that happen? Literally, Trump himself sent the
message that he was supporting Wiles, and once that was done,
everyone has to get behind the king. So the king
has spoken, and now, weirdly, Susie Wiles has actually become

(44:15):
probably more powerful, more untouchable because of the level of
support she got even when she stepped in at big time.
With regard to this, the series of interviews with Vanity Fair,
everything's upside down. So in a rational world, she gets fired,
But in the world in which we're now living, she's
probably more powerful and more untouchable than she's ever been before.

(44:40):
It's really a remarkable thing. Now. I don't know what
her motivations were. I don't know whether or not this
was just a lapse in judgment, whether she was naive.
She certainly doesn't seem like a naive person. She seems
very smart, almost machiavellian. I mean, the way that she
turned on Ron DeSantis in Florida and Nagavat navigated tru
through this incredibly difficult maze of indictments and trying to

(45:05):
get the Republican nomination and then the presidency, and she's
given credit for all that. So I mean, she's clearly
not a dumb person. So I don't know what her
real motivation here was. And is it possible that some
of these statements were taken slightly out of context, Yes,
but she did say them. I mean, there's not gonna
be any lawsuit against Vanity Fair. I can assure you

(45:25):
that because it's all on tape and they don't want
I don't think they want to provide any more attention
to some of the things that she said. I'd be
curious to hear exactly what she said and to maybe
understand the context a little bit better. And if those
tapes do become available, I'm sure we'll talk about it
again on the podcast. But as of right now, Susie

(45:46):
Wilds has not only survived this situation, I think she's
probably actually prospered with regard to political strength because of it. Now,
speaking of drama and the soap opera nature of Republican politics,
the last week has seen an extraordinary series of events,
even by the standards of our very bizarre times, involving

(46:10):
Erica Kirk and the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk,
and the effort by right wing provocateur podcaster Candace Owens to,
in my opinion, make money and get attention for promoting
crazy conspiracy theories about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And

(46:35):
I mean I could probably do three hours on everything
that has transpired in just the last week when it
comes to this particular controversy. I have been very critical
of what I refer to as the alliance of lunacy
that has overtaken an awful lot of the independent right
wing media, specifically the alliance of Candace Owens, Talker Carlson,

(46:59):
and Meg and Kelly, with weirdly Jason Whitlock, conspiracy lover
from The Blaze, jumping in on this particular one. I
don't really know why. I mean, Jason is wrong about
like eighty percent of what he says. The twenty percent
is really really good, but the other eighty percent, he's
an absolute batshit crazy person, and he's you know, I

(47:21):
don't know that he's in the club on this, but
he's joined the alliance of Cadis, Tucker and Megan, where
they have been promoting. Although Megan, in her classic shape
shift her fashion, has been trying to have it all
ways and trying to please everybody, and in my opinion,
has pleased absolutely nobody and hopefully has actually exposed herself
as the fraud that I've been telling you that she is.

(47:44):
For many years. I've been following her very very closely.
I've been involved in stories related to her, Specifically, my
friend Matt Lower fromer NBC Today Show host. I've told
you many many times she's not to be trusted, and
I feel very, very vindicated in the way that she
has handled this entire situation from essentially back in Candace

(48:05):
Owens calling Ben Shapiro a liar, which she is, to
my knowledge, never apologized for, even when Candace Owens has
gone out of her way to prove that Ben Shapiro
was correct when he said that Candace Owens has essentially
been claiming that Erica Kirk and Turning Point USA was
behind the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and bizarrely and outrageously,

(48:29):
Megan Kelly publicly called Ben Shapiro a liar for all
intensive purposes with regard to the Alliance of lunacy, I
have theorized because it's the only connection I could make
that perhaps the lawyer Brian Friedman, who I dealt with
on the Michael Jackson case, a very very high profile
lawyer here in Los Angeles who represents Tucker Carlson and

(48:53):
Megan Kelly, and who has clearly provided Candace Owens a
lot of information on the whole Justin Baldoni lawsuit situation,
and involving Blake Lively, and so maybe that's the connection.
Maybe they all share the Brian Friedman connection. Other than that,
I can't figure it out. Maybe there's a financial interest

(49:14):
that they think that they are protecting because so much
of their audience is now conspiracy theorists and people that
have lost their fucking minds. But I mean, even by
conspiracy theory standards, the entire Candace Owens Charlie Kirk assassination
quote unquote theory doesn't even get out of the batter's box.
I mean, there isn't even a theory. There is no theory.

(49:36):
I want to make this very clear. There is no theory.
And even the so called alternative fact pattern that Candace
Owens has tried to claim is suspicious has been discredited
at every single turn. So I honestly don't know. Is
she lying, is she totally drifting, is it somewhere in

(49:56):
the middle. I don't know. But it's just a crazy situation.
It is such a damning indictment of what the magamedia
has become and how the changes in technology have created
this independent right wing media that's incredibly influential, very very popular,

(50:20):
but corrupted to its very poor to the point where
we can't even accept the obvious reality of the Charlie
Kirk assassination. And as far as specifically what happened with
regard to Erica Kirk and Candace Owens, the timeline of
events is basically that over this past weekend, CBS did

(50:42):
something that was unprecedented in the modern era, maybe ever,
especially considering the left wing bias of CBS. On Saturday night,
they ran a town hall that Barry Weiss, the editor
in chief of CBS News formed liberal Calmness for The
New York Times, who has revolted against wokeness, is perceived

(51:05):
as moderate. I agree that she's moderate on most issues,
and eventually she got it on the whole COVID panic thing,
for which I do respect her. I don't think she's brilliant,
but I think she's at least trying to be fair.
She hosted this town hall with Erica Kirk, this interview
that CBS aired in prime time. Now. It did very
poorly in the ratings, which is kind of surprising. My

(51:29):
only explanation for that is that the conservative audience just
so doesn't trust CBS and isn't even in CBS's stratosphere
to be exposed to promotion for this thing that they
might not have even known it was happening. So it's very,
very difficult for an outlet like CBS that is so

(51:50):
known as being liberally biased to even appeal to conservatives
because one there's an errent suspicion by conservatives, and two
they might not even know what happened, because, let's face it,
the only promotion it's really getting other than a little
bit online, is through CBS, and conservatives aren't watching CBS,
especially CBS News to begin with. And you know, there

(52:12):
were a lot of different topics that were covered in
this interview between Weiss and Erica Kirk, but the one
that's most obviously relevant to this discussion involving Candace Owens
is where Weiss lays it out and really land based
without naming her Candace Owens with regard to this whole
conspiracy quote unquote theory that's not even a theory involving

(52:35):
the assassination of Charlie Kirk and getting Erica Kirk's reaction.
And so this is kind of the the money clip
from that town hall on CBS between Barry Weiss and
Erica Kirk.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
I want to talk about discernment, yes, okay, being able
to separate truth from lives, reality from unreality. A twenty
two year old man named Tyler Robinson has been rested
and charged with the murder of your husband, and yet
there are a huge number of conspiracy theories you might

(53:13):
call them brain rot that are spreading right now online
about the actual story behind the reality. One people say
that Tyler Robinson was actually a Maga Republican or two.
Some people say, you are actually a Masad agent sitting
in front of me, and you were Charlie's handler, and

(53:33):
Israel killed Charlie right. Other people say that a number
of men in the crowd were wearing Maroon T shirts
and this signifies that his killing was an elite airborne operation,
whatever that means. They say that the rings on your fingers,
which are.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
My kids and the kid's initial, my wedding band, the
metal of Freedom, my engagement rate, but.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
Apparently they symbolize some kind of secret plot. There's also
a new theory that Egyptian aircraft have been tracking you.
What is going on? Why are there so many conspiracies
spreading about what seems to be a pretty open and shutcase.

Speaker 5 (54:14):
This is the first time that we have seen evil
on display, where we have social media at our fingertips.
Something so evil that happened, people are wanting answers immediately.
They are wanting to figure out how to wrap their
mind around this. Egyptian planes do let's just know, yeah,

(54:38):
the Egyptian. Do you believe that Tyler Robinson murdered your husband?

Speaker 3 (54:41):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (54:41):
I do.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Why do you think it is so hard for so
many people to believe that reality.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
Because it's too simple. Again, everyone always has to think
there's more to the story. Well, sometimes there's not. I've
seen the op topsy report, I've seen our case pull together.
I've been in constant contact with our lawyers, are the
prosecuting team. I've seen it all.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
Now I have no problem in all with Barry Weiss's
question there. And you know, one of the more baffling
things about this whole town hall was that liberals, especially
on social media, had a complete mountdown, a complete mountdown
with them having to watch CBS turn into what they
perceived as a right wing media outlet where they thought

(55:33):
this was so super soft and let's face it, they
really don't like Erica Kirk. They didn't like Charlie Kirk.
They didn't like the fact that they got blamed as
a group, as as an entity for celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination. Yet,
let's be clear, a lot of liberals did celebrate Charlie
Kirk's assassination, you know. So I don't think it's inappropriate

(55:56):
to at least mark part of the liberal move with
that criticism. But I think that's partially why liberals on
social media are so sensitive about this issue to begin with.
I mean, they it went very very poorly for them, obviously,
most prominently with the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, which I
was against and thought was based upon an erroneous interpretation

(56:18):
of what he said. But I digress. The point is
liberals went crazy in seeing CBS in what they thought
was a right wing softball presentation of Erica Kirk. Now,
part of the problem is not just the legacy of
the liberal reaction to the Charlie Kirk assassination. It's also
because people don't like Erica Kirk. And I have to

(56:39):
say I can understand that. I mean, I have tried
to be extremely fair and understanding of Erica Kirk. Obviously,
she had her husband in the prime of his life,
taken in the most horrific way possible, and she went
from being essentially someone almost no one of them heard

(57:00):
of before and being thrust into the spotlight. She's now
the head of a major political organization, and everything that
she's gonna do is going to be scrutinized to an
extreme level. I will acknowledge and agree with those that
say that there's something off about Erica Kirk's reaction to

(57:24):
all this, But I'm also willing to give her an
awful lot of leeway and slack because of the obviously
horrific circumstances. But I will I'm gonna be honest about this.
I did not like the presentation that she gave, or
certainly didn't like it as much as most conservatives did.
The presentation that she gave at Charlie Kirk's memorial. I

(57:47):
didn't like the super melodramatic way which she forgave the
killer of Charlie Kirk. Even though the killer of Charlie
Kirk has never asked for forgiveness, it apparently hasn't even
taken full responsibility for what they did. It felt like
grand standing to me. I will also acknowledge that the
fact that she was a beauty pageant person earlier in

(58:09):
her life creates a bias towards me, because this certainly
does seem to fit with what people perceive and what
I perceive as being a reality when it comes to
women that are from the beauty pageant world. So I'm
not going to pretend that, oh my gosh, you know,
Erica Kirk shouldn't be criticized, or those that are being

(58:31):
cynical about her, you know, have some sort of liberal
Trump arrangement syndrome or whatever it is. I get it,
I understand it. I'm trying to be very understanding of
her and give her a lot of slack and and
a lot of leeway here because of the horrific circumstances.
But I'm not blind to this. I'm very skeptical of

(58:54):
Erica Kirk given everything that we know. When I say skeptical,
I'm not Hannas Owan's skeptical. I'm just saying that, you know,
we're having a situation here where this woman does seem
to like the attention, which is consistent with someone from
the beauty pageant world, and now all of a sudden,
you have a situation where she is thrown very very

(59:16):
much in the spotlight that never existed for her as
the wife of Charlie Kirk and the mother of his children.
And so the liberal mountdown, I think is very telling.
I get the skepticism about Erica Kirk, but I'm still
not willing to condemn her because you have to understand

(59:39):
her horrific circumstances. Well, in the aftermath of this Barry
Weiss and Erica Kirk town Hall, Cannis Owens maintained her
warpath stance. In fact, she of course loved it. I mean,
this is what Cannis Owens lives. For My gosh, now

(01:00:03):
Erica Kirk is effectively responding to me by name. And
then Erica Kirk also did a Fox News Channel interview
we were similar where it was clearly directed at Candace Owens. Well,
this is what this is manna from heaven for Candace Owens,
this is content, this is what she wants. And we

(01:00:24):
had this very very bizarre situation where as things were escalating,
all of a sudden it was announced that Candace Owens
and Erica Kirk were going to meet together. They were
going to have a summit to try to resolve this conflict,
which to me is unresolvable. I mean, you have one
person who's in the know, who's now the head of

(01:00:45):
Turning Point USA, who's the widow, who realizes that what
Candice Owens is saying is a complete and total bullshit.
And then you have someone who's lying for clicks and
money and clout and attention in Candace Owens not even
coming up with a remotely plausible or coherent theory as

(01:01:06):
an alternative explanation for what actually transpired here. And so
to how in the world you can put these two
people on the same level and make them equal and
have a situation where you could resolve these difficulties. And
this disagreement is beyond me. I mean, that's irre, irreconcilable.

(01:01:27):
There's no way to breach that gap unless you know
Candace Owens was somehow gonna be willing to say, Oops,
my bad, I was wrong. I learned the truth. Let
me move on. And part of me thought, is it
possible that Candace Owens is looking for an out because
her theory is not going to go anywhere? So, yes,

(01:01:52):
she's been riding this wave and apparently it's been incredibly
lucrative for her and getting all sorts of popular podcast
episodes to an insane level. But where does she go
because there's no remote truth to what she's trying to say,
So how do you continue to feed that monster? Is

(01:02:14):
it possible she's looking for an out? Is she? Is
it possible that Candace Owens is looking for a graceful
off ramp for this lunacy that she's involved in. And
I thought the meeting was a bad idea because you know,
to me, there were only two options. Either the option
I just laid out, in which case Erica Kirk is

(01:02:36):
helping Candace Owens get out of this trap that she's
laid for herself, because you know, you know, you live
by the sword, you die by the sword. I mean,
in the short run, she's been getting all sorts of
attention and popularity. But this can't go on because there's
no place for the story to go because it's all bullshit.
And I wasn't happy with the first scenario, which I

(01:02:58):
actually thought was the more benign scenario where Candass Owens
is trying to get help from Erica Kirk to get
her out of this. The second scenario is the candiss
Owans is a snake and just using this for content,
and whether it's in the short run or the long run,
is actually gonna turn on Erica Kirk and actually use

(01:03:18):
the meeting to increase her credibility on this I'm so important.
What I'm saying is so dangerous. Erica Kirk was willing
to meet with me for four and a half hours,
and in a weird way, not just to Didn't it
just give her content In the short run, it gave
her more credibility to keep running with this bullshit. And
we don't know for sure exactly which track candiss Owens

(01:03:42):
is gonna use, but it certainly seems to me, based
upon the early returns, that it's the second one where
Erica Kirk got played. Here. Erica Kirk got played And
I don't know whether it was because she was well
intentioned and just naive, whether or not she's just not
used to this world. Does she not understand what a

(01:04:03):
snake candiss Owens is. Did she get bad counsel? And
it's possible she got bad counsel because it appears as
if that council was coming from Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly
who has been doing all sorts of machinations, trying desperately
to come up with a position that doesn't harm her,
and I think failing very badly. Has claimed that her

(01:04:26):
silence on this and her lack of condemnation of Candace
Owans for being more overt about blaming Turning Point Us
today and effectively Erica Kirk for Charlie Kirk's assassination than
ever something. Again, she called Ben Shapiro a liar for
saying was because that Megan Kelly was behind the scenes

(01:04:47):
trying to broke her this peace meeting, this summit between
Candie Owens and Erica Kirk. And I don't think that
Meghan's totally lying. Is it possible that she's exaggerating. That's
certainly possible, But that's Megan Kelly's narrative. And Megan Kelly
has tried everything under the side to try to come

(01:05:07):
up with a narrative that works for her to get
herself out of this because she has been at the
thick of it. I went especially once she called Ben
Shapiro a liar. I mean, there was no going back
at that point because she was backing Candace Owans. And
so she either has to completely disavowed Candace Owens and

(01:05:30):
acknowledge that she was wrong to call Ben Shapiro a liar,
which she doesn't seem to be willing to do. I
think largely because of ego and maybe because of political
circumstances that we're not fully aware of. But for whatever reason,
she doesn't think that's the option. So now she's trying
to get out of condemning Candace by saying, well, I

(01:05:51):
can't condemn candas because I'm trying to do something for
the good of the movement. I'm trying to get the
two of them together and promote Well, okay, I'm willing
to accept that. That's again, I'm trying to be as
understanding as possible. I always, until proven otherwise, give people

(01:06:12):
the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes that results in me
being wrong at first. When it comes to Magan Kelly,
I think I've been dead on almost all along for
many many years. But when I look at what Megan
Kelly was really doing here to me, the effect of it,
whether it was the intention or I don't know, the
effect of it was to set Erica Kirk up and

(01:06:35):
to put Candace Owens in a situation where she could
not lose because of the circumstances I've already outlined. Either
she was going to get an off ramp to get
herself out of this predicament that she's created by creating
an audience that's desperate for the truth about the real
story of Charlie Kirk's assassination, which she's never going to

(01:06:55):
be able to provide in a remotely credible fashion, or
is she looking to continue the wave. You know, Erica
Kirk just reignited the wave because she just gave Candas
a lot of credibility and a lot of content. And
you know, four and a half hours of meeting, Candas
can ride that with all sorts of vague insinuations for

(01:07:18):
weeks and weeks, if not longer than that, And anybody
with a brain, because I tweeted about this when we
heard about the meeting, well before we knew anything of
the results of it, understood that this was the obvious
reality that Erica Kirk was being set up and apparently
was being set up again, either purposely or not purposely,
or somewhere in between by Megan Kelly, who was brokering

(01:07:41):
this deal. And you know, weirdly, the person who was
most outspoken about this on Fox News Channel was Tomy Larren,
weird that we're dealing with all women here, right. I
don't think that's a coincidence. We've got Candace and Megan
and Eric Tucker's kind of a girl now too so,

(01:08:04):
and now we have Tomy Laren. I'm convinced that Bravo
is going to come up with a new reality series
called the Real Housewives of Ruby Red Maga County. I mean,
that's really Brabo couldn't ask for this kind of soap
opera on their reality television programming. But Tomy Laren, of
all people, went on Fox News Channel and eviscrated Candace

(01:08:29):
Owens and the entire concept of this meeting because she understood,
like I do, what Candace Owens is really all about,
and how this meeting was going to benefit Candas and
give her exactly what she wants in this totally fucked
up media world where the incentive structure is completely and
totally broken and corrupt. And what's really interesting to me

(01:08:51):
about this is Tommy Laren, at one point in her career,
was much like Candace Owitz. Remember she was at the
Blaze when the whole Trump thing started. In fact, Tommy
larn interviewed me for The Blaze about the Trump candidacy
back in twenty sixteen, and it didn't go well historically

(01:09:13):
for me because I was trying to convince her Trump's
not a conservative, but he can't win a general election. Well,
he's not a conservative. I was right about that, but
I was wrong about him not being able to win
a general election. And it was obvious to me at
that point that she was trying to jump on the
Trump train, which was not something the Blaze was promoting.

(01:09:33):
At that time, Glenn Beck was still very much of
the anti Trump camp. Well, she jettison the Blaze, and
the people at the Blaze thought Tomy Laren was a
lot like what we now think of Candace Owens. She's
a sellout, she's a fraud, she's just trying to do
this for her own careers. She's an attractive woman, and

(01:09:54):
you know, much like Candace Owens, a young attractive woman
that changes all the the rules and changes the whole
dynamic of the situation. So Tomy Laren leaves for greener pastures.
By the way, it was a great career move because
the Blaze almost went under until Glenn Beck totally sold
out to Donald Trump after he got elected, somewhere in

(01:10:16):
the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen vicinity, And so here we
have this bizarre spectacle. Now we're in twenty twenty five,
and Tomy Laren is the voice of reason. She's the
one standing up for principle and calling out Candace Owans
for what she really is and why this meeting was
a really bad idea. And the only thing that I
can think of is it takes one to know what.

(01:10:39):
So here was Toby Laren on Fox News Channel and
what I thought was by far the best high profile
analysis of this whole situation involving the meeting between Candace
Owens and Erica kirk Well.

Speaker 6 (01:10:52):
I understand why she'd want to take this meeting because
she wants to put it to rest. And I understand
because I think she's discovered by now that it's not
going away anytime soon. And I personally, if I were her,
I wouldn't do the meeting. I wouldn't give this other
person any content, because that's what this person is going
to use it for content, Because when you have nothing
else to talk about, when you're not talking about conservative policy,
when you're not talking about the conservative agenda or talking

(01:11:14):
about young college conservatives on campus, which is what TPUSA does.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:11:18):
You need content, and you need to use other people
for your content because you're a vulture. So I wouldn't
give that person any content. I would ignore them, and
I would not feed the beast. Now I understand wanting
to do it and wanting to put it to rest,
but I think it's never going to be for some
people because they will just continue continue, continue to feed
off that carcass. And I would hope that at some

(01:11:39):
point it ends and some people would find some decency,
But I think they're making way too much money. And
that's the unfortunate part about social media. There used to
be a time in media where if you said horrible
discussing things, you didn't have much of a platform anymore
because nobody would touch you. But then social media happened
and YouTube happened, and suddenly you can say awful, horrible
things and you can still have an audience and you
can make a lot of money. So again I find

(01:12:02):
it really discussing we've gotten to that place. And I
think we also need to talk about the rising anti
Semitism on the right and how it needs to be
squashed because I find it repulsive and disgusting.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Indeed, again I thought that was dead on and very bizarre,
but almost telling coming from Tomy Larin, given the history
that I have outlined for you as to how she
has gotten here, and that's to me, that just shows
how bizarre, upside down and totally broken the entire right
wing media infrastructure is. The entire Magamedia industrial complex is.

(01:12:38):
This whole thing is a soap opera, and I don't
want to lose sight, even though I've already referenced it.
What a fraud Megan Kelly has exposed herself as being,
and how much it really is all about personal relationships
and popularity. You know, Dave Rubin, who is a pretty
decent right wing commentator, smart guy. Don't agree with him

(01:13:01):
on everything. Nobody's perfect in the Trump era, but he's
better than average. He's been a Trump Kelly, a Trump
Kelly where there's a Freudian slip, a Megan Kelly confidant
or friend or ally well, Dave Ruben criticized Megan Kelly
for her handling of this whole canvas owned situation, and

(01:13:22):
Megan Kelly unfollowed him on X. By the way, Megan
Kelly unfollowed me a couple of years ago because I
criticized her. I don't even remember what I criticized her for,
but she and I had had a pretty good relationship.
She used to share my tweets, we communicated during via
direct message. Like I said, I had a relationship with
her lawyer, Brian Freeman, who at one point had even

(01:13:43):
suggested that I might become part of a Megan Kelly
a conservative network, which never would have worked for a
million different reasons, and I knew was never going to work,
so I never really took that seriously. But the point is,
this is Megan Kelly's m O. She's a very fragile ego.
She looked sit everything through the lens of okay, who
are my friends and who are my enemies? It's not

(01:14:04):
about the truth, and that's really what is influencing her
and causing her a lot of problems with this regard
to this whole Charlie Kirk assassination issue, because for whatever reason,
she either sees Candace Owns as an ally or wants
to see candass Owns as an ally, and therefore she
cannot criticize her. This is a huge issue in right

(01:14:26):
wing media, especially now that we've gotten into the Internet era,
the social media era, the podcasting era. You know who
goes on whose podcasts. It's all very incestuous. It's all
about personal relationships that directly and dramatically influences people's ability
to tell the truth. That's part of what I think
makes my podcast unique is I have no friends. I

(01:14:49):
don't give a shit about anybody. I'll criticize just about anybody, friend, foe,
or in between. I'm just gonna tell you what I
think the truth is, and for better or for worse.
I think that's one the better things about this podcast.
Megan Kelly can't do that. She views everything through the
lens of who's my friend, who's my enemy, who's my
former friend? Who do I want my friend to be

(01:15:10):
in the future. And I'm going to strategize about what
position I should take, not based upon the truth, but
what I perceive to be good for me usually in
the short run. And for some reason, I think Megan
Kelly is miscalculated here because I'm seeing and granted it
might just be because I'm looking for it, but I'm
seeing a lot of significant posts on social media from

(01:15:32):
people who are no longer Megan Kelly fans. I think
she has hurt herself here. I hate to be optimistic.
I hate to believe that people are actually figuring out
the truth, because that often is not really the case,
especially when I want it to be. I mean, I've
always had this rule that if I'm looking at something
and I want it to be the truth, I hold
it to a higher standard. But there are a lot

(01:15:53):
of data points that people are starting to get it
that Megan Kelly is a fraud. She's a shape shifter,
just like I told you years ago. And so we'll
keep an eye on how Candie Owens is manipulating this situation.
But I think it was a major mistake for Erica
Kirk to meet with the snake that is Candace Owens.
But I still don't know how in the long run,
Candace Owens gets yourself out of this. I really don't.

(01:16:16):
But we'll keep looking at it because I do think
it's very telling about just how broken the entire right
wing media ecosystem really is. Thanks for listening to today's
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(01:16:38):
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(01:16:59):
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